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Special Report
Earning Their Apples
With teacher unions on the decline, merit pay will be the norm in the next decade.
The move earlier this month by D.C. Public Schools to fire 200 of their worst-performing teachers certainly got attention from school reformers and teachers union bosses alike. After all, the move to get rid of five percent of the district’s teachers — many of whom were rated “minimally effective” in their instruction for a second straight year under the district’s performance-based evaluation system — proved once and for all that last year’s successful effort by the American Federation of Teachers to oust Adrian Fenty as Washington, D.C. mayor and toss out the tough-talking Michelle Rhee as the district’s chancellor came to naught.
Few, however, noticed that the district’s 663 top-performing teachers would get something more than apples: Each of them will get bonuses of as much as $25,000 for their successful work. For just one of those teachers with a bachelor’s degree and 10 years in the classroom, the top bonus is equal to 38 percent of their annual salary of $65,173.
By next year, these D.C. teachers won’t be alone. After a decade of small-scale voluntary efforts, states such as Florida, Ohio, and Indiana are giving teachers the chance to earn extra cash, gain well-deserved recognition for their work, and prove that they can hack it in the classroom. Other states are considering their own efforts. Whether or not merit pay becomes a reality throughout the nation will depend as much on how school reformers and districts put together these plans as on whether they can beat back the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and their allies defending traditional public education.
Driving the move towards merit pay are the same conditions that have led states such as Wisconsin and New Jersey to either abolish collective bargaining for teachers or force them to contribute more to their retirement. With states facing $137 billion in budget shortfalls in the coming two fiscal years — and $1.4 trillion in long-term teachers’ pension deficits and retired teacher healthcare benefits — budget-cutting governors are taking aim at the array of generous defined-benefit pensions, nearly-free healthcare plans, near-lifetime employment privileges and degree-and seniority-based pay scales that have long made teaching the most-lucrative profession (and most-insulated from hiring and firing) in the public sector. They have found themselves teaming up with the nation’s school reform movement, which has proven that traditional teacher compensation is both overly costly and ineffective at rewarding high-quality teachers and spurring student achievement.
But budget-cutters and school reformers both realize that abolishing collective bargaining and forcing larger contributions isn’t exactly enough to address either the fiscal problems or the low quality of America’s traditional public schools. So they are turning to an idea long-embraced in the private sector: Basing at least some portion of teacher pay — either in the form of bonuses or pay increases — on their success or failure in improving student performance (in terms of growth on standardized tests). Districts in cities such as Denver, New York City, Nashville, and Houston have spent much of the past decade engaged in their own small-scale efforts, while one state, North Carolina, has since 1996 given bonuses to teachers who improve student achievement. And now, other states are seizing on the idea.
Last month, Ohio launched a merit pay plan for teachers working in districts receiving federal Race to the Top dollars. Indiana went even further, requiring all teachers to earn raises based on their performance starting next year. Meanwhile, Florida is requiring all newly-hired teachers entering the classroom after 2014 to earn their raises based on performance. For example, a Sunshine State teacher can get a raise of as much as $9,875 if he or she has been ranked “highly effective” in improving student achievement.
Merit pay, of course, doesn’t sit well with the NEA, the AFT, or their fellow allies in defending traditional public education such as Diane Ravitch, the education historian who has become a foe of anything reeking of school reform. For the unions, in particular, merit pay strikes at the heart of their influence: the decades-old bargain with rank-and-file members to continually assure them of ever-increasing salaries. The fact that teachers would no longer be considered as interchangeable as fast-food workers — and that the bonuses are based in part on student achievement on the standardized tests the unions abhor — makes performance pay even more of an abomination to them.
They have also seized upon a series of recent studies that cast doubt on merit pay’s efficacy. Last week, the Rand Corp. released a “report declaring that New York City’s now-shuttered merit pay experiment did not improve student achievement in any grade.” The report was music to the ears of union bosses and readers of writer Daniel Pink’s half-baked theories on motivation everywhere. Declares Leo Casey, an AFT official who runs the Edwize blog: “Teachers do not answer to the economic calculus of stockbrokers and hedge-fund managers.”
Such declarations fail to consider the fact that while teachers may not get big upfront paychecks at the beginning of their careers (and must wait a decade or longer before reaping the full benefits of traditional teacher compensation), they still definitely value money and other forms of external motivation. The fact that teachers unions and the Baby Boomer teachers are battling fiercely with school reformers over their efforts to end tenure and cut back defined-benefit pensions (two of the big long-term income streams in traditional teacher compensation) belies such myth-making.
At “Teacher Appreciation Week” events held every May, teachers reap gifts big and small — from milkweeds pulled from off the street to lavish packages from Bath and Body Works — given by students and parents as rewards for their work. As Jesse Walker, the managing editor of Reason observed in a tweet last month, these tchotchkes are certainly “a backdoor form of merit pay.”
Given that merit pay is fairly new in education, there is no irrefutable evidence that merit pay doesn’t work. A study of North Carolina’s merit pay plan released last month by the American Enterprise Institute shows that student test performance for teachers participating in the Tar Heel State’s merit pay program increased by 1.3 percent over the average expected growth in achievement over time. The privately-funded TAP program, started 12 years ago by Lowell Milken, the brother of the legendary (or infamous) junk bond inventor, has proven even more successful. Some 20,000 teachers receive bonuses and job promotions based on how well they and their colleagues improve student achievement and improve their skills. In Louisiana, for example, teachers in nearly half of the 28 schools operated by the Algiers school district that participated in TAP increased student achievement by more than a full academic year.
But the failure of some merit pay plans clearly proves that future performance-pay efforts must adapt the same structures as those in the private sector. And this means ditching traditional teacher pay altogether.
For one, the bonuses and raises must be large enough — equal to as much as 20 percent or similar to levels in the private sector — to motivate teachers to work harder. This is especially true for Baby Boomer instructors, who have already reaped all the fringe benefits — to work harder. After all, salaries and bonuses, like prices, signal the value of work. Veteran teachers participating in New York City’s merit pay initiative were only paid $1,500 to $3,000 for meeting or exceeding performance targets — or just between one-to-three percent of their base salary of $100,049 a year. Even the North Carolina initiative’s maximum bonus of $1,500 equals out only to 3 percent of the average income of $47,934 for a Tar Heel State teacher.
The fact that many merit pay plans are voluntary — and often require teachers to give up the near-lifetime employment rights that are a key part of their compensation packages — also rendered these plans dead in the water. Just 28 percent of Denver’s veteran teachers had joined its merit pay when it launched in 2006. The New York City experiment only covered teachers in just 205 of the district’s 1,700 schools, essentially letting teachers in the rest of the city off the hook. Even the Florida plan, which has garnered jeers from NEA and AFT leaders, still allows Baby Boomer teachers to stick to the wasteful compensation plans they hold dear.
There is plenty of promise in performance pay. But school reformers must not treat it as an add-on to traditional teacher compensation. This means ending tenure and other seniority-based benefits; it also means ending degree- and seniority-based pay scales with salary bands based on performance (especially in improving math and literacy).
Reformers will get plenty of help from younger, more reform-minded teachers (who now make up the majority of all teachers) and are already battling with Baby Boomers over the direction of the NEA and the AFT. Given that generational divide, along with the “continuing decline of teachers’ union influence,” performance pay is likely to be the norm in the next decade.
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (26) | Leave a comment
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PCC| 7.26.11 @ 8:11AM
Yes, meaningful cash bonuses will inspire better performance from teachers in the short-term and they are to be applauded.
However, non-cash recognition on the positive side, and job insecurity on the negative side, are probably better motivators.
Tenure is a pernicious system that only exists in academe, and we're not talking about world-class university researchers here: we're talking about reading, writing and arithmetic.
As long as we must live with public school systems, this is a useful tonic that should be encouraged.
However, in due course, a more sensible policy would be to implement a widespread private education system supported by taxpayer-funded vouchers or a wholly private education system with public schools serving only the most apathetic parents and their benighted offspring.
masly | 7.26.11 @ 12:21PM
New York, California, etc), there comes a time to call a halt. All studies have shown that money does not make the difference. Parental choice and involvement are more significant.
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JimP| 7.26.11 @ 8:35AM
This column reads like a rant written by a guy with an axe to grind who sprinkles the column with facts that mislead the reader. $65K after 10 years teaching in DC? That’s a very average income. $47K in NC as the author noted is an average. That means ALL salaries were added together to get that figure which includes the seniority salaries. $47K is pretty average income in NC. Now, $100K as a “base salary” sounds high. Does “base salary” mean a first year teacher in NYC is paid $100K per year? According to the NYC pay scale I just looked up on the web $100K is the very top of the pay scale after putting in about 30 years, with advanced degrees. This pay scale says that a new teacher starts out at $45,530.00 for the 07-08 school year. That is below average income in NYC. The benefit packages that teachers in states like NJ, WI and NY receive are lavish, and unjustifiable in my opinion, but these packages do not uniformly exist throughout the entire country: far from it in fact. The author says that, “…teaching the most-lucrative profession (and most-insulated from hiring and firing) in the public sector". The public sector isn’t paying all that well according to the data I’ve looked at, but you’d think that all teachers were millionaires to read the statement: and the “most insulated from hiring(?) and firing”? No. I’ve worked for the Feds. Teachers have nothing on federal employees when it comes to job security. Also, what’s with all the griping about “Baby Boomer” teachers. Boomers didn’t invent the system they work under.
I’m for merit pay for teachers, but this column is just a misleading, scapegoating rant by a guy who resents public school teachers and Baby Boomers for reasons we can only guess about.
Michael F. Shaughnessy| 7.26.11 @ 10:32AM
Has anyone ever stopped to ASK teachers what kind of merit pay they actually want? Has anyone ever actually looked at the research as to what teachers would prefer? Do teachers want more money or do they want more supplies ? Or do they want the discipline problems removed from their classrooms so that they can actually teach students who want to learn? Do teachers want more pencils, laptops, better medical or dental benefits or do they want the authority to remove violent, aggressive, assaultive, destructive children from their regular education classes?
Tina B| 7.26.11 @ 4:15PM
Very succinct, Michael. I can vouch for those of us who just want the discipline problems removed and given appropriate consequences, which implies the authority to remove violent, aggressive . . . children from our regular ed classes. Then get out of my way and watch me educate! With passion.
C Smith| 7.26.11 @ 10:36AM
The caption "Teachers Unions Gone Wild" screams for attention. Seems some itinerant journalist recently "crashed" a New Jersey Education Association's "leadership" conference and video chronicled the event. Reminds me of an expose I compiled (circa 1992) regarding America's only government funded religion. The intent: to challenge believers to "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them" (cf. Ephesians 5:11). The elder board did not approve distribution.
The following is a facsimile:
The National Education Association (NEA) with 2.1 million members is the most powerful force in education. Although it purports to represent the interest of teachers, many of its members are not in agreement with its policies, have limited awareness of its politics, and are naive about its power and past. William Bennett, former Secretary of Education, in The Devaluing of America, describes the NEA's policies and politics:
In recent years, the union's Representative Assembly went on record in favor of teacher strikes; school- based clinics dispensing contraceptives; a nuclear freeze; gay rights; the Equal Right Amendment; D.C. statehood; and Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis for president. It has voted against merit pay for teachers; parental choice; voluntary school prayer; state takeovers of bad schools; home schooling; English as the official language; drug, alcohol, and AIDS testing; nuclear power plants; aid to the Nicaraguan resistance; the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court; and Ronald Reagan and George Bush for president...Opposes every common-sense reform measure: competency testing for teachers, opening the teaching profession to knowledgeable individuals who have not graduated from 'schools of education,' performance-based pay, holding educators accountable for how much children learn, an end to tenure, a national examination to find out exactly how much our children know, and parental choice of schools....
Thomas Toch, education correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, "In the Name of Excellence" writes:
In 1989 it [the NEA] spent $7.4 million on such things as a computerized system of mass producing letters to Congress from 300,000 NEA members who "pre-authorized" the use of their names; "Congressional Contact Teams" made up of 2 NEA members in each Congressional district who are specially trained as lobbyists and flown back and forth from Washington to promote the NEA's cause from the local level; a computerized file of NEA's entire membership; a satellite link-up between a television studio in the NEA's Washington headquarters and its state affiliates; and a full-time lobbing staff of 15.... The NEA also has been a major backer of Democratic candidates since 1976, when it played a leading role in the Carter campaign. (Carter signaled the size of the NEA's contributions to his election by pushing through Congress the law that established the U.S. Department of Education - a longtime NEA goal).
The NEA's power in Iowa is of special concern. Again quoting Mr. Toch: "The NEA has sought to gain control of teacher licensing by establishing licensing boards with teacher majorities. Only Minnesota and Iowa have granted this board final authority in teacher certification." Particularly disconcerting for those of us in Iowa where an overwhelming majority of teachers are NEA members." With the NEA in charge, the role of the teacher continues to evolve. The NEA's report, Education for the Seventies, states: "Schools will become clinics whose purpose is to provide individualized psycho-social treatment for the students, and teachers must become psychosocial therapists."
The NEA has encountered little resistance because so little is known of its political expediencies, and according to Mr. Toch, that's the plan. "Though the NEA has fought virtually every educational reform, it has poured millions of dollars into a public relations campaign designed to convince the nation that it is committed to the reform of the public schools, and of teaching in particular." The NEA's publication NEA Today spawns a plethora of glossy images of appreciative students and their obliging teachers, but so little content that it prompted author Samuel Blumenfeld to describe it as having been "written at the intellectual level of the National Enquirer."
No expose on the NEA would be complete without investigating its contention with evangelical Christianity. Blumenfeld in his book NEA: Trojan Horse In American Education describes the organizations long association with secular humanism:
...in 1933 John Dewey and 33 other liberal humanists drew up and signed that extraordinary document known as the Humanist Manifesto. It reflected all of the influences of science, evolution, and the new psychology which were reshaping American education... It was thus Dewey who began to fashion a new materialist religion in which humanity was venerated instead of God. This is basically the religion of Secular Humanism, and this is what has become the official religion of the United States, for it is the only religion permitted in its public schools and totally supported by government funds.... The NEA has remained remarkably faithful to the Humanist Manifesto since 1933. For all practical purposes, the public school has become the parochial school for secular humanism. Its doctrines pervade the curriculum from top to bottom.
Dewey, for his contributions to education, was elected honorary president of the NEA in 1932. He was also issued the American Federation of Teachers' first membership card. With the 1973 signing of Humanistic Manifesto II, humanism became even more culturally entrenched:
As in 1933, humanist still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith. Salvationism, based on mere affirmation, still appears as harmful, diverting people with false hopes of heaven hereafter. Reasonable minds look to other means for survival.... No Deity will save us; we must save ourselves.
Signers of Humanist Manifesto II include Alan F. Guttmacher, president of Planned Parenthood; Betty Friedan, founder of N.O.W; behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, a horde of Unitarian ministers, and Lester Mondale, former president of the Fellowship of Religious Humanists. Such is the NEA's consanguine "fellowship.
"The NEA's domination of education affects all teachers. It dictates the rules of professional advancement. It pressures teachers to be politically partisan. Its infusion of humanist curriculum places conscionable teachers in a moral dilemma. And its influence over accreditation and other policies is disconcerting for teachers public and private. In summation, the NEA's monopoly on education places teachers, and our children, at risk!
"And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea" (Mark 9:42, cf. Mathew 8:16 & Luke 17:2).
http://popularapostasy.blogspo.....-wild.html
Appleby| 7.26.11 @ 11:43AM
Schools should be privatized, and the parents of children should be required to send them to school at their own expense. This should be figured into the cost of having children from the get-go.
Private schools will spring up that will cater to every kind of kid who has to be educated, and that includes the ones that don't want to be educated -- boot camp schools might do that group more good than their actual parents do. Boarding schools for the kids of people who had kids because they were on the task list (or their parents bullied them into it) and now don't know what to do with them might be the most successful form of schooling in North America.
But by all means let us stop forcing people who have no children to subsidize a very poor and ineffective system into which we have no input. We're tired of getting nothing but invoices.
TrueBlue| 7.26.11 @ 1:29PM
I agree with everything on that list. If you don't have kids in the system, or will be in the future, why are you forced to pay for it? Make it a choice if someone wants to donate to the school system for those who don't have children, other than that keep it paid for by parents alone.
In addition, disband the Dept of Education. The vast majority of highly successful people in this country did not need the "help" of a school system designed to tell people what to think. They were taught how to think for themselves, and then expected to do just that!
And before someone tries to accuse me of not caring for the education of our children, I have two kids, and I DO care. That's why I think the dang system needs to be changed!
Ed| 7.26.11 @ 11:56AM
I have taught college biology courses for some time, both as a full time and part time teacher, but I do not belong to a union nor do I have tenure. From an insider's point of view, the problem with merit pay in education is that the process is very political. Do you use student evaluations? Demanding but fair instructors do not get good reviews from today's students. Do you use standardized test results? They are commonly used for exit exams upon graduation and for professional board certification (as in nursing), but at present, there are no external final exams for individual courses. Depending on Department Heads for evaluations is a very, very, political process. It is easy to identify the teaching superstars, and it is easy to identify the duds, but the odds of a good, solid teacher getting merit pay are slim to none. That is why annual step increases are so popular with the rank and file.
TrueBlue| 7.26.11 @ 2:03PM
It would have to be an outside evaluation in addition to the standardized testing. The evaluation itself would have to be done by ACTIVE parents that actually take an interest in how much their child is/isn't learning. The test would need to be on basic subject matter, not specifics, in the case of classes like English where every school may not use the same literature, so that the focus is on actual lessons learned, not specific facts that can be memorized. Being able to memorize a chapter to get the answers right on a test does not mean the kid actually learned anything, and only results in them "brain-dumping" the information after the test.
Math would definitely be the easiest to do this with, since problems are easily developed and already requires the child to know how to solve the equations. Geography, history, and government would likewise be simple, they're all established subjects that don't really change. English really would be the hardest to develop the test for, though the SATs do (or did when I was in school) a pretty good job of it.
The key here is active parental participation. Thankfully with all the attention people are paying to politics and the budget these days it would be easier to get parents involved with something like this than it would have been a few years ago when things were chugging along nicely (from an economic standpoint anyway).
rendite| 7.27.11 @ 4:00AM
TrueBlue, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to play the skeptic. Someone has to do it.
Why do you think parents will somehow/someway objectively (and fairly) help rate their children's teachers?
Most just want their kid praised, passed onto the next grade, and all GOLD STARS so that a full ride scholarship to Harvard, Yale, Standford or military academy await.
Ed is asking the right questions/raising the right issues. Who really can objectively determine which teachers shined brightest during a school year and deserve the "merit pay" or "performance pay?"
It is more complicated than it seems. Alas. So it is.
Will the merit pay go to the teacher who not only (supposedly) teaches English in the Middle School but also does Drama Club, Student Government faculty advisor, and an after school sport? The problem: This English teacher stretches herself well beyond her capablities and does none of them well.
But she "volunteered" to take on more responsibilities, right? She did more; she deserves to be first in line for the merit pay, right?
Finally, in a time where school budgets are strapped in every way imaginable, does anyone really think there will be extra $$ in the regional school board's annual account to dole out $500,000 to the best 40 "merit based" teachers?
Tangible things need to be done to reward the "standout" teachers who really teach. Let's just not make it oversimplistic.
**I agree that the real teachers would just want the ability to SWIFTLY remove the classroom troublemakers FOREVER so that real education can take place EVERY 55 minute period of EVERY school day.
JimP| 7.27.11 @ 11:21AM
Excellent points 'rendite'. Another real world hurdle in merit pay is that the best teachers are given the worst/most difficult students. I know this because it has happened to my wife repeeatedly who has been teaching for 34 years. Her principals have told point blank that her skills are needed and the less competent teachers cannot get the job done with these kids. Even though I am for merit pay, any merit system would be difficult to devise and take real world activity into account fairly. This column has motivated me to investigate the merit pay systems in other systems to see how they address such factors. Personally, if a fair system could be devised, I'm for it because my wife would get paid her due. I'd also like to see vouchers and private schools because our family could open a private school and make mega bucks. Too many conservatives see private schools as a panacea. They aren't. In private schools 'the customer is always right' so caveat emptor is ALWAYS required. Again, I know this from real world experience.
Thanks to everyone who posted comments. It was an interesting discussion and provoked more thought on my part.
TrueBlue| 7.27.11 @ 12:54PM
True, but at least you have a choice, and more ability to affect what the school does. Public schools they just tune you out because they know one parent can't stand up to the teacher's Union. That goes back to who people vote in for their local government and school board officials.
JimP| 7.27.11 @ 5:02PM
Public schools are much more responsive to parents where I live than your statement indicates. Maybe your system isn't as well balanced. Too, parents typically think teaching and getting results is much simpler than it actually is. I wouldn't become a teacher in public school. They have to deal with too many personalities, with too many varying ability levels, and adjust to the innumerable idiosyncrasies the kids display from their 'dysfunctional' family situations. Then throw in the disgruntled parents who don't know how to teach, but think they do, who gripe and moan and complain because Johnny [who has ADHD and is also jacked up on caffeine and sugar that the irresponsible parents give the kid instead of healthy food and he also gets too little sleep] doesn't score at the genius level or is a behavior problem.
I would be an administrator of a private school where this kind of stuff is not prevalent, at present, because the families truly care-not just give it lip service and expect the teachers to do all the work- about their kids' education. When/if we go all private and provide vouchers or whatever things will end up much more chaotic and the scores will go down because of all the Johnnies like the one I mentioned above.
No school can do it all. Parents HAVE to be very involved with the kids via making them study and do homework. Drill, drill, drill. There is not enough time nor enough teachers to do this at school. There never will be unless people want to spend more untold trillions all for hiring teachers, paying them decently by whatever system, and reduce the student teacher ratio to about 5 to 1. We've all been lied to/scammed that all the billions we've spent on education since Johnson's Great Society was the anwer. As someone else pointed out. A huge percentage of fed money pays useless bureaucrats who shuffle papers and get in the way of teaching.
TrueBlue| 7.27.11 @ 12:52PM
Agreed, I keep making the mistaken assumption that parents will actually think logically instead of trying to prop up their child even when they can't do a dang thing. If my kids do bad in school I dang well expect the teachers to tell me, and fail them if they refuse to do their school/homework. I'm willing to do quite a bit to help my kids with school; make sure they understand the assignment and how to do it (though frankly that should have been explained by the teacher, and the kid should have asked them first), make sure they have the supplies they need, the time/space, and a tutor if necessary. But I will not do the work for them, nor will I let them pass if they obviously don't understand what they're doing. 'No Child Left Behind' is a crock of @#$% and needs to be tossed in the trash.
Goes back to people not wanting to take responsibility for their own actions, and kids being told for years that it's not their fault. That and the fact that it's very difficult to discipline your kids these days without someone screaming bloody murder.
cicero| 7.26.11 @ 12:07PM
Let me see if I get this straight. The teachers, and their unions, have captured school boards and bankrupted school districts. They work 5 hours per day, 180 days per year, with time off during those 180 days. They complain that they don't get enough pay to do their jobs; turn out a product that anyone able avoids; and now tell us that they will do better if we pay them bonuses for doing their basic job. Oh, and the bonuses will be added to the current base pay.
Suggestion: Start teachers where they start now. If they are any good, and the results prove it over an extended period of time, give them bonuses. If the results are not there, fire them and hire the next in line. It is not like we are running out of graduates from the teaching curriculums.
On the other hand, we could recuruit from the many disciplines taught in the colleges. Pick the best in any department at the end of their sophomore. Pay for the last two years of college, and have them sign a contract to teach for 5 years in your district. They will then either stay because they are having a great time, or will move on, whereupon you can repeat the process. If they are really great, youn THEN pay them bonuses to stay.
In all this talk of pay incentives and bonuses, nobody seems to want to consider tha fact that we are dealing with a finite amount of money. When you start looking at the amount of money expended per pupil (Detroit $14,000.00 +; Washington D.C. $17,000.00+;
New York, California, etc), there comes a time to call a halt. All studies have shown that money does not make the difference. Parental choice and involvement are more significant.
TrueBlue| 7.27.11 @ 12:55PM
I wish I could work 5 hours a day and get paid $50k a year...
JimP| 7.27.11 @ 5:15PM
The teachers actually put in more than 5 hours a day and they have to work more than just 180 days. That being said, it's not a 9-5 grind job. Why don't you become a teacher yourself and then let us know if that hypothetical $50K is enough for all the other stuff teachers deal with. I wouldn't do it. $50K ain't near enough to do what they do. I think my wife is some sort of saint. I'd go postal- on the kids, the parents, and the bureaucrats.
Ground Control| 7.26.11 @ 6:09PM
Teaching should be a profession, not a union job. With professional salaries, professional working conditions, and professional standards. That means no tenure, and no guaranteed lifetime job. If you do well, you make good money and you have a good career. If you stink, you get fired. This is simple and not only would draw better teacher candidates, it would be cheaper in the long run. And while you're at it, fire the useless bureaucrats who suck up most of the school budgets.
Hilton| 7.26.11 @ 9:51PM
As long as we must live with public school systems, this is a useful tonic that should be encouraged.
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Hilton| 7.26.11 @ 9:52PM
Its doctrines pervade the curriculum from top to bottom.
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POST American| 7.26.11 @ 10:54PM
---AND as education, or should we say 'training',
goes into its second century of utter stranglehold
domination by FREEMASONRY.
Never talked about, never even mentioned in
media ---or in the pages of A.S..
Aces and Eights| 7.27.11 @ 10:38AM
We don't talk much about UFO's either.
TrueBlue| 7.27.11 @ 12:57PM
Odd, all the Masons I know are capitalists, not union pawns.
JimP| 7.27.11 @ 6:27PM
Yeah, those mysterious masters of the universe, The FreeMasons. Funny, the Masons I've known believe in God, honesty, integrity, free markets, but they do keep secrets. It seems the ability to keep a secret shows integrity. But hey, they must be up to something nefarious because it's all secret. They don't just let anybody join. It's a fraternity or exclusive or something. What I want to know is since the run everything, why did the get Obama elected. Are the Masons commies now? Do explain it to us Post American.
Lingerie | 7.27.11 @ 5:45AM
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