DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum The situation in Wisconsin [Part 2]

Teachers? Not one bit - no problem.

Teachers unions? Problem.

There you go... it's unanimous.

j/c

I should also add this: to pdawg, florida, ADlinden - heck, to everyone other than mac: I'm not anti teacher - anti teachers. They do a good job - HERE - anywhere else I can't speak about with authority.

However, they are NOT under paid, not when everything is considered.

Let me make it clear - I am NOT anti teacher.

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8 to 3 = 7 hours a day. Subtract the 30 minute lunch, the 30 minutes of recess, the 40 to 45 minutes of no class time (when the class is at art, music, gym, etc)..........that's 7 hours minus at minimum over an hour and half of time teachers can do as they see fit - and you get at most 5 1/2 hours a day. Other than any "extra" time teachers spend.

Hardly a long day by any stretch, would you agree?

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Long day? No. I do think the way you break it down is deceiving. if you want to say they get to breaks during the day that is fine. However the last time I checked it was mandatory for any one who works in Ohio to get 2 15 minutes breaks if the work over a set amount of hours in a day. I no longer can remember how many hours that is. I believe it is 6 hours.

You are also combining elementary and secondary schools. Elementry schools have no special planning period. The time they get is when their students are away for gym, art, recess or in the library. You do not see someone else coming into a teachers room to teach for a period. In high school teacher do not have the same kids all day. If the take gym or art it has no effect on them.

As far as their pay...There are many websites out there with breakdowns by districts, counties and state. These breakdowns also show years service and education. I think this kind of info would suprise many people. I know there is a site out there that will post ever employee of every district, including building they are in and how many years of service they have. What it doesn't show is education or job title. It also doesn't mention any extra pays that are in their salary.

I actually feel sorry for teachers but not because I think they are underpaid, I think they are underutilized. I think most of them do a good job, I think some of them would do an even better job if the adminstration/school board in most counties would allow them the latitude to be creative and teach in ways that might reach students more.. I also wish they had more latitude in imposing rules and discipline that helped them keep control of their classroom..

In short I think the school boards tie one hand behind their back then ask them to go out and teach..... In fact, our education system is very much like a union, it rewards mediocrity, it stifles excellence, and it sustains ineptitude.. and I don't blame one bit of that on the teachers.

DC, the biggest issue I have with dismantling teachers' unions is that it is a job field where there is very little vertical movement. For the majority of teachers, you don't start of as a Social Studies teacher and become principal, you just stay a Social Studies teacher for 40 years essentially. My biggest concern is in a job field with such little vertical moment, removing the collective bargaining power makes it easy for those who have been teaching for a long time and are effective to be overlooked. JMO.

If you work in the private sector, you can start of as someone who is a salesperson (just an example), and then move on to assistant manager, manager, and then move into the executive part of the company. For teachers, there's really no such equivalent.

Additionally, and this is directed at no one, with the situation in Wisconsin, the union agreed to all the concessions and yet the Governor wouldn't budge because of collective bargaining. If the issue in Wisconsin was "balancing the budget" why wouldn't the governor accept all the concessions and move on if he was interested in balancing the budget and not dismantling public sector unions?

Accepting the concessions or not, if they're going to have this kind of ugliness every time a contract is up I can see trying to prevent it.

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I myself haven't heard anyone demeaning teachers, or the job they do. I haven't heard anyone say "teachers are part time".

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Arch, I believe you are the one who said he does not watch Fox News (sorry if I'm mistaking you with someone else) but it is essentially rampant on there. And that channel is the number 1 cable news network. I'm not saying that you're wrong, but the demeaning alligations are out there.

I know it's the Daily Show, but it's a good compilation of just such rhetoric.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

It's the second link entitled "Crisis in Dairyland - For Richer or Poorer - Teachers and Wall Street"

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Although, since you brought it up - if indeed FOX is the number one rated national news channel - why do you suppose that would be? Because more people watch FOX? Of course.

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I've answered this question before but essentially I believe it is because those who tend to be most conservative [the senior citizens] are the ones watching it. The rest of the people that want news either go to the internet or local news, while others go to CNN, MSNBC, etc. It's still only a couple million people that watch FOX news out 305,000,000 so they don't have this huge market share.

Oh - you said that most people that watch fox are the most conservative. The rest go to the internet, or msnbc, etc.

I just told you I don't watch national news - I go to the internet. Yet I believe the way I do..........imagine that?

Imagine if it were countable, the number of people that disagree with msnbc, cbs, nbc, abc, cnn, etc.

Let me clarify: I believe that the people that most often go to cable news shows for their information tend to be the elderly. The elderly tend to be more conservative. I didn't mean that conservative people all watch FOX news and that anyone that's not conservative watches anything but FOX News.

I do listen to Fox News. The Daily Show put together a video that is what, a minute long? I can tell you that the other side of the debate is also well represented. I am not talking about Hannity or Beck. I never watch them. I'm talking about Happening Now, America Live and sometimes Sheppard Smith.

I'm not about to go through this thread and see what people have been saying, but I just want to give someone my perspective on education.

I'm 25 yrs old. I have a Bachelor's Degree in History. I have completed my student teaching (one of the greatest times of my life) and have completed all the necessary tests to become certified by the Ohio Dept of Educ.

I have been unable to find a job as a Social Studies teacher. I believe this has nothing to do with me as a person, but the system.
I've been substitute teaching now for 2 years. I've been in small rural schools to big city schools.
I've seen some great schools and some bad schools.
I have seen a lot of wonderful teachers that truly care about the education and lives of their students and others who simply collect a paycheck. As much as it pains me to say that. I believe I saw someone mention, while skimming, that those two teachers (the good and the bad) would be making the same salary (given that they each have the same education, experience, etc) THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR SYSTEM. However, is there anyway to fix it?

Many people say teachers should be paid based on performance. Alright, fair statement. However, with STATE MANDATED TESTING, we will never be able to pay teachers based on performance. The #1 goal in education is for a student to pass a state mandated test that basically is a pass or fail on life. As a teacher, your whole year is spent preparing kids for a test. You have such little time that you rarely get the chance to give students the tools to become a successful, well round individual who is prepared to take on the challenges of the 21st century.

When I was student teaching, although a great time, I found myself basically skimming through history class with my students because if too much time was spent on certain issues or topics, I was falling behind. Rarely did I ever get the chance to help students learn the value behind what they were learning. Instead, I was too busy making sure every student knew the necessary facts which made class extremely boring at times for me. Think about what the students thought.

If we pay teachers based on performance, the basis of that would come from Ohio Graduation Test results. Therefore, teachers in schools such as the city schools would be making far less than teachers working in the big suburban schools (Dublin, Centerville, Hilliard, Pickerington, etc). I've witnessed teachers with 94% success rates on the OGT who don't do a thing and then teachers who have 68% success who have worked their tail off and exhausted every resource to get that 68%. Would it be fair to pay these two based on their performance.

Also, without looking at different schools, teachers in the same building would be fighting over who gets to teach the enrichment, advanced, or college prep classes because those students need very little help to achieve a successful score on the OGT and, in effect, leaving those who need the most help behind.

The education system in this state and around our nation can be very sad at times. However, it also pains me to hear people bash teachers collectively. Yes there are bad teachers out there, but there are people out there who are bad in any line of work.

By collectively bashing teachers (not pointing any fingers to those on the board), you bash those teachers out there who do put in 12 hour work days by lesson planning at night and not "winging" it. Those who truly care about the life of your kids and will do anything to make sure they leave the school with the proper tools to become a successful human being.

Sometimes I would like people to take a step back and realize what a teacher does and what their compensation is.

4-6 years of schooling depending on B.A. or M.S, etc.
starting average salary (in Ohio) of a little over $30,000 which if you break down for 180 days of teaching ($167 a day), 6 hours a day of actual class time you get $27 an hour. Pretty nice little paycheck, but when your job is based on the success of each student lets break it down by student per hour. Each hour you have approx. 19 students. Therefore, in one hour a teacher makes $1.42 for each student in an hour. Now some call teachers, glorified babysitters. Nothing glorifying about a babysitter who makes $1.42 for trying to give your child the tools they need to be successful for one hour a day for 180 days a year.

So please, don't ever look at a teacher and say they are overpaid or are glorified babysitters. Like I said before, some are very bad at their jobs, but that's the nature of any job. Yes those people can be let go much easier without unions, but what is going on right now is not all about the firing of bad teachers.

Teachers are already underpaid and are slowly losing the great benefits that come with being a teacher. It's a profession that people were jumping into years ago, but are now leaving because the negatives are beginning to outweigh the positives. Salary is obviously not why people go into teaching, but educators have always had great benefit packages and intrinsic motivations to make up for the salary and for going into the field and remaining in the field.

Also, some additional information about myself. While working as a substitute teacher, I get about $75-100 a day before taxes without benefits. Therefore, I had to get a 2nd job. I am working at Dick's Sporting Goods. I've been there for 5 months and have already been offered a job that would put me on the fast track to management and it's not because I have a 4 year degree. Many of the managers at Dicks Sporting Goods stores in fact have just worked their way up the ladder or have gotten to know the right people. After doing some research online, I found out that I could make $32,000+ starting as a manager with the high end of that being $58-65K as the experience builds up. Very similar to a teachers salary growth. However, I could do this without going to college? What is the incentive for children to go to college nowadays when opportunities like this are out there.

The pros to being a teacher far outweigh those of being a manager if you are one who loves to work with kids and see them grow throughout school and know you made an impact on their lives. In the last two years, I have grown really close to a kid I coached on a high school baseball team. His life used to be graduate and go to the mines. After two years, I've now gotten the kid on a path he didn't know was available to him. From a B- student to an A student. From someone who just played sports to someone who now has put in the work to earn a scholarship to play baseball and study anything he puts his mind to, which looks like it is going to be petroleum engineering. That is the reason I went into education. But now I am questioning to myself.... is it enough? Should I stick with my dream and hope for the best in terms of stability and life long happiness or go with something a little more stable but a little less rewarding?

Tough decisions await.

Anyways, if you actually read that. Thanks. Sorry for it being so long.

Also, just to add something else.

I've been subbing in a school where teachers and administrators have been meeting with the community the past 3 or 4 weeks. The teachers in this district have not had a pay increase in 5-7 years (not sure the exact number) and now the community wants them to take an 11% pay cut because they are being paid too much.

Essentially this would mean the person who started 3 years ago at $31,000 has never received a yearly salary bump and is now being asked to take an 11% decrease in pay. 4-6 years of college, paying off your student loans, and getting ready to start a family on a salary less than $30,000. I imagine that would be pretty tough.

It's disheartening.

Thanks for your perspective.

Sorry, way off for many Ohio salaries in teaching, may have a few in finest paying districts could max to that. That number isn't near average, exorbitantly high. Median might be better statistically. The need for unions is driven by the bottom say 20 districts which are hurt most by stupidity of OHIO's unconstitutional funding.
But Kasich, he of "Idiot" fame and notoriety is stupid in his agenda and priorities. Unions are not the enemy.
I would rather have three more teachers and one less governor like this. This guy is a threat.

Mac,

You keep harping on the governors salaries, have you looked at the salaries of union leaders? They make more than the governors. Why is it you are not harping on them to make a sacrifice? These union leaders must really hate the working American.

web page

Oh come on .... you know that's not gonna matter when Kasich shouldn't make what he does, and evil right wingers, and shared sacrifice, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah ......

j/c
I was sent a link to salaries of school employees.

I checked out Archbold. Starting salary is just under $32,000 here. Top end is $70,000. Average for the 89 full time teachers here is $51,562.

That's not too shabby. Add in the benefits - it's pretty darn good for a rural Ohio town. Throw in the teachers retirement after 25-30 years - it's DANG good.

In going through the pages on the link that was sent, it really hit home when I saw the number of husband/wife teacher combos......bringing home $100,000 to $120,000 a year. Poor teachers? Not here.

As a side note - I did some other "looking". Interesting how farmers are considered poor as well (and make no mistake, some are dirt poor), but of the ones I know, that have a spouse that teaches.........dang, they're rich! When I check out what the fed. gov't. gives the farmers in subsidies, etc........ Let's just say I wish I was a "poor" farmer, and my wife was a teacher.......I'd love to be that "poor".

The one thing I'll say about teacher pay; and that's working as a teacher for a year, is this.

When you're working (especially when you begin) you're very busy. You're constantly working. Your whole life is school. During the initial summers many teachers have to begin working on getting their masters degrees (which school systems will pay for, depending on where you are).


But, when talking about State Worker Compensation, talking about salaries is ridiculous. We need to talk about the package as a whole. The cost of the health care, the pension funds.

Also, it's absolutely ridiculous that a gym teacher makes more money than a regular subject teacher. This always made me furious. I taught Social Studies, it was very difficult. I worked very hard and decided that teaching wasn't what I wanted to do. (And Faculty/Department Meetings were really stupid too! What a waste of time. Send out a big e-mail or create a blog. Don't waste my time when I'm just trying to keep my head above water, working my butt off to make sure these kids figure out the material!)

After moving on, I have substitute taught for money on the side after I started going to grad school for International Shipping (and a 3rd Mates Unlimited License). I like what I'm doing now, I want to be a captain and eventually own a tugboat company. But in the school system, being a gym teacher is a joke. Seeing those people get paid more than me, when I had to plan, grade, learn (what I was going to be teaching), was very annoying. I was always spiteful of this. Gym teachers are a joke, talk about a job with no fulfillment. Gym and Health Class, while I'm teaching World History (grading, planning, learning every day and night). You've gotta be kidding me.

Things definitely need to be changed in the system. And as I said, when discussing state worker pay, the salary isn't something to look at, it's the entire package. The cost of the entire package of a state worker. For example, my cousin's mother works for UConn Stoors, and her son went there virtually for free. This cost is put on the state. So yeah, a teacher might make 40G's a year, but what's the other cost of paying them? The entire cost.

This is the case with police officers, firemen, and any other state employee. The FULL COST, not the salary. Nothing gets me more annoyed than hearing about the salaries on the television, I'm interested in the actual cost of the employee to the state.

I agree the job would be hard at the beginning.


In time, lesson plans are made, tests are formed, and the job becomes the same year after year.

Stick to the plan, administer the tests, pop a few quizzes that could remain the same, and I won't say it becomes easy, but it becomes easier.

Text books don't change that often....maybe every 7 years or so, but even then, the book may change some, but the content doesn't change much.

Math is Math. Euclid is the father of geometry no matter the book. The laws are the laws. English is English. A preposition is a preposition no matter the book. History is History. The last chapter may be updated a bit, but events of the American Revolution remain the same.

J/C

Probably not totally on the topic, but for those advocating the idea of getting rid of the bad teachers, how do you identify bad? I've been a teacher for 16 years, and I can for the most part tell the difference between bad and good teachers. I'm sure most people in the profession can (and probably a lot out of it). The question is, how do you measure it? You can't go by student grades because then teachers would be giving out a lot of undeserved A's. Overall state test scores would be hard too, because the best teachers can have students with poor test scores - every group is different and you can't make chicken salad out of of chicken you know what.

To me, the hardest thing is how to objectively identify a bad teacher so that dismissal can be justified. I'm not opposed to the concept, I just don't know exactly how it can be done.

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I agree the job would be hard at the beginning.


In time, lesson plans are made, tests are formed, and the job becomes the same year after year.

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This is true, except for the correcting.

Correcting math is easy, but if you're an english or social studies teacher, correcting essays and writing assignments (which the schools want you to assign a lot of) takes a lot of time.

My biggest problem was that I didn't pick up classroom management skills quick enough. If I'd do it again, I'd prob teach Middle School, and I'd try to get licensed to teach math. I'm not very creative with my lesson plan ideas (while I'm very good at History), and I have trouble connecting all the ideas. Students who thought about history like I do (a large puzzle that gets put together) did great and loved me. Students who weren't interested in history or couldn't make the connections, were confused. I didn't focus on a main idea then work off of it. Instead I was disorganized without tying everything together (something I'd automatically do when I was a student).

Math is much more straight forward, and I connected better with Middle School Kids (Learned that while subbing). I could dance around the classroom, do cartwheels, play some teenie bopper music, and get them to pay attention and have fun. The high school kids never understood that when I was their age I was cool....... They just thought "Mr. Ranges" was strange. Middle School Kids can usually be controlled with a little "Stop touching each other" (and then they're embarassed (either to be gay or that people might think that they "like each other)). 9th Graders were just difficult people, much easier for me to control (and hold accountable) people I'm in charge of at work than those buggers

jc...

Let's see...if I were running a small business in Ohio, would I want middle class workers making more money or less money?

mac, what do you say about those union leaders who making hundreds of thousands of dollars making a sacrifice in pay?

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The issue isn't what teachers make. The issue is that the money is not there to pay what has been promised, and the time to take action is now........NOT when the state is in a condition like Cal. currently is.

What good is a promise when you know it can't be fulfilled? Do we bury our heads and "hope for change", or do we act now to salvage the best deal we can? (we meaning the teachers, AND the state).

To ask an employee to pay an addition 4% to ensure they get the benefits at a later date isn't asking too much. To do nothing means in the future, there will be nothing for any of them.

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This is why I tell my ex-g/f (special ed teacher) to not count on her pension.

It's like our social security system. The money that is set aside to provide the benefit is nowhere near its actual cost. The pension system is grossly over budget, yet nothing will be done.

Someone said earlier that the state worker unions will destroy their employer the same way the auto unions did, I agree with this premise. It will only get worse. Keep pushing a huge problem off and it's only gonna get bigger, like a snowball rolling down a hill (although snowballs don't roll...........)

The package cost of a teacher can become ridiculously expensive. The money just isn't there. This must change.

Now I dunno about destroying the unions, but I do know that a hardline needs to be set by governors saying "This is what we can offer, and you're going to take it". And if they don't wanna take it, they can quit