WHAT A DIFFERENCE A COUPLE OF DECADES MAKE

Twenty years ago everybody still seemed to buy into the all teachers are great professionals nonsense. Nowadays not so much. This latest story isn't going to help them one little bit. Today's Waterloo Region Record has a story titled "Jump in teachers' sick days affecting students, report warns". The sub-title is "Union blames stress levels; boards hit with extra costs".

The problem for teachers and their unions credibility of course is that this jump has been going on since the province removed teachers' ability to bank unused sick days for a cash payout at retirement. Public board high school teachers have the lowest increase in sick days since the change in government policy whereas public board elementary teachers have the highest rate of increase in use of sick days since then.

Almost seems in line with the overall state of union aggressiveness and activism. Or one could hardly be blamed for thinking that the sense of entitlement including taking paid sick days when one is not sick is again reflected with the elementary public board teachers being the most unreasonable. No shock to me. Been there and seen it for myself. Not a pretty picture.