Time to bust the state’s ghost schoolteachers
As hard as it might be to believe, it’s currently perfectly OK for some schoolteachers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to work full time for their unions while being paid by taxpayers.
State Reps. Jim Christiana, R-Beaver, and Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York, want to put a stop to it, and to that we say, “It’s about time!”
According to the two lawmakers, at present there are more than 20 teachers who have “vanished” from their classrooms in Philadelphia public schools and are working for their union. Christiana and Phillips-Hill said many of those so-called teachers haven’t been in a classroom for at least 15 years. Yet, they’re getting teacher pay, teacher benefits and building up time toward their pensions.
The existing teachers contract in Philly allows as many as 63 supposed school employees to do union work. The number is 16 in Pittsburgh.
“These teachers are missing from Philadelphia classrooms at a time when the district says it is struggling to retain and add new teachers in order to meet students’ needs,” said Phillips-Hill, a former school board member. “It’s a somewhat hollow statement when Philadelphia union president Jerry Jordan remains on the public payroll as a classroom teacher while working full time for the union for the past 30 years.”
Christiana said “ghost teachers” have raked in a total of $36 million since 2003, to the detriment of students, parents, other teachers and taxpayers.
“Phantom teaching is not fair to the educators who show up in the classrooms each day trying their best of ensure our kids get a quality education,” said Christiana. “It’s not fair to the parents and the taxpayers who pay for phantom teachers and don’t know what they are getting in return. Parents, teachers and taxpayers should never have to worry about whether or not this provision could be collectively bargained in the future.”
As such, Christiana’s and Phillips-Hill’s bill would ban the practice statewide. We hope it sails through the Legislature and receives the signature of Gov. Tom Wolf, though he’s already shown a tendency to side with public unions over what’s best for the rest of us in Pennsylvania.