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<p>Well said.</p>
<p>34th year of teaching here, but only the last 16 in public schools. Where I work accumulated sick days are as Wharf said, only “redeemable” upon retirement. It really works as a cost savings for the district/state any time a teacher can retire early by using sick days. </p>
<p>I also invite those who feel they can’t beat us to join us.</p>
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<p>No need to beat you.</p>
<p>This is an academic exercise to me.</p>
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<p>In our county government there is a 43.5 million dollar budget surplus. Funding a modest 3% increase in step and scale would have cost an additional 3 million dollars to the budget yet our county commissioners refused. We’re in the unfortunate position of negotiating with a school board that ultimately has no control over the purse strings.</p>
<p>This same group of commissioners also furloughed county employees, including police officers, for 10 days rather than dip in to the 43.5 million dollar surplus.</p>
<p>I would say that’s in far worse form. We are not working to contract because as I said in a previous post, we are least lucky to be able to negotiate with a school board that appreciates us. Because of that they are willing to make non-monetary concessions that improve our quality of life so to speak.</p>
<p>I also am a public employee and while I agree with thumper that everyone has the option to become a teacher I also happen to agree with BC that with current economic conditions demanding a raise is bad form. For many private employees things are really difficult and scary.
We had this discussion at work about my staff and I would bet the same would apply to teachers. Right now if the pay was cut 10% and health contributions raised besides those who could retire how many would go get another job. It was universally agreed -none.</p>
<p>Looks to me like the tone of the thread changed after employees in the private sector were characterized as having 3 martini lunch hours, conduct their business on the golf courses or in the skyboxes at sporting events, don’t take work home or have to work after hours, with implications that others don’t deserve a “very welcome” 6 weeks off, which private sector employees obviously don’t get. There is no teacher bashing in this thread. To the contrary- what happened was “private sector” bashing followed by questions and then a bunch of defensiveness. JMO.</p>
<p>Those of you who think employees in the private sector have it so cushy, I invite you to come live in our shoes. My income has consistently dropped over the past several years, I have no employee benefits, and my DH dealt with a layoff and period of unemployment that almost equaled a teacher’s school year. He now works in a job that is requiring 90-100 hr work weeks (no exaggeration).</p>
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<p>I’d have to know the county, politics, relative size of your district and other economic data before rendering a judgement.</p>
<p>There are lots of companies swimming in profits that aren’t handing out raises that are cutting salaries and benefits. Healthcare costs having been rising a lot and just keeping up with those increases in benefits is a benefit.</p>
<p>Well, what you describe really has happened in my district. This is year #6 in a row w/o a pay increase, but an increase of 30% for our healthcare over that same period. No pay raises for the next two years, either, but the increase in healthcare will continue.</p>
<p>I did a rough caclulation of how much time I spend weekly realted to by job. About 60 hours.</p>
<p>gloworm- does your district have a high turnover rate for teachers now? Do they have trouble getting new teachers to accept employment?</p>
<p>I have worked in both the private sector and in the public schools (where I am now, though not a teacher). Overall, I have to agree with the opinion of my neighbor, who also worked in the private sector for many years before switching to working in a public school: People should be required to work in private industry for 2 years before being allowed to work for the government. </p>
<p>There are good and bad employees everywhere, but working in an public employees union allows poor workers to go unpunished and makes it much harder for good workers to get rewarded. The fixed pay scales mean that teachers and others who go the extra mile don’t get extra pay for it, nor do they get other perks that private employers use to reward excellent employees. It’s much harder to discipline or fire borderline workers - those who always take most of their sick days, do the least required, etc. </p>
<p>The vast majority of those working in our public schools are hard-working and caring individuals. But they have a level of job-security that simply does not exist in the private sector. Come he** or high water, my school will exist next year, students will show up, and someone will have to work with them. There is no private business I can think of that can say that. And that level of job security can breed complacency.</p>
<p>OTOH, because public employees are paid by tax dollars, they are very often held up as being overpaid, lazy, or wasteful beaurocrats by taxpayers who have NO idea what they do or what would happen to their school, town, or state without these employee’s efforts. If I hear some idiot say, “I pay your salary” one more time… (the best response I ever heard to that statement was a former principal at our high school who looked at the disgruntled parent and said, “Really? How much do you pay in taxes? Because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come close to paying my salary.”) Our wages are public info, they’re in a report the town prints every year. If we returned our schools to a state where every classroom had 40 kids and the only teaching tool was a chalkboard, we have people in my town who would complain that the teachers were using too much chalk.</p>
<p>The point of this article wasn’t who has it worse, public or private. The point is that these teachers and their union, for whatever reason, have not been able to get an agreement with their school board for 2 years and it’s the seniors who are paying the price for that. Not the students in general - the senior class is bearing the brunt. That’s a specific group of kids who didn’t do a da*n thing to cause this. And although I know the teachers believe they have no alternative, I don’t think they’re comprehending the situation of the school board or the reality that the rest of the world lives in. </p>
<p>I get that the teachers believe this is the only way they can get their point across. How about the school board? What alternatives do they have if they believe the teachers are being unreasonable (again, 28%)? They can’t lock the teachers out, or fire them all. The kids have to be in school, by law. And they don’t have any “profits” to dig into to pay them more. Property taxes - the source of most of the school’s “revenue” is limited to an increase of 2.5% per year in MA, and that has to cover ALL the cost increases - including health insurance. So what’s their option here? To wait the teachers out. Which is what they’re doing.</p>
<p>BC, we are a suburb of Washington, D.C. One of the costliest regions in the nation in which to live. </p>
<p>Average monthly rent is over 1200 per month, plus utilities in our jurisdiction. We have approximately 39 schools. The 6 high schools in our system each have enrollments over 1,000. My school’s enrollment is over 2200. </p>
<p>Our system has around 133,000 students and just over 2000 certified teachers and approximately 3400 total employees.</p>
<p>There were district wide cuts everywhere except in the central office, where the Super managed to get the Board give him a 35% increase before the sudden budget woes.</p>
<p>It hasn’t been hard to get teachers, but to keep them, yes. He has stated publucly his belief that 40 % of new teachers should be fired, and has pretty much done that. Some of them were really dynamic, too.</p>
<p>It’s his fourth year here, and his rep. is getting around, so we anticipate a revolving door as long as he is here.</p>
<p>Sad for the kids.</p>
<p>but working in an public employees union allows poor workers to go unpunished ////
I am a public sector manager (non-union) and my pov is that any manager that blames the union because they will not deal with a poor performer is not doing their job. I feel that argument- the union will not allow me to deal with a poor performer is a canard, a feeble excuse for the manager to not take responsibility for doing their job.</p>
<p>and makes it much harder for good workers to get rewarded. ////
The problem with a merit system in government sector employment is that those merit raises never go to the non-political employee. Somehow they always seem to end up in the pocket of the local democrat or republican operative.</p>
<p>gloworm- your post 92 indicates it is not the pay but the Super that is causing the turnover. My point is even without pay raises people will still accept the jobs. That would indicate the pay is sufficient.</p>
<p>What Tom says is absolutely true IMO. In addition, what criteria will be used for merit pay? A recent study conducted by Vanderbilt University concluded that merit pay has no impact on test scores at all. </p>
<p>Any other criteria would be almost entirely subjective.</p>
<p>Lafalum, what alternatives are left to teachers? Virtually anything they do opens them up to accusations of hurting students. That being the case, what the public is saying is that teachers are just supposed to quietly accept whatever working conditions are imposed upon them.</p>
<p>What’s the relative size of your district to the county? My understanding is that certain regions near DC are doing well economically.</p>
<p>In MA, they’ve been tapping into rainy day fund for a few years now to blunt the effect of revenue declines. Revenues are just starting to turn up and, if that can be sustained, then some money should be put back into the rainy day fund. I think that it’s an important buffer for the state.</p>
<p>I imagine that there are a lot of demands on any state or local surplus these days.</p>
<p>In my own town, we used a surplus to provide a big cut in taxes. It was a one-shot deal and, of course, taxes shot up the following year. I don’t know the politics of your county but your county government controls the purse strings and you’d have to ask them about their decision.</p>
<p>In my case, profits of the company go to shareholders (I’m also a shareholder of my company). It’s a lot easier for me to demand profits be returned in the form of dividends than it would be to ask for and get a raise. Take a look at Hewlett-Packard. They had an across the board 5% pay cut for the company with bigger pay cuts for managers. I doubt that anyone publicly complained about it.</p>
<p>Our “district” is the county. In Maryland school systems are countywide.</p>
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But this is what people in the private sector deal with as the nature of their employment. If they are lucky enough to survive the latest round of layoffs, they have more work spread across less people. They have 2 choices-- do the work or quit. Why should it any different for teachers?</p>
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<p>I think that people got used to the idea of pay raises due to inflation and the component of them being better at their jobs. Social Security recipients aren’t getting an increase for their second year because the CPI number says that we have no inflation. In general, central bankers want some inflation as dealing with deflation can be very difficult and that may have promoted the expectations of annual increases. The Fed is working quite hard to generate inflation right now and we might end up with the worst of both worlds.</p>
<p>“I am a public sector manager (non-union) and my pov is that any manager that blames the union because they will not deal with a poor performer is not doing their job. I feel that argument- the union will not allow me to deal with a poor performer is a canard, a feeble excuse for the manager to not take responsibility for doing their job.”</p>
<p>so how do you deal with a poor performer who is in the teacher’s union?</p>