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1) Differential Pay and Teacher Morale. The
school board in Lawrence, Kansas, wants to raise pay for teachers in the
traditional shortage areas of math, science and special education, but
the union is having none of it.
The arguments against the idea are straight from NEA's
talking points and hardly worth regurgitating here. But this particular line
of thought deserves further review:
"Robert Harrington, a Kansas University
education professor, said school districts should focus on retaining
teachers. States have an adequate supply of people certified to teach, but
districts fail to keep them in the profession, he said.
"Harrington said starting a
differential pay system seems to focus on recruitment more than retention
and might be 'opening a can of worms,' particularly if teachers with less
experience are getting paid more than those who have worked for several
years.
"'There are some morale issues that
have to be thought about and addressed,' he said."
Question 1: How do you "focus on retaining teachers"
when all those ed school graduates with
social studies or elementary education credentials can't even find jobs?
California universities produced 25,000 new credentialed teachers last year
for an estimated 8,400 jobs.
Question 2: Why is the morale of more experienced
teachers - who wouldn't receive the proposed differential pay - more
important than the morale of math and science teachers - whose union is
preventing them from receiving freely offered cash in their paychecks?
The union seems to define a morale problem as people
who stay and complain. But some people don't complain. They simply leave and
go where they feel more valued. That is a morale problem, too.
2) District Spending Data Updated for Nine More
States. EIA has updated district-by-district enrollment, workforce and
spending tables for the states of New York, North Carolina, North Dakota,
Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
For the first time, district-level teacher force
statistics are available for New York and Rhode Island. They reinforce the
trend in the Northeast as a whole – sagging enrollment with burgeoning
employee rolls.
The tables are located at
http://www.eiaonline.com/districts.htm. District statistics for all
other states will be added over the next two weeks.
3) Welcome Eye on 403(b) Plans. Teacher
salaries get extensive, if often superficial, media coverage. Benefits are
so buried in the apocrypha of public financing they don't lend themselves to
concise stories, and so don't receive deserved attention.
Once in a while, however, an enterprising reporter will
find a golden nugget. It happened to Kathy Kristof of the Los Angeles
Times in April 2006 when she wrote about union endorsements of 403(b)
plans - the public employee equivalent of 401(k)s. The spotlight eventually
prompted United Teachers Los Angeles to stop endorsing such plans for a fee,
and led to a $30 million settlement against ING and New York State United
Teachers (which also illustrated the
importance of the mainstream press, even in the age of the blogosphere).
This morning, Rick Karlin of the Albany Times Union
found another. Apparently the state legislature passed a law two years ago
that
guarantees New York City teachers an 8.25 percent return on their
403(b)s. The guarantee, of course, is backed by the wallets of state
taxpayers, regardless of the market return on the investment.
"Holy
cow," Albany actuary Tony Riccardi told Karlin. "If you could get me in on
that plan, I'd like it."
So would
we all.
4) Another NEA Affiliate Seeks to Join AFL-CIO.
There hasn't exactly been a flood, but a small, steady trickle of NEA
affiliates signing up with the AFL-CIO under the
Labor Solidarity Partnership continues. The latest to begin the process
is the
Kenosha Education Association in Wisconsin.
KEA Executive Director Joe
Kiriaki described the action as "quite historical (sic)."
The Kenosha union boasts 2,400 members. Also in the
AFL-CIO pipeline: the Columbus Education Association in Ohio (see
item #3 here).
5) Last Week's Intercepts. EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from May 26-June 2:
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Will NEA Superdelegates Swing to Obama? Does a "conditional
recommendation" mean anything to Democratic superdelegates from NEA?
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Wanted: Something Else to Protest. Never mind.
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Best Argument for More School PE. Mariah Carey is no
Jennie Finch.
6) Quote of the Week #1. "I don't think we
should ever lay off teachers." – Manchester, New Hampshire Alderman Mark
Roy. (May 29
Manchester Union-Leader)
Roy's belief is supported by district policy. From 2001
to 2006, while student enrollment grew by only 0.6%,
the size of the Manchester teaching force grew by 10.8%. In raw numbers,
for 104 additional students, the district hired 116 additional teachers.
Quote of
the Week #2.
"As we approach the graduation season, we are asking NEA members to share
stories of your students who would like to attend college but cannot because
of the cost. Stories will be collected and used to bolster the case for
action by policymakers." – from the May 30 NEA
Education Insider. |
