Teacher Walkout (N/A)

[paflyer]

No politics here...move along...

Politics are an element of practically every human endeavor.

 

[paflyer]

Let's be generous and start with $46,000 to start. Now consider 10% off the top for Federal Taxes, 3.5% for FICA or state equivalent, and another 5-8% for sales tax. Annualize that's $3124/month.

Rent/house? Average rent in OKC is $735/mo, $700 in Tulsa. Over $800 in Norman, but that's a university town. Obviously lower outside the metro area but still the amount spent on rent will be proportional to the income.
So now we're down to $2424/month

Health insurance? Most schools are asking/requiring teachers to contribute to health insurance.
Car insurance & gas? My 11 yr old car is costing me $1100 and it's just a beat up ford. That's another $200/month
Food?
Savings?
Continuing education?
Paying for student & classroom supplies because the school district doesn't?
This assumes a single teacher. What about married with/without kids? Insurance just went skyrocketing.
Student Loans? Far too many people can't get thru school without loans.

The issue is that the taxes, food, insurance, etc are rising yet the teacher salaries are not rising along with.

As for getting out of teaching - many people want to teach, are good at teaching, and only wish to be compensated commensurately. Personally, I think teachers should be at the same pay scale as engineers & doctors. They provide a much needed and critical need at the earliest stage of a person's life.

On the other hand, I also agree that the bloated cost of administration and the completely absurd testing, special projects that do nothing to support the mission of teaching/education, etc. needs to be eliminated.

Sports should be the first line item slashed and should be self-funded.

 

[MauleSkinner]

I wholeheartedly agree that teachers are shat upon...but whether pay is adequate or not doesn't enter into that part of the equation for me. My observation is that teachers seem to retire better than a lot of people, and the benefit package is always part of the compensation equation. I also agree with the OP...If you agree to a compensation package and then walk out in the middle of the contract, your teaching days should be over.

The non-financial side is where I see them actually getting hurt:
Teachers are not allowed to teach. Disruptive students? Gotta let them continue to disrupt. Got a Master's Degree in Kindergarten education? Great! Too bad that by the time you get done babysitting there's no time to implement what you learned.

Teachers are being held responsible for family disfunction. Parents believe 100% of the responsibility for education is with the schools.

No child left behind? That just means everybody advances, whether they learn or not. It also means that high school teachers have to teach elementary math and reading instead of what they're paid to teach.

...teaching technology classes on 10 year old computers, history classes with books that end in 2009, math with tattered books missing pages is another.

While I won't deny that these are issues, I think they're relatively easy to overcome.

10 year old computers still work...the kids can learn the basics, and the ones who want to learn more will find other resources to do so.

History books that get into things as recent as 9 years ago? Great! We never got past WWI in our history classes...that was only about 60 years earlier. 9 years isn't "history", it's "Current Events". You get current events from newspaper & magazine articles, even if those articles are archived on the Web somewhere.

Math books don't work? What kid opens a math book for anything besides doing the problems at the end of the chapter? We had one teacher who wrote our "textbook" on the chalkboard every day. With technology available today, a couple of good teachers could put their heads together and come up with something far more relevant than what some publishing company halfway across the country likes.

Again, I'm not saying this SHOULD be the way things work, but if it's the excuse, then the impediment comes from within the school building (teachers and/or administration), not from the lack of funding. Teachers are supposed to get kids to use their brains. If the teachers aren't capable of a little creative thinking themselves, they shouldn't be in the classroom.

And granted, I'm not in Oklahoma, but I've never heard a teacher say they were paid enough.

And in many parts of this country you can find some damn fine public school systems as well.

Agreed 100%.

 

[denverpilot]

As for Oklahoma, I just did a quick search and found this on teachingdegree.org.
"Although income for educators with teaching certification in Oklahoma will vary depending upon factors such as geographic location, school district, and area of specialization, the state of Oklahoma's minimum teacher salary ranges from $31,600 to $46,000."

$31,600 with no teaching experience and fresh from college is not so low as to prompt a walkout, mid-contract.

Depends on how quickly it rises after hiring.

Our district teachers are moaning because we start them w/ no experience at $35,500. The thing is, for every opening there are more than a hundred applicants. And like I said before, the salary is on par with other careers in both the public and private sectors.

And not to sound harsh, but regardless of what the wages are...someone in the nation is going to have the lowest-paid teachers.

True. The question is whether the lowest pay also coincides with the lowest cost of living in the area.

Let's be generous and start with $46,000 to start. Now consider 10% off the top for Federal Taxes, 3.5% for FICA or state equivalent, and another 5-8% for sales tax. Annualize that's $3124/month.

Rent/house? Average rent in OKC is $735/mo, $700 in Tulsa. Over $800 in Norman, but that's a university town. Obviously lower outside the metro area but still the amount spent on rent will be proportional to the income.
So now we're down to $2424/month

Health insurance? Most schools are asking/requiring teachers to contribute to health insurance.
Car insurance & gas? My 11 yr old car is costing me $1100 and it's just a beat up ford. That's another $200/month
Food?
Savings?
Continuing education?
Paying for student & classroom supplies because the school district doesn't?
This assumes a single teacher. What about married with/without kids? Insurance just went skyrocketing.
Student Loans? Far too many people can't get thru school without loans.

The issue is that the taxes, food, insurance, etc are rising yet the teacher salaries are not rising along with.

As for getting out of teaching - many people want to teach, are good at teaching, and only wish to be compensated commensurately. Personally, I think teachers should be at the same pay scale as engineers & doctors. They provide a much needed and critical need at the earliest stage of a person's life.

On the other hand, I also agree that the bloated cost of administration and the completely absurd testing, special projects that do nothing to support the mission of teaching/education, etc. needs to be eliminated.

You missed mandatory contributions to (often failing) pension systems via direct and indirect means. The current legislation before the Colorado House and Senate is incredibly convoluted with at least seven major fiscal changes embedded in it that affect teacher take home pay in order to rescue a pension fund supposedly run by financial professionals, which has been essentially bankrupt for quite some time now.

Interestingly that pension fund also funds other pensions for jobs that a person isn’t likely to be able to continue doing into old age, like firefighters, and the changes proposed to the fund are even worse for them than teachers. And the proposed changes still don’t save the fund, only prolong its death.

Whether one agrees with government pension programs or not, its clear one of the incentives for being a teacher in many locales over the years was “accept this lower pay and we’ll give you a guaranteed pension at a particular age and time in service”.

Taxpayers and politicians alike loved that deal... dump the rising taxation problem for schools and other State workers on future generations and taxpayers. Always easier than actually fixing it.

And it kept property taxes low for prior generations to profit from. Changing those promises now is simply theft, but theft triggered by the actions of people how long retired or dead.

The further we go down the path of ever increasing long term debt in public and private finance, the worse the end game will be. But nobody wants to pay for the sins of the dead in this regard. What’s a few more trillion?

To bring it all around to aviation, you’re never going to become rich teaching in aviation either, but at least you can take the hours spent and apply them to working in a non-teaching position if you get tired of being broke. In public school teaching, your options for a private sector exit are a lot more limited.

We built underpaying teachers inside aviation into the plan and even the most stalwart teacher in aviation usually gives up after about a decade if they don’t have other sources of income.

 

[SoonerAviator]

I believe the $46K salary for OK teachers was after over a decade of service with a Master's degree or something to that effect. It wasn't a "starting wage" by any stretch of the imagination. The only apparent way to make decent money in OK being a teacher, is to become a Principal or other administrative position where the pay jumps up considerably.

 

[Shepherd]

Three years ago, I was in a bit of a p0ssing contest with a former classmate from high school who was inundating everyone with spam about how poorly teachers were paid, how hard they worked, etc, etc, etc.
So I posted a copy of their contact on line. It's for middle school and high school teachers.
Did you know the teacher's union goes betshot crazy when you post their contract where the unwashed smelly masses can see it?
I had words, on a number of occasions, with the union reps on this matter. Then I mentioned I had a copy of THEIR contracts.
A couple of items that drew my attention.
No teacher is alone in a classroom. There is at least 1, usually 2, paid "teacher's aides."
In my area, teachers are paid to work 186 days. But they only have to work 183 of those days. Plus they get paid personal and paid sick days.
Pension and medical are paid for by the tax payers and they retire with 100% medical, dental, eye care and pension.
The top teacher in the high school got $140,000.00 a "year" for a 183 day year. Plus $1,500.00 for every extracurricular activity. Chess Club and Latin Club must be seriously stressful.
They only teach 3 classes a day, plus monitor either 1 study hall or lunch.
When there is a "conference day", the district brings in food for the teachers. Then we pay them $50.00 per diem for the day.
They are required to have a Masters Degree. If they don't, they can go to school and the school district pays for it.
If the school district has to make up snow days at the end of the year, not to worry, the teachers don't need to cancel their vacation plans, or lose any pay. They will bring in substitutes.
They get extra for teaching summer school. A lot extra.
I talked to a buddy of mine who taught for 40 years. According to him, except for (maybe) elementary school teachers, no one actually has to bring work home to grade it. There is enough free time during the day to get everything done.
Oh, my favorite: If you don't teach and early class or a late class, you can go to the gym or whatever. The district picks up the tab.
I'm sure there are districts out there where teachers are busting their butts, for very little pay, but not in my district.

 

[James331]

What is "useless junk" exactly?

You can preform quadratic equations but cant rattle off your 10 basic constitutional rights and their meaning and the history behind them, let alone preform basic first aid, properly handle a rifle, change a tire or cut a board.

That's called making cogs.

 

[timwinters]

Politics are an element of practically every human endeavor.

Yeah, you're right. @Everskyward hasn't chimed in yet so it likely can't be political.

 

[overdrive148]

You can preform quadratic equations but cant rattle off your 10 basic constitutional rights and their meaning and the history behind them, let alone preform basic first aid, properly handle a rifle, change a tire or cut a board.

That's called making cogs.

I think your preformed notions could use a bit of loosening up

 

[James331]

"They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they're getting ****ed by a system that threw them overboard 30 ****ing years ago. They don't want that!

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all..."

So what do we do with the government schools?

But that doesn't please the crown

.. so back to your regularly scheduled programming, and remember to pay those property taxes so your kids will be trained, I mean educated, to agree with and vote for the same people who order folks who will be "just doing their jobs" when they drag you and your wife out of your bought and paid for home home if you fail to pay for those government schools.

 

[James331]

I think your preformed notions could use a bit of loosening up

Loosing up the notions I speak of is what got us as a nation into much of the trouble we are in.

 

[Cooter]

You can preform quadratic equations but cant rattle off your 10 basic constitutional rights and their meaning and the history behind them, let alone preform basic first aid, properly handle a rifle, change a tire or cut a board.

That's called making cogs.

I knew it wouldn’t last long.

That’s not exactly what I’d call the basis of a solid education.

 

[James331]

I knew it wouldn’t last long.

That’s not exactly what I’d call the basis of a solid education.

I'll concede to you the common sense gun education and basic shop class stuff, but you can't tell me it's not alarming that you can go to nearly any college and find waaaaay more kids who can do math they will never use, but can't name off all their constitutional rights as American citizens and what those rights mean and why we have them.

 

[Cooter]

I'll concede to you the common sense gun education and basic shop class stuff, but you can't tell me it's not alarming that you can go to nearly any college and find waaaaay more kids who can do math they will never use, but can't name off all their constitutional rights as American citizens and what those rights mean and why we have them.

That part I mostly agree with. My problem is that the public school system doesn’t teach HOW to think. It largely teaches them what to think.

 

[Mtns2Skies]

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