The Column strikes again
Regarding the School Committee/Union gag order which was used by the Lowell Sun as an opportunity to discredit the school committee in Sunday's Column, consider for a moment what it might mean if the process were opened up to public scrutiny. Our incredibly biased local media would be ranting about every step of the process adding to the combative nature of the negotiations and twisting the facts to suit their own anti-teacher/anti-union agendas.
Our teachers are finally being adequately compensated and the Lowell Sun can’t stand it. They sneer that Lowell teachers are now among the 10% highest paid teachers in the State; yet if you live anywhere around Greater Boston and Greater Lowell, the salaries naturally reflect the higher cost-of-living of this part of the State. The Sun apparently thinks it’s a bad thing that our teacher salaries are now comparative to those in the surrounding towns, wealthy suburbs like Acton and Westford, but our district has to compete with these towns for candidates and I would guess that Lowell teachers have a much harder job.
As for student achievement, here are some facts: from 2000 to 2005, the percentage of Lowell school children with limited English who took the MCAS doubled to 23%, the proportion of Special Needs children who took the MCAS increased to 16.5% and the proportion of children below the poverty line who took the MCAS grew by 10% to equal 67.2% of all test-takers in Lowell. These numbers represent significant challenges faced by our district and our teachers. During this same period, the state reduced local aide to school districts, in fact, no state in the nation cut more than Massachusetts in per pupil funding between 2002 and 2004. The modest increases to aide in the last two years have not even covered fixed cost increases, in fact, after inflation, we are looking at a net decrease in local aide of $200 million, and the City of Lowell has been extremely reluctant to fill the gap. Despite constant efforts to fight the Sun’s disinformation campaign against the schools, they persist in throwing around bad or misleading data. If the labor negotiations were open to their reporters, then I’m afraid the only winner would be the Sun’s circulation department. Sure, they would sell more papers, but the losers would once again be the school children of Lowell.
Our teachers are finally being adequately compensated and the Lowell Sun can’t stand it. They sneer that Lowell teachers are now among the 10% highest paid teachers in the State; yet if you live anywhere around Greater Boston and Greater Lowell, the salaries naturally reflect the higher cost-of-living of this part of the State. The Sun apparently thinks it’s a bad thing that our teacher salaries are now comparative to those in the surrounding towns, wealthy suburbs like Acton and Westford, but our district has to compete with these towns for candidates and I would guess that Lowell teachers have a much harder job.
As for student achievement, here are some facts: from 2000 to 2005, the percentage of Lowell school children with limited English who took the MCAS doubled to 23%, the proportion of Special Needs children who took the MCAS increased to 16.5% and the proportion of children below the poverty line who took the MCAS grew by 10% to equal 67.2% of all test-takers in Lowell. These numbers represent significant challenges faced by our district and our teachers. During this same period, the state reduced local aide to school districts, in fact, no state in the nation cut more than Massachusetts in per pupil funding between 2002 and 2004. The modest increases to aide in the last two years have not even covered fixed cost increases, in fact, after inflation, we are looking at a net decrease in local aide of $200 million, and the City of Lowell has been extremely reluctant to fill the gap. Despite constant efforts to fight the Sun’s disinformation campaign against the schools, they persist in throwing around bad or misleading data. If the labor negotiations were open to their reporters, then I’m afraid the only winner would be the Sun’s circulation department. Sure, they would sell more papers, but the losers would once again be the school children of Lowell.
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