Over-exaggeration from TRAGIC

Last week the group TRAGIC –Teachers Rally Against Georgia Insurance Changes shared their thoughts with Governor Deal’s Education Reform Commission on potential changes to teacher pay models. 

I have a few qualms with some of their statements:

These are the teachers whose voices have been silenced for the most part on the work of the Education Reform Commission by the direct exclusion of professional education organizations from the commission. I speak for all of these educators today, since lawmakers are not asking professional educators who are currently in classrooms, nor the parents of children who are attending public schools for any suggestions on how to improve education.

I thought there might be a case to say that educators weren’t being included in the commission. Granted, maybe unofficial teacher associations weren’t included but that doesn’t mean that educators aren’t on the commission. Maybe there aren’t individuals with TRAGIC’s specific point of view, but you can’t say that “lawmakers are not asking professional educators who are currently in classrooms.”

K-12 Educator related commission members:

Robert Avossa

Superintendent

Fulton County Schools

Kent Edwards

Superintendent

Carrolton City Schools

Hannah Heck

Attorney, Vice Chair and Founding Board Member

Westside Atlanta Charter School

Kylie Holley

Principal/Superintendent

Pataula Charter Academy

Noris Price	Superintendent	Baldwin County Schools
Elizabeth Rhodes	Retired Teacher	Educators First

Will Schofield

Superintendent

Hall County Schools

Anthony Townsend	Principal	Locust Grove Middle School, Henry County
Alvin Wilbanks	Superintendent	Gwinnett County Schools
Pam Williams	2011 Georgia Teacher of the Year	Appling County High School

Could you have more teachers on the list? Sure. But its incorrect to state that educators aren’t represented.

Any pay scale that fails to incentivize experience and education can only be construed as an attempt to drive teachers out of the profession before they reach retirement.  While the state budget might benefit from paying fewer retirement benefits and lower health-care costs from fewer retirees, the children of Georgia will certainly not benefit from a revolving door of teachers.

Any pay scale that ONLY considers experience and education can only be construed as an attempt to play the role of employment agency to potentially ineffective teachers – which take valuable learning days away from students everyday when they provide ineffective instruction.

The teaching crisis that is just now being seen in Georgia is a result of fewer teachers entering the profession, and is also a result of more teachers leaving Georgia’s schools.  You must have a mix of new and experienced teachers in every school.  New teachers bring energy, vitality, and new ideas to education, while veteran teachers bring wisdom, experience, and knowledge gained through years of interacting with children.

Maybe fewer teachers are entering the profession because the “veteran” teachers who we can’t confirm are even effective, are holding up all the jobs. There are hundreds of thousands of education professionals who can’t get a job because of nepotism and no open positions. I believe most new teachers are interested in learning from effective veteran teachers, but I can’t say I know many veteran teachers who are willing to learn about the new ideas and strategies the new teachers are bringing in.

 

How do we get to a fair funding formula?

Jarod Apperson recently wrote a response to one of Maureen Downey’s articles about the new proposed teacher salary model. He is a graduate of NYU in both finance and accounting, Apperson is pursing a doctorate in economics at Georgia State University, focusing on education data analysis. He writes the Grading Atlanta blog and serves on the board of the public, non-profit charter Kindezi Schools.

Having a focus on education data analysis and Ph.D. in economics I would ask Jarod what he thinks would be an acceptable new funding formula. Maybe he has made a recommendation and I have missed it?

Maureen agrees with Jarod in this synopsis of his comments:

It makes no sense to rely on the Legislature for a deep-dive reform of education. Lawmakers have neither the expertise to address what are complex questions nor the ability to respond with agility and accuracy to the fast-changing education landscape, witnessed by the fact the funding formula they’re attempting to revise goes back three decades.

Jarod describes the current formula this way:

Our current funding system, introduced in 1985, is complicated but the crux of it can be boiled down to this:  about 63 percent of the money earned is based on needs of the students served while 37 percent of the money is driven by characteristics of the teachers employed, incentivizing schools to hire teachers who fit certain profiles that the state deems more valuable.

A state-level incentive structure makes sense if legislatures are incentivizing schools to do things that lead to greater achievement, but it is inefficient if the state is incentivizing things that don’t work.

The evidence suggests that Georgia’s Legislature is not very good at prescribing education approaches, and the current incentive structure implemented by the state does not align with what we know about the relative value of training and experience.

His demonstration of the legislature incentivizing things that do not lead to greater student achievement is how the pay scale jumps greatly for advanced degrees, but takes a teacher with a bachelor’s degree 14 years to make the same as a teacher with an advanced degree and no teaching experience. He recommends that we reward years of experience over the advanced degree also in an effort to retain our teachers.

For example, there is clear evidence teacher experience matters, and year-to-year improvements are particularly dramatic early in a teacher’s career. A fifth-year teacher is substantially more effective than a rookie.

If the state’s incentive structure were strategic, it would give teachers large raises in the first five years. Instead, Georgia teacher earnings grow a paltry $2,036 over that period, or about 1.5 percent a year. That’s measly compared to the early-career salary growth seen in other skilled professions like technology, accounting or engineering.

Rather than paying teachers substantially more as they gain valuable early-career experience, the state offers huge incentives for something that does not lead to greater student achievement: advanced degrees.

In Georgia, it takes 14 years for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree to reach the starting salary of someone with zero experience and a specialist degree.  This emphasis on advanced degrees over experience is not strategic. It doesn’t benefit students and doesn’t make teaching a more attractive profession. Instead, the only real winners from this scheme are the degree-granting institutions that collect tuition from Georgia’s teachers.

Funding formulas are a problem all over the country. Some legislatures, like in Massachusetts, don’t want to admit that they haven’t met their own benchmark for funding schools because of the automatic infusion of cash required to fix it. So they make little tweaks to get by, but won’t commit to really fully funding schools.

The one thing I will say for Massachusetts that I don’t believe Georgia does, is MA adjusts its state contribution based on a formula of what the LEA can pay. In Worcester, the state paid ~75% of the total LEA budget. But in other LEA’s where the city could pay more of their share, the state paid a smaller % (and because the communities were affluent the cities contributed funds over the budgeted amount). It appears that in DeKalb County, the state contributes closer to 30% of the costs to run the school system and the county has to make up the remaining 70%.

It also sounds like the state is in a catch 22 where I assume the legislators want to see progress before they contribute more funding, but the schools are trying to say they need more funding to demonstrate progress.

 

 

GA may overhaul teacher pay

I’ve always wondered how teacher pay scales started and were implemented. I understood that with a teacher’s union contract it is all laid out in the contract. But in states where there is no official union and it is a right to work state, I’ve often wondered how teacher pay scales got involved.

©Depositphotos.com/Margaret Paynich

As it turns out, these teacher pay scales have usually been entered as a law through the state legislature and the contract process is somewhat unnecessary. Here in GA teachers are paid by number of years on the job and educational level of attainment. That’s all. This generally creates an uneven balance where veteran teachers are making a lot of money while newer teachers are making much less. Quality of teaching has nothing to do with the pay.

Under the current system, in place for decades, teachers are paid based on their years on the job and their education level. Their salaries rise according to a fixed state schedule that specifies minimum pay, though some districts pay above that.

Deal wants to free up money so teachers can be paid more if they perform better or if they are teaching subjects — science, math — in which there is high demand for their talents.

But Deal also doesn’t want a formula that costs more, and the money for high performers would have to come from somewhere, like lower-performing teachers.

It sounds like the process will be a slow one IF implemented at all, because the new salaries are only effective to new teachers and those who opt into this system.

Some suggest that it may not help with recruitment and retention, if the teachers feel the system isn’t working on their behalf. But the Governor wants us to be able to take some of the money from an ineffective tenured teacher and provide it to a newer teacher who is performing at the proficient and exemplary stage.

This new proposal is only in the incubation stage and far from being enacted into policy. It would have to win approval of the General Assembly, and before that it would have to emerge as a formal recommendation from Deal’s Education Reform Commission.

Charles Knapp, who chairs both the full commission and the funding subcommittee, was careful to describe the subcommittee’s support for this proposal as only a “preliminary consensus.”

Next, officials will calculate the effect on each district, which could alter the debate. Also important is the reaction of teachers, whom Georgia is working to recruit and retain. (One of the commission’s other subcommittee’s is tasked with figuring out how to do that better.) Hames and other officials have said current teachers will be grandfathered under the current pay structure if they choose, but they acknowledge the state can’t make an ironclad promise.

While this is not perfect, and is nowhere near ready to be implemented, I think it is a good conversation to have. We need to have more incentives and opportunities for newer teachers who may be as good or better than some of our veteran teachers. I have seen plenty of veteran teachers who aren’t effective in today’s environment and we need the tools to make appropriate adjustments.

This shouldn’t be seen as an “attack” on teachers – it’s about making sure ALL of our kids have an effective teacher. Our public schools are not an employment agency, we need to make sure our kids receive a high quality education. They need to be able to grow into productive members of society, because right now too many are not.

Is your union looking out for teachers or for its own pocket?

©Depositphotos.com/Margaret Paynich

And the truth comes out! The remainder of this article talks about the potential money lost to unions if union dues were voluntary:

If the Supreme Court overturns Abood, it would change the political landscape drastically. When Wisconsin’s Act 10 made teacher union membership voluntary, the unions in that state lost about one-third of their membership and a substantial amount of clout. If the same percentage of teachers quit the California Teachers Association, the union would lose approximately $62 million a year in dues. Considering the teachers’ union spent more than $290 million on candidates, ballot measures, and lobbying between 2000 and 2013—by far the most of any political player in the Golden State—such a loss would be crushing. And it’s no secret that CTA spending moves almost exclusively in a leftward direction. Between 2003 and 2012, the union gave $15.7 million to Democratic candidates and just $92,700 to Republicans—a ratio of roughly 99 to one. CTA has also spent millions promoting controversial causes such as same-sex marriage and single-payer healthcare, while opposing voter ID laws and limitations of the government’s power of eminent domain.

With such potential losses at stake, it makes sense that union would go to extreme measures such as in MI where teachers have a window of 30 days in August to officially opt out of union membership. And if you opt-out too early or too late there is nothing you can do but pay the dues. Or MI union will send your dues to collections. How is THAT protecting teachers?

And the “fourth co-equal branch of government” wouldn’t be the only teachers’ union to learn what it’s like to live on voluntary contributions. The National Education Association, which hauled in nearly $363 millionin forced dues in 2013–2014 and spent about $132 million of it on issue advocacy, would have to curtail its political largess considerably. Like the CTA, the NEA spends almost exclusively on progressive groups and causes. Over the years, the union has lavished gifts on People for the American Way, Media Matters, ACORN, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH, and the Center for American Progress. Not surprisingly, the union’s political spending by party is lopsided, too. Between 1989 and 2014, the union directed just 4 percent of its campaign contributions to Republicans, usually backing the least conservative candidate in a primary election fight.

With all of these political contributions its easy to see how plaintiffs in CA have filed a lawsuit against the loss of their union privileges due to opting of of paying the political dues percentage. They are paying the other ~ 65% in agency fees – that doesn’t cover their extra maternity, life insurance and other benefits? How is THAT protecting teachers?

Like most union leaders, recently termed-out NEA president Dennis Van Roekel insists that all teachers should be required to pay the union. “Fair share simply makes sure that all educators share the cost of negotiations for benefits that all educators enjoy, regardless of whether they are association members,” he said in June. Sounds reasonable. But what Van Roekel doesn’t mention is that the unions demand exclusive bargaining rights for all teachers. Teachers in monopoly bargaining states have no choice but to toe the union line. There is nothing “fair” about forcing a worker to pay dues to a union they wouldn’t otherwise join. If Friedrichsis successful and Abood is overturned, it would be a great victory for true freedom of association.

Of course an NEA president says everyone needs to pay their fair share of union dues. But as the article says there is no alternative. Teachers aren’t allowed to negotiate their own salaries. Why not? Why can’t they just negotiate them at the their interview like other professionals? Because of the law is not an acceptable answer. I want the theory based answer. Do unions think teachers are ill-equipped to negotiate their own salaries? That does not sound like the way you respect professionals.

 

Will someone please explain these “agency fees” numbers?

©Depositphotos.com/Margaret Paynich

 

I have been asking this question for some time, with no answers. How is the percentage for “agency fees” calculated? How much money do they “need” for collective bargaining activities? I am very much doubt that the only monies used for political activities is the 30-40% paid in union dues for that purpose.

Lets look at some numbers. Below, this article tells me that CA union dues are ~ $1,000/teacher/year. This fact sheet tells me that the CTA that it represents ~ 325,000 educators. Let split the difference here: “they may not opt out of the sixty to seventy percent of their dues the union determines is devoted to collective bargaining” and just say 35 % political and 65% agency fees for “collective bargaining.”

$1,000 x 325,000 = $325,000,000!! so many zeros I was blinded by the computer trying to read them! OK so lets split that into political (35%) and agency fees (65%)

Political =  $113,750,000; Agency fees= $211,250,000

So we all know what they spent the political money on….but where does the $211,250,000 Million go to? Does it REALLY cost that much to pay staff to negotiate contracts and answer phones or whatever they are doing. Maybe it does when unions drag out negotiations (they have to allocate for the funds somehow!)

Do we not believe that $325 Million isn’t better spent by our teachers?

And lets not forget in this post I encountered numbers that state that “By contrast, nearly 600 staffers at the NEA and AFT are raking in six-figure salaries, according to Association of American Educators (AAE) Executive Director Gary Beckner.”

600 staffers between NEA and AFT making 6 figures. How many teachers are making 6 figures? How many teachers are making 6 figures and shouldn’t be and how many should be and are not?

Typically, California teacher union dues cost upwards of a $1,000 per year. Although California law allows teachers to opt-out of the thirty percent or so of their dues devoted to overt political lobbying, they may not opt out of the sixty to seventy percent of their dues the union determines is devoted to collective bargaining. Requiring teachers to pay these “agency fees” assumes that collective bargaining is non-political.  But bargaining with local governments is inherently political.  Whether the union is negotiating for specific class sizes or pressing a local government to spend tax dollars on teacher pensions rather than on building parks, the union’s negotiating positions embody political choices that are often controversial.

MEMBERSHIP:

CTA is California’s largest professional employee organization, representing more than 325,000 public school teachers, counselors, psychologists, librarians, other non-supervisory certificated personnel, and Education Support Professionals. It is affiliated with the 3.2 million-member National Education Association.

Teachers should pay union dues out-of-pocket

©Depositphotos.com/Margaret Paynich

I’ve been excited about this issue ever since I saw this blog post from a fellow blogger: Union Says Gov. Martinez Committed An “Act Of War” Over Dues. The Governor of New Mexico simply suggested that teachers union dues should not be automatically deducted from teacher pay checks. If teachers want to be part of the union, they can choose to pay to dues themselves.

I support this notion because it seems to me like an illegal or legal but extremely unethical practice where something like this occurs:

Union and LEA agree on an amount of dues in the contract.

Union and LEA agree that the LEA will deduct the dues from teacher paychecks and automatically pay it to the unions.

This seems like the LEA is paying the union to negotiate the contract with the LEA.

While, in theory, members can opt out, generally speaking teachers have zero control over the union dues. Even when membership was not chosen, there was a mandatory CBA fee – of which was mostly the same as the membership fee. How in the world do the unions calculate the CBA fee? Seems like a huge scam to me.

“You don’t want to be a member, its ok, we’ll just charge you most of the dues as a mandatory fee, that you have to pay simply because we negotiated a contract for you, whether you wanted us to or not.”

I wonder if the teachers unions would spend more time paying attention to the wishes of all its teachers if they had to collect the dues from each and every member. In fact, maybe they would spend more of their time collecting dues and less time creating abusive campaigns against education progress.

The union is not the government. The only monies automatically collected from pay checks go to the government. Every other entity on the planet has to collect monies on their own, and unions should not get the unfair advantage of ease of payment.

I see it as taxpayer dollars going directly into the hands of unions with little or no say or control from the teachers unions are supposed to be protecting.

I have many questions about teacher pay

I have many questions about teacher pay. Please help me!

Do salary scales help or hurt teachers? Here are two sample from GA Dept of Ed and Gwinnett County.

So lets see, I think from another schedule I determined that a teacher with a masters degree starts at T-5. Starting Salary of $38,438 + 3,203? Not sure how to read that but lets assume thats what it is. Not the worst of starting salaries (but maybe not great for someone with a masters) but it woulds take 8 years to make 10K more? and 20 total years just to make 60K? These are pretty awful. So question, when teachers “get a raise” does that mean the whole salary schedule increases? Or they just get that bump? Because as it stands, it looks like salary scheduled hinder teachers as they are crippled to make more substantial income until they have served for 10-20+ years. Many professional career starting salaries are more than what teachers make in 10 or 20 years.

Now when I lived in RI I started doing some research. I wanted to know why teachers can’t negotiate their own salaries (like every other professional) and at the same time why school districts can’t hire directly and offer their own compensation packages. Doing some legislative research it appeared that in RI it was written into the law many years ago that school districts had to collectively bargain with unions. And the salary schedule is part of law. Well, knowing that, at least in RI that unions own the general assembly, I can see how those laws go there, and why we also end up keeping them. I found out when Stand for Children was negotiating the recent law tying teacher evals to tenure that the MA Teacher’s Association has 20 lobbyists every day that flood the MA Capital. That’s how laws like collective bargaining stay on the books. (But apparently, against all 20 lobbysits, MTA ended up negotiating with Stand for Children to get our law tying teacher tenure to evals because MTA was afraid of a ballot initiative).

So why can’t teachers negotiate their own salaries? And do salary schedules hold back earning potential?

Recent police incidents lead me to think about teachers

I’ve been thinking alot about the recent incidents with police and how we’ve potentially been exposed to the truth that there are some police out there that don’t always act in the public interest and we’ve had some very alarming fatalities – on both sides. Generally speaking, the police are the good guys, right? But we know that there are police who aren’t. And they probably amount to a small percentage overall. But are they still a risk to our community? Shouldn’t we do everything we can to make sure as many of our police are the “good guys?” I hardly think someone would argue that we should knowingly continue to allow a police officer to continue working if he/she was clearly a danger.

I believe the same goes for teachers. The percentage of teachers who really should not be teaching is probably a very small percentage. However, aren’t they also creating harm by ineffectively teaching students? Every single day that a student has an ineffective teacher is one that he/she will never gain back. School days that turn into weeks and years, of potentially wasted educational time. Time that students and parents and taxpayers expected our schools to deliver effective teaching that will also help develop effective, caring citizens.

I am not anti-teacher. I, myself, love teaching, I want to be a teacher, I am a licensed school counselor, I want to make our school the best they can be. I want to pay great teachers more for the great value they provide. It’s unfortunate that the only way teachers make more money is through step increases and it may take 20-30 years to make 70-100K IF the teacher lasts that long. But I can’t stand paying any teacher that isn’t effective in the classroom. And I agree there are a great many that fall into that category that have not been properly supported through administration and appropriate professional development including an effective evaluation. And we owe those teachers the support, an extensive evaluation and appropriate professional development to meet their teaching needs.

But there is a small portion of teachers just like the small portion of police that aren’t doing their jobs. And we wouldn’t be doing ours as citizens if we weren’t looking out for our communities and taxpayer dollars.

I’m the neighborhood watch coordinator for my neighborhood and crime is constantly a struggle. But for me, it’s about the kids that our education system (and maybe their parents too) have failed, and they have few choices but to lead a life of crime. We can’t fight crime with more police, we need to fight crime with a quality education with effective teachers for every student.

Showtime’s “The Affair” features NYC Rubber Room

This past Sunday, Showtime’s Season Finale of “The Affair” featured a NYC rubber room!! I could not believe it. I thought that rubber rooms were reserved for documentaries like “The Rubber Room” or “Waiting for Superman.” As someone who is well versed in education policy it was great to see a mostly coveted education practice making its way into the public sphere through the realm of television.

Go here to see the only clip I could find featuring the rubber room

The video doesn’t offer commentary. In the show, we see Noah, the main character having sex with another person in the school, then going into the  principal’s office, then showing up at the NYC Dept. of Education. There he punches a time card and sits down. He learns from his neighbor, Victor, that  Victor has been waiting 2 years for his resolution to come of the accusation. Noah asks if he can get a newspaper and the “proctor” says “If you leave this  room, you are quitting your job. In order to keep your job, you need to be in this room until 3:15 everyday.”

Noah asks if he can use the restroom and the proctor says “You need to give me your license and I’ll give you a hall pass.”

Later, when he admits to his wife that he’s been accused of sleeping with someone at his school and hasn’t been to work, she says to him, “You’ve been in the rubber room?” Like it is something everyone knows about! Except, apparently this reviewer of the show:

What the hell is a rubber room? Did I hear Helen right when she was talking to Noah about his many bed buddies during their time apart? That’s what she said when referring to him being caught with another teacher in school, right? Is that some sort of weird Montauk slang? I’ve never heard it, though then again, I could just be crazy.

Everyone else got it:

He casts a lascivious eye to a pretty fellow teacher at school and proceeds to have sex with her right there in the classroom. But he’s busted and sent to some sort of grown-up detention for disorderly teachers. He arrives at the Department of Education and learns that he just has to sit around and kill time indefinitely. His seat mate, Victor, who has read Infinite Jest twice is incredibly well read and has been hanging out in this “rubber room” for two years. Noah decides to make use of his time and start back on his book.

Sexual recklessness has had consequences personally and professionally. Helen has kicked him out of the house; schtupping in the classroom after school has resulted in Noah being removed from the classroom. (The idea of a detention room for teachers who are suspended with pay is a solution with ‘government bureaucracy’ written all over it.)

And even the commentors of these reviews know what a rubber room is:

Noah was sent to the infamous NYC Dept. of Education reassignment Center or “Rubber Room”, a not very nice holding pen where teachers who have been accused of wrongdoing wait for their hearings. They do collect full pay as they are technically not guilty of anything during the wait.

As a teacher of 39 years for NYC I am proud that I never had to spend a minute in the “rubber room”. They were supposed to do away with that wonderful establishment of punishing us and giving us secretarial duties in some cases. It was not a happy place especially if you did nothing wrong.

Interesting.. I’m a young teacher and have never heard of such a thing. Is it only for professors with tenure? Or is it something used on the East Coast?

New York City. You might be able to find the New Yorker article on it and there also was a documentary film made about The Rubber Room a few years ago

May be unique to the NYC Dept. Of Ed, but boy is it infamous here in NY.

I worked in the Board of Education for a couple years as a school secretary. There is a “rubber room” and they do nothing there, but get paid for it. Most of the time its cause the teacher did something indecent, immoral or aggressive.

I have a friend who has been in the Rubber Room for 2 years because one of her students jokingly reported to a friend that she never checks for homework 😦 even if true, does not meet any of the above criteria 😦

You can thank your teacher’s union for the rubber room!

Taxpayers pay Weingarten $557,875 a year

It has been reported that Karen Lewis, the head of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is planning a a campaign for Mayor of Chicago. She became a national sensation after the widely publicized Chicago teachers strike in 2012.

Recently, Democrats for Education Reform – Illinois called on Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis to make a choice: Declare candidacy for mayor or lead in negotiating the next teachers contract.

“Doing both would present nothing short of a conflict of interest. Chicagoans won’t know whether President Lewis is representing her members, her political interests, or if she’d use the negotiations merely as an extension of her campaign. If Karen Lewis truly cares about representing the interests of all Chicagoans, she should step down from her role as head of the CTU as she pursues a campaign for mayor.” DFER-IL State Director Rebeca Nieves-Huffman said in a statement.”

In her response, Karen Lewis stated:

“Yes, I can do both jobs,” Lewis told E&O. “People act like I’m the only one in this office and that I do all these different things. We have a bargaining team of 75 people.”

This really got me thinking – 75 people (minimum) are working for CTU. That is a great deal of union dues money. Karen Lewis is reported to make more than $200,000 a year and has an ownership interest in three homes, records show, including vacation homes in Hawaii and in the upscale “Harbor Country” area of southwestern Michigan.

By contrast, nearly 600 staffers at the NEA and AFT are raking in six-figure salaries, according to Association of American Educators (AAE) Executive Director Gary Beckner. I can only assume that the AAE is considering all the staff in all of the state affiliates in coming up with the number of 600, because I would be sad to learn that between just the national AFT & NEA that they employ 600+ AND have a variety of state affiliates, one of which in Chicago with at least 75+ staff.

The same Fox News article reports:

“Teachers across the country face pay freezes and possible layoffs, but the heads of the two biggest teachers unions saw their pay jump 20 percent last year, to nearly half a million dollars apiece. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten’s pay jumped to $407,323 between 2010 and 2011, while her counterpart at the National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel, got a raise to $362,644. Factor in stipends and other paid expenses and Weingarten took in $493,859 and Van Roekel $460,060 for 2011. “

This article updates Weingarten’s salary to $557,875 compared to $36,141 the average starting teacher salary

Fox News reports this teacher discussing the 20% raises and the fact that union leaders make 10x what teachers make:

“The union bigwigs are well-insulated from the paycheck-to-paycheck lives of most schoolteachers, said Tracie Happel, a elementary school teacher in Lacrosse, Wisc., who has spoken out in the past against the practices of the unions.

“It’s always about the union. It’s never about the teachers or students,” Happel said. “When you’re a teacher, you know you will not always be able to have the money for renovations on a house or go away on vacation, but it’s a tough pill to swallow when you can’t do those things when the people who are supposed to represent us get paid more and more every year.”

Weingarten provided this statement:

“Last year, I and the other two AFT officers, as well as all management took a voluntary pay freeze,” Weingarten, president of AFT said in a statement.

“We did so because no one knows better than we do the economic distress our members are experiencing. Unlike in the corporate sector, all of my salary, benefits and expenses are fully disclosed,” Weingarten said.

WOW! A pay freeze. Hmm, Ok, so you aren’t going to increase your half million dollar salary? How generous of you. Looks like you won’t be decreasing it either.

I’m sorry, did I just read that you know “the economic distress our members are experiencing”? I wonder how. Another teacher made this comment to Fox News:

Tony Amorose, a history teacher with the Dearborn School District in Michigan, said no one begrudges union officials fair salaries. But he said the steep increases are out of step with what the rank and file see.

“It would be nice if the unions held the line a bit in a show of solidarity,” said Amorose, who is campaigning for state office. “I don’t mind paying dues, but I don’t see them going down with my compensation. They keep going up. I find it a bit frustrating that they would give themselves such significant salary and compensation increases.”

Another teacher commented:

“They [the unions] want us to be seen as laborers and not professionals,” said Kristi LaCroix, an English teacher from Kenosha, Wisc.,  “I get nothing for my dues except them going to keeping ineffective teachers employed and treated like a servant.”

Is this really the best use of our tax payer money? We pay our taxes to the public school system. Then as Michael Van Beek, Mackinac’s director of education policy said:

“These compensation levels are not based on market demand,” Van Beek said. “This pay largely relies upon monopolistic collective bargaining privileges these unions enjoy, which forces school employees to financially support them.

Our taxpayer dollars are forced to be paid directly to unions on behalf of teachers. This 2009 US Labor reporting shows that NEA and AFT collected a total of $601,341,624 in 2009 (and I’m sure it has increased continuously to present day). AFT is committing 1 Million of your tax dollars to Karen Lewis’ campaign for mayor.

How many teaching positions could we fund with 600 Million dollars of union money that ORIGINATED IN THE POCKETS OF TEACHERS? How many school supplies could be purchased? How many after school programs, additional buses, school maintenance, support staff salaries, school counselors, healthy student meals, student field trips, college and career guidance, hands on tools for students in classrooms…could we fund with the millions of teacher union money that is going to staff and political campaigns?