Sunday, August 21, 2011
Public Schools are at a crossroads.
An August 21, 2011 Kingston Freeman article says that Mid-Hudson teacher salaries continue to climb at an alarming rate in the face of a devasting recession economy. Our NY State Public Schools are at a crossroads. Either they freeze teacher union contracts and eliminate step raises or they will have to go out of business by laying off more and more teachers each year. This is the business model for teacher's unions in NY State. The silver lining is that after this painful end of the public schools, a new competitive School Voucher system may replace it.
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Unless you are a Government or Kingston School District(This is not true in other school districts -e.g. Middletown) employee or married to one - you cannot ever retire until you become Medicare eligible unless you go without health insurance. In other words most every one in the private sector must work until 65 - no special days with family and grandchildren, etc... too bad, huh?
Well with school vouchers...I pay 3000 in school taxes but I started looking into private schools and they run from 4000 and up...I still can't afford private schools for my kids even with a voucher. And what about people that rent? Are they going to get a voucher too? How would this work?
To 6:54pm,
The teacher's union has totally destroyed the public schools and the teaching profession in NY State. The public school which receives all of the local and state tax money with no competition other than unfunded private and parochial schools has destroyed the ability of new young teachers to get jobs. The escalating public school teacher salaries with seniority and coursework step increases has bankrupted local taxpayers to the point where local school districts are laying off teachers and dismantling programs. What would be wrong with a voucher system where parents got a "pell" grant or voucher to use to attend the school of their choice. Schools would compete for students. Schools could be specialized to accept special needs students or special needs students would have premium vouchers worth more. Sure, teacher salaries would be lower, but our young people would be able to find work at one of the many independent and private schools, which can now survive with the funding from the voucher system. The local school tax money could be collected by local municipalities or by the state and distibuted to the parents of school age children. The public school would no longer collect school taxes, but would be one school among many to compete for parents school vouchers.
The voucher system will happen sooner or later. For our children and young teachers sake, I pray that the vouchers happen sooner.
Again, if the voucher doesn't cover the cost of the school tuition what do parents do? Again, if my tax dollars cannot cover the private school tuition do I have choice at all as an average middle class citizen?
What do you think is fair compensation for a starting teacher? What about after 25-30 years? How much should they be making then? Mind you the state makes them get a bachelors and a masters to stay teaching. I'm interested to hear your answer. Thanks!
To 10:52pm,
Most public and private schools will take the face value of the voucher as total payment for the school year. However, public and private schools would have the ability to charge more than the face value of the voucher if they felt that they were very successful teaching students and demand for their school was strong enough that they could charge more than the face value of the voucher. Those more in-demand schools could use something similar to the college-level FAFSA, which determines the parents ability to pay and to supplement their student tuition.
One obvious party whose influence and demand for money is lessened by the school voucher system is the teacher's union. Instead of inflating school costs and school taxes via a monopoly demand for universal raises, step increases, benefits and pensions, the individual public and private schools will deal with their teachers, either collectively or individually rewarding the best local teachers more. Remember, the individual public and private schools must compete for parents voucher dollars and show student success in order to prosper. In addition, this school voucher system opens up many more opportunities for our young newly graduated teachers to appy and work at the many individual public and private schools. No more nepotism and favoritism based on who knows who in the local monopolistic school district. So there is hope and there is a possibility to reform the education of our children! Let's talk about it. Let's debate it. But most of all let's get away from the total control of our schools by the self-serving teacher's unions.
To 11:10pm,
Please read my 9:23am posting about How Vouchers Can Work. Also, you ask how much is fair compensation for teachers. In my 9:23am posting, you will see that teacher's salaries and benefits will be determined by the teacher's and their school's individual success in the teaching of children. The successful schools can pay individual excellent teachers more. This is the way engineers and programmers and other professionals are compensated. They get paid according to their results and the ability of their companies to pay. There is and there should be no set dollar amount that teachers should be paid. That is socialism where governments set prices and salaries. In NY State, we have collective bargaining for teacher salaries, but all of the negotiating rules are in favor of the unions (ie. Triborough Amendment, Arbitration with union bias, etc.). This system is broken, unfair and is destroying our state, our standard of living and our children, right before our eyes.
You are dodging the question....In your opinion what is a fair wage for a teacher at the beginning of their career and after 25 or so years? What if any benefits should they receive? You comment on politics you can answer this.
Oh so they get paid based on results...do you actually think all students are the same? What if I get honors level classes and I do great but the guy across the hall has the special ed students will it be fair the honors teachers with obviously better results gets paid more? And what about gym and music teachers? Or teachers that don't have state exams but give their own final? There is no way to do your system fairly.
Also, what if the private schools do not accept the voucher as full payment and they want more? So will I then have to take out loans for my children to attend primary and secondary school? Because this is about choice...if I still do not have a choice even with a vouchers the program is pointless.
To 9:27pm,
In my opinion, a fair wage for a new teacher can be anywhere from $30,000 per year to $40,000. With teacher's unions and monopolistic public schools, everyone gets compensated according to the same formulas. ie. Many teachers get raises that they do not deserve. Other very good teachers do not get special compensation that they deserve. In summary, with unions in public schools, school principals who should have control over the teacher compensation plans for the teachers in their schools, have very little control of the compensation plan. Individual School districts should distribute block grant payroll money to individual schools and principals to distribute to their teachers according to individual teacher performances as evaluated by the principals. The final pay for teachers could be from $70K to $90K. Our teachers should pay for at least one quarter of their health benefits and their pensions should be changed from current defined compensation pensions to defined contribution pensions(ie. 401k). There should be no requirement to obtain a Masters degree, since excellenec in classroom teaching performance is not automatically tied to coursework. There should be no automatic raises for coursework or longevity, except at the individual school principal's discretion. I think this is a fair way to compensate teachers (ie. school principal's discretion).
There could be more parental voucher compensation to cover the higher tuitions charged by schools for special needs students. In the voucher system, our state and local governments will have plenty of money to adequately educate our special needs students. Remember that in our present union-controlled public school system, millions of dollars are wasted on exhorbitant, unreasonable, unmanageable, and unaffordable teacher raises. With the voucher system, our young new teachers would have a competitive chance to get a teaching job, maybe at a lower salary, but at least they would be able to work in their profession. With today's union, public school system, there are so many young teacher graduates with no teaching job opportunities. The present system is riddled with unaffordable teacher salaries and teacher layoffs. I really feel sorry for the current, young teacher graduates. In summary, our present system is union-centered instead of student-centered.
Well my wife, my college room mate and I all got teaching jobs right out of college Why because we are talented people. Why are there so many people not employed with teaching degree? It is because colleges have been dropping the standards for admission into their teaching programs because they are some of the biggest money makers for colleges. I had to pay a full semesters tuition to student teach at an area high school which received nothing. The college keeps the full tuition. This is purely a supply and demand issue. Too much supply...too little demand but I can tell you right now I would not be doing this job for 30k. I love my job but I have options in this world. You want to draw people that have no other options but to settle for a low paying job, lower starting salaries to 30k. Yeah someone with a degree in mathematics or physics which absolutely need to be taught taking a 30k a year job. And if this job is so lucrative what the hell is wrong with you for not going into this field? Well at the end of the day at least your blog has some comments now. Take care.
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