Medford Contract Negotiations and the Mail Trib comments section...

In response to an article in today'sTrib:

The article itself leaves some things to be desired (it reads pretty much like a district press release with occasional counter-point from the MEA president), but then scroll down to the comments... particularly any contributions from Curt Ankerburg and someone going by Ian.

See, this is so simple if we can avoid philosophical questions like relative merit of having educated citizens and just stick to simple math. But comparisons of average work days to teachers is like saying 2+grapefruit=pastrami on rye. Where to even start.

From "Six Meetings Before Lunch"

Education is the silver bullet.
Education is everything.
We don’t need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense.
That is my position.
I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

Perhaps I could begin with: A classroom teacher isn't an average full-time worker - for that argument, I'd include things like the extremely broad skill set that is needed (I could itemize in a sep post, if absolutely needed). By that measure, they aren't average at all, but exceptional. Then the fact that most teachers may only have 170 days of student contact and 190+ days of contracted time, but that if you measure actual HOURS, most teachers put in the same (or more) hours of work as the 240 day, 40 hour a week employee. How is that possible, you ask? Well, let's go with the idea that the hours spent in student contact require at least half again as many hours both preparing lessons and then providing critique and feedback to completed work. As much as 5-10 hours per week of this prep time is included in the contract of most teachers in most districts (it really isn't for Medford's elementary teachers, and the way the high schools' schedules rotate, it isn't a fixed number weekly for the secondary folks, but as a range, it holds up). That means 10-15 hours are on the teachers' own time. This is time that is absolutely needed to complete the required and expected job, but is outside the scope of the contract. So now 170 8 hour student contact days become (effectively) 170 contact days and 43 to 65 additional days worth of preparatory time. We DO this work on the Saturdays and the Thursday evenings of the school year. We effectively get paid for it while we sit "lazy" in July. Now we are up to 210+ to 230+ days... and in the 20+ days we are expected to work and aren't in contact with students (meetings, trainings, data entry of grades from those papers we marked at home over the weekend) and you are up to 230 to 250+ "days" of work. Lands right there next to 240, doesn't it? Seems teachers pretty much are average full-time workers, once one uses the right data set.

Now for the idea that teachers are fairly compensated so shut up or find a new job. How important are kids?  Are the best interests of students served by making sure they are taught be inexperienced teachers who are exhausted by trying to make ends meet? The hourly rate we pay babysitters is higher that many teachers are paid per student per hour... don't believe it? A 170 day contact schedule, with 6.5 hours of contact per day and a class size of 25 (HAH!!!) at $2 per hour per child is a shade over $53k. For a teacher with over a decade of experience in the Medford district now, the per child per hour pay is less than $2.25. Add in all the benefits and it might climb to $3.50.

So, do we want to live in a world where we consider our children so important that our investment in their education is less than we pay someone to babysit them? Or would we prefer a nation that values not only the education that is provided to our youth but also values those who provide it?