First of all, let me say that I have nothing against public school teachers. I know many current and former teachers including my next-door neighbor, the people across the street, my sister, former co-workers, etc. If you live in mac-groveland, you're surrounded by current and retired teachers. I'm also someone who has hired former teachers to work for me in the private sector.
But for those of you who've done nothing BUT work in the school system and are (in my opinion) too close to the situation to understand the criticism without taking it personally, let me offer some observations and reasons why many people do not hold public education employees in as high regard as you would like.
I certainly don't mean to offend anybody (you know me), but Renee's comments seem to imply that the public's hostility towards school teachers is due to their salaries. Not true. Even though people are shocked to learn that 49% of the state budget is for public education (about 15 billion dollars), and yet hear complaining that it's still not enough ... it's not about the salaries. For what teachers do, they theoretically should be getting more. A lot more.
I work in the education business. I'm a professional educator. People gladly pay me their money to teach them how to do their jobs or to acquire my instructional materials and expertise. If I was starting a private school for K-12, I would have a starting salary for new teachers of $45,000, with graduated increases for Master Teacher to $100-120,000. But their increases would be based on performance, on achieving measurable objectives, not on how long they've been there or even how many academic degrees they had. We have a saying in this business regarding experience. "Does he have 10 years' experience, or 1 year experience 10 times?" I'm not impressed with how long someone's been doing something, or even their academic credentials. I only care about how good they are at what they do. I've had young instructors out-perform people who had been doing it for 5-10 years, and I paid the youngster a higher salary as a result. I've fired a former public school principal with 25 years of experience because I came to the conclusion that he was a lousy educator.
When people know that they're going to get paid for performance, they have the incentive to perform well. If they know that they're going to be paid the same meager salary as their incompetent co-worker regardless of how well they themselves perform, they have no incentive to perform well, consistently, over the long term. It's called human nature. The people I work with don't expect to get paid more just because they've been there the longest. The people I work with don't look forward to retiring at 52 or 55 with full retirement benefits paid for by someone else. Hell, they don't even think about retiring.
Now, I don't expect many people here to relate to my world, but what I'm offering to Renee and others is a reason why they encounter the public attitudes that they do. If public educators had the type of employment structure as the one I describe above, you and I both know that they would be seen by the taxpayers as professionals and not simply government workers. But every time someone has the temerity to suggest migrating to a similar structure, they're shouted down by the very people who should welcome such a change. Oh well.
Dennis Tester Mac-Groveland
But it's their labor structure that gives people a bad taste in their mouths. You have to remember that most people in this country don't belong to a union. Less than 13% of the american workforce are unionized. Unions have a hard time organizing in companies not just because business owners don't like unions, but because the employees don't like unions!
. The "union mentality" is a phrase that pops up in conversations about public education (as I'm sure you know) means to a non-unionist that the employee's primary focus is their retirement date.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Pam Ellison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Renee Jenson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: [StPaul] Teacher unions
AMEN!!!!! RENAE.
Pam Ellison
Como Park
Saint Paul
----- Original Message ----- From: Renee Jenson
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 9:40 AM
Subject: [StPaul] Teacher unions
Uh, thanks for all of your kind emails offlist to my last post on salaries for teachers. I have a feeling it might be fruitless to answer some personally, but there is one more thing I want to say.
I have been a HUGE supporter of unions since I was a school board member in the White Bear Area School District in the early 90's. At that time we were going through some huge financial difficulties with the defeat of our levy and some huge cutbacks by the state. One year we had to cut 20% from our budget and another year 10%. We had to let over 120 teachers go, had 45 kids in our classrooms, and had to close schools.
During all this turmoil we had hundreds (literally) of parents in the board room telling us to fire the teachers that had been there the longest because they made the most money.
Now can you imagine if we fired our most experienced teachers during all of this turmoil, the teachers that mentored the younger teachers, the teachers that could handle 45 kids in a classroom, the teachers with all the experience and knowledge? Luckily there was a union that prevented that kind of foolishness.
And yes, I believe in the step and lane system of reward for our teachers too. It rewards them for keeping their education current and for years of experience-which is very necessary when you put kids with learning difficulties, kids that don't speak english, kids with handicaps or mental difficuties, etc- in their classroom. I had one first grade teacher with 35 kids in her classroom and 3 autistic kids. Luckily she was one of our most experienced and best teachers. Besides, who wants a teacher in the classroom with knowledge that isn't current?
So yeah, I support our teachers, and I support their union. They need it especially whne resources are tight and the public is screaming to fire them after they have given their lives to kids and their professions because they "make too much money".
Ren�e Jenson Como _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [email protected]
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