Posted on 02/17/2011 6:31:06 PM PST by Nachum
[Milwaukee, Wisconsin] MacIver News Service – For the first time in history, the average annual compensation for a teacher in the Milwaukee Public School system will exceed $100,000.
That staggering figure was revealed last night at a meeting of the MPS School Board.
The average salary for an MPS teacher is $56,500. When fringe benefits are factored in, the annual compensation will be $100,005 in 2011.
MacIver’s Bill Osmulski has more in this video report.
(Excerpt) Read more at maciverinstitute.com ...
The average homeschooler is educated with less than $600.00 per year and scores at the 85th percentile on standardized tests. One salaried teacher giving up their career (for the kids) in WI would pay for over 200 kids to get a superlative education.
Now is the time to finally end this myth. When push comes to shove they will refuse to accept pay freezes, or small payments to help fund retirement and health care, they vote to watch others get laid off, then whine that the classrooms are too crowded.
Soon people are going to start placing the blame on kids not learning on the teachers who are charged with this responsibility. Imagine that...soon we might be able to blame the post ofice for losing 10B a year. Oh the times they are a changing...
You have to know somebody. And you might have to sell your soul.
As a high school English teacher, on a good week, I work between 60 and 70 hours a week. At least. It’s no cake walk.
It goes to show what lies people come up with.
Really? That is certainly unusual. Please detail your schedule, since you made your claim.
Muawiyah,
Almost none of us get the Money. I bill by the hour, and I still have the standard deductions. We all know that we have to make comparisons against non-paycheck benefits.
You have to figure in the equivalent that a real pension program would be. How much in savings out of a paycheck each year would it take to have the millions to fund a really nice retirement from around age 55 to 75? That’s real money - I don’t have any pension program and I often think about how much better off I would be with a teacher’s pension and job security.
I disagree about the health care costs too. I was with a global software company and didn’t really think that much about our “cafeteria program” - cause we didn’t see the real cost. And the benefits were great. But then I learned that it was costing 18 thousand per year. And it was easy for politicians to give on these nebulous benefits so I don’t doubt that they have the high-end Cadillac plan because these were easy for the politicians to give in negotiations.
And then factor in the weeks off at holiday time, the summers off. If you had job security, how much would you give for that kind of time freedom.
Then, as a Cheesehead let me also say that my school district has had back to back 9 percent tax increases. And the District Executive says that in no way brings them to a sustainable level. Its crazy talk.
Unemployment, employees giving back wages. I find the figures quite believable and I would like the teachers to express gratitude for the great income and benefits that they receive.
And now lets talk about Milwaukee’s ‘worst in the nation’ school performance...
Not everybody retires ~ some die before then. Then, of those who retire, some die early, some die soon after that, and yet others die a long time from now.
There's a scientific field of study called ACTUARIAL SCIENCE. It weighs the probability of death ~ based on actual data regarding death ~ and determines what it will take to sustain the retirement program for all the members out through time.
It also has to account for new entrants, and changing demographics.
Politicians like to ignore all of this since the numbers are huge and that always hurts their heads.
What happens is that your typical financing plan for any retirement system ends up appearing UNDERFUNDED. You have $X going in and $Y going out. Sometimes when the underlying investments are doing good, and new retirements are down, you may have a retirement system that looks OVERFUNDED. That always excites management since so many systems were set up so that companies could "tap" surplus retirement system funding.
Occasionally the fund managers will expand benefits such that the "surplus" gets used on behalf of the members. BTW, that's usually when a retirement system runs into trouble ~ what you have to do is look at the actuarial reports, not just the apparent balance sheet.
One general rule for most retirement systems is that you are not allowed to pass on the benefits to your heirs and assigns (except under very strenuous rules related to disabled survivors, spouses, etc). A typical individual plan would try to leave some surplus "for the kids". A group plan will leave them penniless.
I hope that helps answer some of your questions. The basic idea in a group plan is to build up a fund that can provide a retirement income for the members of the group. Some "win" and some "lose" by dying before they've been paid back.
During the football season, in addition to teaching his full load, he does football practice, and coaches games on Thursday (7th grade, 8th grade & JV)then varsity on Friday night, reviews film on Saturdays, and has a film session with the players on Sunday afternoon. His office is about five feet by five feet. The weight room is above him, so when anyone drops a weight, dust falls, and the gym is next to him, so he has to keep the door closed to avoid being hit by stray basketballs, which make an awesome sound when they hit the door.
Can't honestly say I know what his salary is, but I can say that he's extremely happy with his job.
A lot of students from his high school come through my college program, and yes, they are competent students who can read, write, punctuate and do grammar.
I'm not going to defend all teachers, but I know some great teachers.
1. Politicians cannot see a pile of money without trying to grab it. Actually, this is true for most humans.
2. Underfunding of retirement systems USUALLY comes about like this: Contributions must equal the outgo times the number of people times a factor of rate of return. When the budget does not permit full contributions, politicians and other policy wonks don't worry about what will happen ten years down the road, they worry about making this year's budget balance and juggle the numbers. Instead of projecting the rate of return on what is a realistic number of how an investment will play out, they say, "We have X amount of dollars to put into the fund this year. What rate of return is required to make the fund look actuarially sound? A lot of funds projected a rate of return of 8-10% annually. Yes, it MIGHT happen some years, but basing a fiscal projection on a rate of return that high is nuts. You aren't going to have a rate of return of 10% unless a good credit risk is having to pay 10% on a loan. Any projected rate of return that exceeds the loan interest rate paid by a good credit risk is speculative, and could very well lose money.
As a last note, one of the things that will come up shortly is that government employees that have the option of retiring will do so in large numbers. This will put a big hit on the retirement systems.
One large agency, USPS, that accounts for about 30% of all federal employees, is OVERPAID by $78 billion!
They also have to pay in advance for future retirees medical insurance.
How that came about is interesting ~ USPS discovered it'd overpaid to the federal fund backing CSRS and FERS and Health care for retirees, and was also covering the service time component of individuals who'd served in the military.
In short a massive overpayment of Biblical proportions was found ~ yet, Congress, rather than rebate the overpayment to the folks who pay postage, or to the employees who'd been overcharged as well, decided to INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF OVERPAYMENT.
In fact, Congress pretty well tripled the load.
At the moment the federal retirement system is being subsidized by postal workers, and the US government is beneficiary of a massive forced loan that pays little interest.
It's still the basic scam used to rip off the old LTV retirement fund ~ just in case anyone thinks this is peculiar to government.
It’s not all that unusual. Any good teacher, and I know there are plenty of bad ones out there, but any good teacher surely logs that many hours, if not more. My mother is a kindergarten teacher. Whenever I feel tired or overwhelmed, I just look at her. She rarely comes home before 6:00, and spends, on average, at least 12 hours in her classroom every weekend.
The sheer volume of work can be staggering. I try to have two graded assignments for each class every week. I have 150 students. Therefore, I grade at least 300 papers every single week (and good teachers grade for effort and accuracy, not simply completion). I’m also in the process of grading 70 literary analysis research papers. A good one takes about 20 minutes to grade. The ones that are, let’s say, problematic can take much longer. I teach three levels of English (freshman, sophomores, and juniors), and that means preparing three different sets of lessons and materials every week. I usually have to devote at least an entire Saturday or an entire Sunday every weekend to preparing for the coming week and grading any leftover assignments from the week before. I’m starting to put a few restrictions on myself. My latest rule is that 8:00 PM is the official cutoff for the work day.
I love my job, and I’m good at it, and I feel very accomplished to see the progress my students have made this school year. I don’t have complaints—I work hard because it’s my responsibility to educate my students to the best of my ability. And that takes time and dedication. So I don’t mean to whine. But when people act as though teaching is some cushy job, I’m irked.
If all your school time is spent in a full, active classroom, and all the grading and lesson plans have to be done before or after school, then kudos to you.
And if you and your Mother spend many hours of weekend time in the classroom, then more kudos.
I maintain that that is unusual.
Kind of disappointed that you felt you need to school me.
Your short course in actuarial calculation does not change the fact that you did not list the value of that program on a present (paycheck) basis. I am quite certain that an Actuary could calculate that value taking mortality, departure from education employment. And I am also certain that for teachers who retire at ages between 55 and 65 (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_age_of_retirement_for_a_teacher) the value is considerable.
A rule of thumb I read recently for retirement preparation is 20-30 percent of income.
I second the kudos. We know there are plenty of good ones and they don’t the real appreciation they should.
Agreed. Politicians threaten solid pension management.
Don’t forget the risk that poor management - the kind performed by governments without a stake in the risk provide - will lead to outright theft...
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission warned public pension funds on Thursday that they risk running afoul of anti-fraud laws if they do not have proper procedures in place to prevent wrongdoing.
The SEC issued a report reminding public pension funds of their legal responsibilities after an agency investigation involving questions of insider trading at the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA).
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/03/06/sec-pensionfunds-idUSN0624559320080306
That's why I left it out.
The simpler term ~ that may get you to the same place ~ is called "anticipated earnings" used only with reference to the investment vehicle ~ and that may well be counseled by law over periods of time ~ e.g. no use of investments in real estate through some periods, and no use of stocks in another, and no use of bond rates in another ~ I've been around long enough to see just everything prohibited, then rehabilitated.
Frankly, using a single discount factor to bring in an average interest rate over the whole period of performance automatically disallows consideration of variations that may or may not occur in the future for short periods of time. I kind of like to keep my options open.
BTW, the federales don't use present value analysis for anything but initial land acquisition ~ USPS does it on EVERY rental, lease, new construction or rehabilitation project BTW ~ and I did THOUSANDS of them over the years. Lots of fun.
When you get right down to it the comparison of an individual retirement fund with a group fund the size of that of federal retirees is pret' near impossible ~ for one thing the federales NEVER suffer a mass die-off ~ but the individual does do that from time to time, plus his his heirs and assigns get the residual (along with the tax people).
I think that is a question better left to an organization like FIDELITY anyway.
That sounds about right to me. At my company we pay 50% of the cost of the plan. Family coverage runs about $1,000 a month or so to the employee so that would make a total cost of between 23 and 24K per year.
L
The answer is, of course, A LOT!!!! All individual plans cost more because of the risk of not dying soon enough!
The answer is, of course, A LOT!!!! All individual plans cost more because of the risk of not dying soon enough!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.