An Educator Responds...

I have often though about sending a response to some of what you post but this is the first time I have actually followed through.  I [have experience teaching in the district and]  at times agree with your take on issues...but this time you seem to be lacking (or at least not fully disclosing) some basic needed information. 

 

I have to believe that you are aware that the majority of teachers pick up credits because it is required by state law!  Please do not blame teachers for saying that they need to spend their summers picking up more credits when, I suspect, your favorite example (the vaunted elementary librarian) probably does not truly believe that she requires a Ph.D. to find news stories for a third grader...but as long as she is being required, by law, by a legislature that apparently does believe that to be the case, she ought to be paid.

Aside from the obvious continuing certification demands now being ascribed to teaching licenses, there is also the issue of culture.  I believe you to be a businessman so you are quite familiar with corporate culture and should be aware that you do not simply change a culture overnight with the a wave of the "wish wand."  It takes, in most businesses, approximately 5-7 years to fully change an established culture.  For decades, teachers have been playing the hand that was dealt them...credits and experience.  For decades, to make more money as a teacher, the "system" in virtually every district was structured the same: get more credits, get more experience, earn more money.  In business, if you want to make more money you move up the ladder.  In education, there is no ladder...unless you want to be an administrator!  By now demanding a change in the structure of the salary schedule you are effectively demanding a change in the culture - in  a very short time!

What you appear to be advocating by compressing the salary schedule, through the elimination of years of experience and credits,  has the potential to create a leapfrog effect.  This is what I believe the teachers union is attempting to avoid.  It would be not unlike a new attorney coming in and making more than a full partner in the firm.  Numerous recent studies have supported the fact that experience does, in fact, make a better teacher.

Perhaps the time has, indeed, come for a change in how a salary schedule is structured (especially in light of the fact that far fewer teachers find it to be a lifetime career anymore!) but it should be done in transition over a period of time.  And this does not address the variances that  will exist if one district - or a few - change and many others do not and a teacher moves between districts.   Also by the way, I believe that a salary schedule is a minimum.  I think the district can pay more.  In fact, at times they will (don't know if Sun Prairie has ever done that!).

If nothing else, you present "food for thought" but you also need to be fair to your readers and explain that teachers are simply doing what current law is requiring of them.

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SP-EYE comments:

First, and foremost, we appreciate someone having the temerity to not only respond, but to provide their name.  We fully applaud that action.  It's so much easier to engage in dialog when someone isn't using a throw-away e-mail address.  This subject requires dialog.  And at least one educator had the guts to do so.

We see a couple of themes here which require our feedback:

1) Was SP-EYE fair regarding teacher certification requirements?

If we came across as disingenuous,we apologize, that was not the intent.  We certainly do understand that--depending on the license they hold---teachers may be required to obtain additional education requirements for license renewal.  But that being said, let's be totally fair and state that those that require credits have a license good for five years and 6 CEUs are required to renew the license.   Over a 30 year teaching career, that's exactly 36 credits.

But remember...teachers also receive a 2% salary increase for every 6 credits they earn.  If they are "off the grid", then if its a course that fits with their role, and they pass it, the district will reimburse them $300 per credit.  So for each of those 6 credits, they would be reimbursed $1800.  One can get credits for $300 if one looks.  And sometims those credits require very little time to earn.

It is of note that those on the upper end of the salary scale, who received their teacher license prior to 1983, received "life" licenses, and they required NO additional credits.  That explains why at least one teacher with over 35 years experience had only a BS degree plus NINE credits.

These days, under PI-34, teachers can opt (in lieu of credits) to develop a PDP or Professional Development program individualized for them  The downside of course is that their is accountability for holding to satisfactorily completing the plan. 

2) You can't change the culture overnight.

Generally speaking, we agree; in normal times, one cannot change the culture overnight.  But these are not what we'd considered normal times.  Act 10 is here and has withstood numerous challenges.  It looks like it's here to stay, so we need to deal with it.   Act 10 served as an instantaneous game changer.

We're also not the Lone Ranger here.  Other school districts have already done this (doing away with the grid).  The change is already happening across the state, and we suspect the nation will be forced to follow.   The teacher grid model is no longer sustainable.

And as for Sun Prairie being "able to pay more"....  sure...we can pay more.  And McDonald's can pay more, and so can Walmart.  ANYONE can pay more.  But it comes at a cost.  For McDonald's and WalMart, they simply would charge consumers (that would be US) a higher price.  For the school district, it means higher property taxes.  And even the teachers DO have to understand that the old revenue limits are still in place, so there is a maximum that we can spend (gee...hope we don't suddenly get a hole in any damn roof!).

The real question is....WHY should we pay more...other than to increase the base for starting teachers?  A large number of teachers make $65,000/year or more in base salary alone....and that's for 9 months.

3) The leapfrog effect.

We think that the analogy of a lawyer coming in and making full partner to start is a little over the top, not to mention unrealistic.  We're talking about compressing the salary scale, not paying everyone the same.  The base wage paid to teachers is ridiculously low.  You know it; SPEA knows it; hell, everybody knows it.  But nobody wants to do anything about it because of the way things have always worked.

The way the rest of the world works, is a world in which there is a salary scale to work with (and often a maximum "hire rate").  I someone with great credentials and abilities comes in, you may throw a few more dollars at them.  Then, annually, if "company" performance allows it, a pool of money is made available for pay increases.  There is no "everyone gets 3%.   Usually managers have authority to determine how they dole out their groups'  share of the pool.  Those that are not performing to standard may NOT get an increase, while others that are rising above may receive more than the average increase.   But there is no automatic increase because you are a year older.  Unions, of course, are less than enamored with this.

Again...our sincere thanks and major kudos to the sole educator who drummed up enough courage to open a dialog.

At the end of the day, do we not teach our children to embrace change and dare to try?  To face life's challenges?  Instead of endless arguing about a contract proposal which is both fair and unlikely to change substantially, why do teachers not accept change and serve as role models?  

Can We Get This Straight...PLEASE?

January is almost done.  The school board SHOULD be working up a budget for 2013-14.
Oh...but wait....the "professional educators" union is still stalling on raises for 2012-13.

They want more money...more than the 2% every other group got.
They want the raises percentage to apply to all members unilaterally.
We think they (or at least their negotiating team) need to get real.

We have agreed---repeatedly---with SPEA that entry level teachers need a wage hike.  But SPEA won't compromise.  We need to get rid of the grid and compress the salary structure.   Teachers serve a vital role...but a 5th grade educator needs neither a PhD or an $86,000 base salary.  We would be happy to advocate for something along the lines of a starting wage of $40-45,000 with a ceiling under $70,000.  You hit the ceiling and your pay is frozen until the school board changes the floor and ceiling...which may (or may not) be an annual adjustment.

It's a 9 month job, people
Please...we're so tired of the argument that the job of a teacher is a 12 month job.   Stop the madness.  Many of you work another job during the summer months.  So don't tell us that you work a summer job to pay the rent but then also tell us that you slave your summer away working on lesson planning.  Some of you work (and get paid additionally for) summer school assignments.  If you need all the summer months to do "lesson planning", how do you possibly have time to teach summer school?   Yeah....RRRRRight!  And the blue/white collar non teacher doesn't do ANY work during their vacation time. Think again.

So stop singing Aerosmith's "Dream On" and try David Bowie's "Get Real".  Seriously...can you please GET REAL?  Your contract is for 190 days.  That's all that is required.  The rest of the working world has a "contract" of 260 days.   That  means that you only work 73% of what the rest of the world works.  And that means that your $32,505 base wage is equivalent to  $44,500 that the rest of the world earns.  That means that our 5th grade teacher making $86,000 (for 190 days work) is equivalent to a salary of $117,800 for the rest of us.  Now...we're not saying that your base bay for  new teacher is great.  But that is a separate issue.  We need to stop comparing apples to pineapples....or...in this case...ROAD apples.

It's a choice...You do not need all those credits/degrees

Teachers will also cry that they spend all kinds of time and money paying for additional education credit that they "need".  Like we tell our kids:  NEED?  or WANT?   Many do not need credits; they WANT the credits because they know that every  credits gets them a 2% increase as they "change lanes" on the grid.  Fine...we do away with the grid and you can get off the gerbil wheel.

Now...maybe instead you want to be honest and tell us that at least some of you are obtaining an advanced degree so you can move into administration.   That's great...but it's also a horse of an entirely different color.  You do not need that degree for your teaching job...you seek it for something else.

By all means, advance your education if that's what you CHOOSE to do.  But do not use it to rationalize your need for better pay.

You're not the only ones that work more than 8 hrs/day
Again, we tire of all the stories of all the time spent beyond a teacher's working day doing "teacher stuff".  We're not drinking that Kool-Aid!  You think you have the market cornered on putting in more than 40 hrs per week on your job?  Think again.  The rest of the world ALSO routinely puts in more than their "required" time.  They work at night, on the weekends, while on vacation.

None of us work 40 hr weeks.  But the majority of us do not get the summers off where we could vacation, get a second job doing something else we enjoy doing, or do nothing.

You want to be known as PROFESSIONAL educators?  Then please ACT like a professional.

Is it really even 8 hrs/day?
Most of us go to our 9 to 5 jobs (or 8 to 4, or whatever)...our 8 hours jobs and, other than a 30 minute lunch (or 30 minutes of "break"), they o their job for the entire day.  We do not get *paid* time to "prep" for out jobs.  We are expected to be there and do it.

The best kept secret of professional educators is that they are only required to "teach" for 5 or maybe 6 "class period" per day.  Middle school is a great example.  Class "periods" are 45 minutes.  Teachers are required to teach 5 classroom periods plus take on one supervisory duty (study hall, lunchroom, etc.) per day.  Add it up people.  Including a 30 minute paid lunch, that accounts for 300 minutes, or 5 hours per day.  That means that they are paid for 3 hours (37.5%) of their daily time for work planning or classroom prep!!!!

How many of you non-teachers get 3 hours each day PAID time to prepare to do your job?


Let the crucifixion begin....but we need to get past the horse puckey and start being honest.  No more embellishing.  We grow weary of the nonsense.
Dear Professional Educators...it's time for you to accept the offer made by the school board and move on.   Your dreams of Act 10 being struck down have gone up in smoke.  Get over it.  Move on.  Hell...move forward.  The school board has offered you a VERY fair plan.

To borrow from a slightly crude but perhaps appropriate adage..."Tough titty said the kitty, but the milk is still good"

It's Time to Get Rid of the Grid

OK, teachers...calm yourselves and read through all this before passing judgement.

Let's start simple...what is this "grid" of which we speak?
It's the magic chart of teacher salary structure.  What's magic about it is that the way contracts are written (and this is true for ALL school districts), each year of experience allows the teacher to move one complete "step" down the grid...which translates to a 3% salary increase.  And that assumes ZERO change (i.e., general wage increase) to the grid.

The Magic of STEP increases
The real magic is what happens when a school board agrees to pay raises to teachers.  Let's say the board agrees to a 2% pay raise.  That means that each "cell" on the grid is increased by 2%.  BUT...and here's the best part....they STILL get that automatic 3% increase by virtue of earning another year of experience.  And what's really, really cool is that the district and board can say---somewhat truthfully---"We negotiated firmly and offered a 2% increase".  This explains the old joke, "How do you know a politician is lying to you?" Answer: Because their lips are moving.

What they DON'T tell you, and which you'll only find out if you follow the budget or at property tax bill time, is any general wage increase and step increases are additive.  Every teacher that stays in the district (for the next budget year) earns the 3% (step) increase PLUS the 2% (general wage) increase for a total of 5%.  Of course some leave and new ones come in that aren't eligible for the the step increase because they haven't been HERE for a year.  And that's how what is effectively a 5% increase becomes a 4.something% increase.

"For teachers, the grid provides automatic annual salary increases with no performance reviews, no salary negotiations, and no newspaper headlines reporting increased teacher pay..." 

--- How Teachers Are Paid: The Salary Grid

LANE increases

Lane increases are like Double Jeopardy...where the cash really adds up.  From Bachelor's degree to Master's degree, every 6 credits earned  (max. of 36) teachers earn a 1.9% additional "bonus" on their salary because they move one column to the right on the grid.  So...if the board approved a 2.0% pay increase, and a teacher also earned 6 continuing education credits during the previous year, then they get the 2.0% increase plus the 3.0% STEP increase plus the bonus 1.9% LANE increase for a total salary increase of 6.9%.

Pretty skippy, ain't it?

One-of-a-Kind Deal
What other employee classification receives such a sweet deal?  An automatic guaranteed 3% raise each year PLUS whatever the school board approves PLUS another 1.9% if you earn 6 continuing education credits.
Nobody...that's who.
Oh...many occupations have "grid systems"; one example being state employees.  But for these, the grid is only used to determine initial salary upon hire.  State employees ONLY get an increase when approved by the legislature and governor.  Speaking of state employees, our governor has already declared --even though Act 10 allows annual increases up to the Consumer Price Index...that there will be NO increases for at least the next 2 years.

Does Act 10 Kill It Anyway?
Wisconsin Act 10 ties the maximum of any wage increases for "governmental" workers to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).  In that the CPI is highly variable, and could even be a negative number, then fixed grid increases would not be allowable anyway.   Right? Certainly raises due to "lane" movement would have to disappear, as arguably Act 10 does not allow for such increases.

So...what do we need to do?

Raise the Floor...
Teachers...are you still listening?
We need to be able to hire good, qualified, energized, effective teachers.  To do that, we need to offer a fair, competitive wage.  And $32,500 is not it....even considering the fact that teachers work only 9 months per year (except summer school).  That means the entry level wage is effectively $43,333.  And please....cease with the arguments that you all work 12 months and nights and weekends.  You know what...so do most professionals.  Deal with it.  The difference is that the average non-teacher professional works 260 calendar days per year, and you work like 190.

So let's just say, for argument's sake,  a fair starting wage for a teacher is $50,000 equivalent (you know...based on 260 work days; 2080 hours per year). That would mean that we should raise the floor on our 9-month scale to about $37,500.  And that would put about $400/month more in each teacher's pocket.

The problem is...how are we going to pay for that?  For 580 teachers, that translates to about $3M in additional budget cost every year.  In terms of property tax, that $3M would mean an additional $0.80 on the mill rate this year, or an additional $160 on a $200K home.  How DO we pay for that?

Well, for one thing, we could have ALL employees pay 12.8% of health insurance premiums, like the rest of the (Wisconsin) world.  We could do away with the "alternative health benefit" option which pays teachers whose spouses are teachers $300/month to NOT take the insurance.  We also need to look at making dental benefits equivalent to what the rest of the world gets, and have everybody pay at least what Local 60 pays: 14.5% of premiums.  That would put a dent in the $3M.

All those things would at least help to mitigate the additional cost.  We don't profess to having all these answers, so we cannot offer a complete solution to getting there; but we at least offer what the endgame should be.  Another selling point is that we would restore transparency to the budget process.  No more would we be told "2%" when the actual salary budget would be increasing by closer to 5%.  No more would school board members or administrators have to disingenuously wave their hands, hem and haw, and then declare that the difference is due to new teachers coming in.

"Through its nationwide salary initiative, NEA is advocating for:

• a $40,000 starting salary for all pre-K-12 teachers     [SP-EYE: at 8 hours per day and 190 days/year, that translates to $26.32/hr, or $54,700/yr for those in the 2080 hr/yr world ]
• raises that exceed the cost of living in at least 50 percent of NEA higher education locals
• a minimum starting salary of $28,000 for all education support professionals"  [SP-EYE: at 8 hours per day and 190 days/year, that translates to $18.42/hr , or $38,300/yr for those in the 2080 hr/yr world] 

-- National Education Association (NEA)

...But Establish a Reasonable Ceiling Too!

Is it really "all for the kids"?
Or is it all for the administrators?

The public simply will not accept kindergarten teachers or elementary school librarians earning $95,000 per year.  Would it be nice? Sure!  But it's neither realistic nor sustainable.  Adjusted for a typical worker's full 260 days, that amounts to more than $125,000!  This cap needs to be established for administrators as well.  This is how we close the door on the long-time game of one-upsmanship, whereby the DeForest du jour gives its administrators ridiculous raises and then other districts in turn want their share of the pie.  No more should district administrators earn more then the State Superintendent of ALL schools...or the governor.  Yes, even our be-something governor deserves to be paid more than Tim Culver.  Seriously...regardless of how you feel about him...he's in charge of an entire frickin' STATE!  Compare that to responsibility for a school district of less than 1000 employees and 7,000 kids.

"From an economic standpoint, the only general question relevant to teachers' pay is: what mix of salary, benefits, and other job dimensions are necessary to hire competent individual teachers? Since these vary across states, school districts, schools, and teachers' talents and competencies, there is no rational one-size-fits-all answer, such as the grid. "
 --- ParentAdvocates.org, "Teacher Salary Grid Hampers Education Reform

Now we just need a school board with sufficient cojones to make it so.

A final note for teachers...
Teachers...we support what you do...really.  Truly.  And, if we were in your shoes, we'd probably make the same arguments you do that you are overworked and underpaid.   But inside, we'd also be a bit sheepish.  We don't fault you for trying.

You should NOT have to pay for instructional materials out of your own pocket.   But you also really do work only 9 months a year.  Some have even glibly termed the month of November as "no-school" November because of all the days off.   You have your summers free.  You get a week off in the spring.  You get more than a week off at Christmas.  And you STILL earn additional leave time!

So we support what you do, but the game needs to change.  You need to earn a fair wage, but you have no right to an exorbitant wage.  Many of you start teaching right out of school at the age of what...22? 23? 24? Then you work 25-30 years. You're barely into your 50's and you retire with a damn fine salary: the average teacher in Sun Prairie over the past 5 years retires at a salary of $76,000.  And that makes for a damn fine state retirement pension.

So we support you...but you need to work with the rest of us to fix this mess.