After all the data, reports, and my own research, from the article on page one, I was still “on-the-fence” about a few things.
Why the Public Policy Forum (PPF) couldn’t include something about how the IPEDS data they used was different than the WTCS data is one of them.
After reading the PPF report, all 66 pages, I saw that both IPEDS and WTCS were used. So it wasn’t all just IPEDS.
Using data from another conflicting source just to make your numbers look good sounds like ‘cherry-picking,’ but Henken did stress that MATC supplied the data. Still, I feel that if the PPF was truly un-bias then they would have included both sources and made a note about the confliction.
To be honest, though, the real problem here isn’t whether or not the PPF used inconsistent data. Well, it is a small problem but the mass public doesn’t read that. They read the paper and that’s the real problem.
I still think the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (MJS), as an organization devoted to reporting the news, should have just reported the data. Putting out this crazy headline saying MATC is headed for impending financial doom is ridiculous.
The whole point of reporting the news is just that. Not reporting opinion or misleading articles/headlines that might skew your readers to your line of thought. That’s just yellow journalism, at that point.
The readers need to be allowed to form their own opinions from just the straight, hard facts.
On top of this I think it was completely uncalled for to pick at the highest paid faculty at MATC. Why was that necessary? The PPF report didn’t even bring that into the equation!
The PPF does mention that faculty salaries might be a problem, but they didn’t go “Hey everyone! This person who’s teaching the GED program makes tons of money and you should get angry about it even though you know nothing about what their job entails!”
Originally, because I didn’t know enough about the programs that MJS highlighted, I was unsure if the high salaries were justified. Then I realized that line of thought was what MJS wanted to grab and get a reaction out of.
Most of their readers are outside viewers and wouldn’t know the internal workings of MATC. So of course they would be thinking “Oh, why should that GED instructor get paid more?!”
So I decided to do some digging. As mentioned in my article, most of the instructors highlighted have been at the college for 30+ years.
I also found that most of them have honed their teaching and craft over their years of teaching, and thus have improved their teaching methods.
I have also been a very firm believer that teachers really should be one of the highest paid professions in the world.
Why? Because how do you think you got where you are? Someone taught you the knowledge that you use now.Doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, bankers, or any other “high-paying job” would not be where they are if they didn’t learn that knowledge from somewhere.
I decided to ask other students how they felt, and I got some interesting responses.
In the Student Senate office I spoke to two Senate Representatives, Brian Galecki and Sandra Richardson.
Galecki felt that the Sentinel’s reaction to MATC’s faculty salaries was “not justifiable” because he feels he gets a quality education at the college.
Richardson also agreed, saying, “They [the teachers] put their time in and they put in their years. It’s always the outside looking in but you never really know what they did to get there.”
She also mentioned that you “can’t put a value on education” and that the college’s instructors are “worth that and then some.”
Two students of the Liberal Arts and Science program, Nicole Rochelle and Ahnna Zigler, had a different view. They both agreed that just because a teacher has a higher degree or many years of experience should not justify higher pay.
“All teachers jobs are important,” stated Rochelle. Zigler finished the thought with, “It should be based on how many students are passing their class. If the teacher isn’t doing a good job, and their students aren’t learning, they shouldn’t be paid well.”
Sandra Weeks, a student in the GED program, and Mathew Czekay, a student in the Criminal Justice program, both agreed that their instructors are doing quality work and therefore the pay is justified. Weeks also mentioned that Senator Glen Grothman’s comment about her program was incorrect and that the program was not “scandalous”.
“My teacher, Mr. McGhee, has been doing everything to help me,” she said.
So now I’ve changed my opinion a bit. I still agree teachers should be one of the highest paid, but only the good ones. It makes sense now, since I have also had poor instructors, that you should only be paid the best money if you’re doing your job and doing it well.
In regards to the subject, however, I feel MATC’s instructors are well qualified and do an amazing job. Therefore, there should be no reason why they shouldn’t make the pay they do.
The faculty of any school are not the ones who should fund it. MATC’s instructors were kind enough last year to voluntarily give up their salary bonuses, to help with college budget, but they shouldn’t be expected to do that.
In the end, the real problem is how MJS took the original data, slapped on misleading headlines, and outright attacked individual instructors when the original report did none of that.
I personally think MJS staff could benefit from a journalism course here at our college. Maybe they’ll learn a thing or two about how yellow journalism is not the way to report the news.