How To Not Write Like A Schmuck 101

[Got teeth? Keith doesn't.]

This thread made me lol.

 

[Captain Iago]

@Iago: Those in the private sector that are whining about lagging salaries will get no more sympathy from me than well-off teachers do if I can find inconsistencies and gross exaggerations and oversimplifications of issues surrounding their profession. It's just that, well, we aren't talking about people whining in the business world.

Fair enough. Sorry to be straw man there, but the private sector was mildly intertwined in the conversation and I brought it out further because well, to what else can the education sector be compared within the realm of the conversation?

Again, my personal experiences are going to play a larger role in formulating my stance on unhappy teachers more so than, say, someone who is close to a teacher or is a teacher. And so, speaking from (and about) my personal experience, I have less sympathy than others for teachers crying afoul of working environment and paycheck size because I have witnessed well-off teachers crying for more money.

When the teachers in a district are making $75k a year on average (even if the average is what it is because there are so many teachers that have prior experience and are thus worth that money, it just makes it more likely that a given teacher in that district actually does have the experience and actually is making that kind of money), I don't want to hear about how long a work day really is, or how hard dealing with students really is. The fact of the matter is that these people are given weekends and holidays off, and are more often than not granted 3-4 months of off-time every year (taking into account summer, Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks), when many more people in this country work year-round to scrape together half of what they are making in salary.

But again, this is from my personal experience. There is no doubt that there exists a large faction of teachers that have the same amount of work plopped in front of them as the teachers in my experience did, yet are laughably underpaid with little hope for improvement.

I see; such is life, or maybe rather, human nature. You are entitled to your opinion. To set a price on education is sooo difficult. I'm sure you understand that the majority of funds available to a school district comes from property taxes (as Proper was alluding to mentioning being in affluent neighborhood). Not just the majority, but the vast majority. What the feds provide is chicken scratch. So, depending on what money comes in from the neighborhood determines the money going out.

Coincidentally, I didn't have a contract this year (and the proceeding 4) until recently, which is actually kinda late (I've never been a part of a "strike-happy" faculty in my two jobs in the education field and through 3 or 4 contract negotiations/ratifications).

As to Prope's workday, he's right about the hours during the school year and it's hard for others to understand this beyond words yadda yadda. My wife (girlfriend at the time) worked in the private sector downtown and made better money, worked fewer hours (in terms that she left at 4 and her workday was over - which made me jealous during the school year), and also didn't understand how work consumed so much of my day/night. She thought there was something wrong with me or with what I was doing...and I didn't coach a damn thing. Seriously, I reiterate, she thought I was doing something wrong or something was wrong with me because of the hours I put in!?! I really almost lost her because of it. It truly is difficult for someone on the outside (private sector) to realize how many hours of the day a teacher spends on work during the school year.

 

[Captain Iago]

To better specify the money coming in from the neighborhood, according to money.cnn.com, albeit 2008 (I trimmed some fat):

Downers Grove, IL
City Stats:
Population: 49,100
Median family income (per year) $98,025
Median home price $341,000
Average property taxes (2006) $5,283

I understand DG isn't full of glorious wealth and there are sections of it that aren't as well off. But, a couple of questions come to mind:

1) Granted there is a difference between median and average, but can a teacher at an average salary (75k) afford a median (341k) house in DG?

2) Should teachers be compensated enough to allow them to live within the communities they teach?

 

[Lefty]

1) Is the teacher in question the only source of income for the family? If so, then probably not. Though if they stretched themselves thin in other amenities of life, they could be in the ballpark. If, suppose, two teachers in the DG area got married (as happened with my trig/stats teacher and a fox of an English teacher), they would be well above the median family income and could afford a house in the 400-500K range in the DG.

2) This question is a bit tougher, because any answer implicitly places a dollar value on education, a difficult task at best. What's more, an answer in the affirmative means that teaching the children of rich, affluent parents (probably white, more often than not) and communities is inherently more valuable as a commodity than teaching the children of lower-income families and communities.

So forgive me for being coy, but my answer would have to be: no, not necessarily.

 

[Captain Iago]

1) Is the teacher in question the only source of income for the family? If so, then probably not. Though if they stretched themselves thin in other amenities of life, they could be in the ballpark. If, suppose, two teachers in the DG area got married (as happened with my trig/stats teacher and a fox of an English teacher), they would be well above the median family income and could afford a house in the 400-500K range in the DG.

2) This question is a bit tougher, because any answer implicitly places a dollar value on education, a difficult task at best. What's more, an answer in the affirmative means that teaching the children of rich, affluent parents (probably white, more often than not) and communities is inherently more valuable as a commodity than teaching the children of lower-income families and communities.

So forgive me for being coy, but my answer would have to be: no, not necessarily.

1) Ehhh, I don't quite think we're talking ballpark even with stretched amenities considering how much is taken out of that gross 75k (taxes, insurance, pension, etc). The union must take the position that the teacher salary is the primary/sole income or else they would be doing a disservice to its members, no?

2A) This is a conundrum no doubt; however, this is inherent in our public education system since the overwhelming bulk of the money comes locally and there is a natural segregation ($) in our society.

2B) Haven't you already placed a dollar value on education? I state this only because of how you became aggravated/disgruntled by the teachers who picketed/threaten to strike.

 

[FedEx227]

That stats teacher was sooooooooo fucking hot. Saw her a few weeks walking to school, still hot.

 

[Rush]

That stats teacher was sooooooooo fucking hot. Saw her a few weeks walking to school, still hot.

You shut your whore mouth.

 

[Lefty]

1) Ehhh, I don't quite think we're talking ballpark even with stretched amenities considering how much is taken out of that gross 75k (taxes, insurance, pension, etc). The union must take the position that the teacher salary is the primary/sole income or else they would be doing a disservice to its members, no?

2A) This is a conundrum no doubt; however, this is inherent in our public education system since the overwhelming bulk of the money comes locally and there is a natural segregation ($) in our society.

2B) Haven't you already placed a dollar value on education? I state this only because of how you became aggravated/disgruntled by the teachers who picketed/threaten to strike.

1) I think that "difference between median and average" conundrum really needs to be addressed if this is going to be taken seriously. Do you know what the curve for housing cost looks like, by chance? I have to believe that in the DG, in this country, the mean is most certainly below the median, probably by as much as 30-60 grand.

2A) This is most definitely true, but you're still going by a question (should teachers be paid enough to afford housing in the areas they teach?) that intertwines multiple premises (right to affordable housing, right to a reasonable commute to work, etc.). What we need is the housing analogue of the Violinist Thought Experiment as applied to abortion (it untangled the "right to life" and "right to that which sustains life" premises) in order to make sense of it all.

2B) Therein lies your bias, my friend. I have not made a peep about the value of education, only saying that an average of $75K a year is enough to live comfortably on, and that whining about making an above-average salary at a job that gives you considerable time off shouldn't garner much pity from others. So then who were/are the people that implicitly put a price tag on education? You said it right in your post: the teachers threatening to strike.

Think about it: usually, when an organized group of workers threatens to halt their work, they have a list of grievances. Now, in my specific case (and many others), what was that main grievance? Salary. What were the specifics of that grievance? Did they feel they were making too much money or not enough? They felt they were underpaid and, thus, undervalued.

So, here we have a group of educators threatening to strike (they eventually did), with their core problem being a valuation issue that results in them making less money than they feel they are worth. While that isn't explicitly putting a price tag on education, balking at the status quo and threatening to stop teaching certainly is saying that what they provide (education) is more valuable than $75K a year.

 

[Lefty]

That stats teacher was sooooooooo fucking hot. Saw her a few weeks walking to school, still hot.

Did she teach math? Yeah, come to think of it, she did. My bad, I thought she was an English teacher. But yeah, the Mac-Attack went way out of his league for that piece of tail. She looks like Mrs. Ari from Entourage, IIRC.

 

[Gustavus Adolphus]

1) Granted there is a difference between median and average, but can a teacher at an average salary (75k) afford a median (341k) house in DG?

LOL, one of my friends from work just purchased a home in DG for around that price. His wife is also a guidance counselor.

 

[Gustavus Adolphus]

Iago,

I think Kentucky does this, and possibly they are doing it now in New Jersey, but do you favor pooling all property taxes together and paying teachers that way? Or do you favor the current system?

I'm definitely in the former on that one.

 

[Lefty]

Iago,

I was thinking about it, and have decided to attempt to recreate the "Should teachers be compensated enough to allow them to live within the communities they teach?" dilemma in a scenario that untangles some of the elements inherent in our discussion. Bear with me, as this is just a rough draft of what I have been pondering, but I think it does an OK job at doing what is intended:

Suppose you are the GM of a newly-commissioned NFL franchise in southern California. The owner has been able to work out an agreement that allows your new team to play in the LA Memorial Coliseum while a new stadium is built elsewhere in So Cal.

Being the head of a new franchise, it is your job to make all the hirings and appointments commensurate with other NFL teams, which means you are also in charge of hiring the behind-the-action staff: athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, equipment managers, team doctors and the like.

Through the course of your due diligence, you meet with an upstart doctor fresh out of med school and residency, applying for one of the team doctor positions. Football fan, solid performance as a resident and a great guy, you love him. He's from LA, and after toying with some grant money left over from med school and saving during his residency, he has already settled down in one of the LA 'burbs, a stone's throw away from the team's facilities, a perfect match. Hired. Sitting down to negotiate a contract, you give him the story of what is going to happen with the team: right outside of downtown LA for now while new stadium is built elsewhere, etc. That done, you move on to the task of putting together a winning football team.

Of course, no one really knows how valuable the services are of a team doctor or trainer. Their methods and results are indefinite, lost in the vast array of variables surrounding the sport of football as well as the randomness still present in modern medicine. Everyone knows that they do something, it's just that putting a definite number (be it in increments of dollars, points, years, whatever) is a hopeless endeavor. Ambiguous as their contributions may be, though, it is a simple truth that you must employ a doctor (or few) for the multi-million dollar collision business that is pro football.

After your first season in LA, the owner informs you that construction has begun on the team's new digs, and it should be ready for the opening of the next calendar year's season (your third in LA). There's a catch, though: Santa Monica made an offer too good to be true, and the stadium is being built there, not downtown LA. And with this new move, non-cap money is going to be tight for awhile: no big acquisitions or expenses that are unwarranted, cut-out offering extravagant signing bonuses to aging players, and so on. No big deal, right? You're in full GM Mode, the team isn't awful, and you're about to get a plush new office in a mammoth stadium in Southern California. Wonderful.

But right before your move to Santa Monica, the upstart team doc strolls into your office to negotiate a new deal. He has performed well, and while he might not be as experienced as other doctors hounding you with emails and phone calls, a Dr. Nik he is not, so you oblige him and sit down to work out a deal.

This time though, he is more assertive, asking for a pay raise right off the bat. He says he has grown accustom to living near the team's facilities near the USC campus, and doesn't want to negotiate the traffic on LA's highways every day to get to work; he has to move. His salary demands are even more outlandish than his fear of traffic, calling for a ridiculous pay increase to supplement his move from near-median-LA living to median-Santa Monica digs. Needless to say, that's a hell of a pay increase.

Now, should you be under any obligation (moral or otherwise) to give in to the doc's salary demands, just because he wants to live near the Santa Monica facilities in the same fashion afforded to him in LA?

My answer is no, you should not feel or be obligated in any way. It would be ridiculous to give in to this man's salary demands simply so that he can go on living the average life in a new place. If the stadium was in Inglewood instead of Santa Monica, you would have been labeled a penny-pinching nut-job had you been looking to cut his salary when the contract came off the books. There is a difference between "right to a necessity" and "right to an average necessity".

 

[chs234]

this thread has gone from slamming CCS writers to fantasizing about being a GM of a football team.

nice.

 

[Gustavus Adolphus]

Iago,

.....

Comparison is ridiculous because many athletic trainers also are part of their own private practices. Whether they are the owners of a clinic, or are at a clinic when the team is not practicing, athletic trainers have other sources of income.

 

[DewsSox79]

this thread has gone from slamming CCS writers to fantasizing about being a GM of a football team.

nice.

and teachers worth. dumbest thread

 

[BigP50]

Who is actually reading Lefty's extremely long posts?

 

[USCChiFan]

this thread has gone from slamming CCS writers to fantasizing about being a GM of a football team.

nice.

It's also gone from funny and entertaining to dull and serious

 

[Captain Iago]

LOL, one of my friends from work just purchased a home in DG for around that price. His wife is also a guidance counselor.

I was meaning as a primary salary. Don't guidance counselors, as certified staff, fall under the teacher contract salary + masters (as it's required)?

 

[DewsSox79]

It's also gone from funny and entertaining to dull and serious

best word for it!

 

[Captain Iago]

1) I think that "difference between median and average" conundrum really needs to be addressed if this is going to be taken seriously. Do you know what the curve for housing cost looks like, by chance? I have to believe that in the DG, in this country, the mean is most certainly below the median, probably by as much as 30-60 grand.

True enough, and we don't have all the info. In my experience, I have a family member (in-law) who lives in DG and he received a 7 figure BONUS. The neighborhood he lives in is quite well off.

2A) This is most definitely true, but you're still going by a question (should teachers be paid enough to afford housing in the areas they teach?) that intertwines multiple premises (right to affordable housing, right to a reasonable commute to work, etc.). What we need is the housing analogue of the Violinist Thought Experiment as applied to abortion (it untangled the "right to life" and "right to that which sustains life" premises) in order to make sense of it all.

We're both coming to conclusions similarly in the same way as you stated in a post long before.

2B) Therein lies your bias, my friend. I have not made a peep about the value of education, only saying that an average of $75K a year is enough to live comfortably on, and that whining about making an above-average salary at a job that gives you considerable time off shouldn't garner much pity from others. So then who were/are the people that implicitly put a price tag on education? You said it right in your post: the teachers threatening to strike.

Think about it: usually, when an organized group of workers threatens to halt their work, they have a list of grievances. Now, in my specific case (and many others), what was that main grievance? Salary. What were the specifics of that grievance? Did they feel they were making too much money or not enough? They felt they were underpaid and, thus, undervalued.

So, here we have a group of educators threatening to strike (they eventually did), with their core problem being a valuation issue that results in them making less money than they feel they are worth. While that isn't explicitly putting a price tag on education, balking at the status quo and threatening to stop teaching certainly is saying that what they provide (education) is more valuable than $75K a year.

Well, there is a price on it and technically it was previously set in the prior contract (not by me, not by you, but by the parties involved). Any union who go into negotiations with either a pay cut or a freeze in mind for its members is a completely failure. That's the way the world works.