Pardon our whinings: Senate Bill 5 and my confusion

I didn't do anything wrong...

That's the phrase that Calen used to me last week when she and I were discussing Senate Bill 5, and I think that encapsulates my biggest problems with Senate Bill 5: I didn't cause this...I didn't do anything wrong.

Bear with me a for a second while I do a little bragging. I apologize in advance.

I was pretty much a straight A student in high school (at least about five or so A's every grading period with maybe a B here or there), finished fifth in a class of four hundred or so. I rocked the PSAT and was a national merit finalist, with a full-tuition scholarship to Wabash. At Wabash I did pretty well, graduating magna cum laude, and earning two awards at senior chapel (for the top student teacher and for outstanding leadership among our chemistry students).

I chose to teach high school chemistry.

I had a job before I got my diploma. I lived frugally in Terre Haute and waited a year for The Girl to graduate from IU. I got a job in Cincinnati, and we moved and lived within our means in an apartment near UC. The Girl worked two jobs two years to make sure she would have insurance. We've bought two houses and two cars and paid for two masters without taking any loans. All the while we set money aside for retirement.

I didn't take exorbitant bonuses.

I didn't take government bail outs.

I didn't buy homes I couldn't afford.

I didn't ruin the economy.

But I'm apparently paying for the people who did.

Since the law changed to allow collective bargaining in 1983, school districts have been making themselves as attractive as they could so as to bring in the supposedly best teachers so they could provide the best education for their students. Since then teacher salaries have, admittedly been increasing, as have the costs of benefits like health insurance. I wasn't the one negotiating for the vast majority of those twenty-eight years. I did, admittedly, take advantage of those higher salaries when I came to Princeton from Mount Healthy (I didn't move for the money, but the money certainly was better at PCSD than at MHSD).

I've taken my classes dutifully, gotten my masters degree, and I did it while spending hours far beyond those required by my teaching contract. I've taken on extra duties - the website, Pasta for Pennies, the newsletter - some of them for pay, some of them not so much.

And the state wants to strip my collective bargaining rights because I've...

Because I...

Apparently because the downturn in the economy that's putting my school district in tough financial straits is my fault.

To make that even clearer, lemme say this again...