$10,000 / year raises

[Rhodie Ranch]

Nyboy: I've been in love with you for a long time.....its an opposite coast thing.....

 

[catjac1975]

In the State of Washington, the supreme court mandated that the legislature " adequately " fund the public school system since the graduation rate of high school students is among the very worst nationwide. The teachers unions have been on strike for weeks now and finally most of the new starting teachers are getting a HUGE $10,000 / year raises , those with experience get more. So , the lesson to our kids is be mediocre in what you do ... get huge raise. How come everyone else ( my wife , a Federal Employee , included ) hasn't had ANY raise in the last decade. So where does the millions of dollars will be coming from ? Why higher PROPERTY TAXES of course ! Where else ? Isn't it about time that the school districts start to weed out the mediocre teachers and hire someone that can actually teach ?

When I started teaching,$8900. a year, and no I could never have rented an apartment in the poor town where I worked. All of the male teachers worked 2 other jobs and more in the summer just to feed their kids. The single female teachers did the same. Then we got a superintendent that wanted teachers to get their masters degrees. At the time it was not needed and was only a $500.00 stipend with a masters degree costing thousands . They gave us a little bit of money towards the cost and most people toiled for years to get a masters and even a second. Massachusetts is number 1 in public education. Most of the underpaid states have horrible rankings. Washington state is currently rated 26, not too bad. If you want to attract good teachers you have to pay them a decent rate. I taught in a poor community. The old teachers were highly intellectual and worked so hard . I was so impressed at their knowledge and teaching skills.

 

[valley ranch]

Finally, that family that sued the state, won and got the state to "find" the money without raising taxes. So don't worry. Your property taxes are not going up.

The state doesn't produce money ~ they will get the money from the people ~ Fees, Fines or Taxes ```

 

[Nyboy]

Nyboy: I've been in love with you for a long time.....its an opposite coast thing.....

 

[Carol Dee]

I think teacher are under paid, they have one of the most important jobs in the world and paid peanuts. Yes I am sure like any other profession there are bad teachers but by far most are great at what they do. I thank god for the great teachers that have been in my life

Bless your heart Alex. (You said what I wanted to!) This year the Iowa school employees all got 1% raises since that is all the State said they could afford to give the schools. (Yeah right!) With administrative costs etc. that came to 10 cents and hour for the bus drivers. I do not think the teachers faired much better.

 

[seedcorn]

Bus drivers are another subject......why would any rational person do that job? Low pay, work day broke up, dealing with bratty children and beyond stupid parents (if there are parents), school administrators who are next to worthless, etc.... I drink coffee with farmers who drive, I always ask myself, WHY?

 

[Nyboy]

Ancient Greeks and Romans knew how important teachers are. They had great respect for them, statues and bust of their teachers still stand today. How did we let teaches fall so far ?

 

[bobm]

Here in Wa., according to published reports, for years the starting salary for teachers was indeed in the $ 35,000 +/_ range depending on the school district. BUT, it increased rapidly as their years of service increased rapidly into $70,000 to $90.000 per year with 15 years of service or more. Now those with the same tenure will be into $100,000 +/_ range. And that folks is much higher than what the higher middle professional people earn that are expected to pay those salaries through one tax form or another. Heck ... our neighbor who lives 2 houses from us, has a High School education and drives a garbage truck for our garbage company, earns as much as my wife with a College degree, with annual continuous education in accounting and taxation, and has been on the National board of 5 people charged with writing the course work for new hires to the IRS. She has almost 20 years of service too. Yet she is paid 65% of what a Wa. teacher with similar years of service makes. Hmmm !

 

[thistlebloom]

I drink coffee with farmers who drive, I always ask myself, WHY?

Why you drink coffee with them, or why they drive....?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Where to even start, as usually we are all over the place on this.

I have not followed that lawsuit, I have no idea what that settlement was based on or whether it is still or will be under appeal. Often it is something in the state constitution but could easily be something else. For whatever reason one of the three branches of government, the judicial, has determined that another branch, legislative or executive, maybe both, were not living up to their legal responsibilities. Whether you individually think that is the right or wrong decision, it is part of the checks and balances of out type of government.

I think it is risky to just look at raw salary, with or without benefits. Each state, or even parts of states, have different costs of living. What might be a decent salary in a small country town might not be that good in the big city. Across state lines it is even worse. But I don't much trust those studies that try to take that type of stuff into account, many people making those assessments have their own agenda. Who do you really trust? As an engineer I worked with numbers all my working life. On a lot of things you could predetermine the outcome based on the assumptions you made. What a mess.

It takes a certain amount of money to run a state, county, or town. it takes a certain amount of money to run a PTA, church, or Boy Scout troop. The more money you have the better quality of service you can possibly provide. A lot of that depends on the quality of the people running those organizations too. Government bodies are going to get the money from some resource. Valley, I'll add royalties to your list. If the state has a lot of oil and gas production they may be able to lower any or all those other taxes, licenses, and fees. Or you have speed trap towns that may get over half their money from traffic tickets. Traditionally school money comes mostly from property taxes but there can be other sources. I'm rambling here so I'll say I think you get what you pay for, at least to a certain extent. Do you consider education worth paying for?

America is the land of opportunity. That does not mean success is guaranteed, it means people have an opportunity to succeed or fail. One way the elite have remained in control from the middle ages on and probably before was to control who was educated. Education is powerful. During our pioneering days it was a huge deal for a community to be able to offer a school. Somebody had to pay the teacher and provide a building, furnishings, and supplies. Whether that came from the government or the parents getting together and making it happen, opening a school was a huge source of local pride. Whether they take advantage of it or not I think every kid deserves the opportunity to get a decent education.

My son and his wife are teachers. They were working in the New Orleans service industry, restaurants and bars, and were good at what they did. They got their degrees and took a pay cut to be teachers. The service industry is pretty good down here and if you are good you can do OK, but it is hard work in the better spots and the hours are strange. But as she said, she wanted stability so hey could have kids plus she was tired of dealing with drunks. Their first few years they changed schools about every year, but they are both now settled into a school. They no longer have to spend every spare minute, whether the have any to spare or not, lesson planning. When we visited we did not see then that much. We'd take the kids so they could lesson plan. Since they are now settled in a school they don't have to spend as much time lesson planning as they used to, now we take the kids so they can take care of things around the house, such as fixing the kitchen sink plumbing instead. Still, with car pools before and after school, parent-teacher conferences, and all kinds or extracurricular activities such as clubs or games they are required to work, grading papers, preparing tests, preparing stuff for class don't think they only work from school opening to close. If you think you can divide their take-home by the number of class hours to get an hourly wage you don't know the real world.

Hurricane Katrina gave some clear examples of what difference the kids make. Katrina caused a lot of disruption to where people lived and went to school afterwards. The public elementary school we sent our kids to was one of the best in the parish before Katrina. After Katrina there was a big influx of kids from the Orleans Parish system. The Orleans Parish school system was horrible. Many of the leaders were basically crooks that looked on it as a way to line their pockets, the school buildings were pretty much falling down, and they were pretty much zoos. The teachers spent so much time trying to maintain discipline that they had no time to teach. The company I worked for had a program where they adopted a certain elementary school. They provided money and employees would volunteer to try to repair the school, my wife and I participated in that some so we met some teachers. I remember one that was so pleased to get a pencil sharpener in her class. There was also a program where employees could tutor an hour a week on company time. The stories those tutors told would either break your heart or raise the hair on the back of your head. To cut to the chase that elementary school in Jefferson Parish had a big influx of Orleans Parish kids after Katrina. With the same principal and many of the same teachers that school went from one of the best in the area to needs improvement on the states grading scale for schools based on test scores. Those kids had not been taught what they needed so they could learn at grade appropriate level, nor had they been taught how to act in school. Some teachers and principals are better than others, just like in any business. But don't go trying to lay all this on the teachers.

I could give a lot more specific examples of how important the parents are to the success and quality of the students. I've typed enough this morning on this subject. For every complex problem there is a simplistic solution that simply does not work. It is a complicated problem. I don't care if it is solved (and it never will be) with public, private, parochial, charter, magnet, or any other kind of schools or with whatever distribution of the wealth or whatever choice of curriculum or anything else as long as the goal is to give each kid an opportunity. What they do with that opportunity is up to them.