Buena Vista Michigan Teachers Agree To Work For Free As District Goes Broke

[Coyotl]

How thew hell are these people supposed to pay their own bills?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/06/buena-vista-michigan-teachers_n_3225456.html

A small school district in Michigan has run out of money to pay its teachers. But the school year isn't over until June 23.

The Buena Vista Education Association convened most of its 27 teachers on Monday for what some described as an emotional meeting. They voted to continue teaching, despite learning on Friday that the school district would be unable to pay their salaries starting in mid-May -- because it had run out of money.

What a way to ring in Teacher Appreciation Week.

The teachers voted to continue teaching because, as Joe Ann Nash, president of the teachers' union, put it: "We stick together." Nash teaches third grade. On Friday, her students asked her if she'd been fired. "I told them, look, the district doesn't have any money to pay us," she recalled. "They told me, wherever we go, they're going to go with me. They're sweet."

Like other teachers losing their pay, Nash has her own financial concerns ....

[alp227]

1. The way the system treats our teachers: A pox on our nation.

You can thank Republicans like Gov. Rick Snyder and sadly far too many Democrats too for pushing union-busting tactics often packaged as "education reform".

[Coyotl]

3. We seem to have forgetten what the education system did for the nation.

But we are fast going to learn what dismantling it does!

[Newest Reality]

2. You can smell the Serf.

Gettin' ready for the Koch Serfdom ... Serfin' USA! All work and no pay. Just need a place to stay if that's Okay.

[HiPointDem]

4. how many of these stories about lousy selfish teachers does it take?????

[freshwest]

5. Teachers and public workers have always done a lot for free. Now, no one wants to pay taxes

What has been done to MI is criminal, and WI. These people are what created communities. But they are outvoted.

In my blue state, the voters just bought into the propaganda and approved charters to start up, which will in time destroy the public schools. They have been working on the public mind for years, with lies and distortions, nitpicking every single thing about the schools, and cutting taxes again and again.

The ones who are always voting to cut taxes are in the wealthier, more religious, government hating red districts. I suspect this happened in MI is going on in WI.

They have equal representation in the legislature and they are refusing to pass any taxes. They are selling off everything in the budget crunch they engineered.

They are the voices who are mocking everything Democrats do in their districts, and media has helped them all the way.

Democrats here believed that our sucessful students were all the advertising needed to keep things going and didn't look for this so called 'reform.' It is being pushed on them by monied forces who are set on destroying the commons.

And no one listens to us when we run for office and want to continue our New Deal ideas that worked for generations. We are still participating, we are still involved.

But we don't have a voice in the media, not one, and the voters take their cue from that. We went en masse to protest and give information when Michael Powell's FCC came to town as they finalized media consolidation in a few hands.

And it continues, and we keep running our progressive folks, and we can't match the out of state money the tea baggers have coming in. So it's hard to hold our heads up in the face of constant deridement and insults bred by media.

But we have no choice, we have to adapt. We'll keep on supporting our public schools, keep on voting to pay for them, but in every single election, we come close to loss. No one in the GOP or Libertarians want to pay for public education. None.

[Scuba]

6. But, but, but they're union thugs who only care about themselves!