Comments on: Arthur Salm: Let’s shaft the teachers!

By: Arthur Salm: Down with interns!

Arthur Salm: Down with interns! — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:16:41 +0000

[...] More from Arthur Salm: The true origins of Over the Line | Schoolbrary concept is as dumb as its name | Let’s shaft the teachers! [...]

By: Arthur Salm: Hey kids, drugs are cool!

Arthur Salm: Hey kids, drugs are cool! — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:18:37 +0000

[...] from Arthur Salm: Let’s shaft the teachers! | AstroTurf gets a makeover | Legalize marijuana | Cocaine as farce, the War on Drugs [...]

By: jede ferrani

jede ferrani — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:57:35 +0000

Very timely data regarding airfare travel and what to expect. Thanks for the info. Many people have similar situations in their lives.

By: jakesd

jakesd — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:10:43 +0000

$63,000 average, plus free health and dental. Not a bad gig for a college degree job that has summers off.

Do they work hard? Of course many do. But do do many non-teachers work 10 hour days without summers off, free healthcare and a pension? Yes.

MMT I dont think anyone ever said the starting salary of $37k was overpaid. But as stated that is starting salary not average. You should do the same comparison and hourly breakdown for a 30 year teacher who is making $80k with summers off. (and who will receive $60k per year for life in retirement pension). That would be $80,000 divided by 184 workdays. And if we use your 10 hour day, thats $43/hour. The $63k average teacher salary would work out to $34/hour.

Now do I think teachers are overpaid? Some yes, some no. But in this age of budget shortfalls, eudcation is a big chunk of that and should be discussed.

Now if you want to REALLY see overpaid, go to the administration building….

http://www.sandi.net/personnel/pdf/SalaryScheds/managers.pdf

By: doug porter

doug porter — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:55:06 +0000

why stop with teachers when you can shaft all the city’s employees? read librarian anna daniels letter here: http://obrag.org/?p=9446

By: rickeysays

rickeysays — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:16:13 +0000

Thanks for a rare positive portrayal of teachers. The right-wing has done such a good job of convincing everyone that public schools are failing, and the teachers union is to blame, that no one even stops to wonder if it’s true. I liken it to the polls you hear about from time to time, where people say they aren’t satisfied with congress as a whole, but they’re satisfied with the job THEIR representitive is doing. Most people like THEIR neighborhood school, but think there’s something wrong with schools as a whole.
BTW, I’ve been a teacher for 12 years, plus four years as a sub, and I made $54,000 last year. It takes a lot of years of service to get up to that $63,000.

By: JB

JB — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:22:26 +0000

Right on Arthur Salm! Thanks for pointing out the real issues at hand.

As an 8 year veteran teacher in one of San Diego’s roughest schools, there’s nothing that bugs me more than hearing how the mean evil teachers union is trying to screw over the sweet innocent school children. I’ve got a masters degree and am barely able to scrape by with the cost of living here being what it is!

I try my hardest day in and day out to do everything I can to prepare these children for the next step in their lives, but get to hear at almost every turn that teachers these days are horrible incompetent buffoons that are leeching off society and ruining our children. The reality is far different from what the Anti-Union Tribune portrays.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:53:31 +0000

Teaching is a job that requires a college degree and additional training. They are professionals that should be paid as professionals and they should not have to pay for materials out of pocket or beg parents to provide things.
The bottom line is Prop 13 (along with other provisions) is ruining this state. When are we going to wake up and realize that we are destroying our future so corporations and other businesses can pay low real estate taxes? I understand giving individuals living in a personal residence a break on increasing property taxes, but the current law is simply unfair and is crippling our state’s future productive capacity. Education is the best investment a society can make. It pays for itself many times over. It’s time to stop being so short-sighted.
(No, I am not a teacher, I am an engineer with no kids who is willing to pay higher taxes so we can have a state with an positive economic future).

By: MMT

MMT — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:38:00 +0000

Holy heck, $63,000?! Those greedy teachers! (I’m being sarcastic, thankyouverymuch.) But really, where does $63,000 get you in San Diego? Furthermore, while $63,000 may be the average (based on some calculation), PLENTY of teachers are making less. Try starting out at $37,000 (in SDUSD). $37k divided by 184 workdays (in SDUSD) is $200 a day. $200 a day divided by a conservative 10 hours a day (not taking into account weekend work or summertime work, of course) is about $20 an hour. Of course, we must then also consider the $1000-3000 that teachers very, VERY typically spend on their classrooms each year and, well, they don’t look so overpaid anymore. Especially when one considers that a bartender or server in a restaurant can make about $20 an hour — or more — perhaps with significantly less stress and resposibility. It’s awfully unfortunate that the annual per capita income in San Diego County is $42,000, but I don’t think that other employers paying less than a middle-class wage is good cause for teachers to not be paid a middle-class wage.

By: Erik Bruvold

Erik Bruvold — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:16:47 +0000

Problem with this article is that California’s school teachers are the highest paid in the nation.

http://www.aft.org/salary/2007/download/SalarySurvey-CA.pdf

Moreover, the 2006 wage of 63,000+ is far above the per capita income in the county (just north of 42K). Do teachers work hard? As a spouse of one let me state absolutely! But making sense of this debate requires us to unpack the complexities rather than focus on one, extremely misleading statistic. Per capita spending tells us very little because there are some costs that are “fixed” irrespective of the number of students in a state and, as a consequence, skew against state’s like California that are both large as a state and have several large school districts.