Posted on: Sunday, May 4, 2003
COMMENTARY
Teacher devises scheme to make up for low pay
By Walt Novak
Recently, Gov. Linda Lingle offered educators a pay raise of zero percent. This prompted me to declare, "Teaching is the most money I've never made!" That's the bad news.
The good news: I recently learned that human beings can be monetarily rewarded for exposing fraud, like, to the tune of literally millions. Being human, this caught my interest, as I'm in an arena with fraud swirling like a dervish. And yesterday, I visited my bank for the thousandth time. None of those thousand times contained millions, at least not in my account.
Of course, that's the account that matters. In fact I should probably entitle this article "Sheer Selfishness." Yes, it's all about me.
What I've discovered from attorney Paul Saccoccio is that Jeanne Byrne of Damon Laboratories (Detroit) learned that there was fraud in her workplace.
She filed a whistleblower lawsuit. This is kind of an interesting thingee whereby a mere human can sue on behalf of the government as well as herself.
Jeanne ended up with $9 million. You go, girl! Needless to say, Jeanne is now my idol and inspiration.
See, a couple of articles ago, one of my former administrators sauntered about campus accusing me of breaking federal law. This federal law involves something called "the willful creation of a hostile work environment."
In my mind, my superiors should quote Voltaire instead. You know: "Although I vehemently disagree with Walt's opinions, I will fight to the death for his right to express them." That sort of thing.
Why? Because I, as a teacher, am (supposedly) protected from such onslaughts by state law, Department of Education statutes and, as I mentioned previously, even federal law!
For 40-odd years, I've been a nonmillionaire in a capitalist society. But I've had acquaintances with millions. Oh yes. They owned properties and stuff and never failed to give me inferiority complexes.
My rich uncle used to tell me, "My short-range goal is to make a lot of money. My long range goal is to make a lot of money. Although wealth can't assure you happiness, poverty can't either."
So, what I'm thinking is, if I could weasel millions off some whistleblower suit, then I'd lift my nose to the stratosphere, act haughty and forget who all my friends are. That'd be cool. (If you had friends like mine, you'd understand.)
Anyway, according to attorney Saccoccio, President Abraham Lincoln first allowed whistleblower suits under a federal law called the False Claims Act.
Lincoln was a lawyer who knew so much about lawsuit money that they put him on the five-dollar bill AND the penny. Lincoln's act was strengthened with reforms in 1986 by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and U.S. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif. Since those reforms were made, jillions have been won. That's right, j-i-l-l-i-o-n-s. It's a new number. And doesn't it sound great?
What I'm thinking is, I should be paid MORE money for every instance of fraud I can list. That only makes sense. (Two frauds are better'n one.) The problem: I don't really know what fraud is. Not knowing hasn't stopped me before. So here's my list:
• What if Department of Education power-wielders claim to know about curriculum, literacy and administrating, but actually operate at about fifth-grade English proficiency? Would that be fraud? You know, folks posing as leaders of education who are thoroughly uneducated themselves? Leaders who write, "What has Jimmy and Johnny been doing all year?" and chant, "The students is the important ones!"
And what if a real smart devil like Walt Novak had been documenting this for years? Would editor John Heckathorn put me on the cover of Honolulu Magazine? You know, as "Hawai'i's best whistleblower," something like that? Hmmm ... It worked for those three ladies (from Enron, WorldCom, the FBI) who shared Time's Man of the (Whistleblowing) Year award. And tooting upon fifes worked out great for the "Broken Trust" (the Kamehameha Schools scam) folks. Hmmm ...
• How about if the aforementioned fifth-grade-level power-wielders used professional coercion to force truly educated educators to abandon their (true) curriculums. That's right, forced. And what if this coercion were tied directly to a curriculum for profit, capitalist endeavor; literally hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to deflect public criticism primarily and educate students secondarily? Would that be fraud?
• And what if the capitalist-curriculum-for-profit endeavor (a private education company that I'm scared to mention by name) had an administrative component REQUIRED to achieve success. And what if the fifth-grade-level power-wielders weren't doing ANY of their component duties while simultaneously ordering teachers to do ALL of theirs?
Inherent in curriculums-for-hire is the assumption that a school's administration will assure educators of their primal rights: The offer of a direct administrative consequence for tardies, cuts, classroom profanity and swearing at the teacher.
At my school, we have none of this. In addition, even poor school attendance is blamed upon us. So, is that fraud? Hmmm ...
I'm getting a fraudulent headache, but my pocket's starting to tingle. It's a strange sensation. Someone could sure make a fortune suing the Department of Education. And I admit, I'm considering it. I could use the money. But that person ain't me, babe.
Nah, I'm just not up to it.
