When I was in teaching, I felt the new teachers should be paid as much as the oldest teachers because the job was more difficult for a new teacher than someone who is supposedly experienced in the filed. If the job is not a whole lot easier after twenty years of doing the same thing, you're in the wrong field. And really, what the teaching profession wants to be doing is attracting people who can do, and have done more than just gone to school all their lives taking education courses; those are the people who have a lot to teach and not those who have only learned to be "teachers." The only reason a longstanding teacher should remain in the profession is because paid the same as any other job, teacheing is what they'd really want to do and enjoy and are rewarded in that way.
As a former union organizer, the major rationale for underpaying those at the bottom was so that they'd complain loudly so those at the top could justify their disproportionate grab of the across the board raises. In the case of Hawaii, they lower the pay of those actually doing the classroom teaching to raise the salaries of "educational administrators." I'm sure it's the same deal with all the teachers unions. Please confirm.
$28,357 really does not seem like a wage someone could live on in Hawaii.
That will ensure a qualified generation of new teachers does something else. How can someone earn 28K in Hawaii and not live in a van/stationwagon parked close to a public restroom?
Yes, the teachers with seniority (and tenure) are the ones who control the contract megotiations, and will ALWAYS line their own pockets first.
Plus, it is to the union's advantage to keep entry-level salaries low, to use as a weapon in public relations campaigns. Many naive taxpayers look only at the first-year salary, not at how the money is distributed across the pay scale.
(Ex-teacher here. Been on two contract negotiation teams.)
Now, that's just plain silly.
Think about what you're saying. In essence what you're saying is that the new check out person should be paid as much as the long time check out person, the new fireman as much as the old-timer, the new pilot as much as the senior pilot. All because the new guy always has to work twice as hard just to keep up. What are you gonna do with the new baseball player, spot him a couple runs to make sure it's fair?
Earth to Mike...........time to leave la la land and come to earth.
If you had been in the trenches of the public school system teaching for the past 25 years and the powers to be decided to pay a teacher fresh out of college the same as you, YOU WOULD BE PISSED OFF! Now think about it!
These union negotiated contracts make no sense. An award winning, experienced teacher from out of state, (like my wife), would make only a little more than the 28K starting salary, since increases from experience outside is tiny compared to in district tenure. Experienced teachers within the state, transfering from a district only a few miles away, would also get only a pitance more than a newly minted 20 something.
Collective bargaining creates situations that are terribly unfair to experienced, high performing teachers. It degrades our entire public school system by not rewarding performance in anyway.
If we want to 'fix' our education system, cut 80% of the administrators and give the money to teachers. And I don't even want to hear that the districts need all of these Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents, Principles, Vice Principles, Assistant Principles, Assistant to the Vice Principle etc etc.
Each and every school district in the US is overburdened with 'administration'. In the past we did a damn good job of educating our children without all of this dead wood.
Climbing the 'administrative' ladder is a vocation now, and it's a good ole boys club.
Rant/
The principal reason is to boost the salaries for the long serving teachers in order to maximize their pensions when they retire in the near future. This practice is common in school districts with a large population of teachers with many years service!