I was reading an article in the National Review, yes that National Review, arguing that public school teachers are not underpaid. They compare salaries in Los Angeles between private and public schools:
But one thing private schools don’t throw money at is teacher salaries. The school that [Full House actress Lori] Loughlin’s daughters attended pays its teachers around $53,500 per year, 33 percent less than the $80,000 median annual salary of Los Angeles public-school teachers.
Here is the National Review explanation as to why public school teachers earn more than our private school counterparts:
For public-school teachers, large districts employing hundreds or thousands of teachers negotiate with a single teachers’ union, which itself may have secured a favorable position via political contributions and activism. This isn’t what you’d call a free and vibrant labor market.
We have a union and we use our activism and our political pull to better our conditions. Isn't that what a union is supposed to do? If lobbyists convince Congress to appropriate billions of dollars for unnecessary weapons or for tax incentives for huge corporations, you won't see much complaining in the National Review but if unions do it for public schools, we are messing with a free and vibrant labor market. Sorry guys but we have freedom of association rights.
The National Review writers aren't finished:
Private schools, by contrast, operate in a much freer market. Parents paying an average of $28,000 out of pocket have every incentive to find schools with the best teachers. Private schools, which compete against one another to recruit both teachers and students, have every incentive to hire the best teachers possible without breaking the bank. Teachers, for their part, have every incentive to demand as high a salary as they can get. This is the kind of competitive market that we rely on for almost every good or service we purchase. And in that market, total compensation for teachers at even elite private schools is far lower than it is at public schools. Those facts should at least inform the teacher-pay debate.
Public school teachers are better off because of our once strong unions, and now in many locals around the country, revitalized unions. Conservatives get it. You see why conservatives want to bust the unions and are doing what they can to get defections from the UFT.
It is sad that some of the people who benefit from what our unions have done don't get it. Instead, they comment here about not paying union dues instead of trying to improve our union which obviously needs fixing to represent all of its members equitably.
Rather than writing comments about how you hate the behavior of your students, the teachers who comment here can leave the NYC public schools and go teach in a private, parochial or charter school where the school can cherry pick the students and throw out those that don't fit in. I don't think many will leave, however, because you don't want to take the pay or benefits cut that working without a union, or with a really weak one, would entail.
As for those who are truly at their wits end but want to fight back, use the contract. Read Article 9. Read the Chancellor's Regulations on safety and discipline. You have nothing to lose if the alternative is quitting. We will gladly help if we can.
30 comments:
We dont have a strong union.
I am quitting, I am putting my money where my mouth is. I am just waiting for the final retro payment, which the union made me, and everyone else wait for, which is borderline illegal. I am leaving well before retirement age, with less than 20 years. Never a bad observation, for the record.
Instead of telling people to quit, how about fixing the problem? How about correcting what is wrong? You talk about how bad the union is all the time, then call us trolls. Do you deny what people complain about are legit complaints?
So i should quit after getting a bachelors, masters, taking the plus 30, moving up the salary scale, working summers because the students have no civility? How about laying blame and doing something about it? How about saying this is not how we function in society? how about saying that they adapt to what is right or get out? You are blaming the teacher? The inmates running the asylum. Typical doe and uft. How about no phones, no drugs, no smoking, no cursing and threatening teachers, no cheating, an attendance policy...Please explain which of these is unfair.
The ones telling others to resign are probably the ones who pass everybody, no matter what. Easy for you to say. You have no standards.
Telling teachers who are unhappy because of out of control students to quit rather than complain is tantamount to those who say if you don’t like with the government is doing get out of the country
The conclusion 2:35:
"As for those who are truly at their wits end but want to fight back, use the contract. Read Article 9. Read the Chancellor's Regulations on safety and discipline. You have nothing to lose if the alternative is quitting. We will gladly help if we can."
Contract is a worthless piece of paper if not enforced. Use it. We will gladly back up any legitimate use of the contract by posting about it and helping with making the case. You can ask anyone if I am pro teacher all the way. I can't do anything to help anonymous commenters who want to weaken the union further.
As a single mother, teacher and woman of color, I'm extremely grateful for the education my special needs children are getting at their charters. It's a lie perpetuated by the left that charter "cherry pick." Teachers there may work hard and may earn less, but I would never recommend a parent send their kid to a public school in nyc. Likewise, if you care about quality of work life more than just the money, work at a charter. My kids have learned to respect their elders. I shudder to think how they would be now, despite all my efforts, if they went to a public school. We're grateful to have had a choice!
Don't resign 3:07. Fight back.
I agree the UFT is not strong but we could be if we organized as teachers.
So Eva's gotta go list and not backfilling places when scholars are counseled out of Success Academies is a lie perpetuated by the left? School choice leaves the public schools with the kids that nobody else will take. Elitism at its worst.
By the way 3:56 my two kids are NYC public school students.
We should be able to drop students who dont deserve a free, public education. I wish we had that option.
I didn't tell anyone to quit prehistoric. I suggested it as a basically unrealistic choice for those who complain here and do nothing but drop union dues. I recommended fighting back.
The complaints are legitimate 3:04 and remedies are available if teachers use what is in the contract.
I have a 5th grade student who needs help. He’s come to school at least 3 times since school started smelling and looking like he smoked marijuana. I do not think that administration will treat him fairly, or actually help him. His older brother who was a student here 3 years ago was a very nasty nightmare student, and admin believes this kid is cut from the same cloth, but he isn’t! They’ve smelled it on him on 2 of the 3 earlier occasions and are after him in hopes of having him removed from school and possibly his home. I’ve had doubts that he was a smoker, thought maybe he’s just around smokers, but today I’m convinced that he’s actually smoking. It’s on his breath and in his clothes. His father was arrested in front of him 2 weeks ago, the older brother is a gang member who is selling weed, and his mother is barely holding on, trying to keep things together for her family. I’m torn on how to handle this. I know what I should do, but somehow I think feeding him to admin will put him in a worse position than he’s already in. What should I do?
Mulgrew at NYS Senate hearing: "If I’m a teacher in a classroom and I have 4 different languages and 6 kids in that class are also homeless, how the hell do you expect me to do my job and meet the needs of my students if you’re not funding properly?"
Exactly what type of funding will help this? Just like funding will not help when a student comes in high, drunk or refusing to do work or follow directions.
All those people complained, gave evidence, articles were written, now everyone knows the whole system is a fraud. What has changed?
Let's stay on topic here. Private school teachers get paid less for lots of different reasons. They have smaller classes. They have mostly well behaved and motivated students. They have parents that have a vested interest in helping their child learn and grow. Private schools have top of the line facilities and the support of admins. Private school teachers have WAY LOWER discipline problems with gangs and they have never heard of a Danielson drive by. In essence, public school teachers get paid more because we teach in borderline warzones and deserve the well earned hazard pay.
James,
The NYC Catholic High Schools ( under the NY Archdiocese) have a solid union - much smaller, but in at least one way stronger than the UFT - they have an activated and involved rank and file. Most Catholic high school teachers, that I’ve known (in the Bronx), purposely chose not to teach in NYC schools because of the horrid working conditions and the completely unaddressed problems of the students - physical/mental heath, poverty, drugs, violence and functional illiteracy. I applied to a Catholic school before the BOE. The starting salary, in 1990, was $16,000 ; in public schools it was $26,000. I took the BOE position. All Catholic school teachers could have done the same. The money is a lot less, but I’d venture to say job fulfillment may be much higher. (At the time the money was more important to me.) Everything is a trade off. The DOE and UFT don't care if large numbers of teachers quit tomorrow (and certainly don’t care about how that might impact students). Everyone is replaceable. There’s a very different dynamic in many Catholic schools - many of the best schools care about their teachers and their students. That was always an exceedingly rare school, within the DOE (even way back then), but I haven’t seen it at all since Bloomy broke up the neighborhood schools.
You said it all 6:45: "...they have an activated and involved rank and file." Activated and involved rank and file equals stronger union.
FYI my mother Teresa Eterno was a parochial school teacher in Queens for 30 years. They had no union. She told me to take the public school job in a second and not live worrying about paying the bills.
Let me get this straight: NR states: Parents paying an average of $28,000 out of pocket have every incentive to find schools with the best teachers.
Wait a minute -- you get the best teachers by paying them one third less? For free market types on the right this is ridiculous. Compare outcomes in right to work states and unionized states - the higher the teacher pay the better the schools generally are.
Haven't heard from Norm in a while here. It's good to hear from him, particularly when he is 100% right.
Norm, It’s not the quality of teachers that matter - it’s the quality of the students. If a student wants to learn he/she can’t be stopped, likewise those that don’t can’t be forced. Most private and parochial schools do not require their teachers to have a Masters, even on the secondary level. I had many terrible teachers in high school and many many more in college. That never bothered me or my peers - one of them became a Supreme Court judge.
The students with the greatest needs need the best teachers. Many of those top teachers are in public schools and they perform miracles time and again.
5:07 PM. If you are reasonably certain that this child is using marijuana at home, this constitutes abuse and you must report it
If I reported ever kid I suspected of using weed, I would spend my whole day reporting the students. Be real.
I haven’t seen one of those miracles in many years. If these were semi-honest times, I’d say it’s a miracle to see most of our ‘scholars’ graduating at all - but that’s not a miracle, that’s fraud.
You need to look harder 6:39. Teachers are not the problem with a few exceptions.
5:07
You need to speak with your guidance counselor or one of them. This is a problem with teachers who do not know all the resources they have and many times want to play counselor with no training in this area what so ever. How is it that you have not reached out to a guidance counselor for that matter for these type of student issues?
5th graders coming in high? Yeah, sounds like a much wanted job.
All these complaints. Sounds like a bunch of happy teachers. Sounds like the uft is really serving us. Sounds like schools are totally in control, no issues here.
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