(OMED: article segments are in italics.  Our comments are in normal type.)

Portland teachers already are talking strike as the union opens contract negotiations this month that will decide class size, the length of the 
school year and how many teachers will be laid off this fall in Oregon's 
largest school system.   Many teachers in Portland's 3,600-member 
union say they won't give up pay and benefits to help balance a $36 
million budget shortfall next school year. If they don't, district officials 
say, as many as 400 teachers could be laid off and class sizes will grow 
in nearly every school in the 53,000-student district. 

Exactly as we painted the picture in the main Oregon Magazine article.  This discussion is dominated by teachers and their unions.

The school board in March unanimously approved interim Superintendent Jim Scherzinger's plan to reduce health care coverage for all employees, scrap cost-of-living raises and eliminate as many as nine days from the school calendar to close the budget gap.

This may be misleading.  The actual change as we understand it is not a reduction in health coverage, but rather a reduction in the contribution the school system is making to such coverage.  Teachers would be required to pay for part of the coverage they now receive in the form of a benefit.

But all those proposals hinge on approval by the teachers because their
pay and benefits represent the bulk of the district's operating budget and their contract is up for renewal this summer. 

The teachers are the story.

"I think people feel insulted," says Jane Morgan, a librarian at North
Portland's Ockley Green Middle School. "I think people will walk over
health care. People aren't going to accept that."

In the case of Portland, the proposal is to cap the school district contribution to teacher health plans at six hundred dollars per month -- an amount equal to two week's pay for a minimum wage worker in a burger stand.

School board member Marc Abrams, a labor lawyer, says the district has no choice but to cut 10 percent of next year's estimated $360 million budget because Portland is taking the biggest hit from the Legislature's decision not to raise taxes during a recession and reduce education funding statewide.

The Republican budget increases state spending for education by at least a half a billion dollars.  An increase is not a reduction.  Mr. Abrams is a labor lawyer.  He prefers representing government unions because, as is evidenced by this entire issue, payscales and benefits have no connection whatsoever with economic reality.

In the Centennial district in east Multnomah County, for instance, the
district has offered teachers no raises or additional benefits for the next three years. Teachers strongly oppose that offer, and the two sides are still wrangling over a contract. 

The teachers are demanding a pay and benefits increase during a recession.  In effect, what they want is to get the half a billion dollars budget increase for themselves, instead of allowing it to be used to finance the hiring of additional teachers.  Or, they want some of it for themselves, and some of it to ease the pressure their future demands will place on the outrageous requirements of the PERS system. 

Neither the Portland teachers union nor the school district would reveal specific bargaining proposals going into negotiations.

That is wise.  Revealing those demands to the public would be bad PR.

The immediate budget picture for Oregon schools could improve if
Measure 13 is approved by voters May 21. The measure would withdraw $220 million from Oregon's school endowment, but some education backers such as the Oregon Education Association oppose it because that money is supposed to be set aside for a long-term endowment of schools. 

So, the position of the teachers is that a rainy-day fund shouldn't be used in the event of a rainy day, even when doing so would benefit the children. What matter to them is them. 

Adviser criticizes approach Nancy Arlington, an Oregon Education Association consultant who will lead the Portland union's bargaining 
team, says the district's approach is flawed. "Asking teachers to pay for the programs that the Legislature or the state isn't willing to pay for  hasn't solved the problem," she says. 

Absolute balderdash.  Miss Arlington, whose name is the same as an eastern Oregon bombing range, is the equivalent of a defense attorney in a murder trial.  Ask one of them if his client is guilty of spitting in the street.  Arlington is an advocate for the OEA, not an unbiased source of information.  Her entire purpose is to generate ever increasing salaries and benefits for teachers. If she succeeds, she will do quite well for herself.

Arlington said Portland is threatening its reputation as a destination for good teachers. Entry-level Portland teachers, who earn $30,712 with a bachelor's degree, fall in the middle of the pack compared with the 
starting salaries of teachers in 13 metro districts. 

"We simply are not competitive with our surrounding districts anymore," Arlington says. 

The reason why Portland isn't doing as well as surrounding districts has little if anything to do with the Republicans in the legislature.  It has to do with the ridiculous behaviour of liberal Portland politicians, whose policies have driven people to the suburbs to find a decent place to live, and a decent place to educate their children.  That, incidentally, is one of the prime reasons Portland politicians support draconian land use laws.  By restricting development on the edges, they jack up the cost of homes out there so high that it slows the ongoing flight of city dwellers to the suburbs and beyond.  Portland schools are losing education money because it is presently dished out on the basis of enrollment.  Flight to the suburbs means a declining enrollment.  As one of our favorite conservative radio commentators has so aptly said, "Follow the money." 

The Oregon Department of Education reports that Portland teachers earn $49,876 on average. That's $4,000 higher than the average pay in
Salem-Keizer and Beaverton, the second- and third-largest Oregon
districts. However, average teacher pay raises in all three districts generally have not kept up with inflation in the past decade, according to state figures. 

We do not have the numbers for this, so must express an undocumented opinion, here.  We suspect there's something wrong with the above statement.  Oregon offers one of the best pay rates to teachers in the nation.  It is superior to both California and Washington, and includes perks superior to all but a few of the states in the nation.  A closer look at how those numbers were arrived at might just illuminate a potful of misleading data. 

Burke, the Grant High teacher, says teachers shouldn't suffer for budget mismanagement by district officials. "Year after year, they've spent 
every nickel" rather than build a reserve fund to handle shortfalls like 
the one next year, he says. 

This is fascinating.  80% of the money Oregon spends on schools goes to meet the demands of teacher's unions.  Apparently, Burke believes the funding problems were entirely generated in the remaining 20%.  While Oregon Magazine agrees that part of the problem is in that smaller expense area, we hold that the larger part of the problem comes from the 4/5 of the budget that goes to teacher pay and perks, in particular the PERS system.  It's going to break your bank, folks.

Caroline Gonzales, a science teacher who works with limited-English
students at George Middle School in North Portland, says a strike would hurt students. But public opinion would be on the side of teachers taking a stand to protect their livelihoods, she says: 

"I think the public would be behind the teachers before they would be
behind the district administration." 

This woman should not be allowed to teach children.  They could catch whatever she's got.  A strike would hurt students, but public opinion would be on the side of teachers? 

We'll see about that.

© 2002 Oregon Magazine