Posted on 06/17/2006 5:15:15 AM PDT by wintertime
One of the ongoing controversies in the public schools is the issue of teacher salaries. Teachers largely claim they are too low while taxpayers are equally vehement that they are more than adequate.
(snip)
Then there are the actual salary levels. Statistics in 2005 showed the average teacher salary in the nation was $46,762, ranging from a low of $33,236 in South Dakota to $57,337 in Connecticut. Even this ignores the additional compensation teachers receive as fringe benefits, which may add an additional 33% or more to the costs, primarily for very good retirement and health coverage plans. Further, averages include starting teacher salaries, which may begin at $30,000 or less, which teachers gladly mention, but ignore the high salaries of career teachers at or near the maximum on their salary schedule, important because retirement pensions are often based on the best three or so years.
(snip)
Last year, the New York State Department of Education issued a study that reported maximum teacher salaries in that state of $100,000 or more and median salaries as high as $98,000 per year. That is, there were districts, in Westchester County for example, where half of the teachers earned more than $98,000 a year.
A novel approach a few years ago by Michael Antonucci, director of the Education Intelligence Agency in California, compared teachers average salaries to average salaries all workers state by state. First prize went to Pennsylvania where the teachers received 62.5% more than the average employee. That difference is even greater when it is further considered that teachers average a 185 day work year while most workers put in 235.
(snip) Women who had been educators were 7.4% of the total deceased that year but 20.6% of them, nearly three times the statistical expectation were among the affluent few. Former male educators didn't do quite as well but even they were represented among the wealthy decedents by a ratio nearly 1.5 times the anticipated numerical ratio.
If you want to save, go to your school board and ask them to cut the salaries of the administrators. †hat of the average superintendent is five-10 times that of the beginning teacher. But what builds up cost is the empire-building. A superintendent has to have sveral assts, who in tern have much clerical help to do the work while the manager goes to meaning. By and large the ration of nonclassooom personel in the Public schools is about the same as the ratyionb of officers to enlisted in the military, even though every school teacher is a college grdauates and should not need all that supervision.
It would be much easier to simply let taxpayers spend their money on the school of their choice. Put competition into the education system and it would quickly correct itself.
That's not going to happen. NBame one political leader who has pushed vouchers. They know that most voters live in neighborhood where the schools are good enough for them. They know that they schools ar e not as good as private schools, but then the kids go on to do well enough in college, and meanwhile mom and pop don't have to pay those high tuition rates.
You miss a significant point. There is no high tuition rate, at least not another one, when a parent is allowed to move their child to a private school.
Mom and Pop have already paid. They would simply be moving their child and their dollars to a school of their choice.
You miss another significant point. It is not the parents that would not want to be able to put their children in the school of their choice. It is the politicians that will not let them.
I really can not stand it when people come on here that are either grossly uninformed or are purposely trying to distort the issus.
I don't know what the typical teacher puts in each day, I can simply say that in my first year as a teacher I put in anywhere from 15-18 hours a day.
As for wanting to go up against me in court, I am still licensed to practice law, come find you a case in OK and get special permission to practice here and we will try the case, that is if you are attorney. If you are not an attorney, then you have no clue what your talking about and should simply quit talking out of your a*s.
Where they heck did that post come from
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
From a Marxist.
There should be a bumper sticker that reads:
I am a Marxist. Thank a government school teacher.
They know that most voters live in neighborhood where the schools are good enough for them.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It has to do with the education industrial complex. This is similar to what Ike Eisenhower call the "military-industrial-complex".
In my former county the school system employed more people than any other industry. Do you think you would ever see vouchers in that county? Forget it!
All she does is bitch and complain about her "long hours" and the "daily commute." She's a liberal, but the funny thing is she despises the California teacher's union, the fact that she has to be a member to have/keep her job, and the mandatory dues she has to pay.
But her husband is an optical engineer, so between the two of them they live pretty well.
I know. The link I sent to you in
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1651012/posts?page=238#238
was for California schools.
While I agree that some districts have built Taj Mahals, your statement is a generalization. For every "expensive, largest, most beautifully maintained and manicured building and grounds in the entire community" there is probably a town where the high school is in an aging facility.
Also, you do realize that this is also a Catch 22? If a school is NOT maintained and grounds are not kept up, there's heck to pay as well. There'd be a long complaint line if our local schools were not well maintained.
You miss a significant point. Most parents don't pay property taxes that come even close to being equal to the per-pupil expenditures of their school system. Some barely pay any at all, because their property isn't worth much. Their children's educations are subsidized by other taxpayers in the district who may not even have children, or whose children are grown, and by businesses which pay property taxes.
So when Mom & Pop move "their child and their dollars", they are also moving the dollars of other people in that district. Granted, the dollars would be spent on that child anyway, but the district does give the family a benefit they would not otherwise have.
You miss another significant point. It is not the parents that would not want to be able to put their children in the school of their choice. It is the politicians that will not let them.
Hyperbole. You make it sounds as if there is a law against putting your children in private schools.
In districts where vouchers are available now, do all parents move their children to private schools? In districts where vouchers are not available, do no parents send their children to private schools?
I know plenty of people who are not well off, but find the money to send their children to private schools, because it's a priority for them. I know many more who could afford to send their children to private schools but think the public schools in their area are doing a good job. Sometimes they moved to areas where they knew the public schools were doing a good job.
I really can not stand it when people come on here that are either grossly uninformed or are purposely trying to distort the issus.
Gosh, so do I.
You don't know your history. A hundred years ago, most well-to-do parents sent their kids to private academics. Once the High school was invented and their quality become acceptable, more and more parents began to send their kids to public high schools rather than DAY academies. Yes, parents pay property taxes, but most of them are getting a bargin. Consequently they don't put pressure on the pols and they sit on school boards and give the school superintendents what they want.
Actually, the court houses and social-security administration are better than most of the school buildings. (But not better than the high school football stadiums.)
"I suggest you invest your money in a company that pays its CEO what it pays a worker."
-- --
Any CEO (other than an owner of a new company) who would accpet that low payment level and that high of responibility is an idiot that I would not want to work with or for.
Yes, the superintendent here in Abilene makes about $130,000. That's way too much tax money as far as I'm concerned.
Now there is a novel approach, let's go back 100 years and apply then to today's debate. Absolutely absurd.
Can a person teach in S.C. with such poor grammar and syntax skills?
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