My taxes are too high because teachers make too much money. They only work 10 months out of the year but they get a salary as if they worked all year. I only got a 3% raise this year at my job, and they shouldn't get a raise higher than the rate of inflation.
This isn't going to be a long post about economics and cost of living and with statistics and salary charts and on and on. Actually, that will be next week. Even though I have mentioned it before and will write about it again, teacher salaries do take about half of the property taxes in the county so it's worth addressing repeatedly.
Salaries of any job are part of the free market, and set based on what is required to recruit and retain the best employees. Every industry pays different amounts to different people based on the supply and demand of skills, and LCPS is subject to that same free market when it comes to teachers. Our teacher salaries are set based on that free market, not as a moral judgment of how much someone deserves to be paid. When I consider the challenge and importance of the work that teachers do and the impact it has on the future of our world, I think they should be paid much more (same for law enforcement, firefighters, military and other public safety personnel), but no society has ever though it could afford to pay public employees according to the importance and risk associated with their jobs.
I don't know how much of a raise I'll get from my employer this year, I do hope that it outpaces inflation because I want to make more this year than I did last year, and if my raise is tied to the cost of living then it equates to no raise at all. It's the same for teachers and the families that they support, so I do hope that we will be able to give them a raise beyond the rate of inflation. Whether we can or not depends entirely on the decisions of this Board of Supervisors in the coming weeks.
I won't quibble with notion that the free market sets the wage standard only because Loudoun doesn't have a teacher's union.
ReplyDeleteHowever in the private sector, my salary increase requires that I produce more than last year. Productivity drives raises not senority.
Teachers that want a step raise should also have more students in their class and should be assigned the more difficult students and do more mentoring and extracurricular stuff, etc.
It appears a teacher with 20 years experience is doing the same work (educating 21.5 kids) as a entry-level teacher for twice the pay. Where are the productivity gains that warrant step increases?
I'm glad that you asked, it's a reasonable question.
ReplyDeleteI do want to make the point that I've been around both the pulic and private sectors long enough to know that in many cases people get seniority and pay raises just for taking up space. The private sector is no shining beacon of darwinian seniority any more than the public sector is rife with layabouts.
I hope some teachers or administrators will chime in as well.
First, teachers with more experience are expected to be better teachers. Nobody expects a teacher to be at the pinnacle of his or her career straight out of school, and in fact many decide within the first two years that teaching is not the career for them. It takes time to get really good at it, and once teachers are really good at it we want to keep them in our classrooms.
Second, teachers with more experience are expected to mentor younger teachers, participate more in the development of curriculum and school improvement plans, and take senior roles in other ways.
Third, teachers with more experience very often are the ones who teach the more challenging students and the more difficult subjects.
Not every veteran teacher is a saint and many junior teachers are energetic, inspired and have an innate ability that puts their skills far beyond their years. But without a doubt as a group (and that is how we create our payscale)there is a big difference in expectations between an entry-level teacher and one with 20 years of experience.
"The private sector is no shining beacon of darwinian seniority any more than the public sector is rife with layabouts."
ReplyDeleteThe private sector is more rewarding for the employees that do a great job than the public sector any day. Secondly, the public sector is rife with layabouts. I am a former County Government employee and the entire system is setup to thwart the worker and turn them into compliant vegetables who do only what is required and nothing more.
I understand the argument about trying to get ahead each year by getting a raise larger than CPI. The problem is that if teachers are given raises above CPI, then taxpayers effectively are using their raise to pay for the teachers raise.
Second, if more experienced teachers are expected to do more, why can't the grades and test scores of students be tied to the teachers so it is easy to track how effective a teacher really is. This would make merit pay easily to implement and would reward the best teachers.
John,
ReplyDeleteAll this talk about teacher salaries, what about administration staff salaries? What percentage of the budget goes to Admin staff and how much of the budget could be saved by lowering the raises of only Admin staff instead of teachers?
Also, I read on a blog that the Admin Bldg on Education Court has 30% available office space that could be used by other County staff. It would seem to make sense there is room for more there since it is so new. But I have not seen any real data to evaluate this possibly bogus comment. Can you find out what the current # sq ft/employee at the LCPS Admin building and how does that compare with the County Gov't Center on Loudoun St in Leesburg?
Lastly, could any savings be realized by issuing CDs instead of books and just have a set of books that can be checked out on an as-needed basis? The size of the books is getting ridiculous - one of my son's books is >8 pounds and covers 2 years of curriculum! I know some kids have medical necessity for an extra set of books because they can't physically manage the weight.
I'm converting the previous comment to a new post. See "LCPS Administrative Costs," February 17th.
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