Teacher Pay Raises

[TBEAR]

Good article

[zoe10850]

First, I will state that the teacher pay raise issue by Gov Blankstare is nothing more than another effort to grab a voting block of 75,000 voters. Of course teachers want a raise, who doesn't?

Secondly, do the teachers in fact deserve a raise across the board ? The starting pay for teachers is in the $38,000 dollar range already, which is approx $26 per hour (180 days times 8 hours divided into $38,000). That is significantly more than teachers in parochial schools make, so are our teachers underpaid when a deputy sheriff/police officer makes about 1/2 of that for 12 months ?

I believe that the school systems (public schools) are topheavy with administrative types, totally uneccessary to the education function, and costly to the taxpayers.

I see the state hiring people at twice+ the Governor'e salary and with no particular expertise. See J LeBlanc $180,000 per year for example, with no prior experience in running such a large department (Division of Administration).

The state is whining about money, and at the same time, our sales tax collections and oil prices are at record levels (Post Katrina/Rita) with money pouring in. The "Stelly Plan" has raised our state income tax to the highest levels ever, with no corresponding drop elsewhere like we were promised.

No wonder the Feds find us irresponsible.

I cannot in good faith support anything that this administration proposes including a $4,000 raise for teachers with no accountability attached.

[TBEAR]

Researched the following information:

This is a 2006 pdf file link from the Lafayette School Board Site:

www.lpssonline.com/uploads/Teacherpayscale.pdf


Lafayette City Police Officer from their website:

"Salary
Currently, the annual salary for an entry-level police officer is $27,000 per annum. Officers are paid biweekly, working an 80-hour pay period with alternating weekends off. There is a 2% increase every year after your first year on November first."

Also note even if you have a full degree in criminal justice the pay at city police is the same as if you graduated from high school.

So from this we can conclude that there is at least a $10,000.00 difference in the starting pay of a city police officer compared to a teacher.

The Lafayette City Police are also paid more than the local sheriff's department.

I wonder which job is more dangerous?

[TBEAR]

nick said:

Which job is more dangerous? I would say law enforcement though being a teacher at an inner city school in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, or Shreveport can't be too secure.

I can believe that, and yes you are right that more priority should be given to law enforcement. But its like one of those things that nobody cares about until they need them.

Oh and heres a good site for some of those Lafayette Parish Teachers that think they dont get enough pay, they need to look at some of the other parishes:

www.doe.state.la.us/lde/finance/1447.asp

Vermilion Parish you dont even need a degree just some college

[TBEAR]

I agree there are plenty good teachers out there that are concerned a care about our kids just like my grandmother when she worked for the school board in the twenties, she got IOU's from the school board for two years before she saw any money, but she felt compelled to teach because it was in her heart. Some of these teachers they have today could care less about teaching and look at more as a job than a career.

The same can be said about police officers also you will have bad apples in no matter what area of service you are in and civil service should not intervene if they as well as everyone else knows the teacher or officer has done wrong. There are good teachers just as there are good officers, and from the payscales you can tell the good officers sure aint in it for the money.

Look at the average price of a home in Lafayette today as adverstised by TV3 during a small special, $250,000.00, and not uncommon to see a million dollar price tag on them, in subdivisons no less. At 7.9 percent interest for 30 years on the average home its $1817.01 thats without insurance, car notes, etc. Imagine making $27,000.00 a year and making those payments, You better get married and your wife better work, and she best be taking birth control pills.

So again the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.

[TBEAR]

I know what your saying about the rich keep getting richer etc, what I was initially talking about and failed to put in my post was that it was the politicians that keep padding their pockets with using private industry to do so.

Not enough of the voting public gets out to vote because as long as it doesnt effect them they could care less. They carry on with their lives, complicated or simple, oblivous to the world around them until it directly effects them. Then they wonder why nothing was or is getting done.

A lot of voters go to the polls after being urged by someone else to vote a certain way such as listening to what a family member suggest or a good friend. They do not do the homework necessary to choose the cantidate by formulating their own opinion which one would do the most good, and end up at the polls like sheep.

Then, only in Louisiana, you have run-off elections, which is a whole other dilemma put in place by previous politicians. Heres the encyclopedia version:

A Run-off primary election (a.k.a. an "Open Primary system") is an election in which all candidates for the office appear on one ballot and if any candidate receives a majority of the votes, he is elected to that office. If no candidate received a majority in the primary, the top two finishers would compete in a run-off election. This style of elections is used in the U.S. State of Louisiana.
Louisiana adopted this system of election in 1975 on the recommendation of Governor Edwin Edwards. Some analysts feel that Edwards advocated the system to make it easier for himself to be elected to office. Edwards had been elected in 1972 after going though a Democratic Party primary, a run-off of that primary, and a general election. His Republican Party opponent David Treen didn't have to face anybody in his party's primary.


The open primary has been criticized for forcing voters go to the polls twice in the space of a month, which tends to depress turnout. Some academics contend that it favors incumbents (who can afford to campaign twice) while others say it aids fringe candidates (who can get just enough votes to force a runoff). In 1991, former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke used the open primary system to force a runoff with Edwards. Thus originated the famous bumper sticker: "Vote for the Crook: It's Important."

Louisiana's election system used to be even stranger. Until 1997, the open primary was held in October, which meant that if a candidate got over 50 percent he could be elected to Congress a month before the federal Election Day. The Supreme Court told Louisiana to knock it off. So the state pushed its open primary back a month, and now instead of electing candidates early, it frequently elects them late.

And I do agree if government was ran like a private business it would be more efficient all the way around. And alot of those elected officials that do nothing or get nothing done would be fired. Productivity would indeed increase if you got paid for the work you put out.

[zoe10850]

well, some parishes do start in that salary range ($38K) as each parish may (or may not supplement the minimum foundation funding paid by the state.

regardless, even the scale shown on the link tells me that starting pay is still $22.75 per hour (180 days times 8 hrs). It also shows an annual "step" increase, which in any environment outside of government, is in fact a raise. You will note that in most fields where large quantities of people are employed, hospitals for example, there are no such automatic increases for nurses etc.

These same "steps" apply to ALL civil service type jobs; Lafayette P D, La State Police, the thousands who are employed by our "consolidated Govt", the State of La etc. This is one reason that the cost of government is always rising, with no corresponding increase in the quality of service.

This is why I oppose government venturing into areas of business, be it utilities, telephone, cable tv, whatever. There is no possible way to control the escalating cost.

Why do we need more teachers when the school population has dropped (pre-Katrina/Rita)? Shouldn't the cost fall relative to the business (student population) that is served?

And by the way, the $27K quoted for Lafayette P D includes the infamous supplemental pay that should not be paid per the courts.

[zoe10850]

as a note regarding open primaries;the system originally was to pit the leading democrat with the leading republican, ie. the two extremes. That is precisely what happened. Is the system good; that is debateable.

Is the public well served by career politicians;sometimes. Term limits is a "feelgood" thing. I one observes the Parish Council, almost all are "lame ducks". Are they doing a good job? I do not think so. Do they care? I do not think so. If public approval was necessary, I do not think time would be wasted on MLK debate, or Roberts Rules of Oreder etc.

[ronnief]

Privatize the schools and give vouchers to low income families, arrest parents who let kids miss school. I think the quality of education could only improve, especially in this state. We would lose about 70,000 public workers, and a huge debt for a retirement systems. Those savings, coupled with no property taxes for school operation would save us all a lot of money.

It is time to look at different ways to do things, because the current system is clearly not successful

[layne]

Zoe10850, and others -- Having been a schoolteacher in another state, I can tell you that the figure of $22.75 per hour is not accurate, because you're wrong about the amount of time teachers put in on their jobs. I've never worked such long hours as I did as a teacher. I don't mean I spent long hours at school; I mean that my job wasn't nearly over when I left campus each day. I made up lesson plans and graded homework for 4-5 hours EVERY night and worked EVERY Saturday and Sunday, trying to keep up with my students' homework and the incredible amount of bureaucratic paperwork the schools require, plus calling parents, attending mandatory meetings, attending mandatory training, and trying to keep myself informed of the latest in my field. Seriously, while I was teaching it was an unusual week when I could take off a few hours on a Sunday afternoon to watch a movie or visit friends. It burnt me out in just 3 years, and I'm not a person who's afraid of hard work OR low pay.

And here was a real wake-up call for me: a burger joint near my house was advertising for a manager to work 40 hours a week, all daytime hours, for almost twice the pay I was making, and with better benefits. No experience or degree required!

My hat's off to anyone who can be a teache. During my short tenure, I was yelled at by parents for the grades their kids earned, treated like a child by a jerk of a principal, and knocked to the floor and pounced on by a 200-pound student who was angry when I asked her to return a book she borrowed from me. And I know other teachers who got worse than I did.

In my opinon, anyone who can stay in there and be successful at teaching deserves all the honor we can give them and should be highly paid. There's nothing easy about the job!

[zoe10850]

Well, w/o inciting an outrage from all the public teachers out there, I must point out that the points raised by Layne are true of many professions, and many that pay a lot less. Police officers must be trained, and you can be sure their work follows them home. Ditto for nurses, lawyers (most are not rich), doctors, accountants, politicians etc. And no, I am not a lawyer.

My point was that one should choose a career in teaching because they like to teach, not to make a lot of money. I fully agree that the world (has always) needs teachers, and the job is important, but then, so are the guys who collect the garbage. ALL jobs are important in their own way, but I was saying that on the relative scale of things, teachers are not underpaid, and if they were, the parochial schools would have no teachers because they pay even less, and do not have the benefits(retirement, insurance etc). There is a difference in well paid, and highly paid. It is fiscally impossible to have 100,000 teachers in this state "highly paid".

We just do not see the issue the same way; you are not wrong in your assessment, but neither am I.

[layne]

Zoe, I do question your point that the other professions you mention are unable to finish their work during regular "work hours" and have to take their work home to finish every night. Nurses certainly don't do this, since they don't take their patients home with them. Policemen may be called out occasionally when they are off-duty, but this isn't the usual. Others you mention (with the exception of most doctors) have this advantage over teachers: they don't HAVE to work every night, every weekend. They may have to during tax season, or when they've got a big case brewing, or during flu season, but then there are all those times when they don't.

In figuring teacher pay, the assumption is made that teachers can do all their lesson plans and grading during their one "free" planning period of about 45 minutes per day. In my case, I was teaching 3 different high school courses (1 World Geography, 3 American Histories, and 2 Photojournalisms) , which meant I was preparing three sets of lessons, and I had 130 students turning in worksheets, reports, and tests several times a week. I was never without big piles of papers waiting to be graded and that ever-grinding need for lesson plans to better serve the needs of the students.

I agree with you, wholeheartedly, that one should teach because one wants to. Certainly there is little other reason to do it, since teachers get low pay, grueling hours, and little respect or honor from much of the general public. But the fact that they do it because they sincerely love it and want to make an important contribution to the well-being of future generations should not also mean that they should be content with low pay. Other workers -- clerks, nurses, salesmen, mechanics -- seek better pay all the time, and it's considered sensible and rational for them to do so. Other professionals -- doctors, lawyers, CPA's -- can increase their earnings by taking on additional or better-paying clients, and they do this whenever they can. When teachers try to get more money, however, people say they should teach because they love it and money should not be an important to them. Is there any other occupation that we ask this of?

I agree, all jobs are important in their own way. I often think we'd be better off if pay was ranked according to which occupations or professions we would miss the fastest if they disappeared tomorrow. In this scheme, garbagemen, teachers, firemen, utility workers, policemen, and doctors would make the most money, and . . . well, I'm sure you can come up with your own ideas about who would be near the bottom!

Incidentally, my per-hour "take" as a teacher in Delaware was about $12.50, and we were slightly better-paid than Louisiana teachers.

[TBEAR]

Both my grandmothers, now deceased and sadly misssed, were teachers in Lafayette Parish in the 20's and they got paid with IOU's for two years before receiving any money. Now thats low pay.

Im just curious what does a teacher do for the almost three months during summer when there is no school?

[coolcajun]

i do agree that teachers do take a lot of work home with them. but, i do not get two weeks off for Christmas/new years holiday. or three months in the summer. and i know most teachers do try to teach summer school, so its not a full three months off. but you get sick days and some other vacation days that the general working population does not get, along with all the holiday vacations you get for being a teacher.(i.e last week teacher were off while most of us jsut got good friday off) a new doctor in school works sometimes 72 hours in a row, plus doing studies and other paperwork, just to get his medical degree.( i have seen this with my own eyes with doctors working at UMC) lawyers working on a big case have to do a lot of work at night researching cases and doing his homework on clients and witness he has to question. police have reports to do which is done at home after working hours most of the time, because he has to patrol his area to make sure the citizens are safe. yes cops also have to get called out at times. when was the last time a teacher got called out at 1 a.m. and did not come home for two or three days. a prime example of this was not long ago during the two hurricanes. all emergency personal worked long hours most with out any overtime pay to help all citizens of this state. and talk to one emergency professional why he does his line of work. most will tell you they love their job. it si not for the pay.

a lot of workers in any field have sacrifices they make at home to do some type of work for the next business day.

[jaguar]

It's amazing how the teaching profession stays so much the same while so much changes.

Although many school systems are transitioning to a "year-round" schedule, most schools in the U.S. are still on the agrarian schedule, when kids were let out of school for the summer planting and tending of the fields, etc. Is anyone in our neck of the woods looking at this? Would be great if private and public schools could all be on the same page.

I'm a certified teacher but have not worked much in the Lafayette Parish system, so I can't comment on the other posts. However, I believe and have heard others share the horror stories and worse.

Teacher pay raises have become nothing more than a political cliche. How shocking if an elected official actually got out there are fought for the teachers.

[coolcajun]

i agree, i think school should be year round. have them go and give a 3-4 week break and go back. kids would not be in trouble as much, because they get bored and have nothing to do.

[layne]

TBear, many teachers I know try to find temporary jobs in the summer to supplement their incomes. Sometimes they can find work as summer school teachers, salesclerks or camp counselors; others do a home-based business like sell cosmetics or run a summer lawn service. Often teachers enroll at colleges to take summer courses to stay on top of the latest in the profession, or to get credits toward a higher degree that will gain them a pay increase if they are ever able to finish it. Teachers who have a working spouse may be able to take the summer off to re-charge, do volunteer or community work of some kind, or just spend time with their own children.

[TBEAR]

Ok I guess that answered my question thank you.

Me nor my wife make as much as a Lafayette Parish Teacher and wish we could supplement our income that would be great, but we just dont have the time. Our jobs are full time and require us to bring home work too. I also wish one of us could have time to recharge but both of us have to work to make ends meet after working for the same places for more than 20 years. And we sure dont live beyond my means we try to make every penny stretch.

thanks again for filling me in on what a teacher does during the summer.

[layne]

Certainly there are a lot of jobs that pay less than teaching, but they don't often require 4 years of college in order to get them, and serving an unpaid apprenticeship, and upgrading your skills at your own expense -- but being a teacher requires all of these things. If your jobs require these things and still pay less than teaching after 20 years on the job, please let me know what fields you work in, as I am always interested in gaining knowledge about such things. Maybe I'll get on the soapbox for better pay for you! :-)

Among jobs that require a college degree (doctors, lawyers, nurses, CPAs, personnel managers, engineers, etc.), teachers generally make the least money. We all say education is our most important investment, and that we want the very best, most talented people to teach our children -- so why do we choose to offer low financial rewards for it?

The people who do become teachers are ones who are willing to go through college knowing they'll earn significantly less money for finishing their degrees than everyone else around them.

I've noticed that many people who complain bitterly about legislation to raise teacher pay don't have any problem with other professionals being well-paid. They don't grouse that nurses, CEOs, and engineers make more money than they do, but they are really resentful of the idea that teachers might make more. I've had a lot of jobs, including graphic designer, business owner, secretary, staff manager, and medical transcriber. None of these came close to requiring the sweat, labor, preparation, responsibility, quick-wittedness, forebearance, intellect, and dedication that teaching took.

I didn't last. It was the hardest thing I ever tried to do. Those who hang in there have my sincerest admiration.

[TBEAR]

Well I beleive you are comparing private industry to a government job.

I think the problem comes in with it being a public servant job and that its tax payers money that goes to the raises. Everytime you turn around you have a politician promising raises to teachers, people get tired of hearing it.

When was the last time a politician fought to increase a police officers pay or firemans pay without them pushing the issue themselves. Both are very valuable jobs to the community also, and are usually the most underappreciated and dangerous jobs out there. Although some areas of these jobs do not require degrees, there are alot of officers and fireman that do have degrees. Both of these public service jobs require all the skills named and many more, plus their lives are put in danger everyday they go to work to keep families and our loved ones safe from harm. So how much is a life worth or can you put a price on how dangerous a job is?

Worth mentioning are the men and women of our armed forces who recieve less than any of these jobs.

The people who enter these two professions also know that you are not going to make a million dollars a year working at them, but I do believe, just as teaching, they are as important to our commmunity as a whole as anything else. But the general public doesnt want to hear about raises for these two professions and its a no win situation for a politician to bring it up during his, or her, campaign.

Its like one of those things that until they are needed, keep them in the closet, I dont want to see them, then when needed, "what took you so long to get here and how could you let this happen"!!!