01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 11, 2004

IN PROVIDENCE, public-school teachers at the top salary level (Step 10) earn $62,251 a year, according to the Rhode Island Association of School Committees' teacher data. Two-thirds of the city's teachers are in Step 10.

That's for a work year with summers off. It's the equivalent of about $82,000 for a full year -- good money, considering that the median household income in Rhode Island is about $44,000.

But that's the beginning. Providence teachers pay nothing toward their own health insurance. (All Massachusetts teachers, by contrast, pay 10 to 50 percent of their health-insurance costs, according to Carol Grazio, of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.)

The teachers unions are immensely powerful in the General Assembly, 85 percent of whose members are Democrats. Members pretty much do what the bosses tell them to do, instead of considering the general welfare of their constituents, because they fear that the unions will back a primary opponent if they fail to toe the line. (The Assembly this year, for example, was scared away from even studying the idea of a statewide teachers contract when the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals objected.)

The benefits for Providence teachers are amazing.

As Julia Steiny pointed out in her May 2 Journal column ("R.I.: State of delusion on benefits"), some $2,600 of the $10,000-plus cost of educating a child in Providence each year goes to benefits -- compared with $1,500 for each student in Boston, hardly a stronghold of good government or anti-unionism. If Providence benefits were the same as those in Boston, the district would save $18 million -- more than enough to cover a $13 million budget gap that is expected to lead to the layoffs of many teachers in foreign languages, social studies, art and music. (If the union had been willing to trim some of the thick fat of benefits, in other words, teaching positions could have been saved.)

Retirement benefits are lavish -- so lavish that their cost may triple in the next 20 years.

Providence teachers get 20 sick days a year and can bank up to 150.

When one looks at what the politicians have done in league with the unions, one wonders whether the only thing left to negotiate away is teacher time with the children.

Except that has been negotiated away, too. Providence teachers spend less than six hours a day with children in elementary school. And a proposal to slightly lengthen the school day has been met with teachers' howls of opposition.

Taxpayers should understand this. Providence is a ward of the state -- it gets more of its money from state taxpayers than it does from its own property-tax payers. Thus, all of the state's taxpayers are funneling money into Providence to pay for these lavish benefits.

For pointing out these matters, I fully expect the union bosses to attack me as an enemy of teachers (as Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, does in her union's April newsletter).

That is the M.O. of these powerful interest groups: Don't debate the issue; denounce the person, threaten retaliation where possible, and change the subject.

I think that these ugly tactics ultimately do a grave disservice to dedicated teachers.

I happen to believe that good teachers, particularly in urban districts such as Providence, should be very well rewarded. I am proud of the big investment Rhode Islanders make in public education.

But, like a growing number of Rhode Islanders, I find it hard to ignore the poor return that Rhode Island gets on that investment. I hate to see children trapped in bad schools that never get better. I am troubled that reforms get shouted down by teachers acting like members of a mob, that the unions block efforts to hold teachers accountable, that an obsession with benefits far more lavish than those enjoyed by most of the taxpayers who must fund them is more important than, say, exposing children to art and music.

As a father with children in public schools, I would like to see children made the focus of education policy in Rhode Island, for a change, rather than teacher salaries, benefits and working conditions. I don't share Ms. Reback's view that a citizen who dares raise questions about the public's return on investment is, by definition, "going after" teachers. Indeed, I believe a child-focused approach would greatly reward and ennoble teachers who, under their union bosses, seem determined to throw away much of the high regard the public has for them.

There are signs that I'm not alone. Rhode Islanders are starting to speak out in behalf of children, standing up to the mob mentality and personal attacks.

Rep. Paul W. Crowley (D.-Newport), a longtime champion of public education, was openly critical last week of cries for additional taxpayer aid to Providence. Citing Ms. Steiny's column, he said, "The legislature wants to know what we are buying: more teachers or benefits in one district that we're not paying for in another?"

It's great to hear legislators finally asking questions like that.

Edward Achorn is The Journal's deputy editorial-pages editor. His e-mail address is eachorn [at] projo.com.