Chicago teachers asking for 30% raises over next 2 years

[krazen1211]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-ctu-proposals-0217-20120217,0,2167323,full.story

The Chicago Teachers Union is asking for raises amounting to 30 percent over the next two years, the opening salvo in heated contract negotiations with school officials who are implementing a longer school day across Chicago Public Schools next school year.

Some more facts:

1. Chicago school districts perform lousy.

http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_2009/district_g8.asp

2. Chicago teacher salaries average $75k salary.

http://www.cps.edu/about_cps/at-a-glance/pages/stats_and_facts.aspx

3. Chicago public schools spend a massive whopping $13,078 per student per year.

4. The Chicago School day runs from 9 to 2:45.

5. The Chicago public school teachers get 4% raises annually.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/4852856-418/chicago-public-school-students-your-day-will-grow-emanuel-says.html





No wonder the city and the state are both broke when they're being looted like this.

[krazen1211]

Did a teacher once set your teddy bear on fire or something?

New Jersey property taxes are of course outrageous primarily due to the rampant spending on the government education industry complex.

So maybe a thousand teddy bears or so.

[krazen1211]

Of course teachers are overpaid. I spend all day around them and can assure you they hardly deserve their salaries. I educate students who threaten to beat me up and have to deal with countless state and federal SPED mandates and I can assure you that I am overpaid.

The numbers clearly indicate so. $75k + lavish pension and benefits for a 30 hour week!

[krazen1211]

a 30 hour week!

Because of course assessing student work and making out lesson plans takes absolutely no time at all.

Classroom time is important, but an effective teacher ends up spending at least one hour outside the classroom preparing for what happens inside the classroom.

Of course, the Chicago Public schools aren't really composed of effective teachers based on their NAEP results.

[krazen1211]

I did some Googling and every number I found was lower than $75k, which your source says is from 2008. This 2011 article, for example, says the number is 69k. Perhaps the source you cited is adding other forms of compensation to the salary. Generous either way, though.

And 30% is of course ridiculous, but that's how bargaining works.

Well, you can either believe the Chicago Public Schools on their own compensation, or not. Up to you.

[krazen1211]

Why did I know you were going to make another jab about the teachers rather than admit that your idea of them having only a 30-hour work week was ludicrous nonsense.

I'll grant that many school districts fail miserably when it comes to hiring good teachers, but the solution to that problem is not to make the pay worse so that only bad teachers are willing to take the job.  This is not the 1950's krazen.  Educated females have far more options in employment than teaching and nursing, so there is no longer a pool of competent cheap labor for those professions.

There's no compelling evidence of course that the average chicago school teacher actually bothers to put in more than the 30 hours measured.

Nor is there compelling evidence that they actually do better at teaching than fewer, cheaper teachers did 30 years ago with lesser technology.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_069.asp

The real problem is of course this number:

Average number of pupils per class                                       
Elementary teachers, not departmentalized   29       28   27   25   25   24   23   24   21

Salaries have of course skyrocketed.


http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_078.asp


Expenditures for employee benefits have about tripled since 1990. Got to make sure those bus drivers get their lavish benefits, heh.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_180.asp

[krazen1211]

Why did I know you were going to make another jab about the teachers rather than admit that your idea of them having only a 30-hour work week was ludicrous nonsense.

I'll grant that many school districts fail miserably when it comes to hiring good teachers, but the solution to that problem is not to make the pay worse so that only bad teachers are willing to take the job.  This is not the 1950's krazen.  Educated females have far more options in employment than teaching and nursing, so there is no longer a pool of competent cheap labor for those professions.

There's no compelling evidence of course that the average chicago school teacher actually bothers to put in more than the 30 hours measured.

The fact that lesson plans, even bad ones, exist.

What about it? Teacher instructional time is 5 hours 15 minutes a day, and of course, they get 23 days off per year out of 180, or a massive cash windfall profit upon retirement. That adds up to a mere ~808 hours!

Of course, maybe it takes them 1200 hours to prepare lesson plans.






http://www.cps-humanresources.org/careers/benefits.htm

10 sick days and 3 personal leave days per school year (new teachers must complete a 60-school-day waiting period prior to receiving this benefit)
10 vacation days per school year

[krazen1211]

Why did I know you were going to make another jab about the teachers rather than admit that your idea of them having only a 30-hour work week was ludicrous nonsense.

I'll grant that many school districts fail miserably when it comes to hiring good teachers, but the solution to that problem is not to make the pay worse so that only bad teachers are willing to take the job.  This is not the 1950's krazen.  Educated females have far more options in employment than teaching and nursing, so there is no longer a pool of competent cheap labor for those professions.

There's no compelling evidence of course that the average chicago school teacher actually bothers to put in more than the 30 hours measured.

The fact that lesson plans, even bad ones, exist.

What about it? Teacher instructional time is 5 hours 15 minutes a day, and of course, they get 23 days off per year out of 180, or a massive cash windfall profit upon retirement. That adds up to a mere ~808 hours!

Of course, maybe it takes them 1200 hours to prepare lesson plans.






http://www.cps-humanresources.org/careers/benefits.htm

10 sick days and 3 personal leave days per school year (new teachers must complete a 60-school-day waiting period prior to receiving this benefit)
10 vacation days per school year

It takes an immense amount of time and mental energy to prepare lessons and do other such administrative work, yes. Depending on the school and the subject, typically at least ten to twelve hours a week or thereabouts.

And why is public school teachers being in the 69.7th percentile or higher at all wrong, considering the importance of what they do?

Because tax-payers are providing their salary and municipalities are going bankrupt; the point is to maximize results per dollars spent, not validate the role of teachers.

If this was being suggested as a one-off emergency measure it would be one thing, but this is exactly the sort of instrumentalist thinking that's damaging our social institutions. Validating the role of teachers is itself a desirable result.

I am certainly not surprised that the unions would say that, but of course 12 hours a week for a mere 40 weeks only totals to 480 hours.

[krazen1211]

This isn't a pattern of work that the big bad evil krazen-emasculating teachers' unions are making up to further emasculate you. It is in fact what being a schoolteacher entails. I also wonder if you understand how much mental energy is expended in this profession relative to time spent and to most other jobs. Just because you can't wrap your head around how teaching could possibly entail more than just sitting in a classroom during school hours doesn't mean that you have the right to dictate public policy to people who actually have some conception of how these things work.

Nobody is dictating. But just as the NJEA has used their lobbying influence in the NJ legislature to swindle the public, well, others have the right to stand up for our financial interest.

I find the fact that you have to resort to simply making up numbers highly amusing, though, especially when those numbers are contradicted by the CPS itself. Heck, even the former mayor of Chicago admitted that his teachers work 6 hour days!

[krazen1211]

krazen, you would do better to blame the rich,who absorb a far greater share of the worker's production than the humble teacher, and thus leave children in a state of poverty and hopelessness.

Well, the massive tax hike inflicted on the 'rich' and everyone else went directly to the chosen constituency.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-state-0223-20120223,0,3088174.story

In the next budget, virtually every penny of that $7 billion in new revenue goes to pension obligations.

[krazen1211]

This isn't a pattern of work that the big bad evil krazen-emasculating teachers' unions are making up to further emasculate you. It is in fact what being a schoolteacher entails. I also wonder if you understand how much mental energy is expended in this profession relative to time spent and to most other jobs. Just because you can't wrap your head around how teaching could possibly entail more than just sitting in a classroom during school hours doesn't mean that you have the right to dictate public policy to people who actually have some conception of how these things work.

Nobody is dictating. But just as the NJEA has used their lobbying influence in the NJ legislature to swindle the public, well, others have the right to stand up for our financial interest.

There are more important things in the world than money.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Then in that case you're right, that school system probably isn't run particularly well (at a guess, I would say it's most likely overburdened by inadequate commitments from the city government and the people), but it really would behoove you to recognize the nature of the work and the fact that most teachers do quite a bit of off-the-clock work, which is of course very hard to measure (hence why I didn't try beyond giving as deliberately vague an over-under as possible, which you view as making things up because of your quaintly quantitative worldview). How much do you know, exactly, about the nature of the working day of a public schoolteacher?

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/249299-bls-teachers-work-patterns.html

Data from the BLS constitutes that extra 'weekend' time at somewhere between 2 and 3 hours per week, along with a mere 7 hour workday. Of course, this is national data, which is far more favorable to them than the plum schedule obtained by the CPS teachers union.


Even under these most generous figures, of course, they don't even cross the 40 hour mark, and only for 3/4 of the year!

[krazen1211]

Well, here comes the strike.


http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/11/12166509-chicago-teachers-vote-for-strike-in-battle-over-pay-longer-school-days





Of course, Chicago has only about 403,000 students, a shrinking population and tax base, and a massive 25,000 teaching force.

The next battleground is brewing.

[krazen1211]

I'm completely befuddled as to what krazen's on about here.  krazen, 75,000 is a middle class salary. 

75K sits in the second highest quintile that goes from about 60 to 100K according the 2010 data from the Census.

Not in chicago my friend.

 It always seems like these horrors of unionized teacher stories come from a metro area like nyc or chi twon where thecost of living is MUCH higher than normal. It serves to distort the middle-class standard of living such teacher's earn and likewise project it as a false 'coming soon to your community' warning to the rest of middle america.

Effecive ploy. Misleading, but effective.

The second quintile of 60K to 100K is for family income, so two teachers both earning 75K are in the top quintile nationally.

That aside, based on individual salaries in Chicago, what quintile are you claiming Chicago teachers are in, and what is the minimum salary necessary to be "middle-class" in Chicago?

1 teacher making $75k of course already makes twice the cities' average salary.

[krazen1211]

Krazen, as a kid did something...er..."happen" to you involving a teacher?

Actually, something more recently. These union thugs who have broken the budget managed to bully the Democratic party into preserving LIFO!

It's amazing how legislation needs support from a teachers union in order to be passed. Wisconsin did not tolerate such nonsense.



http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/06/seniority_not_challenged_in_la.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/06/gov_chris_christie_may_not_sig.html


"What happens, of course, as a result is that a lot of the younger and most enthusiastic teachers automatically get taken out," Christie told the audience of nearly 750. "Whether I sign it or I veto it, the bottom line is we have to get back to considering ‘last in, first out.’"

Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), the sponsor, left seniority rights unaltered to secure support from the state’s largest teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association, which called the issue a "line in the sand" Tuesday.

[krazen1211]

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/09/160821554/chicago-teachers-may-strike-teach-political-lesson



Doomsday is coming. It is interesting to see who will win this war for the treasury.



"Parents like Gutierrez and others, who support the teachers union, are up against a school district and a mayor who have a very different idea about what the public schools should look like."


Stockholm syndrome. Lower class sizes? Student:teacher ratios are a lavish and expensive 16:1!

[krazen1211]

The strike is on!

Chicago liberals are getting what they vote for. It's glorious comeuppance.

[krazen1211]

The teachers are likely to continue the strike tomorrow. Clearly they think they can smash Rahm Emanuel and the people of Chicago and run off with the treasury.

Of course, the city of Chicago is plagued with a $650ish million deficit.


It apparently takes a massive 30,000 staff to educate a mere 350,000 students nowadays.

[krazen1211]

I've always found the American obsession with class sizes to be bizarre. After all, Japanese/Korean schools run 50 student classes with very few administrative personnel and they do fine.

The union lords get more profit with more teachers, and can funnel more money to the Democratic party.

[krazen1211]

The strikers have gone waaay too far:



Krazey was right all along.  These people are savages.

Hmph. Well at least they are enacting punishment on Chicago liberals.

[krazen1211]

This guy wearing communist red gets $75k.

[krazen1211]

This guy wearing communist red gets $75k.

Wow, some unabashed trolling right there

Well, yes, I can't figure out why the neiborhood pays that guy $75k either.

[krazen1211]

This guy wearing communist red gets $75k.

Um, krazen, do you seriously propose that a teacher in Chicago should make less than $75,000?  How could they possibly live?

The same way that others do with $45k household income.

[krazen1211]

This guy wearing communist red gets $75k.

Jealous?
You were too dumb to get an education and are stuck working at minimum wage?

Or course there is jealousy for these greedy teachers feeding at the trough. Why would there not be in today's America?

[krazen1211]

The same way that others do with $45k household income.

So, we should really all make the same income?  Are you a communist?

Not the same, no. You asked how $75k teachers could live with less income in Chicago. And the answer is pretty obvious given how millions of Chicagoans live in such a manner.

[krazen1211]

The grand bargain, that I think "the right" will embrace (they certainly should), is that teachers can be fired like anyone else who are substandard (rather than have a sinecure where they are only fired for serial child molestation captured on a video), while on the other hand, the best and brightest after 10 years or whatever, become master teachers, and make like 150K a year, adjusted regionally by the cost of living. That is the way to attract the talent we need, while getting rid of the drones. You have a career track, and if you have the knowledge, and the talent to teach (which includes acting ability) to achieve excellence, you get rewarded in a serious way - with an upper middle class standard of living. Will it cost more?  Of course! But it is a moral imperative that we make this "investment" with, and only with, the ground rules that I outlined. Make sense?  Anyone disagree?

Take a look at the salaries of private school teachers.


http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_075.asp




These chicago teachers are already getting a massive salary and a massive investment of $13,000 per student per year.