Allan Mazur, South 11th Avenue
I’ve been told by reliable sources that it takes 28 days to break any habit. So, perhaps 25 more letters to the editor regarding the current educational crisis will enable any concerned Manville taxpayers to begin to see solutions other than “let’s just pay them more money so they’ll shut up.”
In that spirit, since our town is mostly a Polish /Ukrainian community, I’d like to offer a language lesson for those still unfamiliar with the concept of: How Things Work.
Today we’ll start off with a Polish word that has multiple and subtle meanings all of which relate to securing one’s financial future. The word is: “trzeszkowski.” It should be turned into a verb but it works just as well as a noun.
It’s a hard word to pronounce; much less to swallow. Yet, at least in Keansburg, swallow they did to the tune of $740,000 plus a yearly pension of $120,000. And that is just for one person.
What does all this have to do with the situation in Manville? Everything. All of the representatives quoted in the media have made comparisons.
The New Jersey Education Association’s Christy Kanaby, as well as the leadership of the Manville Education Association, have compared the salary structure here with other towns in the state; usually towns where the front lawns stretch into the distance like the Kansas prairie.
I find it ironic that no-one makes comparisons to Aberdeen, S.D., or Hickory, N.C. It is “all about the children,” after all. Or, maybe kids in other states are just worth less?
Or, maybe no-one in the NJEA has ever seen anyone paid with produce or livestock or barter because that was all that could be offered? But, dash it all, I digress yet again.
Education has nothing to do with money. Just ask any mother or father who took the time to teach a child to eat with a spoon, hit a baseball, fix a flat on a bicycle; or even learn the multiplication tables to 12.
Education has everything to do with securing the community’s future. The trade-off here is parental time for teacher time so that the former can work two or three jobs to pay property taxes.
The teachers in Manville deserve to be paid a fair wage for their labor. It is the definition of “fair” that is problematic. “Fair” is community based. “Fair” is not the concept of money as manna falling in perpetuity from some money machine.
Did no-one take Economics 101? It is my hope that this issue gets resolved not quickly, but in a timely manner where all parties come out hopeful. But if that is not to be, and if there remain some people who embrace the money side of the equation more than anything else, I recommend employment in the Abbott districts I hear they have a terrific severance package.
