By Rosalie Tirella

If the WPS teachers’ union feels its members are underpaid (average salary seems to be about $70,000, with lots of Worcester public school teachers making $80,000+), then our teachers can do what the teachers have done at the New York City charter school I wrote about yesterday. Yes, our teachers can earn $125,000 a year but ONLY if they skip union membership. No unions to protect hacks! If any teacher is underperforming, he/she can be fired – at any time. A new, competent teacher will replace the incompetent one.

Teachers always complain about not making the money their pals make in the private sector. Well, if they want the really big bucks, then they should be willing to embrace the same working conditions as their friends in the private sector: no unions. You make a lot of money only if you are so good at your job that you DESERVE to make a lot of money. The teachers making $100,000 will be truly excellent teachers – doing their jobs so well that they will be deserving of their hefty paychecks.

You do not get $100,000 just because you’ve parked your arse in the same seat behind the same teacher’s desk for 25 years.

Everyone is sick of the way lots of bad – or even average – teachers continue to teach. This doesn’t help our kids – especially our neediest students. For years and years and years due to union protection below average teachers have continued to teach! Many people – including President Obama, a progressive enough fellow – would like to see a merit system in place. If you are a better teacher than the teacher down the hall, you should be making more money than that teacher, regardless of whether your colleague down the hall has been working “in the system” longer than you have.

And let’s not forget: Teachers or anyone who works in municipal government has always known this: You may not make a ton of money working for your city/town, but your benefits will be super and you will have job security. So to scream for more money, a la WPS teachers, is silly.

And finally, we agree with City Council Vice Chairwoman Konnie Lukes: get rid of some of the dead wood at the WPS administration building on Irving Street. Lukes is correct: Let’s not take anything away from the education side of our public schools, but let’s dump some of these “administrative” types who make $80,000 a year and do … very little … or nothing at all.

A case in point: Last week I went to the WPS administration building on Irving Street to find out about a program. I entered the first room I saw. Inside this room: three women at desks. They were just sitting at their desks – doing nothing. Not answering phones, not filling out paperwork, not filing, not entering data into a computer. It was about 2 p.m.

I asked them my question. Could they help me?

No response from these ladies. Then: We don’t know.

And they went back to doing nothing.

So I said I was the owner of InCity Times and then puff! Like magic, they began to use their brains, one of them made a call and then directed me to the right place.

I told this to a friend – a parent whose child used to go to WP school. The parent said: At Irving Street, they don’t want to see adults – they think they are WPS students’ parents. They don’t want parents asking questions.

Let’s dump these useless people on Irving Street and save our city some serious money. Like Lukes says, the City side of local govenment can help handle any overflow (probably not a lot).