Teacher Raises
According to the Tribune, Great Falls teachers received a raise from their existing salaries. Now they will earn as follows:
First Year: $30,052.00
Second Year: $31,236.00
Top Tier: $62,366.00
I located this piece from April 2005 where there were increases to the following levels:
First Year: $28,519.00
Top Tier: $55,872.00
The best information I could find at the time was that the contracts were 205 days long. That would put the teachers' daily rates at:
First Year: $146.60, or $18.32/hr.
Second Year: $152.37, or $19.05/hr
Top Tier: $304.22, or $38.03/hr
Teacher benefits can be found here. If we annualized those salaries based on a 240 days schedule like most people work, they are:
First Year: $35,184.00
Second Year: $36,568.00
Top Tier: $73,013.00
6 comments:
Wow....
What sort of performance reviews will they have to justify making that kind of dough?
I hope you're not implying that this raise is a bad thing. Good teachers are worth their weight in gold. They ought to be paid at least as much as lawyers -- or D.C. administrative law judges who sue a neighborhood dry cleaner for $57 million because they ostensibly lost a pair of pants.
I'm not a teacher and I don't have any kids in the school system right now, so my comment is purely as a taxpayer. I think most would agree our kids are most important resource, so why not pay the people in direct contact with this resource a good portion of the year accordingly? We live in a society where you can make $20 million per year or more just because you can hit a baseball, so I don't begrudge the teachers this increase. Also, the fact that the contract is "only" 205 days is largely irrelevant. Don't forget teachers also have to do lesson plans, do grades, be advisors and attend various after school functions which often take them well beyond a 40 hour work week. I'm not saying "poor teachers" because the schedule ain't half bad. I'm just saying the 205 day contract doesn't mean much in terms of comparing pay.
First, most professionals work more than 40 hours per week. That's why it's a salary.
Second, "only 240 days" is not good or bad...it just is. If I work 9 months a year and you work 12, and if I want to maximize my income, that gives me 3 additional months to earn an income. Period.
re: I don't begrudge ....the 205 (240) day contract - ..... I hope you're not implying that this raise is a bad... (and my personal favorite) ...hey ought to be paid at least as much as...
Montana's public education system is now under the control of a monopoly with a singular intent: to protect its members, regardless of performance or merit.
QUESTIONS:
1) Will teachers be rewarded based only on seniority and the number of college courses completed?
2) Will teachers with 30 years of experience in the classroom who lack a master's or doctorate degree max out the pay scale?
3) Can a teacher of physics spending several hours after school preparing illustrative lab demonstrations be paid as much as a home economics major teaching with an MBA earned at night school?
Parents have the right to scrutinize MEA/MFT-Union pay demands. Taxpayers, especially parents, have the right to challenge numbers when constant demands by MEA/MFT-Union actions threaten our children's education.
Wow!...Eric Feavor says
"But believe it or not, in this tense and frequently dysfunctional political arena, MEA-MFT was able to score points worthy of proper notice, if not celebration."
"Pay plan: Along with the Montana Public Employees Association, we lobbied through the legislature the prebudget state employee pay plan we negotiated with Governor Schweitzer."
"Retirement: We helped push forward bills to eliminate unfunded liabilities ....."
BUT THANKS TO ANOTHER SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP LOOKING OUT FOR MONTANA TAXPAYERS....
"According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys around Montana from 1997 to 2005, public-sector employees make 28.8% more in wages than do those in the private sector.
And that doesn’t include benefits government employees get from the state’s generous pension system, which is underfunded by $1.4 billion (about the same size as the entire state budget) because politicians can’t say “no” to union lobbyists. This funding gap could only be plugged if each household in Montana chips in $3,800 in taxes -- on top of their current bill."
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