Posted on 03/28/2011 1:27:48 PM PDT by MichCapCon
A local Michigan Education Association representative recently claimed that first-year teachers in the Lansing School District are paid below the poverty line. That could theoretically be true for a teacher just starting his or her career … with a family of eight to support.
A first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree in the Lansing School District earned $35,741 in 2009-10. The Michigan Department of Human Services does not calculate poverty levels for Michigan. The Census Bureau set the poverty level for a family of one at $11,351 in 2010. For a family of two, it was $14,512. It can get as high as $38,388 for a family of eight.
The poverty comparison was made by Ric Hogerheide, an MEA UniServ Director.
"There are current teachers working full time, first year teachers, that are below the poverty line in Lansing," Hogerheide said.
Hogerheide didn’t return an e-mail seeking comment.
What Hogerheide didn’t mention was how quickly a starting teacher’s salary can increase via “salary steps” which are across-the-board increases that teachers usually get for the first 10 years or more of their career.
For example, a teacher that started in 2006-07 in the Lansing School District with a bachelor’s degree earned $34,521, according to union contracts. That salary would increase 5-percent to $36,261 in 2007-08, then jump 8.8 percent to $39,475 in 2008-09, increase another 6.8 percent to $42,174 in 2009-10 and jump 6.4 percent to $44,900 in 2010-11.
“The MEA claims that schools need to pay for extremely expensive health benefits to attract good teachers, yet at the same time the union perpetuates the myth of the poverty-stricken teacher,” wrote Michael Van Beek, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s education policy director, in an e-mail. “How does this help attract high performers to the profession?”
Michigan school districts have regularly paid some of the nation’s highest teacher salaries.
And they work 9 months a year.
$35k is low enough for a family of 4 to receive state aid.
one of the big problems in MI is how high the maximum salary requirements are for benefits.
Let the market decide what is fair compensation. Get the unions, the Federal government AND the state government out of education.
What teachers should get paid for is performance, not credentials. When literacy rates get back to what they were in 1900, we might consider raising teacher pay. It might not be a bad idea to drop their wages to 1900 scale until they get the literacy rate up.
“And they work 9 months a year.”
Less than that.
“And they work 9 months a year.”
And this is THE point that needs to be made. They work 180+/- days when a full time private sector employee works 90-100 MORE days per year for the same money. And the teacher benefits (Med, Life, etc) are paid 12 months per year. The argument should be based on hourly rate, not annual rate.
I have to play devil’s advocate to the teacher haters here. Should credit be given to the good teachers who have bad students? I myself grew up in an inner city school district attending public schools. I received a good education, I was led to learning, I am literate and did earn my high school diploma then went on to college. During my years in public K-12 I saw several of my classmates act as hoodlums. They were not disciplined, they were disruptive and not attentive. Consequently they did not learn as I did. Yet I attended the same classes and had the same instructors. Those teachers, taught me. They could do nothing with the inner-city trash and I’m sure realized it. Should those teachers be punished because they “couldn’t squeeze blood out of a turnip?” Teachers can only mold if they have clay. The “students” I speak of were lost causes before they hit middle school and it was not the teachers fault... It was obviously (sarcasm) Bush’s fault. Should the teachers be punished as all you teacher and union haters seem to espouse?
And who wrote the stupid rules about non-punishment? They were probably written by the ex-teachers now managing the school district.
The education establishment wrote and enforces those stupid rules, and as part of that establishment, the teachers get a share of the blame.
I've met ignorant teachers, and good teachers, and lazy teachers. Each and every one defend the status quo, defending the proposition that they and the education establishment know what they are doing, and that the educational result the country is getting is the best that can be had. Unless, of course, they are paid $200,000 a year. At that price, magically they will become better teachers and the kids better students.
That literacy rates were higher before government schools is a fact, but not one that's part of their reality.
They are in a bad situation, but they (through their unions) asked for it.
Grade the teachers based on average change in test scores, not test scores themselves.
When did that start? When I was in school (1970’s), not every teacher had a master’s degree.
This union rep is full of it! It's the union, during contract negotiations, that often decides how the pot of money is apportioned across the salary scale. Typically, the union prefers that first-year teachers get less so that long-time union members get more.
Please post some proof. I had a preliminary 5 year teaching credential, and all I had to do to get the permanent one was to take about 12 more credits.
I did not address the matter of unions at all; only the amount of the pay. Nor did I mention that I thought teacher pay was unfair - only that it is incorrect to say they get paid too much. I agree, the federal government should not be responsible for education - I´m not so sure that the States should get out though. There needs to be some social organization to accomplish education on a large scale, though I do believe that the majority of the responsibility falls on the local citizens for deciding the direction of what the school in total offers. One other thing, in my county, school levies are attached to property taxes- with marked increase in renters, etc., I think school levies should be more widely funded in the community.
Dropping pay scales back to the 1900 level is not really an option is it? And I was not discussing credential problems, only that this should be a consideration when people are discussing that teachers are paid too much. It is a demand of the job, and no, not to limit the number of teachers - but to try and insure in a HUGE industry that there are qualified people teaching our kids. If you believe that the school teachers graduate from is inconsequential, you are wrong - HR departments review prospective teachers classes they took in college for compatibility, grades, what teaching school you went to, PRAXIS exam scores, etc. Sure, some get hired who have little to no foundation to teach, but that is not the norm. I do however agree that teachers should get evaluated based on performance, hence the concept of authentic assessment and student portfolios. What better way to track a teachers´performance than be looking at real results? Not those tied to a hyped up standardized test where you have teachers taking time away from content education to focus on sections of an exam, which may or may not even be in the subject matter which the teacher is endorsed to teach in.
I said some states. Washington State had the masters requirement until recently, but changed the certification for professional certification based on a board assessment of a teachers portfolio of work (so developed lesson plans, papers written, etc). I am unsure of how many other states have changed their requirements recently, but there is some indication that these requirements are changing due to the difficulty of getting highly qualified teachers in some states. Ohio, New York and Massachusetts, all elementary and secondary teachers are required to complete their master’s degrees in education within five years after signing their first teaching contract.
Beyond that, I think that having a Masters Ed. Teaching, MS Ed. or other similar degree is a good plan. Learning successful strategies and methods of teaching helps teachers to become better teachers.
Read more: What States Require a Master’s Degree for Teachers? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6325844_states-require-master_s-degree-teachers_.html#ixzz1HyEfSdWA
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