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The Teachers Are Revolting
Last week, Republican Gov. Mary Fallin gave each Oklahoma public school teacher a massive 15 to 18 percent pay raise funded by the largest tax increase in state history. To show their appreciation, teachers went on strike demanding even more money. Today, 200 Oklahoma school districts are shut down, with students going uneducated and parents scrambling for daycare.
Similar protests have been taking place in Kentucky, Arizona, and West Virginia. What do all these states have in common? Republicans hold the governorship and both legislative chambers. But it’s totally non-partisan and for the children … or something.
West Virginia teachers kicked off the protests with a two-week strike last month. The state government gave them a 5 percent raise to get them back to work.
The Kentucky legislature passed a bill to reform the unsustainable state pension system last week so today all of Kentucky’s public schools are closed and thousands of teachers are protesting at the state capitol. Almost no one in the private sector has a pension, but taxpayers aren’t allowed even to tweak the extravagant pensions of government workers.
In Arizona, teachers and students have mobbed the state capitol and the governor’s office demanding a whopping 20 percent raise. Various schools organized “sick-outs” last month, with teachers feigning illness to avoid doing their jobs. Now teachers unions are threatening a statewide strike unless their outrageous demand is met.
Like most non-government workers, I’ve gone years at a time without a raise. For the same reason, I have been laid-off due to a bad economy. A pension? As if. Yet I never picketed my various employers, stopped showing up to work, or demanded that my overtaxed neighbors pony up cash.
I’m sure that teachers believe they’re underpaid; pretty much everyone thinks they’re underpaid. But they should remember that the vast majority of taxpayers also are struggling and have been for a long time. These strikes aren’t harming politicians, but kids and their parents. And the last thing an angry parent wants to do is to give more money to people making their lives miserable.
Meanwhile, all the teachers are showing up at my kids’ charter schools here in Arizona. I expect that a lot of new students will be joining them in the fall.
Published in Education
Drusus,
Why in the world would a community give a 20% pay raise for a non-merit performance system while the general economy is inflating at under 2%? This kind of phenomena happens only through the magic of public employee unions and their ability to extort local government. They call it a conspiracy in restraint of trade. This is a special extra right that no one else has because it doesn’t exist. I am sure that the union members just think they are shrewd and people who don’t work for the government are foolish. They are right as long as they are allowed to get away with it.
Regards,
Jim
So let’s not paint all teachers with the broadest possible brush and make it seem like they’re all something negative. That’s ridiculous.
Pay and benefits vary by state, and by locality. Teachers where I live (in NC) aren’t paid very much compared to where I grew up (VT). As much as I love markets, teachers shouldn’t make the equivalent of a Starbucks barista – that’s just wrong.
Why? Because you get what you pay for, generally. The people with the most capabilities will find other work at higher levels of compensation. Those with the least capabilities will stay as they have fewer options. It’s a negative feedback loop.
Now going on strike after you get a 20% raise? That’s another thing entirely.
Education is too centrally planned and politicized. It’s unworkable, now.
You are describing good teachers, not all teachers. Unfortunately, the Union protects the bad ones the same as the good ones.
I agree with you @chriscampion. I have this same argument for fast food restaurants raising pay to $15 an hour. The jobs will end up going to higher quality employees (people who are working elsewhere for $15 an hour now) and many current fast food employees won’t get those jobs.
Teachers should be paid more (at least in NC), but within reason. (Our youngest is in her 2nd year of teaching 7th grade English in Charlotte. She loves the children and they love her.)
Teachers should go on strike to call for fewer government requirements (such as tests and other data) for schools, so that administrative staff can be let go and more money can be available for the teachers.
I am going to bring this up with my youngest, a teacher (in a non-union state), who wishes teachers were paid more and also complains about all the useless tests she has to administer to her students and all the time-wasting meetings she has to attend to learn about the tests. Instead of pushing for higher pay alone, teachers could argue that government requirements and administrative staff are taking their pay.
Thank you for this, @sabrdance. It’s great to have an on-the-ground view into what’s going on.
Most of the teachers I know either took long vacations, or worked summer jobs to make some extra money. One of my best friends, a former teacher-turned guidance counselor, tried other professions, such as financial advisor or insurance salesman. He always came back to teaching.
At age 38 I quit my corporate job and spent a year getting a teaching certificate. As an engineer (Industrial Engineering, Syracuse, 82), I still needed 30 credits to teach high school math. It was very entertaining listening to professors who had spent their working lives in the academy tell me what students needed to know in the workplace.
I was able to take the 30K per year pay cut because my wife was an airline pilot (after her Air Force service) and her pay (she once described herself as grossly overcompensated) would cover any shortfall.
I never felt underpaid; I knew the pay going in and the change in quality of life was well worth it for me. Texas is a non-union state; in fact collective bargaining for teachers is illegal here. My corporate job had been 12 hour days on weekdays and usually a few hours on weekends; despite the stress of herding high school kids all week the hours teaching were still less. And the time off was the big deal. At my corporate job I had three weeks of vacation and IIRC 8 holidays. I noted during my first year teaching that the week days off during the school year added up to more than all of my corporate time off. The 10 weeks of summer were an added bonus and allowed me and my wife to spend more time together.
The trade of income for time off was a great deal for me. The other rewards were manifest; in a small town you are around your students and their families all the time. I can’t go out for a meal or to the hardware store without running into them. Seeing my former students raising their own families is wonderful. I have been the fire chief here for 7 years and often work literally beside former students who are now firefighters, paramedics; even one other fire chief. I know charter schools are making inroads in cities (IMHO a good thing for all schools) but in rural communities public schools are often the only schools for most people. A small town school gives you a chance to teach kids a lot more than math or science. You can set an example for them every day and try to help them understand the world a little better. It’s never about politics, but every day you can reinforce the difference between right and wrong, and lots of kids don’t get that enough at home.
I serve on my local school board now; it’s a very time consuming uncompensated job. I wish more people paid attention to what is going on. In our area, fully 3/4 of the property taxes go to the schools and the other 1/4 fund county operations. People scrutinize county government yet unless they have kids in the schools we are ignored. I highly recommend that everyone get involved with your local schools; after all, it’s your money.
There is never a cure all but getting rid of the teacher’s unions is a good start. Yes, there is a lot of resentment regarding teacher’s that has a lot to do with the policies of the unions. We spend a lot of money on education in this country and we expect results and we aren’t getting them.
One problem is the good teachers are going to have to step up and fight their unions. This will never change if the good teachers don’t fight back. I always say a truly great teacher is worth their weight in gold but they are rare. I went to public school and I had a few really bad teachers (like coming to school drunk bad), and 3 or 4 really great teachers. The rest were decent enough but were generally mediocre.
There are so many problems with the way we do public education that I will would need to put up a post, but the rigidity of the unions and their immense political power really are standing in the way of a real reform to the educational system.
Teachers do not get 3 months off a year. We are considered 9 month employees.
Yes, that’s what I said. How is getting paid for 9 months of work different from having three months a year off? I just don’t think it’s surprising that a 9-month income might be lower than a 12-month one. I agree re the bad teachers, and I do blame the teachers’ union because they always fight against any kind of merit-based actions or having teachers have to take tests. They also circle the wagons and protect teachers who are known to have committed terrible acts and keep them from being fired.
I also blame corrupt school officials. Anyone who’s ever lived in Chicago or any of the other cities whose school boards have siphoned off money meant for classrooms will know what I mean. I don’t think there’s hate for teachers here at all. I for one am glad they have teachers like you and others I’ve seen on Ricochet.
If teachers were under paid there would be a teacher shortage and we’d have to reduce barriers to entry. Instead, unions and administrators are dedicated to raising barriers to entry. Among the barriers are requirements for credentials. Teachers credentials are bought by taking courses in schools of education. Schools of education are the dregs on campuses all over the country and do not prepare people to educate students. Their purpose is to restrict entry to the profession and help keep salaries high and build their political clout. Private school teachers earn less, adjunct professors at colleges and universities across the US earn far less than public school teachers. Home schooling parents earn nothing and do a better job. It is obvious that public school teachers are not under paid. States should all adopt right to work laws and public employees unions abolished. Then fire all administrators and institute school choice. With parents enabled to pick schools good teachers’ salaries will go up the lousy ones will have to find other work. And some will be so good they’ll sell their courses on line and somebody will get rich, but people who want their children actually educated, the children themselves and society at large will be big winners. Obviously we can’t have that, it would weaken the political class.
Of course the teachers who went on strike should be fired and in the next election, Governor Fallen as well.
Pensions are in bad shape all over, particularly private pensions. Everyone should open and fund an IRA to the best of their financial ability, because pensions and even Social Security are vulnerable to the whims of markets and politicians . . .
All of the pensions in Minnesota are using 7% – 8% -9% discount rates. A lot of the morons that control that stuff don’t even know what the discount rate does. It’s incredible.
That is my experience. I paid part of my health insurance in the 90s. It seemed the most realistic teachers were those that had spouses who worked in the private sector. The teacher couple seems most insulated from pay information.
No less a militant Progressive than FDR thought that public employees should be prohibited from striking.
“…rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.”
Letter from FDR to Mr. Luther C. Steward,
President, National Federation of Federal Employees,
1937
Teachers in public schools have been commoditized by their unionized representatives. All teachers with X degree and Y years experience are treated the same. As such, administrators have to set salaries with an eye on “what am I willing to pay the worst teacher in this category whom I can’t fire?” As a result good teachers (of which there are too few) are woefully underpaid. And bad teachers (of which there are too many) are overpaid.
SUPER comment.
What did your wife fly? My cousin flew F-15s and A-10s, and he ended up flying for UPS.
T-38. UPT instructor at CBM and then instructor at PIT at Randolph. At FedEx she flew the 727, DC-10, then MD 10 and 11.
I don’t know what happened with my previous comment, so let me try again: Can you source the chart for me? Thanks.
To do that, schools should decentralize. But (some) conservatives wouldn’t like that, because they believe in economies of scale. Progressives have been selling consolidation on the basis of economy of scale (among other reasons) for over a century. Local conservatives go for it, and give up their local control. The economies of scale are never realized, in part for the reasons shown in this chart.
I am late to this party, but I have a suggestion for any teacher who feels they are not receiving adequate pay and benefits in exchange for their efforts: find a job in the private sector.
No. Really. It is that simple. If you really are underpaid and overworked it should be a simple matter to find a private sector job that is more remunerative than teaching. If you cannot find a private sector job with better pay and benefits, well, maybe you are not being underpaid.
I applaud this innovative and Second Amendment-friendly approach to eliminating school shootings.
That too should change – there should be defined time off, not this weird creep (I refer to the extra work here, as opposed to any specific administrator) that presumes upon the liberty of teachers.
Schools would definitely benefit from a pyramid structure wherein you have one teacher for, say, twenty students, and 1 administrator for twenty teachers.
Principles should only be hired after X years of teaching at the school they would preside over. Or perhaps insist that principles/vice-principles teach X classes a year as part of their job.
School board members should be made ineligible for other public office for perhaps five years.
Janitors could be hired by square footage of the school.
States could save considerable money by writing legislation that made it difficult and non-remunerative for individuals to sue teachers, schools, districts and suchlike, while making it considerably easier to fire teachers for malfeasance, fraud, and teacher/student boffery.
And finally, elect me as School Board Emperor-for-life that I may better serve the interests of the taxpayers while smiting the wicked with righteous wrath.
Yup. And they are all in the union.