Free Republic

A new bill introduced by a Florida congresswoman aims to incentivize states to increase minimum teacher salaries as the country’s education system faces a growing need for educators. The American Teacher Act was introduced last week by Rep. Frederica S. Wilson, chair of the Higher Education and Workforce Investment Subcommittee. The bill would work to entice states to increase the minimum K-12 teacher salary to $60,000 through a federal grant program. The bill is an attempt to persuade educators to remain in the profession as a national teacher shortage impacts districts across the country — a problem that has been...

It seems like the media will never stop promoting the myth that public school teachers are “underpaid.” The most recent example is the front-page story in Time, “This Is What It’s Like to Be a Teacher in America.” Time tells of a woman who makes $55,000 per year teaching but works two other jobs in order to “pay the bills.” The article includes complaints about a teacher making almost $70,000 per year and even suggests that sexism is partly to blame for deficient pay because there are more women teachers than men. It is no surprise that the media promotes...

A spokesman for Ann Arbor Public Schools says that even though the district has no documents establishing a teacher merit pay system as required by state law, effective teachers there are still rewarded. The comments came after the district denied a Freedom of Information Act on Dec. 21 — the same day it was received — asking for records of its merit pay system. The district said no such records existed. But district spokesman Andrew Cluley said Ann Arbor teachers do receive some merit pay. "Ann Arbor Public Schools has had merit pay for many years," Cluley said in an...

In a speech before the Ann Arbor Board of Education this May, teacher Dan Ezekiel painted a bleak picture of compensation for teachers. Ezekiel, a science teacher who also is involved in local politics by serving on various county and city boards and commissions, was concerned about the pay of starting teachers in the district. He said he makes $3,000 less than he did eight years ago. Michigan Capitol Confidential put in a Freedom of Information Act request for teacher salaries in Ann Arbor for the years 2010-11 to 2014-15. Teacher salaries have become complex in recent years with some...

"He has spent the last two weeks literally just making stuff up," Rubio said. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is accused rival Texas. Sen. Cruz of engaging in a "pattern" of peddling falsehoods, telling reporters Tuesday it speaks to the character of Cruz's campaign and suggesting they would disqualify Cruz from the White House if they continue. Speaking to reporters during a lunchtime stop at Triangle Char Bar in Summerville, South Carolina, the GOP hopeful criticized Cruz for arguing he was in favor of "amnesty" and calling him an inconsistent conservative. His comments come a day after a pro-Cruz group was...

Gary Abud is a commodity experts say is in great demand around the country. He's recognized as a highly effective science teacher and was named the 2013-14 Teacher of the Year in Michigan. However, the Grosse Pointe North High School Science teacher ranked 477th out of 595 teachers for salary in his own school district, according to data acquired in a Freedom of Information Act request. Abud made $56,876 in 2012-13, which is about $21,000 less a year than the district's average salary of $77,969 a year. The average teacher salary in Michigan in 2012 was $62,631, according to the...

The Michigan Education Association’s newest strategy is to portray their teachers as underpaid while hoping no one is paying attention to the figures they are using to make their case, says one education policy expert. “Clearly, their facts are not straight,” said Michael Van Beek, education policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. It started when Steve Cook, the MEA’s president, said in a Detroit News op-ed that one teacher who contacted him was in his second year of teaching with a master’s degree and made $31,000 a year. Michigan Capitol Confidential looked at the contracts of the...

Wear black on Friday, February 17, 2012 to illustrate your collective mourning over the attack that has been launched against Virgnia's teachers and students by legislators with the open disrespect and disdain as demonstrated by eliminating continuing contract status for ...new teachers, an effort to diminish our pension benefits, and general underfunding of our schools resulting in too large class sizes, under resourced schools and classrooms, and salaries that lag embarrassingly below the national average in spite of the fact that Virginia is the 7th wealthiest state in the nation.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan thinks public-school teachers are “desperately underpaid” and has called for doubling teacher salaries. In a new paper co-authored with Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation, I look into whether teachers really are desperately underpaid, or underpaid at all. Jason and I find that the conventional wisdom is far off the truth. At first glance, public-school teachers definitely look underpaid. According to Census data, teachers receive salaries around 20 percent lower than similarly educated private-sector workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says teachers’ benefits are about the same as benefits in the private sector. But both the...

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida lawmakers’ push last year to overhaul how public school teachers are paid, evaluated, hired and fired prompted massive teacher protests, the swift use of then-Gov. Charlie Crist’s veto pen and a promise from opponents who said they would take their anger out on legislators at the polls in November. Read more

How can fringe benefits cost nearly as much as a worker's salary? Answer: collective bargaining. The showdown in Wisconsin over fringe benefits for public employees boils down to one number: 74.2. That's how many cents the public pays Milwaukee public-school teachers and other employees for retirement and health benefits for every dollar they receive in salary. The corresponding rate for employees of private firms is 24.3 cents. Gov. Scott Walker's proposal would bring public-employee benefits closer in line with those of workers in the private sector. And to prevent benefits from reaching sky-high levels in the future, he wants to...

More and more Texas teachers are struggling to pay their bills. Just ask the four in 10 teachers – a record number – who moonlighted this year. ~snip~ "It's a shame that so many of our dedicated educators have to struggle with extra jobs to support their families, but they have no choice," said Rita Haecker, president of the state teachers association.~snip~ The average salary of teachers who were questioned in the study was $50,019 a year, a figure that was up nearly $2,500 from two years earlier. The average classroom experience of those surveyed was 17.7 years.

Voting on the proposed contract between the District and its 4,000 public school teachers concludes Wednesday, and even educators opposed to the pact, which will trigger major changes in how they are managed and paid, expect it to be ratified. "A lot of people say they like it. They like the money," said Tom O'Rourke, a veteran history teacher and union activist at Roosevelt High School who voted no because, he said, the pact has too many vague, open-ended promises. The contract offer, which requires the approval of the D.C. Council, would give teachers a 21.6 percent salary increase through...

We finally have the video of Governor Chris Christie and the New Jersey teacher having it out over her paycheck and it will make your day! This teacher, Rita Wilson, tries to rally the support of the crowd by waving her finger in the air and spitting her words indignantly at Christie for not “compensating her” fairly for her time. She believes she is worth at least $86,000 a year as a teacher and that doesn’t include the additional benefits that the corrupt teacher’s unions makes sure the teachers get as well. However, it’s Governor Christie’s response that makes the...

In a dramatic shift, Gov. Charlie Crist signaled Wednesday he might veto a bill tying teacher pay to student test scores, even as Florida legislators prepared for a final vote on the politically polarizing measure Thursday. Crist, who appeared to support the merit-pay plan as late as Monday, said teacher concerns are affecting his thinking. The plan would base teacher pay raises primarily on student learning gains on standardized tests, such as the FCAT, and eliminate tenure job protections for teachers hired after July. The Republican governor, who is running for U.S. Senate, said he spoke over the weekend with...

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has announced plans to support legislation that would overhaul the statewide teacher-salary schedule and allow teachers to opt into one that determines pay partly on performance-based measures. States have tried to do statewide performance-pay before, but this example stands out because it sounds as though it would fundamentally restructure how the salary schedule operates. Teachers opting in would no longer get supplements for advanced degrees, where there are only weak correlations to student performance. Instead, they would win additional compensation based on observations of teachers and growth of student performance to determine teacher effectiveness and base...

President Barack Obama embraced merit pay for teachers Tuesday in spelling out a vision of education that will almost certainly alienate union backers. A strategy that ties teacher pay to student performance has for years been anathema to teachers' unions, a powerful force in the Democratic Party. These unions also are wary of charter schools, nontraditional educational systems that they believe compete with traditional schools for tax dollars. Obama, however, also spoke favorably of charter schools, saying that where they work, they should be encouraged....

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, an international test of fourth- and eighth-grade student achievement, recently released its latest results. As in prior years, the mean U.S. scores were roughly on par with those in most developed nations in Europe, though well below those in Asia. But students in other developed nations far outpaced U.S. students in top-level science scores. For instance, only 10 percent of American eighth-graders performed at the highest level in science, placing the U.S. 11th among the tested nations and well behind countries such as England (17 percent), Japan (17 percent), and Singapore (an...

Souderton's teacher union is proposing increasing starting salaries from $37,323 to $43,102 over four years, an increase of 15 percent, according to the Souderton Area Education Association's final best offer released Tuesday ---snip--- But few teachers are at that starting level — 145 of Souderton's 512 teachers are at the top of the salary schedule. The top step is for teachers with more than 15 years of service and a master's degree plus 24 or more additional credits. They now earn $89,363 and would earn $100,750 after the fourth year of the contract, according to the union's proposal. That works...

One of the most ambitious pay-for-performance initiatives in Washington area schools is drawing strong teacher interest and local union support even though many national labor leaders have long asserted that it is unfair to link teachers' paychecks directly to their students' test scores.... ...The program's criteria exclude some teachers from certain bonus pools. Half of the bonus money is tied to scores on state tests given in third through eighth grades and in high school: Up to $2,500 is won when the school meets test score targets, and up to $2,500 is given for improving a given class's scores. The...