I read this article and had to respond:
Morning Bell: The Truth About Public School Teacher Pay
November 1, 2011 at 9:47 am
Last winter, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) traveled his state,holding a series of townhalls in which he touted a significant but politically unpopular plan: asking public school teachers to accept a pay freeze and begin contributing 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their health care plans, whereas before they paid nothing. It’s a battle that pitted Christie against powerful teachers unions, and it’s a fight that has brought the issue of teacher pay to the center of the public square. That battle has played itself out across the country. Earlier this year in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker (R) faced a $3 billion structural deficit and the fourth-highest tax burden in the country. Among the reforms he enacted were limits to collective bargaining power and reform of public employee benefit plans, which included asking public-sector employees (including teachers) to make a 5.8 percent contribution into their pension plans and pick up the tab for 12 percent of their health care benefits, whereas before they paid nothing. Walker’s actions led to unionized education employees leaving schools in protest and Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state in order to prevent the plan from passing the legislature. Today, Governor John Kasich of Ohio (R) faces a similar fight. Earlier this year, the state legislature enacted reforms of public sector union benefits, but now the issue is up for repeal in a statewide ballot initiative. In New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Ohio, teachers unions have led the effort to beat back the reforms, arguing that teachers are overworked and underpaid and taking issue with even modest reforms to pension benefits as states grapple with budget deficits. But a new paper by Jason Richwine, Ph.D. and Andrew Biggs addresses the question of teacher pay head on and asks whether teachers today receive the right level of pay. They find that when benefits such as tenure, health care, and pensions are considered, the typical public-school teacher is well-paid: “We conclude that public-school-teacher salaries are comparable to those paid to similarly skilled private-sector workers, but that more generous fringe benefits for public-school teachers, including greater job security, make total compensation 52 percent greater than fair market levels, equivalent to more than $120 billion overcharged to taxpayers each year.” Richwine and Biggs also find that when it comes to pay, some of the best teachers are being left behind: While union contracts help secure overcompensation for the average teacher, they may still leave the most valuable teachers underpaid. School administrators need to be able to hire and fire teachers as needed, basing personnel decisions on rigorous value-added evaluations and setting pay based on prevailing market rates.
Case in point: the Farmington, Michigan, school district. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports that in that district, the average gym teacher’s salary is $75,035, whereas science teachers make $68,483 on average. Likewise, in Harrison, Michigan, “science teachers earned $49,000 on average while gym teachers averaged $62,000.” Tom Gantert writes, “This is not unusual, because school districts don’t differentiate what a teacher does when considering compensation, regardless of the district’s educational needs. Teachers are paid on a single salary schedule based on seniority and education level.” And that single salary schedule is negotiated in the union contract. More than ever, high-quality teachers and ensuring that our children have the best education possible is central to America’s future. The best teachers should be rewarded, and schools should have the freedom to make the right decisions to get the job done.
MY RESPONSE:
In the United States of America, there is no longer a place for the conservative well-educated dedicated public school teacher. Conservative politicians and taxpayers are outraged by the unions, who they associate with ALL public school teachers. These same people also speak negatively of public school teachers, regardless of how much good they do behind the scenes (and after work hours).
Liberal politicians often side solely with the unions, which do not always represent the best interests of public school teachers, when they go off on tangents, which only minutely connect to teachers or education issues.
As a public school teacher in the state of California, I have been shocked at how little the public knows about how much teachers do, regardless of how much they get paid. Each year, I spend well over $2000 on my students and classroom, out of my own pocket. This is not unusual and this amount is modest, compared to other teachers I know. I stay after school hours after the union says I should go home, because in the end, I want what is best for my students.
If American taxpayers or politicians have a problem with how much work teachers get paid for the ACTUAL amount of work they put in ( my husband is a small business owner, I know how much WORK TIME is wasted by private sector employees), well, I say take a dry erase marker, come get my truckload of base program resources and take over a "regular" classroom for a month.
The reason teachers have so many "fringe benefits" has to do with the fact that VERY FEW people want to deal with what we deal with on a daily basis. The American tax-paying public has essentially had to "bribe" well-educated people to go into this most-often-thankless profession WITH health benefits and retirement, which are eroding away year by year.
Most people in my own city do not know that teachers in our district have had pay decreases (via furlough days), that we have accepted paying more for our health insurance co-pays, that we will probably NOT see the retirement funds we were planning on ( our Governor is "making plans" at this moment to see this is accomplished), and that our annual pay increases have been indefinitely frozen.
And do we work less hours? No.
Do we act any less professional? No.
Do we buy fewer resources for our students out of our own pockets? No.
And yet, each year our student population becomes less interested in focusing on demanding subjects, like Reading and Math. Parents are more disrespectful towards teachers and detached from the academic achievement of their children. There are more drug babies than ever, more students from impoverished homes, more children with parents in gangs or in prisons, and yet we go on.
If we ask for support, if we ask to preserve the salaries and benefits we earned through years of education and professional development, please do not begrudge us, until you walk in our shoes for even 20 school days.
Now, I know there are those out there who will say, " We are not talking about you. You are a good teacher."
To you I say, any negativity presented in the public arena regarding public teachers, which really is meant to target a MINORITY of the "bad" teachers, hurts the majority, which are good teachers, and makes it more difficult to inspire people to join this once noble and respected profession.
