This link was in an article in today's Dispatch in relation to SB 5.  It also includes university salaries.  Interesting to see what various coaches are paid around the league in Ohio.

www.buckeyeinstitute.org/teacher-salary

      Lots of propaganda being put out there by the Koch brothers, Kasich, Walker, etc. . .  for example, the info from Ryan's post that I highlighted.

     If you go to the link Ryan posted and type in my name (Burkley, Stephen, Newark) you will see that my salary increased $579 from 2008 to 2009. This was followed by no increase the next year, for a grand total of a $579 increase over two years. Not a $3-5K raise EACH and EVERY year. My wife, as another example, has seen her salary go up $690 over a four-year period (total, not average), not a $3-5K raise EACH and EVERY year. No doubt, my family's financial situation would be a lot more attractive if my wife and I were getting that $3-5K raise EACH and EVERY year.

     Additionally, some research of recent contract negotations between local teacher unions and school boards in Ohio will provide many examples of teacher unions agreeing to no pay raises or step increases (or in many cases both) for multiple years. Still, Kasich and his ilk would like Ohioans to believe it's the teachers, police officers and firemen and women that have caused the recession and the state's budgetary problems.

     Finally, and somewhat off topic, I find it ironic as we near the 10th anniversary of 9-11 that this propaganda machine has turned the heroes of this country a short decade ago into villians and the cause for the financial problems of this country?

Steve:

Your raise increase is very similar to what I've gotten here at Timken, except I got zero for a 2 year period.

However, that doesn't match what my brother-in-law made at a small D6 school (Mogadore) as an 8th grade English teacher.  He's gotten 3-5K every year.  As did my oldest son's new kindergarten teacher in Jackson Local.  My sister, a high school science teacher for 3 years before she took off to raise her kids, also got the 3K+ raises each year for the 3 years she taught back in the early 2000's.  I also looked up a couple of our fellow BA.comers who I know work in the Athens school district who also show the 3K+ raises.  

Are these things district by district?  If so, why is Newark not giving out the 3K+ raises?

I honestly don't know what Kasich has said about teacher unions being the downfall of our budget, SB 5, all that political BS...but my own opinion is 3-5K raise each year is not warranted.  And your name search is the first one of the many teachers I know who I threw into that search engine that doesn't show 3K+ raises EACH and EVERY year.

It's why Ohio, behind Kasich, passed SB5 earlier this year.

The unions are a school district basis.  Some are very strong and some districts don't even have a union. 

Staying "somewhat off topic", as some one who saw  the smoke and dust  from my office when the towers came down,and who knew people in the there,including first responders who didn't make it out, I really take offense to an individual  using a 9/11 reference in what appears to be an attempt to  "score points" in a political arguement.

Regardless of their position on the salaries/benefitss of certain professions, no one and I mean no one I know on either side of the issue here in New Jersey has anything but the highest respect and deepest sympathy for everyone who was murdered on 9/11 and those who serve as police or firefighters today.

I just finished work on the design/construction of a 9/11 memorial using WTC steel.The Port Authority employee who was instrumental in getting this atrifcat was in the first tower to be hit.He helped a woman down 71 flights of stairs and got out jsut before the first tower came down.
These are the type of things that we think about when we see "9/11". 

9/11 continues to bring out raw emotions, even after 10 years.We have an unwritten rule out here.We try to only use "9/11" to refer to the attack or its aftermath.We think its a pretty good / respectful  rule.



 

Ryan, I am on your side in this discussion.  I live in the Revere school district and we had a bond issue on the May ballot.  The teacher's union agreed to take pay freezes and pay more for health insurance just before the election.  30 teachers were scheduled to be laid off.  The bond issue passed and guess what - now the teacher's union says that there was no agreement and the the old contract is still in effect and they should get 2% raises and only pay 5% on their insurance.  Revere is a very good district, but when you look at the teacher's salaries on Buckeye Institute and the raises they have had for the last 10 years, it really make you understand where your real estate taxes all go.  Since I am retired and get Social Security,  guess how much it  has gone up in the last two years.  All I am asking is that public employees share in sacrifices like the rest of those in the private work force.  I always paid 20% of my health care costs and in retirement, I am paying over $4000.  My son who works for the library system pays $50/month for health and dental.  Quite a difference.  SB5 may be swinging the pendulum a little too far, but it is high time that things change.

I disagree thate pay checks automatically motivate people to do a good job.

Pay raises need to be based on performance.If I'm going to get the same raise wether I do a good job or not there is no motivation.

Another issue with the education system being able to motivate  teachers  is tenure.I don't know about Ohio,but in N.J. trying to oust a tenured teacher for something like "poor performance" is virtually impossible.

Perfect example,in order to address a problem with an inner city  school's students' performance ,the state required that, in order to continue to recieve  funding, the district remove teachers who were, for lack of a better term "not compitent".The district complied,not by firing the tenured teachers, but by transfering them to other schools and bringing in equally "bad" teachers from other schools in the district.

 

 

I have to disagree with you a tad on this point.  Yes we have laws that protect the safety of workers in the workplace but unfortunately from my experience, we have some folks on local school boards, that if it were not for the power of the local union, would fire teachers based on personal feelings rather than teacher performance.  After having worked for Jackie Presser's teamsters union in Solon in the late 70's, I'm not really a big fan of the environment that some unions have created.  But having worked in a small school district in north central Ohio with a "nut case" school board shortly after that, I can see the value in the protection that a union provides.

All in all there are good parts to SB5 and bad parts.  It's just too bad that we can't vote on each part as opposed to the whole.

Help us out Steveland with the gist of the show.

My wife is a teacher, but unfortunately, she is not employed by the public schools, but rather by Ohio Northern Univeristy to teach in the school. This is unforunate because although her starting pay was similar to what she would have made, nothing else is. She gets good benefits, better than mine, but nothing anywhere close to what the teachers get. My wife says there are teachers who leave immediately after school (they supposed to be there for another 30 minutes or more) and constantly have low state testing scores but the union makes it difficult to fire them.

As a journalist, I cover school board meetings and they discuss adding or cutting a teaching position making a difference of $70,000+, which seems crazy to me because the salary is less than half that. Benefits cost the school as much as salary. I also cover council meetings and one village had employees complain because they had to pay 7 percent of their insurance premium, up from 5 percent. The mayor said the average in Ohio is 30 percent but it is much lower for public employees, although not as low as what employees in this village pay.
 
I will say, the schools around here certainly do not give out pay raises as large as quoted above. Some districts have had to keep rate increases at 2 percent or even freeze them (although they do still get an increase for the next step on the scale). I've not actually gotten a pay increase since I was promoted six years ago, with the exception of getting an increase for dropping the company insurance plan (so the company is not actually giving me any more compensation than before). I'm OK with this, though, because I am lucky enough to still have a job! In a lot of cases, I think this bill will benefit many public employees because it might prevent cities and schools, etc., from having to eliminate jobs. I don't know all the details of the bill to really say for sure it's a good thing but I think it is definitely trying to address something that really is an issue.

Vocal minority, silent majority.

Al,  your East High Orientals are no more as you probably know.  They are the more politically correct Dragons these days.  We are just getting old I guess.