Teachers Take Heat

Standing at the head of the classes in nearly half of Michigan’s school districts next week will be teachers without contracts. But public mercy may be hard for them to find in this economy. The Ann Arbor News points out that more than 1,400 local educators make more than $75,000 per year. In Rochester, school board member Mike Reno gets out his calculator and ranks Michigan educators with some of the highest benefits costs in the nation. And in one of Lansing’s ironies, the state’s largest teacher’s union faces a possible strike from the inside among union HQ workers being asked to make benefits and retirement concessions, Gongwer reported.