Teachers Trapped By Bad Press And School Board

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Today’s Janesville Gazette continued to paint Janesville teachers up as a dishonest and selfish group with a front page article titled, “Were teachers really ill?” Apparently some teachers have taken up their own protest action calling in sick, outside of union restraints, to show their displeasure with recent school board decisions.

But what the Gazette also proceeded to do was to take the words of anonymity and present it as if it’s the “off the record” official stance of the teachers.

JG Excerpt:
Teachers believed the money earmarked for health care insurance was their money - part of their compensation package - and should have been used for a salary increase and to reduce staffing and program cuts, the teacher said.

Taxpayers should be careful what they read there because not everyone is a linguistics professor. This particular sentence was also weaved into the article outside of quoted statements from the supposed anonymous teacher as part of a larger statement. There is a lot of, shall I say,"enquirer journalism" and creative use of hearsay to once again put the teachers into a negative light.

Recently, the Gazette editorialized about the teacher's union lack of public relations skills and media marketing, yet the Gazette is more than happy to write up the spontaneous comments from a disgruntled teacher anonymously. The editorial suggestion was completely unnecessary if not for the newspaper's own hostility and opposition towards the union's objective.

The additional point I’d like to make here is this. Teachers understand that the funds held by the school district don’t belong to anyone but education. The taxpayers entrusted the school board to do the right thing for the education of Janesville kids. I won’t argue whether the reserve funds grew from interest gains, health care savings or the conscientious teacher shutting off the lights when they leave the room, it still belongs to education. In that perspective, the school board felt it was in the best interests of education to give the money back to the taxpayers. Go figure.