Posted on 04/02/2018 7:56:23 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Oklahoma teachers walked off the job on Monday, closing schools statewide as they demanded salary rises for some of the lowest-paid educators in the United States and more funds for a school system reeling from a decade of budget cuts.
“We’re walking because our students deserve more,” the Oklahoma Education Association, the state’s largest union for educators with about 40,000 members, said over the weekend.
Oklahoma’s Republican-controlled legislature last week approved the state’s first major tax increase in a quarter century to help fund pay raises for teachers, hoping to avert a strike with a $450 million revenue package.
The funding would raise by $5,000 the pay of teachers beginning their career, and provide a raise of nearly $8,000 for those with 25 years’ experience, lawmakers said.
That fell short of teachers’ demand for a $10,000 pay increase over three years for teachers and a $5,000 raise for support personnel.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
hslda.org
Home schooling is easier than you think.
Oklahoma’s Republican-controlled legislature last week approved the state’s first major tax increase in a quarter century to help fund pay raises for teachers, hoping to avert a strike with a $450 million revenue package.
The funding would raise by $5,000 the pay of teachers beginning their career, and provide a raise of nearly $8,000 for those with 25 years’ experience, lawmakers said.
...
Sounds like the legislature made a mistake by giving them anything.
Well.....they might that learn sometin beter din bein in szhool.
Once teacher's union membership falls to 1/3, a strike becomes just an easily-bearable mass resignation to the school district.
Teaching jobs fall in the middle, traditionally the kind of job a young housewife or mother did to supplement the family income, do something positive for society (certainly gain self worth at the same time), and allow the flexibility to take absences for raising their own kids, handling the kids during summer vacations, etc. Teaching, like too many other things, has become about career pay, living wage, benefits, etc.
This whole situation doesn’t make sense. These teachers went in knowing in advance the pay scales and economic condition of the state education system. NOW they’re not satisfied?
Maybe the teachers should worry about how many administrators schools now have and their high rates of pay. I am against public unions. I have a feeling this will backfire when student test scores increase in proportion to the days of school they miss.
All I have heard in the reporting on the teacher pay issue is the need for more money. The need for more money by this state is about all I have heard for the last several years. Why doesn’t anyone ask and find the answers to just a few questions that nobody appears to be asking that should be obvious?
Why is this state always broke?
What is the total tax revenue by type in this state in dollars, per capita and as a percent of gross state product?
Does the state really need more money or does it need to use the money it has more effectively?
How does revenue in Oklahoma compare to other states that are actually doing pretty well?
Where does the money get spent and how do these expenses by type compare to other states?
If the need for more money is justified the state needs to bring the need to the people and let them decide if they need to provide more money for a better state. However, the state needs to prove they are doing just as well or better in managing the money of the people than any other state is before they demand more money from the people.
Not just for Oklahoma but why does it take nearly 10 cents on the dollar for state and local sales taxes to run things when 50 to 60 years ago it took a mere 3 cents. Even inflation adjusted this is a 300% increase in taxes.
One glaring example of how poorly the state uses money; why does this state rank near dead last in the effective use of highway dollars in the measure of on time and on budget road projects when compared to a 27 state survey of department of transportation effectiveness? Arkansas ranked in the top five in effective use of highway dollars in the 27 state survey as I recall. Arkansas. The amount of money spent per mile of road in Oklahoma is at least comparable to any of the competing states.
Why is it like crossing a state wide speed bump when coming into Oklahoma from just about any neighboring state?
Why does it cost 16 bucks to cross the state on toll roads that have been paid for ages ago that are mostly rough as a wash board?
Roads are not just maintained poorly, they are neglected. The intersection at US 64 and I-40 has been the same minefield of tilted slabs, pot holes and drop offs for more then 40 years! The reckless management of public property is everywhere? Why?
Why is it that almost no road built in this state holds up more than a few years? Could it be poor or no inspection or holding to standards?
I grew up in a nice Oklahoma town nearly 60 years ago. Somehow we managed to have decent State Parks, Schools, roads, police and fire service and other essentials on far less percentage of sales and probably income though I did not pay property or income taxes then but I never recall any complaints by anyone about them. I surely don’t recall feeling deprived of anything.
We had a nice grade school that I attended. Somehow it managed to run like a well oiled machine with ONE principal, ONE secretary, ONE teacher in each class room, ONE janitor and three nice ladies that worked in the cafeteria. As I recall we had about 500 students and being Boomer Generation times the classes were packed with 30 or more students per class. I gently suggest Oklahoma might look at how many people outside the classroom it now takes to teach children.
If a company is going to survive and then thrive in business it can’t live and set its prices and standards in isolation. It has to bench mark and compete. This state needs to do the same. Few politicians represent the interests of the sheeple by managing their money instead most manage the people’s money as their own for their own interests. Politicians also do not understand that they are there to supervise the bureaucrats in the way they manage the money of the people otherwise they will feather their own nests.
There are four things I hate and any of them will put me in orbit: Lying, Cheating, Unreliable and Excuses. All I have heard from this state are excuses about why we are so far at the back of the pack and all the excuses end with “NEED MORE MONEY”. We all make due with what we have and the state needs to make due with the same percentage of what we have that they are getting.
As we crossed the state line coming home the other day we saw the sign that said: “Oklahoma! Discover the excellence!” My wife quipped, “Good luck.” That certainly seems appropriate.
Time for the OK government to legalize vouchers.
OK teachers ave salary - $46,217
(http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/07/good-jobs-first/are-oklahoma-teachers-lowest-paid-nearly/) Ya, I know, but they had some numbers.
Teacher ‘work’ 184 days a year.
Each ‘workday’ is 6 hours, with a one hour prop period and lunch - so I just say 8 hours to avoid the quibbles.
8 x 184 = 1,472 work hours per year.
46,217/1472 = $31.40 /hr. Damn good pay for a soft degree like education... Don’t forget state-paid health care, bloated retirement and so on....
BTW - name the degree program where the students enter with the lowest SAT scores but graduate with the highest PS?
YA, ed majors.
Underpaid and overworked? No sale.
So if you are a "teacher"..and you smoke and drive...your paying for your own raise. Deserved or not.
I can buy into merit raises....
But I can't buy into teachers that don't educate themselves on what they can make here in OK.
Ever since I moved here....they bitch constantly about pay. Yet the product they mostly produce is not good.
Oklahoma Median Per Capita income for 2016 was $25,880.
Teachers start at $31,600, and make considerably more after their probationary period.
Oklahoma teachers cried the same crocodile tears all the way to the bank when I was a kid.
Fire and blacklist every one who doesn’t show up to work.
Between teachers strikes and snow days..it’s a wonder I can wread and rite.
Yeah, it’s “for the children,” of course.
Well said. It was exactly the terms under which my Mom took the job for more than 30 years. She taught long after she “needed” to because helping children was her passion that she pursued long after her own children were long grown and gone.
She did not start teaching until we were all in school.
In response to this story, I tweeted to @mikesadams few minutes ago that “I’m becoming more convinced daily that parents who put their kids in public schools don’t want the best for them. Homeschooling is the best option.”
You ought to send that to the Daily Oklahoman........
Most kids will not self learn.
That is what a teacher is for.
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