By Tom
It’s looking more and more like teachers in Washington State will get a pay cut. It’ll either be 3%, if the Senate gets its way; or 1.9%, if the Governor prevails. Whichever way it ends up, the issue begs the obvious question: should teachers work less days if they get less pay?
On the one hand, the last thing our students need is a shorter school year. And despite the logic that the public should “feel the pain” after voting down a couple of juicy tax bills last election, the people who would feel most of that pain are the citizens not yet old enough to vote.
On the other hand, it stands to reason that if you get less money you shouldn’t have to work as much. My brother in law works in construction. Things have slowed down lately in that industry, so his salary has dropped. But so has his workload; he now works a four-day week. Teachers work 180 days. According to my math, three percent of 180 is 5.4 days. If we ran the school system like my brother in law’s construction firm, teachers would get an extra week off for the next two years.
Personally, I’d rather work those extra days. I enjoy teaching and I have a hard enough time getting everything done in 180 days. And I’m willing to take a three percent pay cut if that’s what it takes to balance the state’s budget.
I do, however, have some conditions.
First of all, I’d insist that the money be repaid within the next ten years. Interest-free.
I’ll also insist on a twenty-year moratorium on any and all discussion in our statehouse about the following topics:
-Charter schools and vouchers. It’s true that our state hasn’t had either of these sad ideas on the table for a long time, but let’s keep it that way.
-RiF reform. Use teacher evaluation to help teachers improve. If principals need to fire a teacher, they need to go through due process. But if enrollment drops, seniority rules.
-Merit pay based on student test scores. Ten years ago we decided to invest in stipends for National Board Certification as a way to recognize and promote accomplished teaching. That program has turned out to be more successful than we ever hoped. Let’s continue on that path.
-Teacher evaluation based on student test scores. If you want to see how well a teacher teaches, walk into his classroom and watch him. Crunching numbers doesn’t cut it.
-Restrictions to collective bargaining by teachers. The need for teachers to bargain collectively has never been more self-evident.
Should the legislature agree to this modest proposal, they’ll be getting a wonderful deal. Think about it: they’d get an interest-free, multi-billion dollar loan at a time when they’re desperate.
Not only that, they’d spare the state five of the stupidest school reform ideas in recent history.
Tom, less pay should mean fewer days. It does for other public employees. But our first priority is to help our students achieve at a higher level. We cannot help our students achieve more by cutting the length of the school year. So we can’t reduce the number of student days, or the pay teachers receive. Q.E.D.
Pezz comes as close to anyone in capturing the mood of teachers right now. It’s ugly.
Between the loss of days, frozen steps, broken National Boards promises, raised medical costs, increased class sizes, added duties, and so on with a looming additional cut, I can’t believe more teachers are not advocating for two actions: working the contract hours and going home and shortening the school year when pay is cut.
If teachers keep absorbing these things every year, no one in our communities will come to teachers’ aid since the community members are not impacted.
Besides this, we know we’ll never see these losses made up. During the boom years of the 90s teachers were promised much and received little. Having to depend on the legislature for help is a sure-fire way to end up disappointed.
And, watch how the employees fight among themselves during hard times while the wealthy elite continue to earn more and more. We’re being played like fiddles.
“you’re taking the standard union tact that is much maligned by all but their membership”
Interesting. So if the union membership – which in Washington consists of essentially every teacher – disagrees with legislative proposals because they’re bad for both students and teachers, might there be a chance that they are, in fact, bad ideas?
Jason, even you can recognize hyperbole when you read it. Obviously this is not a serious proposal. You know that as well as anyone. What I’m trying to get across is that right now teachers are not only subjected to pay cuts and rising class size (I’m getting a new student tomorrow!) but they’re enduring an endless parade of legislation and “reform” ideas that are not only disrespectful, but they’re unproven.
One example: Merit pay based on student test scores. As a teacher, it’s hard not to perceive this as premised on the notion that teachers are somehow “holding back” their A-Game until the right motivation comes along. Please. Not only is this complete nonsense, but no one can even agree on what metric to use. And even when they do pick a metric, the results are disappointing: New York City’s merit pay scheme was, by all accounts, a disappointment.
Kristin, when I read about someone like you – who I know works harder than any three teachers – getting fed up by the increased workload and decreased “payload” it only confirms my suspicion that the teachers in this country are pretty darn close to the breaking point. There is a feeling right now among the teaching force for which the word “frustration” doesn’t do justice.
Tom– I’m a public employee in a state with a massive revenue crisis. Everyone thinks we’re nothing but wasted space and has the vision of bureaucratic paper pushing and greed when they think of my job. So yes, we were.
Teacher-bashing-by-legislation is stupid. It’s a stupid as legislating teacher protections like tenure and evaluation models. There’s no reason any of this stuff should be the law instead of a contract. Regardless, by confronting lower pay by choosing a spate of ideas you don’t like that are nearly completely disconnected to compensation, you’re taking the standard union tact that is much maligned by all but their membership– small concessions from the union end means massive concessions on managements flexibility later down the line, all of which serve to strengthen and elevate union power in future negotiations. It’s precisely this kind of thinking and rhetoric that makes it too easy to bash unions as “pro-teacher” instead of “pro-student” and let’s idiot reformers reject the teacher voice out of hand without much political or financial penalty.
Normally I disagree with you, Tom, but this time I actually read this post as actively creating and supporting the situation you so regularly criticize (sometimes rightly) on these pages.
Kristin– you may want to read this article in EdWeek today http://goo.gl/NuGMb. Pretty smart about facing the false dichotomy in the teacher evaluation debate and makes the even smarter point that teacher efficacy may stink because the job has been allowed to become too complex and may require more specialization, better division of roles, and more open models that rethink how we spend our resources to get students to achieve.
I’m not going to go point-by-point on the reform ideas – I think people who read this blog know how I feel about those particular ideas (except vouchers, which I’m totally against).
I’ve been mulling over the workload/pay ratio lately, too. It’s moving in an increasingly unmaintainable direction. Not only do I earn less, because I’m paying more out of pocket for health care and union dues, but my tasks have increased. Next year, with a pay-freeze and loss of NB stipend, I’ll be earning significantly less.
Meanwhile, I’m starting to notice all the extra things teachers are asked to do. We used to have a truancy officer. Her position was cut, and just last week I was asked to take on a student-led truancy board. It would have entailed supervising Thursday lunch meetings, tracking our most truant students, and coordinating meetings between those kids and the kids on the board. Important? Yes. In fact, I’d say monitoring truancy is crucial. Did I say “yes” to the job? No. Sorry. As a working parent I use lunch to tutor, grade and plan so that I can pay attention to my daughters when I’m at home.
And this year I’m senior class advisor. It’s a position with a small stipend in my building, but as advisor I’ve been charged with the task of rounding up chaperones for prom and grad night. Apparently, students refuse to have parents around on those nights, so I’m asking my colleagues to step up. And they are. Grad night alone is five hours of supervision – unpaid.
I’ve never been an advocate for “working the contract day,” but I’m starting to feel like teachers should set some boundaries. If pay is dropping, and academic expectations are rising (as they should,) maybe teachers need to turn some of the student-lifestyle tasks over to parents.
Touché! Nice.
Don’t you mean “Should Less Pay Mean Fewer Days?”
But I bet you weren’t being blasted about your job performance at the same time you had you pay reduced. Jason, you’re smart enough to understand that the point of my “rhetoric” is to give voice to the frustration that teachers feel about the relentless teacher-bashing-by- legislation, coinciding with huge pay cuts.
I have to admit, this is a new low (or high?) for you, Tom.
And before you go on your cantankerous rant that I wouldn’t let it happen to me or that this wouldn’t happen in jobs other than teaching, I figured I’d let you know that I had 12 days of unpaid work in the last year by decision of my legislature. Furloughs are not all that uncommon in a crappy economy, particularly with government jobs.
This is the kind of rhetoric that gives unions a terrible name, which is a shame because they are such vital institutions to maintain liberal pressures on the conservative elite.