The Education Wonks
Boy, how can those greedy teachers turn down that highly attractive pay cut?
Time to look for replacement workers.
"In Detroit, teachers with master's degrees who are at the top of the scale earn $70,046 a year, placing the district 68th out of 83 in the metro area, according to the union."
It is amazing to me how little teachers are paid in urban centers compared to the teachers outside the cities.
The work in inner cities is much more difficult than working in the suburbs (people talk about "bullet pay" here in Minneapolis), and the inner city kids will never get the quality of staff elsewhere unless they are compensated more.
Just like the story in Gary, I ask, how will they fill the positions with replacement workers that will work for less money than they can make in districts where they are treated (by kids) much better?
What interest me about teachers pay is they'll say its 40k a year, but in reality its over a shorter period of time, than they average worker making the same amount.
Beyond that, blame the unions & teachers for the plight of teachers. Equal pay across the board, inability to use expereince and performance to get paid more. Its your own fault. My last job I was at I didn't feel like I was paid enough, so I sent out a few resumes, had an interview and got a new job that paid more. No need to strike or bitch and moan. Of course things work differently in the private world when the ssytem isn't a ineptly run government organization with the union holding it by the short and curlys. You want to get paid more, make education run like a business rather than a financial plan equivalent to taking tax dollars putting them in a pile and burning it.
Pirate:
Your arguents don't hold up. Detriot teachers work the same yearly schedule as suburb teachers, but get paid less.
Teachers don't all get paid the same amount because of the unions. Teachers in and around Detriot do exactly what you did when you weren't getting paid what you felt you deserved. They abandon Detriot for areas around Detriot.
And if you want to make money run it like a business? Charter schools do that, and the teachers make much less. I'm not saying that they deserve less, but if you want to make more, join a union.
Sure, you can make the argument that public schools waste money because they aren't market driven (debateable), but the market for teachers is competative. And when suburbs get to offer better working conditions (ie better kids) AND higher salaries, the state better get teachers in Detriot more money if they are really serious about lowering the education gap.
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