Posted on 03/07/2022 9:29:36 AM PST by george76
The high wages of teachers in Boston, where nearly 3,000 are paid six-figure salaries, reflects the strength of their union and suggests that a district plagued by “chronic underperformance” may be more geared toward the adults running it than the children it serves, watchdogs say.
A Herald analysis of payroll data found that 2,905 teachers earn more than $100,000 annually, compared to the average per capita income of $44,690 in Boston in 2019, the most recent year for which the U.S. Census Bureau has statistics.
Those teachers earned six figures in a city where 18.9% of the population – about 121,000 of 642,000 people – live below the poverty line, compared to the national average of 12.3%.
David Tuerck, president of the Beacon Hill Institute, which develops economic and statistical models for policy analysis, thinks Boston Public School teachers are overpaid “because of the strength of the teachers unions in Massachusetts.”
Neither Jessica Tang, president of the Boston Teachers Union, nor a spokeswoman for BPS returned calls seeking comment.
“Teaching is a demanding, vitally important calling in our society, and educators should be well compensated,” said Jamie Gass, director of education policy and research at the Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based think tank.
“The problem is that when BPS teachers have excessively high salaries and gold-plated pensions, while the district is defined by chronic underperformance, it looks more like a massive employment system designed to benefit adults than an organization focused on educating schoolchildren,” he continued.
Exam schools dominate the top four schools with teachers who make $100K or more.
Boston Latin School has 104, Boston Latin Academy 77, and the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science 71. Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, which is not an exam school, has the second highest number of six-figure earners: 88.
Thirty-nine Boston Public Schools had 25 or more teachers who earn more than $100,000, and 128 schools had one or more teachers who make that amount.
“One hundred thousand’s a lot,” said Edith Green, whose 15-year-old son attends Fenway High School. “Two parents don’t even bring that in. And they say they have to pay teachers high salaries partly because of the high cost of housing in the Boston area? Well, we also have to pay for housing in Boston, but with less than half the money teachers make.”
The Boston School Committee spent part of its meeting last week in a strategy session behind closed doors to prepare for salary negotiations with the BTU.
As of Feb. 25, the average public school teacher salary in Boston was $68,466, according to salary.com, but the range typically falls between $59,766 and $79,057. Salary ranges can vary widely depending on several factors, it noted, including education, certifications, additional skills and the number of years spent in the profession.
Sharon Hinton, founder and executive director of Black Teachers Matter and a former BPS teacher, said $100,000 is a lot of money.
“But you don’t know how long the teacher’s been there or all the things they do after school, like lesson plans, grading papers, talking to parents or dealing with something that might have come up that day,” Hinton said.
And that might include matters of life and death Hinton said, like the ninth-grader who was killed in 2015, devastating his class.
Or, in 2013, a double homicide that left two bodies in the middle of the street just in time for students to see them as they boarded their buses.
She recalled her own experience dealing with girl who acted out in class because, Hinton took the time to find out, her cousin had just been murdered.
“On any given day, you might be a Big Sister, you might be a counselor, you might be a surrogate parent, in addition to being a teacher. So if they get paid $100,000 a year, God bless them,” she said. “We teach everyone else but still don’t get the respect we deserve, the kind of respect teachers get in other countries.”
Deborah Brait Galante, a Grade 7 Math teacher who had a base salary of $116,110.80 and a gross salary of $191,367.77. What exactly does one have to do to grab an extra $75,256.97?
~ht comments
Don’t forget the cadillac health bennies...
What grade level are their high school graduates able to read at? Second grade? Third grade?
Baltimore City high school, where Project Baltimore has found hundreds of students are failing.. where a student who passed three classes in four years, ranks near the top half of his class with a 0.13 grade point average.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3939588/posts
You can’t shame Democrats.
They don’t have a conscience.
I’ve taught in a low-paying private school and in a better-paying urban public school. There is, of course, no correlation between teacher pay and student performance.
But there is a strong correlation between how the school’s leaders lead and students perform. The administrators in the private school where I taught demanded excellence from everyone. Teachers taught their subjects in the traditional way. Student disruptions were not tolerated. And so scores were high.
Urban public schools are pretty much the opposite. Administrators are usually a blend of weak and woke. So teachers must spend a good chunk of their time just breaking up fights, and trying to fulfill nonsensical mandates. No surprise when the students don’t score well.
teachers union is the major donor to the rat party nuff sed
OMG...the more worthless they get, the more money they make....
It is the American way, didn’t you know that?
Boston, an overpriced and overrated bleephole.
Retirement
100k for half a years work and only 4 classes a day, not bad. Plus, with tenure you can never get fired.
180 days a year, compared to usual full time of 240 days a year.
But many teachers are grading papers and doing lesson plans at 9 pm. It depends on how conscientious they are.
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