HSTA President Karen Ginoza's address on teacher pay
This is the full text of Hawaii State Teachers Association President Karen Ginoza's address last night on the teacher pay raise dispute:
Aloha. My name Is Karen Ginoza, President of the Hawaii State Teachers Association.
Tonight, I am speaking to you on behalf of the thousands of public school teachers, who are responsible for the care, nurturing and education of public school students throughout this state.
They are your teachers – teachers, who for many are and will remain among the most influential individuals who will ever touch their lives.
There is no disputing the fact that their responsibilities are among the most important in our society — for the future of our society.
I think everyone, from the governor on down, will agree with that assessment.
In their hands rests the collective future of this state.
That is an awesome responsibility, and one that shoud not be shouldered lightly.
Nor is it taken lightly by the thousands of teachers, who return every year to the classroom to further their training.
Teachers like Wesley Yuu, from Mililani Middle School. Wesley gives 110% to his school, serving as the math department chairperson, coordinating inservice training and working to develop performance indicators for the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards.
Teachers like Vince Raines, who brought international attention to our schools when he spearheaded the Olympic Diversity Project. At his own expense, and because he believed his students needed the experience, Vince had his students create buttons for the Olympians.
I wanted to begin this evening talking about the role and importance of teachers, because that is where our focus should be.
The HSTA has one concern and one concern only — and that is to ensure that your child is taught by the most qualified teacher that the state can provide.
We are interested in attracting and keeping good teachers in your child's school. And we hope the people of Hawaii are behind us in this effort.
The governor threatens that drug abuse programs and programs for the needy will be sacrificed for teachers' salaries.
Governor, teachers know first hand the ravages of drug abuse and poverty because too often we see the most vulnerable of the victims in our classrooms. It is common sense that one of the most effective ways of breaking the cycle of poverty and drug abuse is education. Quality education provided by qualified teachers.
We are teachers, and we love our jobs and are intensely dedicated to our students. We would have it no other way. And for many of us, we would have no other job ... if we could help it.
But we are also breadwinners for our families and caring parents to our children.
As we all know, there is a cost to education and to attracting and keeping good teachers.
As individuals and as a community, I ask you, what are our priorities? And if we are not willing to pay for these priorities, then are they priorities at all?
You have and will continue to hear a lot of talk about money, about dollars that do not exist, about rankings and salary comparisons with other states.
It's unfortunate that it has to be that way.
It's unfortunate because the focus then turns to dollars and we lose sight of what the purpose of those dollars are for:
To place a qualified teacher in every classroom.
I suppose I could sit here tonight and tediously go through the report from the fact finding panel. Which essentially told the state that it has the money to pay teachers more than it is currently offering.
I suppose I could list the many inaccuracies in the governor's own newspaper ad, paid for by taxpayers, including the misleading statement that Hawaii teachers are the 18th highest paid in the nation — true, if you ignore Hawaii's cost of living.
If you do factor in the cost of living, Hawaii teachers fall to the very bottom — the lowest paid teachers in the nation.
And that is indisputable.
The average salary of a Hawaii teacher with a bachelor's degree is $3,500, less than the average salary of workers in other occupations with a comparable education.
The average salary for teachers with a master's degree is $20,000 less than their counterparts in other occupations.
Moreover, salaries are at the bottom for teachers with a master's degree when compared to other states — a sad statistic given the fact that Hawaii leads the nation with the most teachers with master's degrees and the highest percentage of teachers who specialize in their subject area.
That's why teachers are asking for salary adjustments of what amounts to 5.5 percent a year over four years.
Under HSTA's proposal, the state will be able to meet head on the real challenge of attracting new teachers and long-term teacher retention.
We are looking for three simple things in a settlement:
• Getting paid for the work we have already done.
• Making sure that we have a salary scale that allows us to attract and keep good teachers.
• Rewarding experience and excellence.
Our proposal ties performance and excellence to salary, making every teacher accountable.
The governor has said. that the state's offer include pay increases that will bring a starting teacher's salary to $35,000. What he doesn't say is that they will have to wait two years to get that increase.
The governor has also said that the most experienced teachers will make $64,000. What he doesn't say is that it will affect just 6% of teachers — those already at the top of the scale.
Nor does he say that under the state's proposal, the vast majority of teachers could still only hope to make $55,000, and they would have to have a Ph.D. and 48 additional credits.
Hawaii continues to play catch up, while other states are successfully wooing our teachers away.
Former Waimea teacher Sharon Van Valen left Hawaii for Alaska and is now making $70,000.
Former Waikoloa teacher Liane Zuber left her $30,000 teaching salary and is now making $40,000 in Missouri.
And remember Vince Raines? I mentioned him earlier. We have lost Vince to Nevada's Clark County, who offered him a contract with a salary which will allow him to move out of his parent's home and finally live on his own.
Hawaii cannot afford to lose qualified and experienced teachers.
Nationwide, there is a shortage of 2.2 million teachers.
For this coming school year, the DOE estimates that Hawaii will require thirteen hundred teachers to take care of the basic needs of our students.
Where will they come from?
Will Hawaii's kids now teaching in Massachusetts ignore our cost of living and give up their $20,000 signing bonus to come home?
And Massachusetts is not alone. Many other states are using equally attractive and creative means to recruit and retain qualified teachers.
The reality is Hawaii does not offer competitive salaries.
Is it any wonder that Hawaii has a severe shortage of public school teachers?
Every day, 69 classrooms go empty.
Another 145 are taught by rotating substitute teachers.
55 more are being taught by unqualified individuals.
The DOE has 28 instructors without a college degree.
All together this is equivalent to 9 elementary schools.
If the state continues to refuse to pay teachers the salaries they deserve, we will be entrusting our children's education to more and more unqualified teachers.
It is a slippery slope that the HSTA is not willing to negotiate down.
When all is said and done, however, the issue is not about money.
The independent fact finding panel has said the state has the money.
In its report the panel wrote: "The state's budget for Fiscal Year 2000 and 2001 shows a surplus even after inclusion of wage increases obtained by other bargaining units and factoring in the Felix cost items."
The issue is not about money.
We have worked with specialists in governmental accounting and economists from the University of Hawaii to look at the state's budget in detail.
Their conclusion: The state can afford the wage package and meet its other obligations as well.
The issue is not about money.
The fact finding panel noted that the state's claim of runaway costs were overinflated:
Its health fund increases were overstated, its projected Employees' Retirement System increases were not substantiated and the ERS budget contained double-budgeting, and the state's financial plan does not account for debt service reductions from bond interest adjustment, which essentially means the state will earn more revenue than projected.
The fact finders also said: Quote, the panel was left with the impression that the state was being less than cooperative and open in this matter, unquote.
The issue is not about money.
It is about providing the best education for our children.
It is about providing qualified teachers in every classroom. About having the gumption to do what we need to do to achieve what everyone in this state, including the governor, has said is our priority — educating our children.
It is about creating the base of a solid economy. Qualified teachers will produce qualified graduates who will enter the workforce prepared. Quality schools are the fuel for a strong economy. Quality teachers are an investment in Hawaii's future.
You have all been reading about the state's latest tactic before the Hawaii Labor Relations Board to beat back teachers. The state alleges that we are not serious about settling this contract. That is preposterous.
We analyzed the state's proposals and concluded that we could not accept them because they did not address the critical problem of teacher shortage the ability to attract and retain qualified teachers. We, in fact, offered the state several informal proposals to deal with the issue and they were all rejected.
Consider these facts:
An independent fact finding panel ruled that the state has the money to pay teachers. The governor said the panel was wrong.
We offered to go into binding arbitration to settle the dispute. The governor refused because he said he has no faith in the process.
We are ready and willing to go into federal mediation. The governor has said it would do no good because the mediator won't be able to see the "big picture."
And we met with the state negotiators today.
We are very serious about settling this contract.
No teacher wants to strike. But we will, if we have no reasonable alternative.
In all fairness to the governor, I truly do not believe he wants to see us strike.
But it's easy to say, I believe in education. I support the schools and our teachers.
It is easy to drive wedges between groups and to villify someone who does not agree with you.
But the time has come for all talk and tactics to stop.
If education is our priority, then we must give it our priority, whether we are talking fiscally or otherwise.
It is that simple.
The reality is: our public schools are on the brink of a meltdown. On April 5th educators in both lower and higher education will be forced to strike. Perhaps making Hawaii the first state in the nation to face total paralysis of its public education system.
We are already perceived nationally as a state with a poor public school system.
Think about what this latest set of developments will mean for the educational and economic future of our state.
I want to ask the people of Hawaii to join us in asking the governor to take another very hard and honest look, to ask his folks to think outside the box, to continue to work with us, to not shutter their minds to ideas or options, to settle the contract and keep the doors to our schools open.
Thank you and aloha.
