Posted on 06/18/2012 1:33:16 PM PDT by Sopater
It takes a lot of nerve to ask for a 30 percent pay raise. You’d better be sure you had a banner year. Yet in Chicago, where just 15 percent of fourth graders are proficient in reading (and just 56 percent of students graduate), the teachers union is set to strike if the district does not agree to a 30 percent increase in teachers’ salaries.
The average teacher in Chicago Public Schools—a district facing a $700 million deficit—makes $71,000 per year before benefits are included. If the district meets union demands and rewards teachers with the requested salary increase, education employees will receive compensation north of $92,000 per year.
According to the Illinois Policy Institute, the average annual income of a family in Chicago is $47,000 per year. If implemented, the 30 percent raise will mean that in nine months, a single teacher in the Chicago Public School system will take home nearly double what the average family in the city earns in a year.
According to the union, 91 percent of its members voted for the ability to strike. That vote gives the union the ability to walk out of public school classrooms as children return to school this fall.
The union argues that Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) wants to extend the school day, and that the requested salary increase would compensate them for extending the school day from 5.5 hours—among the nation’s shortest school days—to 7.5 hours. Chicago Public Schools states that under the extended school day:
On average teachers will provide 5.5 hours of instruction (an increase of 54 minutes), receive a 45-minute duty-free lunch and 60-minute prep period and supervise the passing period. They will also be required to be on-site for 10 minutes before and after school.
While the union bemoans the longer school day and is demanding a hefty pay raise as a result, taxpayers will be left holding the bill for a 30 percent salary increase and wondering whether $92,000 is appropriate compensation for public school employees.
As Heritage’s Jason Richwine notes, public school teachers should be compensated no better or worse than their similarly skilled private-sector counterparts.
…the teaching profession is not actually underpaid, nor is it an unpopular career choice among college graduates. In fact, total compensation for the average public school teacher is considerably higher than what his or her skills would merit in the private sector.
Creating a teacher compensation system that rewards the best teachers in a fiscally responsible manner is a broadly shared goal. To that end, policymakers should avoid across-the-board pay increases, focusing instead on performance pay by easing restrictions on entering the teaching profession, and basing tenure decisions on performance in the classroom.
“fire then lot” should be “fire the lot”.
Close the public schools let the children run wild in the streets, it can’t get any worse there as it is.
> the teachers union is set to strike if the district does not agree to a 30 percent increase in teachers’ salaries.
A teachers’ strike would be the best thing for the students.
They’d have to be either home-schooled or they’d have to hire non-union teachers who’d have an incentive for doing a good job.
A perfect example of how out-of-kilter public sector union workers demands (and poor performance) and the taxpayers ability to pay for them have become. These mediocre teachers should be fired, not given pay increases. That they make this demand stridently, and issue threats along with it, is outrageous. Oh, wait, this is happening in Chicago. Never mind.
——Close the public schools let the children run wild in the streets, it can’t get any worse there as it is.-——
No exaggeration. And you can save $15k/child/yr.
Wow a whole 5.5 hours to 7.5, God what a bunch whinny crybabies, but after wisconsin I am not surprised.
Poor Chicago
they make about 6, 7x what I do.
Close the schools & then contract out to Charter Schools. They’ll save money AND actually educate the children.
Governor Quinn should pull a Walker and watch the left’s heads explode.
He would definitely lose, but it would put the issue in front of the whole nation.
I suppose the next thing they’ll want is the summer off. Oh, wait, they already get that.
Vouchers!
I make more than the average teacher makes now, and less than they would make after a 30% raise.
But then again I work 9 hours a day five days a week without a built in summer vacation or the sweet retirement package they get.
And I received a real education - rather than a degree in “Education”.
Shee it ... go ‘head ‘n strike ... th’ kids’ll prolly actually LEARN sum’m
He would earn my vote... Unionized public school teachers are vastly overpaid.
Same here. Teach in my subject of qualification because I enjoy teaching.
Close the schools and pay the parents $10,000 per child to homeschool. It would be cheaper for the taxpayer.
Ah. For a moment there, I thought you wanted all of them turned into pillars of salt...
I tried that. Despite the much bemoaned lack of teachers in science and math - and a M.S. degree - I was told (in California) that I needed a degree in “Education” in order to teach High School.
Sure, as a Graduate Student I was apparently qualified to teach College students University level Cell and Molecular Biology (I was very highly rated by my students), I was apparently unqualified to teach High School students basic Science.
I loved teaching as well, and was willing to take a pay cut to do it. But I was not willing to go back to school to get a degree in “Education”. My ex wife went through that and I helped her though the nonsensical course work.
But all is well that ends well. Now I do real science every day and make more than I would have as a teacher (although the work is harder and the hours longer and the perks less). Moreover I really do good with the work I do - finding life changing novel treatments for serious diseases.
When I hear about them threatening to strike I can only think “Ronald Reagan and the Air Traffic Controllers”.
Fire them all and replace them - it shouldn’t be too hard to find qualified teachers if you do not insist on a degree in “Education”.
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