.....There were a couple of items in today's paper that pickled my funny bone; i.e. they weren't funny in the least. One item--front page--celebrated the fact that the teachers in West Palm Beach were awarded $500 in lieu of a pay raise, ostensibly owing to the claim of the Board that the budget could not survive a raise this year. (Perhaps next year and the year beyond as well--with the same excuse.) The county teachers voted to accept the $500 that the Union President called "pitiful" but better than nothing. Personally? I would have voted "no". Actually, this bonus was for last year--negotiations have yet to begin on salary terms for this year. Each teacher, regardless of pay level will receive, not $500, but $337 after federal taxes, Social Security and Medicare deductions. Thankfully, for them, there is no state tax in Florida when, perhaps, there ought to be.
.....Then there is the letter to the editor by a lady who writes, "The teachers (whom she labels 'a grasping group') don't seem to realize that the higher earners in our society have pursued careers that demand a more vigorous university course of study...teachers appear to want more than their attained level of education warrants." What an antediluvian piece of garbage is that now? From a person with an obvious Neanderthal brain? Perhaps she ought to seriously consider going back to school for her GED degree. How is one person's MA Degree better than another's? MA #1 chose to become a teacher; MA #2 chose to pursue a better paying job in another field--whatever that might be. Doesn't matter; most careers pay better than a teacher's career, anyway. But a community that does not tax itself to create a budget that allows for teachers' salaries that would attract more able teachers, then they ought not to complain about the teachers they pay poorly.
....The truth is that instead of my becoming a teacher with a Ph.D, I could have become an M.D, except for the fact that I am not too fond of the sight of blood. I could have become a mathematician, except for the fact that I have several calculators both at home and on the internet. I could have become a nuclear scientist, except for the fact that I was born gifted verbally and so I fatefully majored in English when I was told by many that this major would not get me a ride on the subway. Once I actually tested that theory when I went down to the turnstiles by the subway and told the toll taker that I was an English major and I needed a seat on the IRT. I never got to my destination.
I once was the teacher's rep on the Board of a private school. During a discussion of teachers' salaries, the parents' rep argued that we should actually cut the salaries and keep them low. When asked why, she explained that it was a strategy for obtaining and retaining the most dedicated teachers. Again asked to explain herself, she continued: "We would ensure that we have the most dedicated of teachers because they would want to teach even for the lowest of salaries!" There were so many ways to refute her thinking that I think I just threw up in my mouth instead.
ReplyDeleteI hope that she uses the same philosophy is selecting her brain surgeon and auto machanic. Unfortunately, her way of non-thinking is acendant right now. The "blame the worker" mantra is well underway now.
ReplyDeleteI blame the teachers, too, by the way. If they value themselves at $500 a year bonuses (so that they don't compound in future negotiations) then they get what they deserve. For myself, I'd shut down every school in the state or nation for a month. Let the parents live with their own children. They'd double teacher salaries to get the kids out of their lives.
I was involved at one level or another with six teacher strikes during my career. In not one of them did I hear a parent complain about the loss of education. The complaint, invariably, was, "what will I do with the children while I'm at work/tennis/lunch/the local motel/etc.?" No one admits it but the primary function of schools as most parents see it is to be a giant day care / baby sitter service.
Perhaps it's possible that, when teachers say, "I'm worth more," they'll get more.
Baron-Having been the scion of a NSHS School Board member who's speciality was budget and labor negotiation, I have a fairly precise idea of what the teachers who had the misfortune to draw me as a student were being paid in the Fifties. Back then, some with higher degrees and some tenure were actually earning more than beginning teachers do fifty years later here on the Central Coast of California. Accordingly, with the possible exception of a few geniuses, the kids around here all have shocking gaps in their educations. I wonder why people can't get this idea through their heads: "You get what you pay for." The mere fact that even I, an old retired truck driver, know that a "scion" is not only a brand of automobile should be ample evidence of that.
ReplyDeleteHughie, as we have discussed, some teachers are worth more than anyone could afford to pay them, and others are worth less, or even worthless. One problem with teacher salaries is that everyone on the same step (experience, education) is paid the same amount.
ReplyDeleteMerit pay would be ideal, but how do we determine the better teachers? No one has come up with a system that satisfies both the majority of the community and its teaching staff.
Until we have a viable merit system, it will be somewhere between difficult and impossible to have appropriate salaries for pedagogues. Still, the world will go on.
Phil, I know this is a little late but I have an idea for merit pay. Change all schools to charter schools where schools have to compete for students. Parents and students will want the best teachers and charter schools will pay better teachers more. If a Phil B. and/or Doc Ross were available, a school might pay them more but the enrollment increase that resulted would more than justify the investment. Bob Fox
ReplyDeleteOh -- and by the way -- for those of us who are alumni of North Shore High School and vacinity, try to imagine merit pay decisions in the hands of Elaine Boyrer or Mike McGill or some of the others who carried the title of "Administrator." It's a frightening thought, isn't it.
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