No. But right now, tenure is a "perk" in lieu of salary. It's cheaper for the government than actually paying for education.

Sonofoski;842323705 said:

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What's anything you said have to do with teachers getting lifetime jobs without fear of getting terminated?

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hahaha..so glad you understand the profession and our legal obligations and contracts with school districts so well! Once again, the poorly managed and incompetent public school systems dump on and blame teachers. Poor management, much of it political, is to blame for the lack of accountability. My principal has never been in my classroom in 15 years, and the district's goals are based on test scores and passing students, no matter what it takes.

UrsaMajor;842323876 said:

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No. But right now, tenure is a "perk" in lieu of salary. It's cheaper for the government than actually paying for education.

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We are paying more one way or the other, whether through high cost of removing underperforming teachers or continuing to pay poor performers who do not deserve to have the job.

I would also argue that having a system where job security is based solely on seniority would function as a deterence for attracting new teachers. The new recruits would get the short end of the stick, no matter their abilities, compared to those who, because they have been in the system for so long, wouldn't want to leave anyway.

I don't care if we pay more for teachers. I would support higher taxes for better teachers as long as we stop supporting a system where there is no external incentive for teachers to perform at a high level and where the poor performers have no fear of termination.

calbear93;842323890 said:

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We are paying more one way or the other, whether through high cost of removing underperforming teachers or continuing to pay poor performers who do not deserve to have the job.

I would also argue that having a system where job security is based solely on seniority would function as a deterence for attracting new teachers. The new recruits would get the short end of the stick, no matter their abilities, compared to those who, because they have been in the system for so long, wouldn't want to leave anyway.

I don't care if we pay more for teachers. I would support higher taxes for better teachers as long as we stop supporting a system where there is no external incentive for teachers to perform at a high level and where the poor performers have no fear of termination.

---

Right you are. Keeping on long in the tooth persons solely based on seniority is rubbish. Many older teachers are the best at what they do. But being old has little to do with it. When I was in high school, I found that the best and best liked teachers had been the best for years. They remained among the best as my younger brothers moved through the same high school. These teachers did not need tenure. There would have been parent protests if any of them were threatened with removal, but of course, there never were such threats.

Having taught high school Biology for the past 25 years I do agree with some of the decision- it should be easier to terminate teachers who perform very poorly or act in an inappropriate manner..

My worry, however, is what constitutes " incompetence". I can see the next step tying competence to test scores, which is absolutely ludicrous..standardized tests at the high school level are the most meaningless things on the planet as it does nothing for the students, and most could care less. Having these scores determine a teachers employment would be criminal.

Also, when layoffs are needed due to budget, and seniority is no longer an issue, how does one decide who stays as there are no "competence meters" in place.. Do older teachers who make more get let go in favor of newer, lower salaried teachers? I think this ruling opens a huge can of worms with no real plan in place to change the system.. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

GB54;842323802 said:

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Zuckerberg and Cory Booker as well with the Newark fiasco

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Yep this is an elite vs working class issue. Wall St wants to dumb down the public to eliminate push back from their criminal and greedy endeavors.

beelzebear;842323835 said:

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Corporations and VCs are targeting public education and its $1.3 TRILLION US market. Instead of life long teachers making modest livings, these guys want to pull a profit off the taxpayers backs. Charter schools are the first wave attempt at dismantling public education.

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Exactly

72CalBear;842323878 said:

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hahaha..so glad you understand the profession and our legal obligations and contracts with school districts so well! Once again, the poorly managed and incompetent public school systems dump on and blame teachers. Poor management, much of it political, is to blame for the lack of accountability. My principal has never been in my classroom in 15 years, and the district's goals are based on test scores and passing students, no matter what it takes.

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Schools have been passing kids through whom should be held back for years.

XXXBEAR;842323654 said:

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Wow- some of you really lack perspective on the union movement - is this a Furd blog?

I agree that the policy of assigning lemon teachers to failing schools should be stopped, but I also think we get what we pays for...and we pay low wages to teachers.

Check out Nike factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia and China if you don't like unions.

---

As I've said in the past, you'd think this were a private school discussion board, not one serving a public school, much less latte-sipping, Birkenstock-wearing, pot-smoking, Volvo-driving, tree-hugging UC Berkeley!

The irony about the non-stop union bashing is that it's happening NOW, with union membership at historic lows in the country. During the 50's, ONE THIRD of the work force was union membership. And that's when this country was an economic powerhouse and the middle class was unstoppable.

Then there's the pension bashing, when middle class retirements are their most precarious in generations. (See Frontline's "Retirement Gamble")

And the support for tax policy and incomes that heavily favor the .01%. (See Joseph Stiglitz' white paper: http://rooseveltinstitute.org/sites/all/files/Stiglitz_Reforming_Taxation_White_Paper_Roosevelt_Institute.pdf)

Oh, and then there's gun control! (Ducks.)

Makes you wonder!

See Bill Moyers interview with Diane Ravich:

http://billmoyers.com/episode/public-schools-for-sale/

Your public schools are being targeted as a profit-center gold mine. Don't fall for the hyperbole and schucksterism; this is another money grab to the tune of $5 billion/year. More government money that private investment wants to get their hands on.

Further destruction of solid middle class jobs and dismantling of yet another profession: school teachers. Gee, how great will it be when ALL teachers are "at will" employees! When the executive board of a school gets pressure to boost profits, just fire the long-time teachers and bring in some hungry (read desperate) college graduates at half the salary! Wait, who wants to pay for COLLEGE graduates? Bring in some high school kids! (Many charter schools don't require teaching certificates, so you won't have to waste money on overpaid COLLEGE graduates!)

Benefit costs got you down? Just cut their hours so they don't qualify!!! Retirements overfunded? Raid 'em to meet quarterly profit projections ('Retirement Heist," Ellen Schultz)! It's fun to run schools for profit!!!

CalBearsWinNC;842323916 said:

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Exactly

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The pursuit of education money as a business reminds me of when/how MBA-types decided to profiteer off the medical industry. The result of course were very negative for society. Privatizing education will have a similar effect. You can see it now.

beelzebear;842323931 said:

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The pursuit of education money as a business reminds me of when/how MBA-types decided to profiteer off the medical industry. The result of course were very negative for society. Privatizing education will have a similar effect. You can see it now.

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Have you read about the for profit prison industry? We are privatizing everything, and it isn't cheaper nor better.

calbear93;842323890 said:

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We are paying more one way or the other, whether through high cost of removing underperforming teachers or continuing to pay poor performers who do not deserve to have the job.

I would also argue that having a system where job security is based solely on seniority would function as a deterence for attracting new teachers. The new recruits would get the short end of the stick, no matter their abilities, compared to those who, because they have been in the system for so long, wouldn't want to leave anyway.

I don't care if we pay more for teachers. I would support higher taxes for better teachers as long as we stop supporting a system where there is no external incentive for teachers to perform at a high level and where the poor performers have no fear of termination.

---

Well said. I'm with you.

The problem is that the culture is completely off, and the court decision is tinkering around the edges. Teaching is a low status, low compensated profession (average teacher salaries in CA are less than 1/2 of average BART salaries), and until we as a society value education as others do, all these debates about tenure, test scores, etc. are minor. In Finland, getting into ed school is more difficult than medical school. Would that we had a value system like that.

TandemBear;842323924 said:

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Gee, how great will it be when ALL teachers are "at will" employees!

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Like everyone else? Welcome to the marketplace.

wifeisafurd;842323830 said:

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Ran the case by a labor attorney who represents a few large school districts, and is lead outside counsel for UCLA on unlawful termination cases. His view, after reading the decision over many times, is: (1) it doesn't apply to the college level, (2) that there may less application outside California, and (3) that most unlawful termination cases will continue. Brief explanations for (2) and (3). This was a discrimination case essentially, and many of the discriminatory practices do not occur outside California, even where there are strong tenure practices for teachers. The other aspect is California provides employees in general, and teaches specifically, broad rights against wrongful termination due to discrimination, whistle blowing, violations of the civil rights including first amendment rights on what to teach, and on and on. I specifically asked him about firing the public school teacher who only teaches evolution, and he said he would advise the school district to settle quickly.

The commentary I got back was a lot more technical, so for you lawyers, appreciate this is an overview.

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Wifeisafurd - thanks for several of your direct responses to my OP. Not knowing the case or the context, your replies answered my question and make total sense.

On the surface it wasn't clear to me whether the issue was solely tenure related, or whether it had to do with the constitutional question of whether disadvantaged students were not getting a fair shake due to the unfair union practices. Clearly, it is the combination of both that related solely to the K-12 part of the public school system and not so much at the University level, if I understand it correctly.

Tenure shouldn't be abolished, just weakened.

UrsaMajor;842323965 said:

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The problem is that the culture is completely off, and the court decision is tinkering around the edges. Teaching is a low status, low compensated profession (average teacher salaries in CA are less than 1/2 of average BART salaries), and until we as a society value education as others do, all these debates about tenure, test scores, etc. are minor. In Finland, getting into ed school is more difficult than medical school. Would that we had a value system like that.

---

The teachers make a pretty fair salary considering their low number of days worked per year, plentiful holidays, low number of average hours worked, and lower stress once their is tenure in place. (The low stress doesn't count if they work in an urban or unsafe school system.)

If I recall, graduate school test scores are lowest for the schools of education.

I'm all for increased pay of $10-20,000 for well trained, solid science and math teachers. That is what the market demands, not drama or history.

UrsaMajor;842323965 said:

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Teaching is a low status, low compensated profession (average teacher salaries in CA are less than 1/2 of average BART salaries), and until we as a society value education as others do, all these debates about tenure, test scores, etc. are minor. In Finland, getting into ed school is more difficult than medical school. Would that we had a value system like that.

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Teachers in CA make an average of $68.5k per year which is 4th in the USA, but work what 3/4 of the year?

http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp

bart workers make an average of $71k + $11k overtime. Bart workers can leverage a multibillion dollar transit system and people's need to get to work to extract their pay.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/10/18/bart-employees-strike-again-despite-earn

There are a lot of differing reports on average teacher salary and teh USA vs the world, but our per pupil spending and per teacher spending is competitive if not better than most developed countries.

This one says US is above a lot of the other peer nations.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/03/average-teacher-salary-around-world_n_4037534.html

This one says at the 15 year mark, the US is even with the pack for a lot of peer nations, while a few are paying way more.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/teacher-pay-around-the-world/

The interesting fact is that it appears OTHER careers of college graduates pay a lot more in the USA than other countries, and relative to teachers. So it's completely conceivable that college grads are choosing higher paying jobs in other fields. But also consider that only 32% of the population has a college degree. I think there is more the issue than just teacher's salary... like our system encourages teachers to be pretty inefficient and in a lot of times they are just glorified baby sitters - honestly, even if we get our best and brightest in the teachers system, not sure the effects are going to be much better. Other countries have educational systems more tailored to trades - I mean not every one is cut out to go to college. I swear we waste a ton of money and effort trying to treat every student more or less the same and prop up self esteem by not failing people at things they are not proficient in, then passing them along to an even harder class and thus wasting the next teacher's time too (especially in STEM where things are totally sequential).

http://www.businessinsider.com/countries-where-teachers-get-paid-more-2013-7

UrsaMajor;842323965 said:

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The problem is that the culture is completely off, and the court decision is tinkering around the edges. Teaching is a low status, low compensated profession (average teacher salaries in CA are less than 1/2 of average BART salaries), and until we as a society value education as others do, all these debates about tenure, test scores, etc. are minor. In Finland, getting into ed school is more difficult than medical school. Would that we had a value system like that.

---

My impression is that the compensation issue is merely a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Even if you get the best teachers in the world and throw them into inner city schools, not a whole lot will change because there's no support or emphasis on education coming from the parental side of things. From my experience the bottleneck is rarely the teachers. To further complicate matters, teachers are handcuffed by students who lack the basic skills and background necessary to take advantage of the education they're getting (again, stemming from lack of parental support).

The key issues is that our society seems intent on trying to get every student through the current incarnation of the school system, even when some clearly would benefit from vocational training. It's like trying to shove a square peg in a round hole. Unfortunately, it's a huge PC issue when it comes to promoting vocational training because a disproportionate amount of students who would be better served in that system are minorities and disadvantaged people, which gets exasperated due to the stigma associated with vocational training as being for people who weren't smart enough to cut it in academia.

CALiforniALUM;842324073 said:

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Wifeisafurd - thanks for several of your direct responses to my OP. Not knowing the case or the context, your replies answered my question and make total sense.

On the surface it wasn't clear to me whether the issue was solely tenure related, or whether it had to do with the constitutional question of whether disadvantaged students were not getting a fair shake due to the unfair union practices. Clearly, it is the combination of both that related solely to the K-12 part of the public school system and not so much at the University level, if I understand it correctly.

---

Dealing with discrimination against minority and poor students, and only in the context of public K-2. My friend sees future cases taking both a state court and federal track, and that plaintiffs may not find it so easy to claim the in other states the abuses that occur in California. I don't have the background to understand the politics underlying the case, but I did find it surprising who has come out in support of the decision. I assume California will want to try to make a legislative fix to make the court decision less tenable (weaken tenure, stop abuses, etc.). There is no way to simply overturn the decision by legislative fiat however due to the constitutional findings by the judge. I hope other readers appreciate this is more a legal summary, rather than an expression of views on tenure.

movielover;842324107 said:

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The teachers make a pretty fair salary considering their low number of days worked per year, plentiful holidays, low number of average hours worked, and lower stress once their is tenure in place. (The low stress doesn't count if they work in an urban or unsafe school system.)

If I recall, graduate school test scores are lowest for the schools of education.

I'm all for increased pay of $10-20,000 for well trained, solid science and math teachers. That is what the market demands, not drama or history.

---

Teachers actually work far more hours considering time spent grading or developing curriculum (assuming a good teacher) and often need to spend out of pocket for school supplies.

movielover;842324107 said:

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I'm all for increased pay of $10-20,000 for well trained, solid science and math teachers. That is what the market demands, not drama or history.

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Me too!

XXXBEAR;842323654 said:

---

Wow- some of you really lack perspective on the union movement - is this a Furd blog?

I agree that the policy of assigning lemon teachers to failing schools should be stopped, but I also think we get what we pays for...and we pay low wages to teachers.

Check out Nike factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia and China if you don't like unions.

---

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/15/how-much-teachers-get-paid-state-by-state/

According to this, CA is actually one of the highest paying states when it comes to teacher salary. We're obviously NOT getting what we pay for.

StillNoStanfurdium;842324172 said:

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Teachers actually work far more hours considering time spent grading or developing curriculum (assuming a good teacher) and often need to spend out of pocket for school supplies.

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Do you have children in public schools? I'm guessing not - a lot has changed in recent years.

Most notably, teachers now have "prep" periods (for grading, etc)., paid days outside the classroom for "training" (god forbid they do that during summer), and lots of other perks that did not exist 30 years ago. My sons go to public to schools and I'm astounded by how many days their teachers are absent for reasons other than illness - days where the students learn virtually nothing. In addition, some teachers (not all), have grown comfortable and lazy precisely because they have tenure. For example, many of my sons' teachers will not allow students to take home their tests because they want to re-use the tests year after year.

There are many good teachers. Unfortunately, some are not as good. The problem with tenure (and union workplace rules), is that we have to teach all of those teachers the same, without regard to actual performance. I would be in favor of paying great teachers more if we could pay poor teachers less (or better yet, fire them).

movielover;842324107 said:

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The teachers make a pretty fair salary considering their low number of days worked per year, plentiful holidays, low number of average hours worked, and lower stress once their is tenure in place. (The low stress doesn't count if they work in an urban or unsafe school system.)

If I recall, graduate school test scores are lowest for the schools of education.

I'm all for increased pay of $10-20,000 for well trained, solid science and math teachers. That is what the market demands, not drama or history.

---

To expand on these points, in CA teachers make anywhere between $40,000 and $120,000 (depending on district, seniority, credential, masters, etc.). Elsewhere in this thread it was posted that the median salary is around $64,000. Somewhat ironically, the highest paying jobs tend to be in the inner city school districts (battle pay, if you will).

What I don't believe has been mentioned is that benefits add 30-40% onto this number. Taking into account very generous insurance, retirement (defined benefit, not defined contribution), sick days, etc., total teacher compensation is upwards of $80-90K - for 8.5 months work. Undoubtedly some teachers are underpaid, but the $64k number is misleading.

Here are some links to teacher salaries. The numbers for any particular district are available using google.

http://www.teachinla.com/research/salary_tables.html

http://www.iusd.org/human_resources/SalaryScheduleAndEmployeeAgreements.html

Comparing teachers' unions in the US to sweatshops in Bangladesh is borderline insane. It's about time.

BearGoggles;842324285 said:

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Do you have children in public schools? I'm guessing not - a lot has changed in recent years.

Most notably, teachers now have "prep" periods (for grading, etc)., paid days outside the classroom for "training" (god forbid they do that during summer), and lots of other perks that did not exist 30 years ago. My sons go to public to schools and I'm astounded by how many days their teachers are absent for reasons other than illness - days where the students learn virtually nothing. In addition, some teachers (not all), have grown comfortable and lazy precisely because they have tenure. For example, many of my sons' teachers will not allow students to take home their tests because they want to re-use the tests year after year.

There are many good teachers. Unfortunately, some are not as good. The problem with tenure (and union workplace rules), is that we have to teach all of those teachers the same, without regard to actual performance. I would be in favor of paying great teachers more if we could pay poor teachers less (or better yet, fire them).

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I don't have children in schools, too young for that, but I'm old enough that I have peers and former Cal classmates who are becoming teachers. That's where I draw my experiences from and why I do try to clarify with "assuming a good teacher."

I actually am against union bullying and tenure and protecting terrible teachers, but I think it's excessive to say teaching is a cushy job. Plus I think those numbers for the average salaries do indeed lump in administrative roles when defining "teachers" so I think it could be blurring the picture.

Teaching may not be the toughest job but I wouldn't ever call it cushy..and yeah- things have changed a lot in the last 30 years.. We used to get full health care but now pay several hundred a month and have large co-pays.. We used to have classes of 28 students but now have over 40, half of which bring a variety of special needs from completely deaf to ADHD to severe learning deficiencies .

We used to expect students to bring their own paper and pen but now must supply anything needed during class which many times comes out of our own pockets. They don't even have to bring a pen- go figure..

I was given one day this year for an in-service on common core, no more..we pay a substantial amount into our pension and if I retire after 30 years of service at an age of at least 62 I get 2 percent times years of service-- pretty pathetic compared to jobs like highway patrol or prison guards..

I love the job as I love the relationships with my students, watching them grow and learn, and have taught kids that have become everything from porn stars to All-pro athletes. I don't have issues with our compensation but do take offense to people who make blanket statements about teacher competence without being able to define what teacher competence is.. Unless some sort of concrete standards are set, I think it's just too vague an area for a judge to make a ruling on.

A made-up statistic helped judge reach his decision.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/judge_strikes_down_california_s_teacher_tenure_laws_a_made_up_statistic.html

okaydo;842324446 said:

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A made-up statistic helped judge reach his decision.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/06/judge_strikes_down_california_s_teacher_tenure_laws_a_made_up_statistic.html

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The article you cite says this "evidence" came from the defendants.

Evidently the plaintiffs did not offer this in support of their case. The defendants can hardly complain about a statement made by their own paid expert witness. The teacher's attorneys chose a bad hired gun.

How about less of this...







...and more of this?

egbear82;842324322 said:

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Teaching may not be the toughest job but I wouldn't ever call it cushy..and yeah- things have changed a lot in the last 30 years.. We used to get full health care but now pay several hundred a month and have large co-pays.. We used to have classes of 28 students but now have over 40, half of which bring a variety of special needs from completely deaf to ADHD to severe learning deficiencies .

We used to expect students to bring their own paper and pen but now must supply anything needed during class which many times comes out of our own pockets. They don't even have to bring a pen- go figure..

I was given one day this year for an in-service on common core, no more..we pay a substantial amount into our pension and if I retire after 30 years of service at an age of at least 62 I get 2 percent times years of service-- pretty pathetic compared to jobs like highway patrol or prison guards..

I love the job as I love the relationships with my students, watching them grow and learn, and have taught kids that have become everything from porn stars to All-pro athletes. I don't have issues with our compensation but do take offense to people who make blanket statements about teacher competence without being able to define what teacher competence is.. Unless some sort of concrete standards are set, I think it's just too vague an area for a judge to make a ruling on.

---

My daughter is a 5th-grade teacher in Oakland. She works from 7am-7pm. She takes her job seriously and is extremely creative teaching. She gets no days off and has no thing such as bathroom breaks except during Recess and even then she is "on duty".
Summer Vacation is not 3 months; but more like 1 month since there is year-end wrap-up work and new school year preparatory work.
She has 33 students.
She is Cal grad with a MA in teaching from Mills. And she loves teaching which is why she keeps doing it even though she could get a better-paying job outside of teaching.

As an attorney in a big law firm, my daughter works as hard or harder than most of the associates in my law firm. And she has a greater impact on the "world of tomorrow" than all the associates in my firm, or all the bankers and stock brokers that I know. But the attorneys/bankers/brokers get paid much much more.

If you want to bit*h about overpaid employees, start with attorneys/bankers/brokers. But we don't do that because many of us are attorneys, bankers and brokers and we all KNOW that we are not overpaid, it is EVERYONE ELSE that is over paid.

GivemTheAxe;842324570 said:

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My daughter is a 5th-grade teacher in Oakland. She works from 7am-7pm. She takes her job seriously and is extremely creative teaching. She gets no days off and has no thing such as bathroom breaks except during Recess and even then she is "on duty".
Summer Vacation is not 3 months; but more like 1 month since there is year-end wrap-up work and new school year preparatory work.
She has 33 students.
She is Cal grad with a MA in teaching from Mills. And she loves teaching which is why she keeps doing it even though she could get a better-paying job outside of teaching.

As an attorney in a big law firm, my daughter works as hard or harder than most of the associates in my law firm. And she has a greater impact on the "world of tomorrow" than all the associates in my firm, or all the bankers and stock brokers that I know. But the attorneys/bankers/brokers get paid much much more.

If you want to bit*h about overpaid employees, start with attorneys/bankers/brokers. But we don't do that because many of us are attorneys, bankers and brokers and we all KNOW that we are not overpaid, it is EVERYONE ELSE that is over paid.

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Yes, attorneys are probably overpaid and bankers are definitely overpaid. I woukd welcome paying teachers more to attract more qualified teachers like your daughter. What I do have a problem is that someone like your daughter may get fired before a more senior teacher who has been skating by and doesn't care about the students. Isn't that what the case was about? Not about whether teachers are overpaid but about bad teaches getting assigned to poor neighborhood because teachers who have been on the job for a long time couldn't be fire no matter how poorly they are performing. Lawyers and bankers don't get to stay even when the employers want to fire them.

TandemBear;842323923 said:

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During the 50's, ONE THIRD of the work force was union membership. And that's when this country was an economic powerhouse and the middle class was unstoppable.

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I hope that Berkeley grads aren't asserting that the post-war economic boom was due to union membership rates.