As a retired teacher, I know that teachers are greedy, too. But, what is really needed - combat pay and repeal of the Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision.
23
Took an elective in high school intended for students considering becoming teachers. After 4 months in a kindergarten class, I put that notion to rest. That was HARD. Became an MD instead. Honestly, you have to be a saint to become a teacher these days. The incentives are just not there for someone who has other choices.
104
Not much attention to administrative costs here. I would imagine that those have eaten up a lot of the per pupil expenditure gains in recent years and those costs probably include the repeated achievement testing that has driven a lot of what passes for reform.
59
Sit down and look at the average teacher salary
in your state and then look what other government
employees make and ask yourself who has the
harder job and whose work is more important in
the long run.
The average BART employee, yes the worker who
sits in the glass box at the entrance gate and reads the
newspaper and tells you: The Elevator is not working
and the bathrooms are closed - makes 40 % more than
the average teacher in the Bay Area.
The ticket takers on the Bay Bridge make 20 % more.
All a matter of priorities.
158
It is simple. The GOP values lower taxes more than it values educational quality. Want to know how to raise our International Education standing? Toss out the red states scores. The Blue states spend more, and consequently, get more results. You get what you pay for.
85
Healthcare ( a for-profit industry) should cost less.
Education ( an investment in the future) should cost more.
Inequality in either should not be tolerated.
More investment in education, in children and in the future will mean a better country.
44
There are two things fishy here. One is that while money spent on education went up for decades, and only recently dipped a little, so many schools are in buildings that are falling apart, with too many students per teacher and books that are falling apart. Clearly it took decades for things to fall apart this badly. Where did the money go? Not to teachers or classrooms.
The other is that Republican politicians are trying to destroy the middle class by every means at their disposal, including destroying public education and any unions that are left and pitting everybody against each other.
67
Even though Colorado is listed as Democratic Controlled, school spending, all spending, really, has been hogtied by remnants of a previous governments. It would be worth looking at the effect of TABOR (Tax Payers' Bill of Rights) and the Gallagher Amendment on spending in Colorado.
19
Out thoughts and prayers go out to those students caught in the crossfire of tax dodging wealthy and conservative tax cutting elected officials.
We can only hope that those surviving these dreadful attacks will keep their vigils silent and short lived in honor of the victims of decrepit schools, underpaid teachers, and outdated books held together with duct tape. We must remember that it is too soon after this tragedy to discuss the solutions found in study after study so instead we can complete the ritual hand wringing as we wait for a tweet that distracts or a celebrity scandal that engrosses our news cycles.
16
And this is how we'll fund Medicare For All? Beggar the health care system, too?
No thanks.
8
Red states and Republicans generally have realized that a poorly educated electorate is, by definition now, is conservative. After 20 years of the destruction of K-12 even with some better funding, we have created a public with little ability to think critically. So, Republicans get a twofer - cutting government and creating an electorate that favors their lies because they cannot think. Smart strategy to get elected, but it has created a President that is moving toward dictatorship aided and abetted by Republicans in Congress and the "brain" of Republican voters called Fox News.
55
How much of the increase in educational spending went to administrators?
24
Who cares? Education requires administrators as well as teachers.
13
We love to blame teachers for poor student achievement, but research says that teacher impact is only about 15% of the effect.
"But in the big picture, roughly 60 percent of achievement outcomes is explained by student and family background characteristics (most are unobserved, but likely pertain to income/poverty). Observable and unobservable schooling factors explain roughly 20 percent, most of this (10-15 percent) being teacher effects. The rest of the variation (about 20 percent) is unexplained (error). In other words, though precise estimates vary, the preponderance of evidence shows that achievement differences between students are overwhelmingly attributable to factors outside of schools and classrooms (see Hanushek et al. 1998; Rockoff 2003; Goldhaber et al. 1999; Rowan et al. 2002; Nye et al. 2004)."
Yes, teacher quality is important, but don't overstate it. It's like blaming the dentist for higher cavity rates among poor people. Teachers do a great job, but other factors fight against them.
57
For all the increases in per pupil spending over the last couple of decades, we have seen scant progress in educational outcomes.
Schools are trying to do too many things and they're not doing any of them well. Demand absolute discipline in the classroom and high standards of performance for advancement. There are plenty of social programs aimed at feeding kids, and no kid that's overweight is helped by additional feeding.
Let teachers teach. Send disciplinary problems to alternative schools. Assess student performance rigorously. Demand excellence. Give teachers classrooms full of disciplined achievers by holding back non-achievers and sending the undisciplined elsewhere for special attention and they will produce wonders. We can't keep asking teachers to be social workers, psychologists, and teachers, and expect them to perform. It's not fair to them or the students who need additional professional help to thrive.
25
Let us have a federal wealth assessment tax for education. If you earn more than 1 million dollars a tear, you contribute
14
De Vos is rather silly and narrow in her views. "Test scores continue to stagnate. This is not something we’re going to spend our way out of." should be "We need to invest thoroughly but carefully in order to turn the tide and improve education for all children of the United States."
If she heard her boss talking about making America great again, she had better think twice and dare broaden her horizons.
9
She's silly and narrow in her views because she's neither competent nor qualified to hold the position she was awarded.
67
When Grover Norquist and his merry band of vicious conservatives declared their intent to drown government in the bathtub, they left the babies in the bathwater.
I am ashamed of our country.
47
The USA had enough money to drop 26,000 bombs on Muslim countries last year but not enough to give its teachers a decent salary.
94
It comes down to this: Americans, as a whole, do not respect teachers and do not think the teaching profession is worthy of making a monetary investment at least where K-12 is concerned.
All the charts and learned treatises, studies and op-ed pieces result in some harrumphing but little more.
When it comes right down to it - deciding what to spend government money on - it's only basic education, only teachers, only children, not the important stuff we need to be concerned with like just about everything else.
30
That is certainly an impressive illustration of the rapid and sustained increase in per pupil spending over the past two decades.
The good new is obviously that we have seen such an amazing commensurate rise in per pupil results - especially in math and sciences [via PISA and TIMMS] - especially compared to our international comparators.
2
As more state legislatures turn republican, more education budgets are cut
Seems like an easy fix - Teachers and families of teachers along with families with K-12 children shouldn’t vote republican in state legislatures as that vote leads to service cuts and salary cuts.
Today is primary day in NJ and I can’t wait to cast my ticket for Democrats - straight down the line
40
Yes, we're voting here in New Mexico today. I feel the same way - Democrat all the way.
24
three times since 1993, the Ohio Supreme Court has found the state's method for funding schools (primarily property taxes) to be unconstitutional. Results? Nada. We in Ohio are still waiting for the General Assembly (controlled by the Republican Party for most of that time, with state government totally dominated by conservatives) to show any sign of doing something other than waging continued forms of the culture wars. The General Assembly, absent a House leader who is under FBI investigation, has not acted on a bill since early April. Welcome to MAGA.
20
Please don't dignify Betsy DeVos by referring to her as the "nation's chief educator".
123
DeVos the "nation's chief educator" ??? Please! No one has done more to hold students back in the name of corporate, fundamentalist and personal gain than she.
44
Massachusetts continues to spend plenty on education. It is best in the country and, ignored by the NYT, also among the best in the world in the FISA competitions. No one has to send a kid to private school. It is cost-effective!
This happens because the state relentlessly invests in technology to cut headcount elsewhere, and thus has a bit extra to funnel into education. Good government works! And yes, it could always be better.
Boston in one of the best urban school districts as well.
23
There is a massive and deliberate campaign to malign and undermine American public education as revealed through the use of the term "government schools."
25
At least in CA, a significant problem is hands tied at the local level as well as un-funded pension and healthcare plans. Suggested reading for those interested: https://www.governforcalifornia.org/news/2018/5/29/how-to-get-more-money...
3
One can speak endlessly of the challenges to public education, as these comments do but few mention that by and large parents outsource the education of their children to the government. At one time that worked, but with too few exceptions, no more.
We are not a culture that broadly puts a premium of education. We are not a culture that seeks to lift those with poor local schools out of the consequences. Yes, we have many programs to do so, No Child Left Behind was one. There are many more. Yet the results always seem to be the same. The more the money the worse the results.
Until the public, until us citizens, see that there are real consequences for poor educational results or, alternatively, until true competition comes to the educational market place, nothing changes. Our political system protects the incompetent and rewards failure. Portland, Oregon Public Schools comes to mind.
I am not an optimist. I've seen first hand the sacrifices many, many parents make in India and Africa to educate their children no matter their income level. Here, not so much.
6
Are there teachers who is (1) informed enough to know what the median household income and (2) feels satisfied to earn in nine months what other Americans earn in 12 months and (3) demands not more money but the freedom to teach and introduce disciplines for effective learning? Are there schools for such teachers? Apparently they are not public schools, although corporate private schools let donors administrators run rough shod over teachers as well.
5
Most important number missing : Income stagnation
After a quarter century of steady growth on education spending, Americans, stuck at flat wages, lost their ability to pay for further increases
See my long post for numbers on NYS
8
But, the wealth of the wealthy has continued its upward trajectory. The problem isn't money in the system; rather, it's who holds and controls the money. The wealthy aren't, as a rule, going to let their increasing share of the wealth pie get siphoned off to fund education for the masses.
31
K-12 spending per pupil rose 26 out of 29 years before 2010, only to tumble three consecutive years at the beginning of this decade." Does it have to rise year after year without stop? Has the student learning improved year after year?!
8
JY, yes, it does. Costs for everything from heating and cooling costs, to gas for buses, to textbooks, to copy paper rise every year. Also buses have to be replaced, school buildings have to be maintained or replaced, and costs for library books increase. You would be amazed at the cost of library books for elementary schools where the funding is often the lowest. Salaries rise in other industries so why do you think they wouldn’t in education? Also, legislatures are passing bills to decrease class size. In North Carolina, teacher assistants were cut. These are the people that help teachers get around to teaching everyone in the classroom. You kind of remind me of a relative who is shocked that a pair of jeans could possibly be as much as $39.00 at Walmart! The condo I bought is now worth at least twice as much as I paid for it. My most recent car was $31,000 more than my first car. So you must think that expenses don’t rise in school systems?
11
(1) How much of the increase in per-pupil spending in the last 30ish years was eaten up by rising health care costs?
(2) Only the federal government has the potential to make spending in rich and poor areas equal, or at least closer to equal. And only the federal government has the power to print or borrow money, which is exactly what it ought to do in a recession. (Most state and local governments must balance their budgets.) The failure of the federal government to spend more aggressively on education (and much else) since 2008 was always stupid. And now the giant Republican tax cuts have exposed that failure as also malicious. One more tragic dimension of the Republican sabotage of America.
(3) Other headlines in the last week or two show the banks are being freed again for speculative investments. Setting the stage for the next financial crash/sabotage opportunity.
21
The article leaves out fundamental economic realty
1. “Per-pupil spending went up forever,”
2. Wages of those paying school taxes did not. Real wages stayed flat for 20 decades
Wage growth : 1973 - 2013 : 0.23%
ANNUAL HOURLY COMPENSATION INCREASE 0.23%
3. Annual Property Tax increase NYS, 1980-2010 : 5.3%
Annual School Tax Increase, NYS , 1980-2010 :6.30 %
ANNUAL SCHOOL TAX INCREASE, NYS : 6.3%
It is not that the people turn Republican because the do not want to cut education, it is that they can NOT LONGER CAN AFFORD IT
It is a system failure, with the political elite of both parties burdening those least able to pay, (the non Campaign Contributors) afraid to tax the rich (campaign Contributors)
Applies to both Democrats and Republicans.
Data
Economic Policy Institute ,January 6, 2015. WAGE STAGNATION IN NINE CHARTS
Reducing Property Taxes for New Yorkers - Governor Andrew M Cuomo
17
Stop giving tax breaks and the power of exploitation to the elite.
9
I don't care! I send both of my kids to private schools. Learn to take care of your own!! DO NOT count on the government...period.
2
Really? Just how many people do you think can afford that?
And by not caring about all the students who go through the public school system is going to bite you down the road. Today's students are tomorrow's workers and tax payers.
34
"I don't care!" Yes, indeed, you don't. At 6K-12K a year for not particularly well known private schools here in south central Texas, not an option for 95% of families.
Perhaps you could have used a famous quote: "Let them eat cake."
12
This country was built largely on a commitment to public education. Where did that go?
13
I'm surprised that the article doesn't address the recession generated demographic shift. The growth in education spending went along with the growth in school age children and the expansion of the economy.
In basic terms, the number of school age children has dropped off significantly and will not return to pre-recession levels until 2024-2025 according to the local newspaper.
So at the moment, we don't need all the current teachers and staff. We either tread water or let some good teachers and dedicated staff go and that hurts. And guess what, fewer school aged children now means smaller tax base later unless we increase immigration - like Europe...
3
I'm not in revolt. But if a shooter comes in my school, I will take care of myself first and foremost. I will NOT take a bullet to save your child. If you want your child to be safer, YOU need to take the guns away from the shooters.
16
Look at the map - the motive is clear:
"Keep them ignorant and voting GOP"
21
Lots of unhappy folks here. I think we all agree that education is vitally important and that not all teachers can teach. And the rest of us are jealous of the truncated work year.
Having said that, I think the bigger problem is that we are all just hanging on by our fingernails. Health coverage with a huge deductible. No guarantee of funding in our old age (401k-if you can fund it, it still might be worth little or nothing later.) We are where the elites in this country want us, arguing among ourselves instead of rising up and demanding that we share in the wealth of this country. If we eat each other, we won't be able to start a revolution.
92
As many have observed, some teachers are better than others. And there are many ways to evaluate their performance.
With so many problems with funding, discipline, hostile parents and legislators, why would an educated, highly trained person want to teach public school? Unless we solve these problems, the quality of teachers will decline rapidly. You get what you pay for. Poor pay will guarantee poor teachers.
As for teacher evaluation, this is why administrators make the big bucks. If they can't weed out, or improve the poor performing teachers, find someone who can.
16
The story has something to do with the increase in administrators and support staff.
7
Check out Illinois teacher salaries and pensions at
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2018/06/04/the-exclusive-1...
7
Wow! 30,000 teachers in IL pulling down $100K+ pensions! No wonder the state is broke.
6
In North Carolina, we protested in Raleigh on the opening day of the short session in Raleigh last month for one month. Instead of making the changes that we requested, the General Assembly forced through a budget in which no legislator could offer amendments and the only thing that could be done was to give the budget an up or a down vote. Veteran teachers received almost nothing. The pay scale stops at fifteen years until twenty-five years, when it barely increases. There is no longer master's or doctor's pay unless you are grandfathered in. There is little incentive to continue to teach after year 15, and that is exactly what our hard-right GOP legislators want. They don't want to have to pay pensions for thirty year veterans. In addition, they are dedicated to privatizing education. For the students, it is even worse. The General Assembly refuses to increase per pupil funding. At this point, there are bills in the General Assembly that will allow wealthy, predominantly white communities to establish charter schools for children who live within their communities. There is even a bill that would establish a $100,000 per year position in which the person would compile data about teacher use of movies in the classroom. Everything has gone totally haywire because of far-right GOP politicians who don't care about public education and are out to destroy it. This is why we are protesting. I suspect that the teacher movement to protect public education is only just beginning!!!!
21
What is the Truth, teachers protested for ONE DAY, not one month!
1
Here in Mississippi the legislature refuses to fully fund the schools each and every year breaking state law. People complain, but they vote the same ignorant Republicans into office every time. (I would change paragraphs here, but my Apple computer doesn't recognize paragraph changes when I write comments.) In any case, the federal government says we are in need of more STEM teachers. When my sister moved from New York to Texas in 2005 she couldn't find a job anywhere. She has a masters plus 30 and is certified to teach all high school sciences. Every job she applied for had about 200 others applying for the same job. The same thing happened when she moved to Florida to be near her daughter. Do the schools have a glut of science teachers or do they not want them? Everything going on today is just too mind boggling.
15
Abyssmal teacher salaries are but one sign of what we are witnessing: the enshrinement of the Entropic System of education, education restrained to a permanently low level of energy and productivity. Starving our schools -- both public and charter -- for resources (especially the high-quality teachers they desperately need) is the ticket the current administration is writing, continuing the destructive erosion so enthusiastically supported by conservative state legislatures (see Table in this article, "Changes in Education Spending ...").
This Entropic System is exactly how you produce two things lethal for our nation: (1) schools that cannot help but fail and that (2) yield passive and poorly educated citizens who cannot think analytically and critically. The product of such a system is perfect fodder for the corporate class: a permanent underclass. Drones to turn the cranks, slaves without the iron shackles, but shackled nonetheless. And this is substantially accomplished on the backs of underpaid, underappreciated teachers.
There is a malevolent rationale at work here: conservatives and religious fundamentalists know that knowledge sets people free. And that scares the wits out of them.
27
Teacher compensation is important but it is not nearly the whole source of professional dismay. Pay needs to be measured against the cost of living a decent life. In many regions, the price of housing exceeds even the most modest dwelling that one full-time teaching salary could support.
Then there is the question of resources to support teachers doing their jobs. If wages remain stable, and in general they have not, but per pupil spending drops, then teachers' aides are slao dropped, as is technology, as are the most fundamental supplies needed to teach in a modern, 21st Century classroom.
Then in poor districts add in the peeling paint, burst pipes, the poorly maintained buildings, the dysfunctional neighborhoods, needle-infested grounds .... You get the picture. So do the public school teachers who toil under such conditions.
Finally, as the last straw, America boasts a proud history of demeaning public education and disrespecting its teaching force. At the national level, Betsy DeVos is the poster girl for such dismissal. In the states, the Kansas GOP takes the prize, resorting to the sophomoric slur of "government schools" to label public schools.
Get it? Government ba-a-a-a-ad. No government go-o-o-o-od. Raising teacher salaries might relieve the stress of workforce dissatisfaction for the short term, but the core issues remain unaddressed.
23
Betsy DeVos is working as hard as she can yo destroy public education in this country, so that her preferred investments in for-profit schools can make her even more wealthy.
I remain baffled that Trump supporters among the underemployed and undereducated don’t care.
If they do not have children, or children who no longer need some kind of education, perhaps this attitude is understandable, but if they think they are supposed to raise children who can think and succeed in the coming technology-driven world, what on earth makes them believe in either DeVos or Trump??
19
A highly informative and necessary article for which I am grateful.
8
Interestingly I notice an increase per pupil spending over a couple of decades. I believe (w/o having factual statistical data) that this has not necessarily resulted in better educational outcome for the average child.
The prime reason is that schools are spending (necessarily or not) a much higher amount on non-educational spending, such as administration, health, nutrition, sport, and transportation.
On the educational part a shift of funds has occurred towards special needs children. I am not judging the benefits of better education for special needs children but clearly it impacts the child with average ability.
11
Much of recent spending has gone to teacher salaries which are extremely high in many areas of the country. Teachers' unions have demanded pay increases and districts have accordingly been unable to fund pensions. Now that the pension funds are grossly underfunded, teachers want still move "education spending" to fund lavish pensions and retiree health benefits that often commence in their 50s. Some teachers work hard and others are burnouts. But teacher unions oppose evaluation of teacher-effectiveness. Most teachers get their summers off plus long holiday breaks. It appears they now believe they can bully taxpayers with illegal walk-outs. Taxpayers should be in revolt and many are. It's time for taxpayers to resist and elect representatives who will stand up to the unions.
10
Extremely High? Teachers earn a pittance if you look at this from a different angle than supply/demand salary level.
Teachers educate the future workforce. Think about this - a teacher educates 30 children. The long term economic impact is gargantuan if the teacher is very good.
A manager that manages 30 workers clearly has a far lesser impact on prosperity than a teacher. The prosperity emanating from a great teacher lasts a life time. Ergo - a teacher should be paid perhaps 200,000 not a mere 60,000.
24
My child is an elementary school educator in Oregon. To become an educator she completed a bachelor’s degree and passed a number of credentialing examinations. Despite graduating from a state university in 3 1/2 years with her degree and credential, between my child and me there is $65,000 in debt. Her compensation package includes a $35,000 salary, health insurance, paid vacations and pension contributions. While her contract hours are from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., her UNCOMPENSATED hours are numerous. Late afternoon, evening and weekend hours are spent lesson planning, grading papers, planning projects and communicating with parents and/or various social service agencies. And you begrudge my child and her fellow teachers the time off they have more than earned?
121
Considering the the average salary in the US is about 52,000. I would say that 60,000 ( about 20% more than the average) is pretty good. I know the average salary for teachers in my area is above the 60K, but I think 200K is way more than most Americans make. Areas of the country are different and their duties and requirements vary from state to state.
If I was a teacher in some states I would be very worried about the pensions. Some states are close to bankruptcy and will be a future problem. Someone will get a haircut.
Take a look at the finances of Illinois. And have a good teacher in accounting and math give you a lesson.
Teachers are the best and education is the future of prosperity for us all!
1
I'm a family physician in rural WA. I'm a product of an inner city public school system. With the exception of medical school, I went to public schools my whole life.
My teachers were very important to my success. My mom and her values were most important. For me, the quality of teaching growing up was hit or miss. I got zone variances to get to the better public schools. Even in those schools, only about a quarter of my teachers were good. The remainder - mediocre to poor. My mom, to her credit, forced me to supplement the weak teaching with outside reading. She also attended the PTA meetings, volunteered, and put pressure on the school system to improve the performance of the weak teachers (always to no avail).
I find it very hard to rally to the cause of "teachers" globally. The quality of teachers varies tremendously, but the lack of accountability and resistance to it is uniform and fierce. There seems to be a meme of victim-hood among the teachers now, when in reality their wages here are quite good, their benefits are incredible (I have no pension and literally can't buy their health insurance plan - mine has a $6,500 deductible), and their job security is second to none (tenure, backed by a union). All this for working 5 days a week for 8-9 months of the year.
15
Please tell me where my child, an educator, can get a 5-day a week, 8-9 month teaching position for “quite good” wages. Please explain as well your definition of accountability. Will you hold her accountable for the child who is constantly absent because his parent(s) were too “sick,” hungover or stoned to get him to school? Is she accountable when she has two or three emotionally disturbed or learning challenged children and no aide to assist her? Or for the child whose parent(s) are working night and day to pay the bills leaving them with no time or energy to help with their child’s homework. How about for the child who spent the night cowering because their parent was being beaten? Pretty hard to learn under these conditions. Yet you and so many others want to hold teachers accountable for society’s failures.
If teachers have it so good, perhaps you should consider a career change!
44
In comment to Mary: Go get 'em. I would've liked to have suggested that the Doc might consider returning the benefits of the education received and maybe do a few years teaching Junior High.
5
Amen Mary! People are profoundly ignorant about what schools are tasked with and what teachers are confronting in the classroom, the money they use out of pocket for students and supplies. Those 70/80 days off are used to do the continuing education requirements, that and time spent recovering teaching YOUR children. Show some respect. They deserve it.
5
Where are the studies that match -- by school district -- the market
values of homes and the median incomes of taxpayers against the
spending per pupil in each district?
The proportional allocation of tax dollars should begin with sources of funds.
Certainly in NY State, allocations to mandated items like special needs students
should be separated from school board-directed spending.
The real situation may be better or worse than these studies suggest. Can we
please get apples/apples facts displayed?
3
Stanford has the studies. NYT occasionally has summaries, for ex. "How Effective Is Your School.." in Upshot on 12/5/17. It's amazing...the effect of low expectations vs high expectations matters more than money spent when median income or socioeconomics is the same when comparing two districts.
3
I saw no mention that education spending per pupil, in the graph presented, did not keep up with inflation. Recent spending, keeping up with inflation (cpi), should be more than $20,000 per pupil. It is shown as $12,500.
3
While all the previous comments reflect how close a person is to education-teacher, family whatever, One fact remains, the US education system has declined relative to the rest of the world due to protectionist policies of unions for poor teachers. This hurts the many excellent, dedicated teachers who deserve more pay and resources. I have seen first hand unions grant higher salary increase to older teachers even poor teachers so they get higher pensions when they soon retire. This hurts better teachers, raises turnover and diminishes student learning. When will our politicians do what is right for our children and country and stop pandering to the union money donated to their campaigns.
7
The "protectionist policies", as you call them are a double edged sword. Teachers in most places are hired by a local school board , which is a bit of a joke. What do most everyday citizens know about hiring a good teacher? Or running a multimillion dollar school district for that matter?
Depending on the board at the local level, and the people involved, school board members may or may not have their nose in the actual running of the school. Just as some members of Congress think it is their job to run the country because they are elected.
A good teacher could have their career ruined by a school board member who took a dislike to them. When I was teaching we had a young, local girl substituting and hoping for a job. She was a good teacher by all accounts. She had a run in with a school board members child, someone who thought he should be running the board. Last I heard she was working for a bank. I also saw poor teachers who knew someone get jobs and they remained poor teachers.
In most places there is a period of time when a teacher can be released for nonperformance. It's up to administrators to do their job there. However, many administrators weren't that great as teachers which is sometimes why they became administrators. Think about it. If you are a good teacher and love teaching, why would you want to be an administrator?
You have to be on the inside to see what goes on.
19
Well, when you don't have unions and don't pay a living wage and offer poor conditions to your teachers, the better teachers don't bother to stick around. They move elsewhere or find new careers. My local district is hurting for new teachers every year. Most teachers put in a few years, then go make an easier living elsewhere. My mom was a union teacher and because of that she could focus on being a great educator since she made a living wage, had good benefits and had a school with the resources she needed to teach. My friend was a non-union teacher and needed a second job to pay rent, so wasn't as focused as she could have been. Also, her classroom had too many students and she had to put up a "Go Fund Me" page to get them math books.
So yes, maybe unions help a few bad teachers sit pretty. but the situation in states with chronically underfunded schools is far worse.
23
If overall expenses have doubled over the past 20 years, without an observable gain in improvement, then DeVos is right and we need to reexamine the course we're on. And while Ms. Devos's critics "say there are many factors" holding overall test performance down, it should be clear by now that it's not the money. We've eliminated that variable, so now let's move onto something else.
My observation, as the parent of children in an urban public school, is that we have two radically different tracks for students, with radically different support models that are obscured because we put these two tracks, and both support structures, within the same system and on the same budget.
My kids are on track A. They were slotted into a "gifted" program, they take AP and IB classes, and the classes that they're in have few disruptive students, extremely supportive parents, and excellent communications between the parents and the teachers. What they can't get at school for enrichment, we take care of ourselves, with museum memberships, family trips, reading at home, and camps and other extra-curriculars.
But there's also a track B. Children are fed on track B, truancy and discipline is a challenge, we need armed security guards, and a small army of councilors and social workers are needed for this track. The goal with this cohort doesn't seem to be educating them, but keeping them out of trouble.
Why not formally separate these two tracks, and make the tools specific to the task?
9
To answer your question? Parents and court decisions. Also an admission that we can't save all kids. But start saying that as a legislator or administrator and see how popular you are.
7
Who will get the superior teachers? Who will have all of the fancy technology? Who will have the well maintained schools?
7
Just reading the comments here. The twisted logic, obliviousness, and complete lack of empathy is really astounding. I have 3 teachers in my family. Each one works in a different socioeconomic environment. The one that works in a high-income/high parental involvement school has the most resources due to the influx of donations from said high-income families. The same applies down the line to the one who sees nothing coming in and works in a Title I school. As you would expect, the Title I school does not have the technological resources available for their students that the high-income schools have. The point here is that in states like NC, PARENTS AND TEACHERS have to make up the shortfall or the STUDENTS SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES. So when teachers protest in Raleigh, it's NOT just about salaries. They see first-hand what the lack of resources does to their students. As stated in the article, property taxes are the main source of funding for schools. However, just last week, Republicans in Union County have stated they are going to LOWER TAXES, just in time for the mid-term elections. Shameless!
35
I would encourage anyone really interested in the topic of runaway education costs read the current article in The F.T. by Rana Foroohar which touch’s on the subject of Universities attempting to use financial engineering and Hedge Funds as alternate investments to zero bound rates for a decade and defunding of education for much longer as well as the administrative costs which have soared in no small part due to the “P.C.” movement. She gives as examples Michigan State which lost about a half billion dollars after being persuaded to get into some sort of debt swap nonsense(Calpers has lost even more at the hands of hedges) and University of Michigan who employees some 100 “ diversity counselors” some of whom make six figure salaries bas opposed to adjunct professors making less. Neo liberalism at work in both instances. A return to common sense in academia and an end to financial engineering would seem to be a step in the right direction.
8
So, why does increase education funding basically always mean *all* teachers should get large raises?
Excellent teachers should get large raises - ones just passing time should not. Same as any profession.
The teacher's union represents teachers - not student outcomes and pretending otherwise is naive.
6
Dan,
Who decides who is excellent? If it's testing outcomes what happens to the teacher who takes the student who struggles with school? What about the Art and Music teachers? Who decides?
What if my evaluations are being done and I happen to be active in my union and receive an evaluation by someone who has a grievance pending?
14
Agree that performance measurement can be challenging. However, I was a teacher for 10 years and now have a student in elementary school. Nearly every industry has come up with a way to evaluate employees and we should be able to do the same.
It is very obvious who the exceptional teachers are and they should receive significantly more income (whether that is a bonus plan or salary)
Test scores should not be the only measurement...however school rating sites have figured out a way to measure gains students make each year relative to their peers. I would use something like that as a factor rather than absolute scores.
As far as the grievance edge cases, I think it is just that - an edge case. An appeal process would be prudent.
Not all teachers are exceptional. The ones that are shouldn't have their salaries dragged down by those who are not.
It was not only Republican states that led the charge to reduce funds to education. Pennsylvania under the Rendell administration gutted education and also gutted teacher retirement funding, withdrawing state contributions to the system and compelling teachers and administrators to add more from their own stagnant pay. Also under Rendell civil service employees in the Department of Education suffered blows to their retirement/health care benefits and a host of experienced education personnel who helped maintain education services and certification to school districts (both public and private) left public service leaving a great gap in knowledge of state administrative policy. Also the Democrats failed to end the Republican challenge to teacher unions that also led to diminished wages and a failure to hire new teachers at reasonable pay scales. Sidelined Democrats also failed to support new buildings, supplies, books and technology systems. s
Teachers also found themselves having to take additional courses including those at a master's degree level and to pay that out of pocket but did not receive wage or benefit increases despite further required education of themselves. And of course the school year was extended and teachers were demanded to work extra days that basically were non-productive for students who were burned out. Parents too, objected to summer vacation being cut short. Democrats and Republicans alike destroyed education by starving the system and teachers.
8
If I was in a business where my inflation adjusted spending more than doubled, and my outcomes were basically unchanged, I would be in a lot of trouble. While unquestionably there are new costs, such as computers and increased funding for special education, the real question is not what are we spending but what are we getting out of it. One article is too short to cover this extremely important question but one graph raises a number of fundamental questions with respect to how effective we are spending education funds.
4
I assume in your business you could have some control over supplies and raw materials. Teachers don't. They take whoever walks through the door and are supposed to educate them. Even as money for materials has dropped and support programs have dropped. If your expenses rise, you find a way to cut costs or raise prices. Teachers have neither of those powers. It looks easy from outside and sounds easy. Try it sometime. Stories abound of those from outside who tried it and had their eyes opened.
23
America is unimaginably wealthy. Did you know that US wealth and income have roughly doubled in the past 40 years, in inflation-adjusted per-person terms? That means if your household isn't twice as rich as your parents' was in 1978, you have not gotten your share of America's incredible economic expansion. If your local, state and federal governments are not spending twice what they were to serve you (on parks, schools, transportation, and all the other public infrastructure that is our common wealth), then they too have been deprived a fair share of our stupendous growth.
We are not poor. You know where the money went (no, it did not go to China: they built their wealth the same way we built ours). It is our responsibility to take it back and restore our common wealth.
15
Education financing is a very broad topic and hard to capture in one article. It would be useful to know how teachers total compensation has faired including benefits. Also, how this would equate to the private economy when you factor in the additional days off that teachers receive. Also, how are education mandates effecting the total dollars spent in the classroom. For example, (1) have demands for additional paperwork increased administrative costs? and (2) have required expenditures for certain groups of students (e.g., special need students, dual language training, etc.), although necessary, taken dollars away from the dollars spent on the average student?
2
The answer to your first question is that paperwork has increased. For administrators unsure, for teachers definitely and guess when that gets done? After hours when no one sees or cares.
Answer to second question, most likely. Those needs and expenditures have been mandated by court cases and laws.
8
Costs have escalated for many reasons. Computers began to appear in schools in the latter years of my teaching career along with computer teachers and tech people. Special needs students got all kinds of new help. I had a good student whose mother decided she wasn't hearing everything and pushed until the school district bought a radio set which each teacher had to use to amplify their words and satisfy this mother.
Also, people look at schools and see teacher's salaries. They don't see all the materials necessary to keep a building and school system running. Electricity, fuel, building repairs and maintenance. Textbooks, teaching supplies. The uniforms, coaching and official's salaries, and field maintenance, necessary for sports. Money for testing companies which was forced on schools,
My daughter teaches in a small rural district in NEPA. They have 2 relatively new buildings, one elementary, one middle/high school. They also have a new, first time superintendent from western PA who wants to put a notch in her gun belt. She is here 4 days, home 3. She is pushing a $750,000 unneeded building program. (Small districts due to lower pay tend to get first time administrators who want to build their resumes and move on. I say this as someone who taught in a similar situation for 34 years.) Their district doesn't buy workbooks to go with text books, so teachers have developed materials and make copies. They have been told next year copies will be restricted.
Ah, teaching.
11
And the churn caused by administrators who want to make their mark and move on tends to raise administrative salaries.
5
4 years teaching (and 15 credits into masters degree) my daughter still makes less than the average recent college grad. Focus on testing and no help from administrators. She spends much more that the $250 federal tax deduction on supplies. - to make up for all the things her school does not supply. Taxpayers think that anyone can teach, try it yourself.
She is leaving teaching this year. Happy to work 12 months a year for a living wage and respect.
74
Just an added comment about working 12 months a year - I taught high school business/computers for 25 years and worked every summer but one. I could not afford to live on savings through the summer since my pay was so low. I would never want my children to go into teaching today. Teachers put their lives on the line and get treated and paid poorly.
49
Literally on the line. At my daughter's school they just had live shooter training. Police shooting some kind of plastic bullets at them. She sent me a selfie in her helmet with plastic mask.
Take a bullet for my kid but no raise this year. Maybe the only good to come from school shootings is that teachers will finally become the heroes police and firemen became after 9/11. Remember when police were PIGS? Hear that lately?
3
teachers are the most important people for our country's future, JAPAN spend large of money for their education and that is why they are a power house, we have good teachers but when we talk the kids out of high school and ask them how about be come a teacher , the answer is does not pay good money, than l football players sign a contract for 15 millions of dollars for a year just throw a ball, we are in wrong from education to who runs our country
10
What is so depressing about this article is that it centers on TEACHER COMPENSATION and the dismal EDUCATIONAL Results as evidenced by lack of student achievement.
Once while talking to a Union Carpenter recently in Manhattan, he succinctly confessed that his comfortably long tenured job at a public works project was: "About Income, not Outcome."
As a former UBC carpenter and a NYC UFT teacher,
I fully understood the tragic truth of that cynical reality.
To quote Valerie Jarrett: "This could be a teachable moment." In short, You don't always get what you pay for.
4
"Teachers" are not generally in "revolt". Sure some unionized teachers are protesting conditions that they don't like. I support some of this, but not everyone or even a majority are doing this.
4
The chart shown is adjusted for inflation since 1970. Since 1970, the cost per pupil has more than doubled. Is there anyone that truly believes that student performance has improved at the same rate? Or even improved? I expect many people in government would think they scored an incredible victory if their schools could equal the average performance of 1970.
5
Schools now provide many more services to students that make up part of the cost of education. Schools also teach a wider range of student than did schools in the 1970s. I went to school during that time and I don't remember having special education students sharing a class with me nor do I remember aides and assistants in the classroom to help those students achieve. Mental health and counseling services were rarely offered. In addition, many schools now are top heavy with administration caused in part by the increased government requirements and regulations.
34
$12,500 average cost per pupil times 25 students in a class equals $312,500. An average teacher is paid about $50,000 annually. $50,000 divided by $312,500 = 16% of the cost per pupil goes to teachers. Where does the other 84%? The model needs to be examined more closely!!!!!!!
19
I do agree with you that a lot of money seems to disappear into the vast 'administration'.
However, a teacher's average (60k) or so salary has to be increased by medical, pension, and other costs to see the true cost. So, maybe 100k or so is a better cost metric.
Still a lot of funding going elsewhere.
13
It goes to facilities and support somewhat, and expensive administration. Educate some through the internet that would greatly reduce the costs, and free up more resources for those that need them or won't learn through the internet.
3
There are few students who could be “educated through the internet”. Look at the statistics. Few adults successfully complete online classes
It isn’t that people “won’t “ learn online many people cannot learn online. It is not the same as classroom learning. Google it
1
The serious problem that this article misses is that the gerrymandered, ALEC legislatures in many states have reduced the spending pie by giving tax breaks to so many entities, both business and non-profit, that the pie is now to small to adequately cut in favor of teaching children. The public is told that it's just impossible. At the same time ALEC/DeVoss have introduced the ineffective "Charter Schools" which are significant drain on public schools. These issues need good, continual investigative reporting, not just a one off bit with numbers that aren't adequately explored.
The American public has always, until now, strongly supported schools for all. I think they still do
12
I feel for the teachers who have gone on strike or are thinking about striking. Teachers are fundamentally one of the most important sectors of society--they give rise and help students become doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, healthcare workers, etc. In my version of what an idealized society would look like, teachers would be one of the highest paid professions because they provide they foundation for which the rest of society is built.
With that said, I only have so much sympathy for those living in hard-core red states. The GOP has always been against educating the masses, they don't want an educated public that can think for itself. When voters within a state repeatedly votes Republican and then cry about the loss of public goods like education, it makes me wonder if they even know what they're voting for or if they're voting only based on ideology.
I hope that all teachers get paid what they deserve and that students in this country can have a place where education is valued but when I look at these states where both parents and teachers have likely voted Republican, I kind of want to throw up my hands and say "Well, actions have consequences and you voted for the situation that you're in."
30
Great points until you go to how much they should be paid, the market determines that, there is no "deserves" for them or really anybody.
2
There is no free market for government. You must be satisfied with the knowledge that thousands of great and effective teachers leave the profession each year. That is the free market for teachers.
1
..........and yet, CEOs get paid millions of dollars and millions in bonuses even if their company profits fall during their leadership!
People need to STOP attacking teachers! You have no idea of the realities of teaching unless you have worked as one in the public school system!
5
(1) In 1970 there were
* NO "teaching assistants"
* NO social workers
* and English as a Second Language (huge money drain) was rare - if it existed at all
* Schools were not spending $25,000, 40000 or more on specialized education for students who would never be able to function
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/education/20donovan.html
From the article "There are 132,000 such {children who have at least two disabilities and severe educational needs} in the United States, out of more than 6.5 million now receiving some kind of special education service at an estimated cost of $74 billion a year."
Think of that - $74,000,000,000 for 132000 of whom many can't even speak at age 20.
(2) average of $58,950 from $61,804.
And the point is?
50% of workers make $30,533 or less. (That is the MEDIAN meaning 50% have more & 50% have less.) The "average" is $46604 - the old joke of Bill Gates walks into a neighborhood working class bar so now what is the 'average' income of everyone there")
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html
65% of workers make LESS than $50000.
87% make LESS than $75000
A single teacher - as the only wage earner in the household - makes about the same as the median household in the US. One person makes as much as many households with 2 workers.
So what that their incomes have not gone up. Mine hasn't either. Just got the car insurance bill. It went up 4.76%. My income has NOT gone up 4.76% . Ditto the gas, electric, internet, property taxes
21
All factual statements and when I grew up in 60s there were not many college grads compared to now so so many teachers play the education card as if the avg person was Fred flinstone punching a clock. Almost everyone I know is a college grad, an 75% have masters, and all bring home work and monitor phones, and all fund their own retirement, have no job guarantees and work year round.
7
Also, no other profession works only seven months of the year and is considered full time. Pro-rating the salaries shows that they truly are reasonable.
Everyone works at home in the evenings these days. Everyone in my office has a college degree and most have graduate degrees - there is no salary bump simply for having extra degrees. We are at a public university and there is no pension or healthcare in retirement for faculty or staff (contrary to popular belief).
Even $50,000 pro-rated to reflect the months of the year worked is a reasonable salary.
5
Another case of devaluing education and educators, or "I got mine", or "I'm in the same boat". If either, could you be a god teacher?
5
Teachers have never been paid enough, mostly because it was seen as "women's work." The job was seen as almost part-time, where school let out mid-afternoon and teachers did not work over the summer, perfect for women who had children. As a result the pay for these jobs virtually never was as high as other positions held by well educated people, not to mention well educated women. In many places secretaries made more than k-12 teachers, and women professors were few and far between. The value of a good education has always been known, and various measure were initiated to try to foster and support early education, like Head Start. The world is changing. If misogynist Republicans will get out of the way, teachers may finally get the recognition, and the pay, they have earned.
66
"the job was seen as almost part-time, where school let out mid-afternoon and teachers did not work over the summer, perfect for women who had children." Nothing has changed. I just retired and the school parking lot across street is empty at 3:30 and school ends in a week.
9
Maybe they're home correcting finals.
2
Your idea that gender still influences pay is not realistic. Schools pay what they can to get the quantity and quality of teachers they desire within their budgets. Citizens can increase their budgets. In NYC they get less because some get paid for not teaching, administration is expensive, and the process not efficient.
1
Managers (Administrators and Principals) should be reasonably expected to extract higher performance from flat budgets or maintain performance levels given reduced budgets by doing what is necessary. The same is true in family units and private employers and public school principals. Wishing for favorable education budget politics is not in the job description.
Administrators that function primarily as resource distributors of changing budgets need to be held to account and replaced if necessary.
Federal and state authorities that set educational performance standards need to also pay for for that privilege in the form of satisfactory means-tested district funding. If a district can pay more they should see reduced state and federal funding in favor of districts that cannot pay more locally. Well established family means testing and institutional stress testing principles can and should be applied to school districts as well.
The most important years in education are pre-kindergarten. A child who has lots of verbal interaction with adults and is read to a lot and whose family life is stable and loving has a huge advantage over a child who is stuck in front of a TV or whose family has personal and economic chaos. Head start was never actually fully funded so it admits only the most handicapped and needy kids. The studies that prove it failed have not taken into account the selection process. We need early childhood education everywhere and we need to fully fund it. We also need classes in junior high that teach family economics, family planning, and child development. Our old approach to education left out the handicapped and underfunded certain population groups. But education is the most important function in a democracy. Citizens matter.
10
OK, but how would you do that? a lot of young parents today are themselves illiterate, uneducated, drop outs, non-English speaking. How are they going to read to their children? or interact verbally? All the PARENTS do -- and most of these are unwed single moms -- is sit and yack on their smartphones, send texts and watch TV. You cannot raise a child to do something you do not do yourself.
By your logic, we should take all such kids away from their parents and put them into Federal "creches" -- orphanages -- to be raised by state employees, i.e.,teachers who will indoctrinate them in all the appropriate lefty liberal memes and belief systems a way from their awful parents.
And middle school USED TO OFFER Home Ec -- including nutrition, sewing and cooking -- I had this in the late 60s myself -- but by the 70s, the FEMINISTS and liberals had destroyed such programs, because they felt it pushed girls to become "just housewives". Schools were all too happy to get rid of these costly programs requiring kitchens and expensive equipment! So today....the result after 45+ years is that NOBODY KNOWS the basics of cooking, homemaking or sewing! and we must rely on fast food or illegals as we are incompetent.
5
In Michigan, the middle school curriculum still includes the basics of nutrition, cooking, sewing, laundry, child development, consumer finance, etc. It's crammed into a 1 semester course that almost every student is required to take. And by the way, it was very much a feminist initiative to make this class universal. All humans should know the basics of how to be a self-sustaining adult.
2
As a teacher in NC with 24 years of experience and a master's degree in gifted education, I can tell you our real problem in the treatment of teachers and other education workers. We don't have a union contract.
If I had a union, I doubt my system could have forced me to take down the rainbow flag I posted while doing a unit on "America's Democratic Values of Freedom and Equality".
17
Your school district has a right to tell you what you can teach in the classroom. Your freednom of speech ends at the school house door.
3
Why should you be promoting a political POV or homosexuality in the classroom?
4
Then why teach the lie that we have freedom of speech?
If the unit was on freedom and equality then a rainbow flag could easily be part of it. Of course it is NC...
1
Average teacher pay is nearly $60,000 a year. For working 180 six-hour days. Tenure rules, so you can't be fired for bad performance. You get a pension and a Cadillac health care plan.
I want that job.
10
You apparently don't know anybody who's actually a teacher. Teachers often work 10-12 hour days--it's not just school time that they work you know. Many work on weekends. There's prepping and grading, all of which take place after school hours. Many states require teachers to have continuing education credits, which means they must take classes or workshops during the summer. A lot more states are only hiring teachers on contractual basis so many don't even know if they will come back the following year.
60
I have been teaching for 14 years now in Arizona. I have never had a Cadillac health care plan. Try a high deductable Yugo plan that will take a month and a half of my net pay to meet. I may have a pension for which I have been paying 12 percent of my gross pay to get, if the Baby Boomers don't bankrupt it first. I have never made even close to 60,000 a year. That's even with my second job driving Lyft.
School let out for the year May 25, and I was back teaching summer school May 29. There is no tenure in Arizona. I don't know what reality you live in, but it certainly is not mine.
131
Give it a try. I'm sure your local school district would be able to find a place for you, even on a temp basis if you don't have credentials, especially if you have STEM experience.
16
The article misses another important point. As spending was being reduced overall, a significant portion of spending was directed to meeting state and national testing requirements for NCLB (largely funding private companies who created these atrocious tests that were only used to penalize teachers), the mostly failing charter movement and going to useless consultants and "educational experts."
The Times needs to do some mea culpas, as they were strong proponents of this privatization at real cost to students.
20
Defunding education is worsening a downward spiral. While California prepares it's students for a modern economy, poorer states put their trust in tax cuts. Their greatest ope is to attracts residents educated in places to expensive to live it. Of immigrants from poorer countries with more practical values, of course.
9
Laura,
Yes, schools need and deserve money. But money isn't everything, and increasing per-pupil spending hasn't worked. We spend entirely too much on bureaucracy and administration. There isn't enough accountability--it's practically impossible to fire a teacher for being a bad teacher, which is ridiculous and a crucial part, in my opinion, of the problem. Over the years, as the story establishes, we've thrown barrels of money at education with precious little to show for it.
Where I live, the school district wants to raise the sales tax to pay for capital improvements to schools. Some of the stuff I can understand--improvements to address ADA deficiencies in particular--but the school board's main point is that the schools are older than in surrounding areas and don't look as "nice" from the outside as schools in other districts, as if this is somehow an aesthetics competition. That's the sort of thing that makes blood boil. It's what goes on inside of schools and classrooms that matter. I went to school in a rapidly growing district where portable classrooms were used. The portable buildings did no one a bit of harm. The teachers inside those buildings accomplished much good.
3
You have to be joking -- California is ranked 47th nationally among the states -- it has a ruinously expensive, failing, wretched school system with grossly overpaid, pampered teachers.
4
I would suggest adding analysis of rising administration costs over time. Both in number and cost there has been an increasing burden of admin costs taking funds away from the frontline staff and materials.
63
School system have continued to add more and more non-teaching administrators while teachers have more and more children in their classes.
8
The problem is that teaching is not respected as a profession. The popularity of home "schooling" rests on the belief that anyone, without so much as an hour of training, can teach all grades and all subjects. As a result teachers are viewed as little more than babysitters.
153
Though teachers are more qualified than ever, the availability of career options for women over the last 40-50 years has resulted something of a brain drain in teaching. Teachers tend to come from a lower performing strata of their graduating classes than in the past.
Increasing teacher status (which you can see in many well-off suburbs) would help attract and retain higher quality educators (in general).
41
Teachers ARE just glorified babysitters -- although grossly overpaid at up to $150K a year in big blue states.
If you work part time hours....don't expect respect from those who work ALL day and ALL year long.
If you cannot be fired for incompetence...then your profession will attract/retain very incompetent people.
7
@Concerned Citizen:
Every single teacher I know puts in a solid 60 hours or more a week. They have lots of work outside of the school day and often have to take a day on the weekend to do more. And every one of them I know work and hustle when school is not in session. When a state makes some change to education policy they'll be learning it in classes during the Summer. Unpaid.
You obviously do not know any teachers. Just the bit about part time hours is so off base as to be laughable.
1
In the rural county where I live, the administrators will graduate anyone with a pulse, even those who miss 90 days of school or more (a friend has the job of overseeing these "non performers" so that they graduate no matter what). The administrators will do anything to keep their jobs and keep the state folks out if the graduation rates go too low.
28
It's not just rural areas. I live in the Rustbelt, in a bedroom suburb of a good sized city. The schools here pass anyone who shows up and sometimes does not even show up. I have a neighbor whose daughter passed 8th grade despise not showing up for 60 days of school -- nothing tragic, she is just a whiny kid who didn't like getting up early or doing homework. By the law, she should have failed and been held back. They promoted her anyhow. Her mom has since taken her out of class to be "home schooled" though mom works full time (AS A TEACHER in a different district!), so the child is home all day. The "home schooling" consists of a computer program. She doesn't even do that. She is still being promoted.
ZERO STANDARDS...zero accountability.
4
this statement is disingenuous " state budgets were competing with Medicaid and pensions " and that is the reason teacher pay is going down. Pensions ARE teacher pay deferred by any standard. Last year in Conn the average teacher retired at age 61 at age 62.3 with 27.8 years of service with a pay of $92,286. I have 40 yrs in IT, with a grad degree and topped at 90k working year round with a rigorous STEM degree(sorry, teaching degree not at same level of rigor by many standards.) Their average pension was $62,577 with a 25 year life expect(age 87) that equates to an annuity of $1,089,662. If I went to Prudential and gave them $1089662 for the same annuity you would be right in calling me a Millionaire. We are letting every teacher in Conn retire a millionaire at age 62.7. These are numbers right from the teacher retirement system(TRS) hence their specificity. There are 52034 active teachers in Ct, avg age 44.7, avg work life 13.3 years, avg pay 77083. The average HOUSEHOLD income in Conn is $73433 so a teacher makes more than a household. After 40 years in IT and my final downsizing(no tenure for the average private sector person) my social sec is $2057 worth $435,328 or far less than half at 62. Why do these articles continue when the facts are easy to find. Teachers demand for high pensions, shorter careers, small classes sizes have decimated budgets and TRILLIONS are owed in unfunded pensions. I have taught college at night for 25 yrs so know what it takes to teach
42
But what's your overall point? Teachers don't deserve adequate pay and a secure retirement? Teacher in MA are most likely required to have a MA after a number of years, so comparing professional MA workers with the average pay in the state does not make sense. You'd prefer that they be paid less, so that what (?), we attract less qualified people to the profession (you're already claiming they aren't qualified enough). And then we'd have a situation like we have in the red states. Actually, CT does have some of the best ed outcomes among the states. And, by the way teaching college age students in very different than young children.....
86
And a good teacher is worth the money. The problem is the poor teachers and waste and the declining wages and benefits of the average American worker, including ou.
8
This entire post seems like the sour grapes of a middle aged man the economy left behind. And no, teaching as a night adjunct does not qualify you to judge "what it takes to teach" day by day in a primary or secondary school. In European countries, teachers are treated with the care and esteem their profession demands. This is a cold and cruel economic system, and I'm sorry it didn't work out for you, but you are blaming the wrong people for your own disappointments.
47
The issue of educational spending is not simple. NYC spends more money per student than almost any jurisdiction in the world and yet only half our students graduate in four years and of those who graduate, most have serious deficits in their skills. Higher graduation rates are really the result of lowering standards. The C 30 process which is meant to guarantee the most qualified applicant is chosen for supervisory jobs is universally corrupted. The same is true for teacher hiring and rating. There is no rational basis for budgeting priorities. On average, Gym teachers earn more than English or Physics teachers. During the 13 years a student attends public schools, most never receive any one on one assistance on their writing skills. Some school buildings run at double their designed capacity while others run at one quarter capacity. Many school building are almost empty. These problems are not only in NYC but across the United States in school districts both large and small. Corruption and incompetence is rampant in district offices across the country. For much of the country, it is not a lack of money but how the money is spent that is the problem.
22
Yes. And the spending decisions are not made by teachers, but rather, administrators. Hmmm...
14
Absolutely yes, yes, yes. In my district, they have kids in metal trailers for lack of space -- while a mile from my house, a nice 1960s era elementary school sits totally empty & unused. The district refuses to sell it OR to use it.
The crazy union rules mean a lackluster gym or TYPING instructor with a master's degree in Tibetan basketweaving (*any masters, even unrelated to education, requires a 20% lifetime bump in pay) will earn up to $150K a year (for a part time job!) while a bright, sharp young math or science teacher will only get the starting wage (a whopping $54,000 a year, for six hour days and a 180 day year with all summers off with pay!). How does that make sense when we want kids to learn STEM?
The awful failing schools in Camden and Newark NJ spend $33K -- most of it from the state & feds -- on EACH CHILD -- enough to send them to the toniest private academy -- yet have dismal rates of graduation, literacy, dropouts, etc. MONEY IS NOT THE ANSWER.
4
This also didn't happen overnight. We (teachers and service personnel) spent years calling, emailing, and visiting our legislators and asking them to increase funding for schools and our health care. We finally walked out when it was clear that simply asking them to do the right thing wasn't working.
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Who is a good teacher? Someone who takes a student from point A to point B, or to point C, depending upon a host of factors out of the control of the teacher. After the tragedy in Parkland, FL, some people could not believe the confidence, eloquence and intelligence of the young people rising up to protest school shooting. I, on the other hand, saw the same kinds of young people I teach every day in an affluent NJ suburb. But here's the deal: I pay $16K a year in school taxes on my not so extravagant house. It isn't only money, it is the fact that we sacrifice to live in a school district with like-minded parents who want the highest possible education and outcomes for their children. We want to be in a district where the special ed child comes up in competence as well as the gifted young person who is taking 7 AP classes in his senior year and whose aspirations are MIT or Yale. I recently read about the iron miners strike in 1916 that began in Aurora, MN; paid on a contract system, if you bribed the shift boss, you got sent to a very good vein of ore, and your daily output was high. If you got sent to a vein with a lot of rock, you earned peanuts. A good teacher working in a lower income district with parents unwilling or unable to help their children are breaking rock; his production can't be compared to the teacher working in a district with heavily involved parents, high aspirations, every sort of enrichment and adequately funded physical plants.
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