The gist isn’t that bad, but it’s written very sloppily:
Remember that each district usually comes with a superintendent, an assistant superintendent, a principal and an assistant principal. And that’s just for starters. Some of those administrators are making big salaries–up to $300,000 a year–and working up similarly astounding pensions. Now consider that almost half of those 881 districts have fewer than 150 students. It’s no wonder voters start acting grumpy at the prospect of a tax increase.
The problem is that those small districts don’t pay people anywhere near $300,000. Strictly, the editorial doesn’t say that, but the implication for the average person who is poorly informed is there. The point that there are too many districts is a good and important point–in fact, there are too many in Missouri as well. The problem is that the smallest districts are generally some of the lowest paid at both the administrative and the teacher level.
The bizarre part is portion about the amount of money spent outside the classroom. Let’s look at the salary structure that often gets mentioned in comments here and at Capitol Fax–Palatine over at the Family Taxpayer Network’s database of school salaries.
The Trib offers up a rebuke of those high salaries and suggests a solution of having 65% of the operation budget going towards the classroom anc claim that 59% currently goes there, but if Palatine is truly the measure of high salaries and waste, one ought to be careful.
Of the highest paid employees, 54.8% of the salary goes to teachers–an in classroom expense. Another 9.3% goes to direct support such as librarians, speech pathologists and guidance counselors. This doesn’t include social workers.
Another 18.5% of the high salary group salaries went to principals and 16.5% went to administration.
High salaries are heavily weighted towards administrators so to me I doubt Palatine would have any problem meeting the requirement as is. Salaries make-up about 3/4 or so of most District’s budgets and outside of places like Chicago that have special needs administratively, that’s mainly teaching and direct support salaries. It’s likely that overall, administrative salaries are a much lower overall percentage of salary costs.
What does this mean? The Arizona idea would probably hit the wrong group of schools. Because districts rich in property can affort to pay high teacher salaries, they’d be virtually unaffected by such a system. Who would be affected are relatively small districts that have to fill a minimum number of administrative posts simply to operate.
From a quick glance, the idea hits exactly the Districts one doesn’t want to hurt–small rural districts that have tremendous financial strains.
Ultimately, funding in Districts like Palatine should be local issues where local communities decide how to tax themselves. Whether they pay people too much can be decided at the local ballot box where people can decide what level of taxation they can afford and what level of school funding they like. They should receive a basic hold harmless amount from the state and then be on their own.
The point of school finance reform should be to create a basic minimum by which smaller rural districts and inner ring suburban schools (or ones with such features) get a basic floor at which they can fund their district without killing local property holders. And the Trib gets half of it right in saying there are simply too many Districts in Illinios. The state needs to force consolidation. But the 65% mark won’t help the basic problem–it actually has the possibilty of limiting essential needs required to plan and implement curriculum reform in smaller districts.
It isn’t entirely clear whether Illinois has an overall finance problem, but it certainly has a problem of disparity between Districts. How one solves that problem then determines whether Illinois needs to greatly increase funding or not. The recent ISBE report, as I understand the recommendations from news summaries, is more about improving the worst off while not touching the funding of the best off–that isn’t the only possible solution and many solutions might involve less of an overall increase at the state level and simply changing the prioritization of state funding.
There is a similar ‘disparity’ in major league baseball. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays (payroll: $29 mil) have to compete with the New York Yankees ($205 mil – source: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=mlb&id=2031425)
In order to maintain product quality, MLB decided to impose a ‘luxury tax’ on payrolls over a certain amount. That money was then given to the less affluent teams.
Why couldn’t Illinois do the same thing for schools? Put a ceiling on how much a school could budget. Anything over that is taxed at, say 60%, and given to the poorer districts.
This would do a few things – it would reign in out of control salaries at suburban districts (yes, I live in Palatine) – it would also put a ceiling on property tax increases. Why would a school go to referendum if it had to give 60% of the money collected away? And who in the tax district would vote for it?
And it would help alleviate the teacher salary discrepencies that exist. We need to help the poor reachers downstate. Teachers in Palatine do not need raises.
But this will never happen. The teacher’s unions spent over $20,000 promoting the tax increase referendum for District 211 (Palatine’s high school distict).
It passed. 400+ teachers and administrators in that district ALREADY get paid over $100k a year, with benefits and over three months vacation a year.
But all that proposal would do is drive communities to reduce their taxes to the point where they were not spending over the “share ceiling.”
It might solve the problem of high salaries and taxes in more affluent communities, but it’s hard to feel sorry for people who voted (or didn’t vote at all) to raise their own taxes anyway. I don’t think it would solve the problem of poorer communities. All it seems like it would do is reduce the opportunity that any children in the state would get a quality public education.
“It isn’t entirely clear whether Illinois has an overall finance problem…”
Say what? Our public schools are hardly a model of excellence or efficiency. And if you broaden the definition to include higher education, it gets even worse. I think we’re dead last in terms of state support for higher ed. That looks like an “overall finance problem” to me.
=== think we’re dead last in terms of state support for higher ed
We probably aren’t though we are low–the question should be total spending on operational budgets and there Illinois isn’t that bad off–the point being that the money is allocated in a way that there is great disparity. That doesn’t mean there isn’t enough money in the system, it means the money is allocated poorly. You can’t answer the question of whether there is enough money unless you settle upon how to support education from the state level. Currently, if the same system were to stay in place, there isn’t enough money, but no one believes the current system is a good model.
The problem of a luxury tax is that it won’t pass–similar to just decreasing aid to relatively wealthy suburbs, the block of votes is there to block it and it’s largely a non-starter–look at Cross’ attempt to put more money into categorical assistance–same basic issue.
The problem of the issue is that there are two problems–one policy and one political. The ideal policy is easy to figure out, the political problem is what causes more money to be required for the overall system regardless of any other factors.
>but it’s hard to feel sorry for people who voted (or didn’t vote at all) to raise their own taxes anyway
I agree.
Although $37,000 was spent on the pro side of the District 211 referendum. Over $20,000 was spent by the teachers unions. Another $10,000 was by District 211 vendors.
The district pretty much bought off the local newspaper by buying ad space. There were no anti-referendum articles due to the fact the newspaper was selling a lot of ad space to the pro referendum side. The Sunday after the election, the newspaper ran on the fornt page in HEADLINES that crop of school referenda will cost taxpayers more than the school was advertising. Why didn’t the run that story before the election?
Anyway, it is very difficult to fight the teachers unions in the rich districts.
>The problem of a luxury tax is that it won’t pass
Who is not going to support it? Downstate law makers from poor districts? The teacher’s union? The City of Chicago? The property tax base of the rich districts? They all benefit, as they will get other people’s money.
Everyone “wins” on this except the the parents, teachers and the trustees at the rich school districts, and they are by far in the minority. Only the lawmakers from the richest suburban districts would put up a fight.
“Everyone “wins” on this except the the parents, teachers and the trustees at the rich school districts, and they are by far in the minority. Only the lawmakers from the richest suburban districts would put up a fight.”
Ah so you are going to basically fuck other people out of their money just because they are in minority ?
>Ah so you are going to basically fuck other people out of their money just because they are in minority ?
Uh…this is Illinois. It happens every day.
Besides, you are making teachers salaries more equitable across the state, instead of allowing the gap to widen.
Don’t you want to help the poor teachers? Think of the children!
Maybe I’m missing something, but how does leveling down make sense?
Isn’t work becoming more education and skill intensive?
If you want to reduce exhorbitant salaries, why not do it directly?
The state won’t provide money to districts that pay administrators above XXX. The state won’t pay pensions above YYY.
But it’s hard to argue that school administrators should be working under a salary cap if society isn’t imposing salary caps on other gov’t employees and private sector executives are making ridiculous money.
It seems like any cap on school salaries should apply to other public sector employees and contractors that do over 50% of their business with the gov’t. And it sorta seems like it should be enacted along with upping income taxes on people making over $200K, or a level appropriate to the caps imposed on public sector employees.
It’s naive to think that affluent voters’ influence is only felt by their legislators.
Look at the Seventh CD. In theory one could get elected in the Dem primary without a single vote in Oak Park or River Forest. General election too.
But that district is always gonna elect someone Oak Park and River Forest feel comfortable with. That’s where the money is. If by some anomoly a candidate got elected that really annoyed the affluent liberals in Oak Park and River Forest–picture an anti-abortion, patronage hack minister with an abrasive “Whitey done me wrong” personality–the monied liberals would troll the West Side for someone more like Danny Davis, Ed Smith or Karen Yarbrough.
The people in power aren’t gonna roll over, so any plan to improve education shouldn’t presume that they will.
And why make a plan to “improve” education that involves making the education for some inferior? How does this make sense?
And why make a plan to “improve” education that involves making the education for some inferior? How does this make sense?
You are making teachers salaries more equitable across the state, instead of allowing the gap to widen.
Making teacher salaries more equitable across the state will improve education. I’m offering up a way to do this without raising taxes.
You can raise taxes to do this…but right now the CTA needs more tax money, the schools need more tax money, The Cook County jail needs more tax money, the tollways & roads need more tax money, Cook County hospital needs more tax money, parks need more tax money, libraries need more tax money…etc
What is the evidence that making salaries more equal will improve education?
There is subtext running through Palatine’s comments suggesting that teachers are overpaid and lazy. (e.g. 400+ teachers and administrators in that district ALREADY get paid over $100k a year, with benefits and over three months vacation a year.)
Prove it.
I, for one, am so fucking sick of these sorts of blanket, untrue generalizations about teachers I could scream. The reality is far different.
My boyfriend is a high school science teacher. He awakes every weekday between 5 and 5:30 a.m. and rarely gets home before 6 p.m.–at which point he often puts in several hours of work grading papers, writing tests, and planning lessons. Those additional tasks also take up many hours every weekend. (His colleagues work similarly hard.) All in all, he probably devotes 80 hours a week to his job, for approximately 40 weeks a year. That is 3,200 hours of work per year (excluding the summer, when he often does go into school to prepare for the coming school year or attends continuing ed courses). Compared that to the 2,000 hours a year worked by a 40-hour-per-week, 50-work-weeks-per-year employee. He does not currently earn close to $100K a year, and it will take him decades to rise to that salary level. Explain to me again how teachers are overpaid?
There are some real problems in education in Illinois, and solving them will involve compromises from a lot of different stakeholders, including teachers. However, insinuating that they are overpaid and lazy contributes nothing of value to the debate.
>Prove it
Gladly.
http://www.thechampion.org/teach2004/salaryfinal.asp?StartNumber=0&order=salary%20desc&order2=Teachername&district=2110&county=16&region=14&districttype=17&distname=TOWNSHIP%20H%20S%20DIST%20211
You can download the payroll for District 211 (or any Illinois district) in MS Excel format.
The exact numbers are 401 people make over $90,000 a year. 303 make over $100,000. So I stand corrected. But you see my point.
There are 953 educators employed. The total payroll for 2003-2004 was $78,258,527 to be exact.
And yes, teachers work hard. So do policemen. And firemen. And airline pilots. And the military. And people in product development. And HR people. And actors and actresses. People at corporations. People who clean toilets. People who flip burgers. Hell, everyone works hard if you haven’t noticed. Really, they do.
And the D211 teachers will be getting big raises because they just passed a referendum. They successfully made the case they are underpaid.
So from my point of view here in Palatine, they are overpaid. I am sorry about your friend. I hope they can correct this situation and make salaries a little more equitable.
What do we want the school system to do?
Palatine,
First of all, I wrote of my “boyfriend,” not my “friend.” Please do not neuter him.
Second, I wasn’t asking you to prove your limited point about the exact number of Palatine educators who make x dollars. I’ll accept your figures, even if they do come from the Family Taxpayers Network website. I was asking you to explain the obvious subtext underlying your comment, which is that teachers are overpaid and lazy. You responded by agreeing with me that teachers work hard. Um, great, we agree.
Again, I ask, precisely WHY are teachers’ salaries unmerited?
In almost all cases, it takes decades of teaching to get to the level where a teacher would $100K. (I should add that in many of the communities paying six-figure salaries to long-time teachers, $100K a year won’t go very far in terms of housing–i.e. teachers very often cannot afford to live where they work, even if they’d like to. Do we really want to make this even LESS likely?)
My BOYfriend works approximately 60% more hours annually than the standard 40-hour work week. Given his salary and annual hours, he makes about $15.50 an hour before taxes. Even when he makes twice that figure in 10-20 years, you’re talking about $31/hour. That’s hardly an outrageous salary for a professional with decades of experience.
There are a couple issues here in regards to how much the teachers are making–
1) What is the level of education
BA? Probably not
BA +15 Probably not
MA maybe
MA +30 a lot
PhD quite a few
Not to mention experience.
To figure out if a particular group is being overpaid one needs to know their education level and years of experience. Would I be wrong to guess that Palatine has lots of teachers at 20+ years of experience and lots of people in the MA + categories-especially those in 400?
If Palatine works like many suburban districts they both seek to attract the best beginning teachers and buy teachers away from smaller districts.
In comparing teachers, one thing to note is that with a comparative level of education and experience in other fields, many of them are just making the same amount or less than those in business
ftp://ftpirptcard.isbe.net/ReportCard2004/140160150_e.pdf
One thing to note is that teaching salaries in the district are above average by about $7,000 which isn’t too surprising to me given the type of District it is. It’s instructional spending is slightly higher than state average and while that is good, it also isn’t surprising because of the size of the district where economies of scale come into being.
Nearly 80% of the budget is locally provided for in the District.
Even more important is only that 3.2% of operating expenses come from the state general aid fund–most state funds 8.8% of the budget are categorical in nature and the result to state requirements.
So frankly, this seems like a local taxing issue more than a state issue. Ideally, I would reduce state aid to them and redirect it to needy districts and let Palatine make up the rest if it felt it was important. That’s not likely to happen, but in an ideal system, we’d move that way.
Teacher compensation is tricky.
Does a teacher on the high end of the pay scale add more value than a teacher on the low end?
One way of looking at it is that mid and late career pay increases are deferred compensation for early career contributions. I’m uncomfortable with this model. If Chris Jones is doing a bang-up job teaching this year, why should the money get paid ten years from now?
Another way of looking at it is that peer-professions of teachers tend to see pay increases, so teachers should get them too, so teaching is a competetive career.
The major problem with teacher pay is that teachers percolate up the pay scale and then experience burn out. They can’t transition to something as lucrative so they hang around the schools when they don’t want to be there and they aren’t helping students much.
The early retirement system has been a covert or indirect way to address this problem. However, it’s imperfect. Teachers that aren’t burnt-out take early retirement. Some that are burnt-out don’t take it. And it creates an untenable pension liability.
Here’s a starting point for discussing a solution:
1. Starting teachers should get paid more and seniority should count for less.
2. Teachers should be transitioned to something more like a 401(k) retirement plan and less of a traditional pension plan.
3. There should be a system to detect burn out. Teachers experiencing burn out should be offered meaningful assistance to get back on track or transition to another profession.
Jason –
I never said teachers were lazy. You did. Re read my post. Please highlight the place where I said teachers were lazy. The teachers in D211 in Palatine are overpaid, yes. Lazy: no. Please do not put words in my mouth. Stating a group gets over three months a year vacation does not imply they are lazy. And I was quoting figures from one school district – Palatine D211 – not speaking in general terms for all of Illinois. I am trying to figure out how to get more money to the less affluent schools downstate without having to raise my taxes further.
I apologize about your BOYfriend. I did not think it was all that important to this debate. And please clean your potty mouth.
EVERYONE works hard. EVERYONE is underpaid. Fact of life. Go to any corporation. Lots of people are working sixty hour work week. Happens everywhere. Teachers are no better or worse off than anyone else, including the parties you know.
Carl –
I agree with all of your starting points. Every one of them. Very constructive. Your assessment is spot on, and is the reason for inflationary pressures and ever rising property taxes. THAT is what I am trying to avoid.
Arch –
Yes, The state should be spending education dollars on more imporvished schools, to give those teachers raises. They are the ones that need them. Palatine is flush with money.
The pension system is fucked are hurting the state budget, but that only indirectly affects property taxes.
The failure to contain health care costs is crushing all local gov’t.
fucking blogging assholes, choke and die