NBR: Senate Bill 5

jerseygirl81

Very, very, very well said, Kel.

FWIW, I was curious about the pay in WI so last night I called up my friend whose parents are teachers in the WI public school system. They've been teaching in the same district for 30 years. Kitteh, I'm curious where you got your $50K starting number, because they contest that it's closer to $30K and $50K is the average across all teachers. They also said that the average starting salary for WI teachers is in the bottom 10% of all states.

While I don't usually like to pull numbers from news sites that I find on google, everything I see says that the starting salary is $25-30K, not $50K, so I'm really curious where that figure you quoted came from.

Lauren&Joe

kel716:

 Low performing teachers in my building aren't tolerated and I've seen them be shown the door.  It's a culture... Do your job and you keep your job.  Don't do your job and you won't stay very long. 

So obviously they are judging them (ie assigning merit) in some way. Subjective yes, impossible no.

I really appreciate the information you shared about the bill and how it affects teachers. My point is not to argue the bill itself, just that the concept of merit pay (whether partial or 100%) isn't impossible. And it doens't have to be linked to the performance of the students. (ie the bad blueberry example) If the district/legislation etc. lays out certain expectations of what it means to "do your job" as stated above to the point where a teacher can be fired, there should be a way to measure those that are "doing their job" and those that aren't "doing their job" and base some type of pay increase to those that exceed expectations.

It's wonderful that your district takes the issue of low performing teachers so seriously and that's the culture. Wouldn't it be great if that was the culture in every district?

KittahMama

jerseygirl81:

Very, very, very well said, Kel.

FWIW, I was curious about the pay in WI so last night I called up my friend whose parents are teachers in the WI public school system. They've been teaching in the same district for 30 years. Kitteh, I'm curious where you got your $50K starting number, because they contest that it's closer to $30K and $50K is the average across all teachers. They also said that the average starting salary for WI teachers is in the bottom 10% of all states.

While I don't usually like to pull numbers from news sites that I find on google, everything I see says that the starting salary is $25-30K, not $50K, so I'm really curious where that figure you quoted came from.

 

I got that info from an aritcle I read in the Wisconsin Daily Sentinel.. (I believe that is the name of the paper, but will double check when I have a minute).  They even had specific teachers site their pay and benefits, the lowest pay I saw was $51k with $35k in benefits and I think the highest was around $85k in pay and $40k in benefits.  I'll try and find that article.

KittahMama

jerseygirl81:

Very, very, very well said, Kel.

FWIW, I was curious about the pay in WI so last night I called up my friend whose parents are teachers in the WI public school system. They've been teaching in the same district for 30 years. Kitteh, I'm curious where you got your $50K starting number, because they contest that it's closer to $30K and $50K is the average across all teachers. They also said that the average starting salary for WI teachers is in the bottom 10% of all states.

While I don't usually like to pull numbers from news sites that I find on google, everything I see says that the starting salary is $25-30K, not $50K, so I'm really curious where that figure you quoted came from.

 

I got that info from an aritcle I read in the Wisconsin Daily Sentinel.. (I believe that is the name of the paper, but will double check when I have a minute).  They even had specific teachers site their pay and benefits, the lowest pay I saw was $51k with $35k in benefits and I think the highest was around $85k in pay and $40k in benefits.  I'll try and find that article.

linzpinz14

I am totally and completely against the bill.  I am a former teacher and plan to go back to teaching when our kids are in school too. 

Everyone said it a lot more intelligently and better worded than I ever could.  But I really want to stress that no one really, truly knows what a difficult, stressful job being a public school teacher is until they have spent a year of their life teaching.  No matter how many friends and family members you (in general) have that are teachers, you still don't get it until you've taught.

And, this may just be a real simple way of thinking, but I always looked at it like this.  Teachers get paid MUCH less than the majority of people who go into the workforce with a bachelors (and masters!) degree.  So that is why they SHOULD get better benefits through insurance and retirement. 

Just my 2 cents really late to the game.