Posted on 08/27/2015 8:45:53 AM PDT by MichCapCon
Rachel Brougham recently left her job as the assistant news editor of the Petoskey News-Review but continues to write for the daily newspaper. In her most recent column published Friday, Brougham celebrates public school teachers, but does so by repeating some common media myths and exaggerations about teacher compensation.
Several statements in Brougham’s column deserve a closer look.
Brougham: “Many starting salaries are barely $30,000.”
It’s rare to find a teacher’s starting salary at “barely $30,000” in Michigan.
At the Benton Harbor Area Schools, a starting teacher with a bachelor's degree gets $31,582. The Eau Claire school district located near the Indiana border pays new teachers $32,528.
But most school districts pay more for first-year teachers.
The National Education Association estimated the average starting salary for Michigan teachers was $35,901 in 2012-13, which is just shy of the national average ($36,141). That's the most recent data available.
At school districts within the readership area served by Petoskey News, teachers start at much higher salaries.
In Petoskey, a new teacher with a bachelor’s degree gets $37,960. In nearby Harbor Springs Public Schools, the figure is $42,271. Like all the amounts listed here, this does not include health insurance benefits or defined-benefit pension contributions made by the employer.
And teachers don’t stay at those starting salary levels for long. In Petoskey, in 10 years the employee who started at just under $38,000 is getting $57,898 plus benefits. Teachers who add academic credentials make more.
Brougham: “So tell me again how teachers are overpaid. Explain to me how you think teachers get paid full-time wages for part-time work. And describe for me just how teachers should be able to keep up with an increase in workload and improve student test scores while we pay them less, give them less in funding and constantly tell him it's all their fault.”
The notion that teachers are being paid less is not accurate.
Thirteen of the 17 largest school districts in Michigan gave some type of pay raise to their teachers in 2014-15, according to a survey of the schools done by Michigan Capitol Confidential. The pay increases were either in the form of a bonus or a seniority-based “step increase.” Of those four large school districts that didn’t give raises, only Waterford cut pay in 2014-15, by 1 percent.
Flint Community Schools, Detroit Public Schools and Warren Consolidated Schools didn’t respond to requests asking about raises. The school districts' teacher contracts list variables for raises to occur which could not be determined within the union contract. Overspending has placed all three of these districts in debt as of the 2014-15 school year.
Brougham: “Nationally, the average salary for public school teachers — including those with decades of experience in the classroom — is less than $57,000.”
The National Education Association estimated the average teacher salary in Michigan at $62,166 in 2013-14, the most recent year data is available. That is 11th-highest in the nation. New York had the highest average salary at $76,409.
Conventional public school teachers in Michigan with “decades of experience” would be at the very top of the union pay scale in and earn more than $57,000, especially if the teacher acquired a master’s degree.
In Harbor Springs, a teacher with 20 years of experience would make $68,289 with a bachelor’s and $76,650 with a master’s degree. In Petoskey, a 20-year teacher would earn $63,479 with a bachelor’s degree and $68,869 with a master’s.
At the Lansing School District, a 20-year teacher would earn $59,985 with a bachelor’s and $69,979 with a master’s.
Some districts have much more lucrative pay scales.
Walled Lake Consolidated Schools in Oakland County pays a 20-year teacher $75,326 with a bachelor’s and $85,609 with a master’s.
9 months of “work” each year. Excellent benefits. Good retirement. “Snow” days. Let’s all cry for the “educators”.
Individual teachers make MORE than average American FAMILY with (often) both mom and dad working.
Once the Dept. of Education is cleaned out, many things will improve.
.
I attended over ten (10) years of night school ... while married with children .. and working full time ...
to earn a Mechanical Engineering degree ...
because I didn’t want to on a teacher’s salary.
.
Those who want to get work head to points south such as West Virginia, Florida or Georgia where the pay is less, but so is the intensity of the competition. They then tend to stand out from the competition whenever there is an opening in Pennsylvania.
I don't know what's so hard to understand about that. Name me anything but a truly hot profession where people are able to get a high salary in their choice of location fresh out of college.
This also translates to:
"Most starting salaries are above $30,000."
Starting salaries tend to be low-ish, and you work your way to a higher salary. These people today seem to think they are entitled to a higher salary out of the gate.
And teachers work 9 months out of the year. They can supplement their incomes the other three months if they choose to. (Some do, some don’t.)
Despite rising salaries, taxpayer funded advanced degrees, and great benefits the quality of the product teachers produce has not increased in decades.
Let's say they could be paid for piece work. X number of tested students equals Y income for the following year, based on a performance review, with math scores being weighted for a higher worth.
When schools start to recognize that ability out-performs political reliability, perhaps we can turn around the decline of the US.
Every so often I start fantasizing...
Even this article did not address the one HUGE benefit of near lifetime employment guarantee of teachers’ jobs. Tell that to those > 90 millions Americans already laid off.
My wife is a school nurse (RN) and is basically on the teacher pay scale. She definitely could make more money, but she'd work weird shifts and work holidays. She appreciates the school schedule and loves working with kids. She does what she can to gain extra certifications and education that increase her pay when possible
It's all about balance, trade-offs and living with your decisions.
LYING its what Liberals do.
teaching profession: high barriers to get in, low standards to stay in....
When I left aerospace and started teaching I took a huge pay cut. But when I normalized my teacher salary at 6 Hrs a day over the school year, the compensation for hours worked approached the hourly equivalent of my aerospace salary.
On top of that the school district piled on supplemental contracts for various activities and the state paid a bonus of $3K at the end of the year because of a citizen's bond initiative.
The bottom line? My wife and I had much more expendible income when I was teaching than we ever did when I was working 8 to 5 in aerospace.
He had been a brick layer by trade, so in the summer time he'd do brick side jobs.
His last few years as a teacher, he grabbed whatever extra teaching work was available. He'd grab after hours stuff, whether intramurals or coaching, substitute fill in. Whatever would boost his overtime pay.
When he retired, his retirement was based on a percentage off of those last 3 years of total pay.
Because of that, he retired making over $80k a year in his retirement package.
He then laid brick for 5 more years, until he could start collecting Social Security at 62.
My friend is an elementary school teacher. She started teaching with her Masters +15, IIRC, 3 years in she was making $55k, that was back around '94. A few years later her and her husband had a child. She switched to teaching kindergarten, where she'd split the day with another teacher. One would teach the morning class, the other the afternoon class.
Another friend had sent me a link to a website that posted what public school faculty were getting paid throughout the state. She had been teaching for about 6 years, but was now part time and still making $45k (plus benefits).
Don't know what she's making now, as we've kinda lost touch over the years and I haven't bothered to try to find the website again, that gives faculty pay. (Just isn't that important to me).
Now that her kids are older, I'd expect she's teaching full time and probably between $65k and $75k a year. She'll probably retire in about the next 10 years, around 55 years old, collecting 70% of her gross pay average from her last 3 years working.
This is a really great summary of my experience too. We got all the time off the students did. What job on earth gives you a summer vacation, Christmas break and spring break in addition to all other recognized holidays?
It's not uncommon for "students" wanting to play sports in college, to major in elementary education.
I left teaching long ago, but I don't think I EVER had a day with only 6 hours. Grading papers on my couch or at my dining table usually took at least 2 hours per night. Coaching (an extra $1000 per sport season) took at least 2-3 hours more out of every day. Arriving an hour early to prep the room for the day's lesson plans (and reviewing those plans) added another hour to my "time clock". One of my main reasons for leaving the field was the ever-increasing demand for IEPs for every student (Individual Education Plans, to be revised and updated weekly, for each and every one of my 130 kids). Tack on another 6-8 hours every weekend for those. During lunches, I was still "on the clock" with students coming up to the table with problems or questions (or enforcing lunchroom decorum on my own). During my one period per day where I wasn't teaching, I was always managing SOME issue for the day. My work day usually began at around 6am and ended around 7pm or so every night... and that was with a short commute... plus many weekend hours.
Yes, there are MANY bad, lazy, and crappy teachers out there... and many ride the career to maximize benefits while minimizing work... but for anyone who takes the calling seriously, you CANNOT say that they only work 6 hours per day. I can only imagine what kinds of useless paperwork loads they have to deal with these days. As UNION jobs go, few require more constant work than that of teaching, with higher liability exposure (until nurses unionize), lower pay (compare teacher salaries to pipefitters... my brother is a union pipefitter... let me tell you how many hours in a day that THEY work!), and more constant nagging about job performance and expectations.
(I always enjoyed the lectures, when my students were regularly among the top in the district, if not the state... and I kept being informed about what I was doing "wrong", and how I needed to change... brilliant ideas like "red is traumatizing, use purple or green ink", or "for every time you correct a student making a math error, be sure to give them an encouraging comment as well", or "let's hand-pick successful students for this pilot program to see if it works for all struggling kids", etc etc etc etc. I'd just smile, listen, then ask one question at the end that the hyper-liberal principal couldn't answer, and was left stammering. It got to a point where he would ask in a faculty meeting if anyone had questions or comments, and he would ignore my hand in the air, even with 40 other professionals in the room waiting for him to call on me. It was THAT bad. It wasn't long after that until I left for another school, it wasn't any better, so I left the career path.)
In Albany NY it’s hard to find a teacher earning less than 80,000. I like what these teachers in the article ar being paid, $35,000 to start sounds fair. AND let’s introduce merit pay so the great teachers earn much more than the lousy teachers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.