Under Justin’s post, commenter Rhody remarks:

The teachers are back to school (under a court order), they don’t have a new contract, and still people are kicking them.
If any of us were sent back to work under a court order, our attitude might not be that great, either. Remember, kids coming out of college who want to be teachers see this, and will be more inclined to find professions where they can make more money without being trashed on talk radio, letters to the editor, blogs, etc.

Back to work under a court order and without a contract may mean work-to-rule but it does not mean work for free. Further, even if they are working under the terms of the expired contract, presumed to be less advantageous than the one to be signed, as Rhode Island teachers, they are still the ninth highest paid in the country. [This is as of 2005. Links to newer comparisons are welcome.] My criticism for the conditions in Tiverton and for the larger issue of the state of our education system is not directed at teachers but is reserved solely for elected officials at the local level. They have executed, with other people’s money, contracts of increasing generosity that have no bearing on whether the education of students has been advantaged (it has not) or on whether the contracts are fiscally viable (they are not).
It is interesting, by the way, how much is missing from the specific terms of these contracts. If the elected officials who negotiate and approve the funding for teacher contracts had included these and other requirements in the prior contract, seniors in Tiverton and other work-to-rule districts would not be experiencing such problems.