you can break a twig, but you can't break a bundle.

New Jersey Online reports that four striking Middletown, NJ teachers were jailed last night. Hundreds more are being threatened.

The board wants teachers to pay 12 percent of their [health insurance] premiums through payroll deductions; the teachers union says the proposal would cost each of its members $2,500 a year. Middletown teachers earn an average of $56,300 a year.

When I was growing up, my parents each worked several times with no contract. It must be a terrible thing to choose a job that requires so much of you, intellectually and physically, and then to be placed under continual public scrutiny, and then to be told that your demands for health coverage (or pay, or time off, or WHATEVER) are too strict.

The weblog-reading audience is generally a well-educated, worldly bunch... go thank a teacher. They deserve it.