Posted on 05/09/2012 4:50:49 AM PDT by MichCapCon
A Tecumseh Public School official says there isn't a second-year teacher with a master's degree making $31,000 a year, despite claims by the Michigan Education Association president and a local website saying that such a teacher exists.
MEA President Steven Cook made the claim twice recently in Detroit News columns.
His statement was then repeated by the website, Blogging for Michigan, which said it found the $31,000-a-year, second year teacher with a master's degree.
Blogging for Michigan, which states on its website: “All Rights Reserved. Suck on that, GOP,” claimed to have found the teacher and posted a paycheck stub with the name of the teacher removed. The website says it is run by Christine Barry, who didn’t return a phone message seeking comment.
Jim Brown, payroll manager at Tecumseh Public Schools, said that a memo of understanding between the union and the district imposed a 10-percent pay cut below the contractual starting salary for teachers just hired. But none met the circumstances the union claims.
The salary schedule on the Tecumseh school district website says that a starting salary for a teacher with a master’s degree is $37,116. Brown said that would be reduced to $33,405 after the 10-percent reduction. That teacher would have remained at that salary for a second year due to the memo of understanding between the district and the union, he said, adding that all teacher’s had their salaries restored to the full schedule amount as of April 27.
Brown said a first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree would start with a salary of $33,665, which would be reduced to $30,299 after the 10-percent reduction.
The Michigan Association of School Boards reported in 2011 that a first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree had an average salary of $36,798.
Many districts offer much higher salaries to teachers just starting out. For instance, in Grosse Pointe, a second-year teacher with a master’s degree makes $52,265. In River Rouge, that teacher makes $50,522. The average teacher’s salary in Michigan is $63,024, according to the Michigan Department of Education.
Nonetheless, on March 28, the MEA's Cook first mentioned a teacher with a gross salary of $31,000 per year with a master’s degree and in the second year on the job. On April 25, he said in a column that the teacher was from Lenawee county and repeated the salary and experience claim.
Cook didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.
The education industry bases pay on degree wickets, not actual performance.
Regarding the broader issue, teachers seem to expect to have their pay be competitive with industry based on degree level rather than on skill. I mean, seriously, how much is someone with a masters degree in education worth outside of schools? So they just say "masters degree" so they are compared to engineers and nurses and people like that.
Putting that aside, assuming all masters degrees are the same, let's look at teacher compensation as a whole and compare it to industry. Hmmm, can't find my company's policy on tenure anywhere. Oh yeah, nobody anywhere in the real world has a guarantee that they can never be fired! Wow, I might take a little less if I had that. Maybe if the teachers gave that up, they could get a higher salary? Oh, that's not on the table, ever. Well then accept that with a guaranteed job for life tenured teachers cannot compare their compensation to anyone in the real world and move on.
This is a red herring.
If someone bemoans there’s “a second-year teacher with a master’s degree making $31,000 a year” the correct answer is “So? What’s your point?”
A masters doesn’t make you a good teacher. I could have 3 masters and I’d still produce a classroom of morons.
The funny thing is equating starting salary (and second year is still the beginning of a career)with anything. I know i had to prove myself and as is the case in the real world prove myself over and over again. Even today in my upper 50’s i have to produce. I have to show my worth. The fantasy world of unions believing they’re owed something for having gone to school.
Very true!! Why does a master’s seem to infer a certain salary level? Ask all the PhD’s on food stamps, not to mention the people with a master’s in social work. They’d be thrilled to make $30,000.
A thing is worth only and exactly what another is willing to pay for it.
I just had a person with a Masters in Social Work ask me for a $10.00/hr receptionist job.
In this economy there are plenty of Masters degrees and PhD’s asking “Will that be for here or to go?”
Does anyone deciding to become a teacher expect to earn six figures? Teachers moan about low pay, yet it is commonly known that they don’t make big money. Life is about choices we make. As far as degrees, I’ve known people with advanced degrees who couldn’t find their butt with both hands, and high school dropouts who were geniuses.
I know a junior high school teacher with a Masters degree that is in her 38th year of teaching at the same school.
She teaches science at a Catholic school.
This year, she will make $49,000.
“Does anyone deciding to become a teacher expect to earn six figures? Teachers moan about low pay, yet it is commonly known that they don’t make big money. Life is about choices we make. As far as degrees, I’ve known people with advanced degrees who couldn’t find their butt with both hands, and high school dropouts who were geniuses.”
.....and they get their summers off plus to weeks of vacation. They are paid for 180 days of work.
Ahhh. Memories....
I attended a prestigious Engineering University. I had 2 roomates my senior year. All of us were in engineering/technology programs. We had girlfriends (two of us anyway). One was in hotel management. The other was in communications. Listening to their "stresses" about their class work became the subject of much ribbing in our apartement. We accepted their challenge to complete all of their homework for one day without having attended a single class. I took on the communications load and one "Jim" took on hotel management. I finished in 35 minutes. He finished in 65 minutes becuase he had to do some research about weather patterns to finish.
Thermodynamics anyone?
New York, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey have teachers making over $100,000 a year. There are other states that have teachers making over $100,000 a year.
Furthermore teaching is a part time job and no my gym teacher did not stay up to midnight grading papers every night and neither did most of my teachers.
Bet you didn’t get any that night!
The big lie in MA is that teachers start in Boston at $21,000 with a Masters. The Boston Teacher’s Union own web site has them starting at $45,000.
I knew that some made $75,000 a year, but didn’t know some made $100,000. I guess that’s the power of unions! It is a part time job—two weeks off over Christmas, a week in the spring, and all summer. I agree that teachers probably aren’t up late grading papers, particularly gym teachers and grade school teachers. The argument is always “why does someone make $20,000,000 a year for hitting a baseball, but a teacher makes $50,000 a year? Teachers are government employees. Baseball players operate on the open market. There are thousands of good teachers in the world, but only a select few can hit a baseball like Albert Pujols, and the market supports it.
At one point, she was selling Superbowl commercials for Fox. At another point in her career, she had some impressive media people's personal cell phone numbers in her business Rolodex.
Now she raises our children and runs a couple small businesses out of the house.
As it turns out, I married up. :o)
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