I wrote a LTE regarding teacher pay last year, and in Lieu of The community wide education meeting, I thought I would bring it back.
One quick note, keep this story in mind, while listening to the noise about teacher pay and benefits. As Border’s is on the verge of bankruptcy and closing stores all over the country(including here in Madison):
While store closings continue to proceed apace accompanied by daily layoffs, the retailer is seeking the court’s help to hold on to 17 top executives. In papers filed yesterday, supported by declarations from Holly Felder Etlin, senior v-p of restructuring for Borders, and John Dempsey, a partner in Mercer, Borders asked to implement key employee incentive and retention plans. Possible payouts under the plans range from a total of $4.7 to $7.1 million, with Borders’s CEO Mike Edwards qualifying for incentives between $1.1 and $1.7 million based on meeting timetables for a plan of reorganization or a going concern sale.
After that hits the gag reflex, here is my letter:
The school budget meetings have taken up the headlines lately, and they probably will for some time to come. As we saw during the days leading up to the election, this issue is not just affecting us, but almost every community in the surrounding area. While there is no one solution, there is one topic that has been written about that needs to be addressed; that is the issue of teacher pay. Our teachers are not only members of our community, they are also guardians of the future. We trust them to teach our children not only how to survive in the world, but to thrive in its hope. While it is impossible to put a price tag on the job teachers do, some people seem to think that they can, and that we are currently overpaying for their services. Right now teachers are saddled with the burden of overcrowded classrooms(which are getting worse), the decline of community social services, the pressure of standardized tests, the rise of poverty, unemployment, and the high divorce rate, to name a few. When you factor in the level of education teachers have and the many personal hours and dollars they spend, our teachers are vastly underpaid. To start cutting their pay and benefit packages, will not only force teachers to start leaving their profession, but schools will also be unable to attract the best and brightest students to become teachers in the future.
Another argument that you will hear, is that teachers work just nine months out of the year. While that is their contract time, if you know a teacher, you know they work countless (unpaid) hours over and above their contract. Not only do teachers have to have a degree, they also need continuing education (paid for at their own expense)to keep their license and become better teachers. They do not advertise these hours, because most accept it as part of their job.
Since many will not, allow me to offer up a few examples. There is the teacher who in order to help defray the costs of an important yearly field trip for the students, spends nights and weekends working the concession stand at the Alliant Energy Center to fundraise. There is the school social worker who helped a family get needed ongoing mental health services. After the family was turned down numerous times, she facilitated between the school, the insurance company, the hospital, the teachers and numerous doctors, never taking NO for an answer. There is the teacher who works in a school that has an over 50% poverty rate, who spends her own money to buy school supplies as well as winter coats, hats, mittens, toothbrushes, and other toiletries for her students. Furthermore, there is the teacher that spends his lunches building relationships with his students and mediating conflicts, so that his students can be present to learn. More teachers than not spend countless evenings, weekends, holidays, lunches, and other free time, grading papers and tests, tutoring their students, mentoring their students, planning and running extracurricular activities for their students, building relationships with their students’ parents, etc. There are also numerous cases of teachers voluntarily spending their summers “off” taking classes, writing curriculum, writing assessments, teaching summer school, tearing down and setting up their classrooms, etc…
Finally, some will compare the teaching profession to people in the business world. Let me leave you with one example. The Village Board of Cottage Grove switched village planners to Graef, whose least expensive planner charges $81/hour. Graef also actually charged the village taxpayers approximately $2500 to review documents and prep work(and got away with it). Let’s not give in to short – sighted ideas and make sure to reward our teachers and keep our schools strong!
