Posted on 08/11/2015 9:41:40 AM PDT by MichCapCon
One schoolteacher who gets paid $87,349 annually, and another who gets $80,472, were highlighted in a recent Oakland Press article complaining that teachers had to get second jobs “to make ends meet.”
The article was written by a third teacher, Julia Satterthwaite, who works at the Rochester Community Schools district and is described as a "summer intern” for the newspaper.
The article featured one of the author’s colleagues, Karen Malsbury, who has been teaching for 14 years. Malsbury was quoted as saying, “There is little or no room for professional growth, little opportunity to increase your personal income, no step increases, no bonuses, no inflation pay rises, rising health care costs and more requirements to take college level classes to get up-to-date endorsements.”
Except, that’s not accurate. Rochester Community Schools teachers did experience a freeze in their automatic, seniority-based “step-increase” raises in 2013-14, but the raises continued in 2014-15, with additional step increases scheduled in each of the remaining four years of the current union contract.
While the story didn’t mention how much the teachers who were featured get paid, these figures are a matter of public record. Malsbury was paid $87,349 in 2014-15. Satterthwaite herself collected $65,987 from the school district. Under the district’s union contract these compensation levels were for 184.5 work days.
The Rochester contract has 20 annual “steps” in its pay scale, so teachers have some idea of approximately how much more they will earn for each year they remain on the payroll. Some of these seniority-based raises are as high as 5.5 percent, but in most cases they run between 3 percent and 4 percent. Teachers with more than 20 years on the job received bonuses ranging from $450 to $550.
Rochester Community Schools confirmed in an email that the provisions in the teachers’ contract as posted online were accurate.
Malsbury didn’t respond to questions sent to her work email.
The story also featured another Rochester teacher, Erin Slomka, who was quoted as saying it’s sad that teachers aren’t able to survive on one income. Slomka collected $61,741 in 2014-15.
Hudsonville teacher Lori Humphrey was quoted in the story as saying she knew several teachers selling skin care products on the side to make up for pay freezes.
But according to her district’s union contract, Humphrey didn’t have to endure pay freezes. She was paid $80,472 in 2014-15. The three-year contract specified 183 work days, and also included step raises for each year. An example provided in the contract text spells out how step increases work, so that eligible teachers will get a 7.7 percent salary increase in the 2016-17 school year.
The teachers' salaries reported in this story were provided in response to a Freedom of Information Act request sent to the state of Michigan, which included a database of public school employees that are a part of the Michigan Public School Employees' Retirement System (MPSERS). The figures cited here do not include health insurance and retirement benefits also given to school employees.
I know a teacher just like the whiners in the article.
He lives in a McMansion and claims that taxes are killing him.
Waaahhhhh!
There should be no or little room for professional growth for teachers. If you teach 2nd grade this year and do your job, what professional growth do you need to teach next year? This is no different than doing a job any where else whether you are running a deep fryer at McDonalds or an accountant in a business. That is as long as you are doing the same job next year. Note about accountants and other professionals: education is required to keep up with current practices. I contend that teaching 2nd grade should have been perfected by now, and there are not changes to current practices.
I home schooled my daughter during their elementary school years. 2nd grade was not difficult to teach and I do not have an education degree. My youngest daughter went to cyber school last year. She had AP calculus. Calculus has not changed since I was in college, other than a decline in the quality of the textbook. My daughter completed her calc with a grade of 98%. That was achieved by breaking out my college textbooks, problem solvers and a little tutoring on my part. The point about calculus is calculus has not changed and teaching it doesn't need to change. Basically, all of education can remain the same through high school with the exception of history, which needs to be updated with the passage of time.
So does professional growth mean preparing to be an administrator? That is a career change in my book and in most businesses you pay for your own education for a career change.
The real problem with education today is that a bunch of weak-minded liberals, that are often functionally illiterate, are running schools. They lack all ability to decompose educational material into learnable pieces of information. Then they overly complicate the education materials with a bunch of liberal mumbo-jumbo. When home schooling my daughter their school year was divided into 20 to 26 lessons for most subjects, particularly math. Sometimes a lesson would take two weeks to master and sometimes a morning. We moved on to the next lesson once the prior lesson was mastered. Then we moved on to the next grade in the middle of the school year. Bottom line, teaching isn't close to rocket science. It is closer to running that deep fryer at McDonalds.
Yep...seen a number of teachers (from California) move to Nevada or Arizona, upon retirement, because the California taxes are too damn high
Sounds more like a spending problem rather than an income problem.
Even multi-millionaires struggle to make “ends meet” when they over spend.
See most NBA players.
In at least one Southern California school district (I know people who work there,) their medical insurance is completely paid for. I pay about $600 a month for mine.
I lived with a guy that was going through separation and divorce. His ex-wife had picked out all stainless steel kitchen appliances. I had to wipe fingerprints off those f***ing things with stainless steel polish TWICE A WEEK. That is unacceptable to me.
Needless to say if my wife (like I will ever get married anyways) demands that I buy her a stainless steel fridge and stove, like the wood-fired cookstove and icebox I have provided her are not good enough, it's out the door with her!
80k for 9 months work...
$80K doesn't go very far if they want to live in places like Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham. I would think $80K would be enough for Rochester or Rochester Hills.
In general, it is not how much money you make, but how much you spend.
There are many stories of people who made high income (even millions) yet ended up broke. They spent more than they made.
If they can not live on $80,000 plus a year, retirement is not going to be very pleasant for them.
That sounds like a lot of wasted money on advanced degrees. A BA, BS or relevant life experience is all that is needed to teach high school. No wonder education whether public or private costs so much.
One schoolteacher who gets paid $87,349 annually...for 184.5 work days.
That's the equivalent of $123,093.40 for a "real" work year (260 days)
Degrees in relevant subject areas are highly prized by top public schools. A friends daughter had an MA in education and an MA in math, and the offers she got right away were very good. After a few years experience, she easily topped $100K for a school year. These kinds of pubic schools want large numbers of their kids to get the top grade on the calculus AP exam, and are prepared to pay to insure that this happens. If you are really good, all the richest towns will want you.
I recon a girl shouldn’t complain about having a wood-fired cookstove and an icebox. After all what more would you need to make a sandwich?
But, they have to buy school supplies that the district can’t afford: Stickers, posters, ...
That is on top of the ‘suggested’ student donations of 1 box kleenex, 12 pencils, crayons, etc. at start of year.
TV is guilty of a lot, but I have come to think that its habitual depiction of effortless affluence is one of its biggest sins. People whose mental lives are dominated by television think America is much richer than it is, and this has consequences, including fantasy ideas about income and the merits of income redistribution.
These teachers are complaining about topping out at $80,000. That is a well above average income. A married schoolteacher couple, each making $80,000, is well into the top ten percent of household income distribution. I wonder how many of these teachers realize that.
ROFL!!!!
One guy is bitching because teachers all have “pretty little education degrees”.
When that turns out to be false ...
Another guy is bitching because teachers all have relevant MA/MS degrees ... and that’s TOO MUCH education.
Tell you what: Go along with my proposal. Abolish government schools. Privatize the child education business. Then, we can let the FREE MARKET sort out what sort of education background is appropriate for teachers.
Wouldn’t that be grand?
Oh, yeah ... Do you really want to know why education is more expensive now (in adjusted dollars) than, say, 30 years ago?
Don’t look in the classroom. Look in the administrative offices. You’ll find a much larger populations of deans, presidents, counselors, and other assorted hangers-on than you would have found, say, 30 years ago.
I think you just hit on something. Relevant degrees shouldn't be highly prized. If a teacher lacks the knowledge to teach a subject then they are not qualified to teach. When I was in college in the early 80's I watched mathematics majors become math ed majors when they couldn't deal with real math. I watched math ed majors become el ed majors when they couldn't deal with watered down math. A degree doesn't neccesarily qualify one to be a teacher. Teachers need a mastery of a subject. If you teach math in high school all that you need to master is the subject matter of what is being taught in high school math and the ability to teach. The subject matter in high school courses is nothing more than college freshman subject matter for non-education majors. That is unless you think remedial course work is freshman level work.
Bottom line: the knowledge required to teach high school is minimal compared to most other professional careers. A physics major, math major, engineering major, comp sci major and so on all have the required mathematical knowledge to teach math in high school. They get that knowledge by the time they enter college or by the end of their freshman year of college. This isn't rocket science. Rocket science requires knowledge well beyond what is taught in high school and undergraduate studies in college.
There was a time was a time when a college degree wasn't even required to teach K-12. Given the quality of education hasn't increased in America in the last 50 or so years, I contend that all of the additional degrees are a complete waste of money and the quality of teachers has decreased.
You are better off getting her the stove. :)
Hand her the can of polish if she wants the stainless. Gah! I hate the stuff. If I wanted to work in a kitchen that looks like it belongs in a prison I would just go throw bricks though a few windows.
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