Members mobilize over union issues
In Calvert County …
Read MSTA President Clara Floyd's testimony to the Calvert Board of Education
As president of the Maryland State Teachers Association, I am happy to be here to discuss why we are opposed to the practice of privatization. The incentive to sub-contract with non-public employees is of course, based on lower costs to the employer, but this lower cost comes with a high cost to our vision of great public schools.
Outsourcing in education has been felt the hardest among support services such as transportation, food service, and building and ground maintenance. We believe this practice to be a corporate takeover of the public school system that poses a great threat in three specific areas: quality, accountability and the well being of our children. Private sector employees are often detached from the day to day culture of schools and therefore do not have the same commitment to excellence as our education professionals who are proud to work in buildings in the same communities where they often live and send their own children to schools.
These public employees are there because they are committed to excellent service and they understand that what they do is more than a job, it is the heartbeat, the very pulse of the education. That is why our support staff are called education support professionals, because of the quality service and instruction they provide as a significant role in public education.
We are concerned that private companies view support positions as having nothing to do with the wellbeing of students and in fact the opposite is true. It is not rare for a child to find a mentor or a listening ear in the cafeteria, on the bus or in the hallway. We believe that the money spent in public schools should be used to compensate those employees who have dedicated lives and careers to contributing to the education experience of our children. The Maryland State Teachers Association urges you to help us keep public schools great by keeping public employees in public schools.
