Letter to the editor: Teaching is not what it used to be

How about a response from those in TSD responsible for spending the taxes collected that provides a five-year "snapshot in time" of what the tax dollars were spent for. Taxes were collected. That created a "pot" of money and a group of humans made decisions on how best to use the pot of money. What were the priorities for each of the five years? What rationale supported eac decision in the set of decisions? That is, why was budget priority number one for a particular year deemed the most important, and why was number 2 chosen and the next in importance, etc.? Cathy has an excellent point: It appears well past time to examine the work of those empowered to make budget decisions. The first person one ought to turn to for a "look see" at a five year sample of spending is the TSD superintendent.

The public school system is messed up beyond belief. All components of this entity contribute to the mess. It is a hugely expensive bureaucracy that probably should be put to death and replaced with private schools. Would cost a lot less to educate students without involvment of the government and unions...as the local Christian schools have found out (and no, I have no connection to them and sent my kids to CASHS).

Are you kidding? Teachers get paid more than fair for what they do. A full time salary for 9 months of work. I hear all this complaining about not getting paid enough- change professions- you chose to get into teaching, choose to get out, or is the summer vacation too much of an incentive to stay?

Agree, Orwell, that a magnificent start would be to free local school districts of the insidious unions. Unions are statewide organizations with lots of lobbyists in Harrisburg to get legislation that is not in the best interests of taxpayers but favorable to their interests. Local districts are plundered in the name of teachers but the collective performance of teachers is mostly mediocre as one looks across the 501 districts in the state. Teachers and their unions are, for the most part, leftist Liberals. That's a reason why teachers' unions have Obama in their pocket: He's a leftist Liberal too.

We should at least pay them a fair salary.

An average salary in the 50's is more than "fair".
for 9 months...

We (the taxpayers) also have bills to pay!

What confuses me, if the teachers are unhappy with the pay in TSD, why do they stay?

And regardless of anything: you should always do the best job you can do regardless of the amount of pay. You accepted the job, so you should do the job to the best of your ability. This is the biggest problem with contracts. You are not required to do the job to the best of your ability, because you will get the 5% raise if you do the job at 100% or 50%, your raise is still the same.

But you pride in your job and yourself should require that you want to do your best in everything, so you should do 100% anyway. But this LTE shows that teachers won't do it because they feel they deserve more money.

Here is a thought: find a different job in a different district that will pay you more money. You accepted the job at that pay, so do the job well. If your not happy, you are free to leave.

If working 180 days a year is not incentive enough, and having summers off, quit complaining and get a job that makes you work 12 months out of the year with only 2 weeks vacation.

''''It has also been reported that school taxes are collected at a higher rate in the Tuscarora School District than in other districts in Franklin County.''''

You write that, as it's not true -- for a self proclaimed highly educated professional teacher, your credentials should be challenged if you believe that not to be true.

It's was in the 'fact finders' report and the official budget of the TSD.

If you call it 'reported' then you need to re-read it! If that's not too difficult for you.

You want to question where the tax dollars go , again go to the budget and see where more than 60% of the budget is spent on your salaries and benefits.

Do you need more?

Privatize schools, it's the only sensible thing to do.

Without government involvement people will be free to choose whether or not their children get an education, and where that education comes from. We will also be free of the taxation needed to provide public schooling.

Can't afford to send your child to school? Don't. It's like any other expense. Don't have the money? Do without.

No taxes, no vouchers, no standardized testing, no government involvement. It's the only choice that makes sense.

Cathy, you claim: "Todays' teachers must deal with disrespect, drugs and violence." Really? How much of each category occurs annually in TSD's six schools? If teachers are not backed by principals and the Supt. on matters of disrespect, drug use, and violence, then TSD REALLY has a problem greater than securing more pay for teachers. So, what say you, Cathy? What's the magnitude of each of the three issues: disrespect, drugs, and violence in TSD schools? Blow the whistle on those who are turning their backs on these problems if they are, in fact, as troubling as you've stated.

Millie wrote:

Cathy, you claim: "Todays' teachers must deal with disrespect, drugs and violence." Really? How much of each category occurs annually in TSD's six schools? If teachers are not backed by principals and the Supt. on matters of disrespect, drug use, and violence, then TSD REALLY has a problem greater than securing more pay for teachers. So, what say you, Cathy? What's the magnitude of each of the three issues: disrespect, drugs, and violence in TSD schools? Blow the whistle on those who are turning their backs on these problems if they are, in fact, as troubling as you've stated.

As a side note: EVERY job has to deal with disrepect. Uppper management (OK: most levels of management) always disrepect the employees, co-workers, other departments, etc. Other jobs might not have to deal with the drugs or violence such as a teacher, but disrepect is rampant in every workplace environment.

Being a former teacher, I say if you haven't walked in our shoes, then keep your negative comments to yourself. Most people want pay raises like the rest of the working force, but it seems that teachers must plead and beg for any type of decent pay raise.
These are your children that are being taught. Pay these educators for all their college degrees and work they put into educating your child.

Lil John is ABSOLUTELY correct. These hogs at the trough are killing us taxpayers! Let's act to correct this immediately.

It’s been said a thousand times, and now it’s time to act. Teachers today are just babysitters for their students. Hamstrung by the “No Child Left Behind” act, ineffectual school districts that are more like petty bureaucracies and their inability to administer corporal punishment, teachers have been reduced to little more than babysitters. It’s time to treat them that way. Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year!

Let’s put things in perspective and pay them for what they do, baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time. That would be $19.50 a day (7:00 AM to 3:30 (or so) PM with just 25 min. off for lunch). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now do the math. How many do they teach in a class, 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 =$585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! we're not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE... That's $585 x 180=$105,300 per year.

What about those special teachers and the ones with master's degrees? Well, we could just pay them minimum wage, and just to be fair, round it off to $7.00 an hour. That would be $7 x 6 ½ hours x 30 children x180 days =$245,700 per year.

Wait a minute, there's something wrong here! If an average teachers salary is $50,000/180 days =$277/per day /students =$9.23/6.5 hours =$1.42 per hour per student. A very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even try - with your help - to EDUCATE our kids! WHAT A DEAL... And we don't even have to buy pizza!

See how Lil Johnny responds to this???

Barb Shadler wrote:

Being a former teacher, I say if you haven't walked in our shoes, then keep your negative comments to yourself. Most people want pay raises like the rest of the working force, but it seems that teachers must plead and beg for any type of decent pay raise.
These are your children that are being taught. Pay these educators for all their college degrees and work they put into educating your child.

We all have college degrees and don't get 3 months vacation plus all the other vacation days a teacher gets, plus a guranteed raise of 5% a year.

Stop preaching that teachers have it worse than the rest of the working population when we would die to have a guaranteed raise of 4 - 5%(even if our evaluations were horrible) and still get the summers off every year.

If my yearly evaluations are horrible, my raise is 0%. If my yearly evaluation is great, I might be lucky to get 4%. This year: my evaluation was great, but due to economic conditions and a sluggish economy, I got 0% even with a great evalution, but I did get a great evaluation and a "thank you for your hard work and dedication to our company."

If only I had a contract and union that guaranteed a raise for me, even in bad economic times. Teachers have no idea what the rest of the world has to deal with.

What's your degree in Andy? Basket-weaving? It must be something non-technical; perhaps you're a wonderfully talented communications major? Maybe you too should search for other employment opportunities, as you recommend to the teachers?

CburgIsFullOfComplainers wrote:

Lil John is ABSOLUTELY correct. These hogs at the trough are killing us taxpayers! Let's act to correct this immediately.
It’s been said a thousand times, and now it’s time to act. Teachers today are just babysitters for their students. Hamstrung by the “No Child Left Behind” act, ineffectual school districts that are more like petty bureaucracies and their inability to administer corporal punishment, teachers have been reduced to little more than babysitters. It’s time to treat them that way. Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year!
Let’s put things in perspective and pay them for what they do, baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time. That would be $19.50 a day (7:00 AM to 3:30 (or so) PM with just 25 min. off for lunch). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.
Now do the math. How many do they teach in a class, 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 =$585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! we're not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE... That's $585 x 180=$105,300 per year.
What about those special teachers and the ones with master's degrees? Well, we could just pay them minimum wage, and just to be fair, round it off to $7.00 an hour. That would be $7 x 6 ½ hours x 30 children x180 days =$245,700 per year.
Wait a minute, there's something wrong here! If an average teachers salary is $50,000/180 days =$277/per day /students =$9.23/6.5 hours =$1.42 per hour per student. A very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even try - with your help - to EDUCATE our kids! WHAT A DEAL... And we don't even have to buy pizza!
See how Lil Johnny responds to this???

Whether they teach 0 or a 100 they still get paid about 34.00 an hour.. With an average salary of 50k for 180 days of work..

Now don't you figures look silly?

haven't look at it, but maybe we ought to look at 'piece work' for the teachers and the quality of the final product.
What do you think the annual salaries would be for them bases on output based salaries?

how's that!

Comparing teachers salaries is the good ole union game. TSD teachers refuse a new contract becausethey make less than Chambersburg.

Then, when chambersburg contract time is due, they weant at least the same increase as TSD.

Compare all you want, but facts are facts.

1)$54k for 180 days is the normal years pay of $75k.

2) Best Benefits around

3) Job Security

4) Job performance must only be somewhere better than horrible to keep your job forever.

Most people do not have a problem paying good teachers good money. So, whenever the teachers want to drop tenure and earn your pay based on perfoprmance, then the good teachers will make better money.

Cathy:

What flavoring is in YOUR KOOL-AID??

Starting teacher salaries are at the upper-end of overall income of most residents in both the Chambersburg and Tuscarora Districts. This is not Bucks County or Radnor, nor Metro Pittsburgh - look at your map and see that we are in a highly agriculutral and low-density business region in the state.

Calculate our teacher's pay based on a 9-month year -and their lifestyle actually looks pretty good!!

Monday my teacher-neighbor was hitching up his boat and headed for 4 weeks of relaxation at his cabin in the mountains. I haven't been able to take a vacation for the last 3 years - no money and I don't have 4 weeks vacation time this year. I also can't afford a cabin. When he returns, he is working his "sumer job" until school starts in August.

Then, he will pull out basically the same lesson
plans he has updated each year for the last 15, and spend his day working with children.

Throw in our local "educators" GREAT health care plan (Tuscarora teachers are complaining about being asked to pay just 10% for their insurance coverage - a luxury most of us can only dream of), add in the other paid benefits, and trust me, they're doing just fine.

Don't reply back and tell me that they have advanced degrees and should be highly paid - many of my co-workers have advanced degrees too - and most of us feel lucky to even have a job in today's challenging economy. And don't tell me they put in long hours. Any paid professional - in any occupation - does the same da*n thing.

In Tuscarora we enjoy paying our teachers what they ask - OOPS - DEMAND --- so that we don't have to use that money to keep-up our buildings, install new learning labs, or God-forbid, build an upscale sports complex (or even have a swimming program).
Silly us. Yes, I know that Chambersburg has convinced their residents that only nicer buildings can improve test scores, apparently they're using the same propaganda technique on us here in Tuscarora!).

Folks like you should re-evaulate your comments in light of today's global business climate. Why support a group of people who do the same job year-in, year-out -- yet continue to produce an "inferior product" which can't meet ALL state and Federally-mandated guildines for learning basic reading, English and math??

Only in America do us taxpayers put up with such nonsense. If teaching were a true business, it would be closed and be filing for bankruptcy tomorrow. It's NO wonder we Americans are outpaced by the Chinese, Indians and others -- most of whom pay far LESS for educators in their school systems than we do!

My elderly neighbors have been forced to move from the home they loved, another widow has no idea where her extra tax money will come from, and my family feels squeezed and held hostage by our group of Tuscarora teachers -- the most self-serving, self-centered, and greedy bunch of professionals I have ever seen in my lifetime.

Starting pay is $43,000+/per year, and most are making $50,000+/year working 9 months a year.

I think it's time for Pay For Performance and then we can ship out the longer-term and tenured (read that word as "union protected") Leeches -- and bring in some fresh blood, some young graduates thirsty and hungry for a teaching job in Tuscarora.

These current pigs have grazed at the public trough long enough. OUT WITH THEM ALL.

PS --- JLG is laying off approximately 400 next month, and other local employers are doing the same.
Go visit the homes of these District residents - and tell them that their kid's teachers should get more than a 4.4% pay raise this year, the next, and the next. Tell them as they will lose THEIR health insurance, that teachers shouldn't be "expected" to pay 10% of their pay for such coverage.

Go on, I Double-Dog Dare Ya.

THEN come back here, and express your ridiculous opinion.

CburgIsFullOfComplainers wrote:

What's your degree in Andy? Basket-weaving? It must be something non-technical; perhaps you're a wonderfully talented communications major? Maybe you too should search for other employment opportunities, as you recommend to the teachers?

Actually: my degree is very techical and I have two degrees for what it's worth and have an advanced degree in my field, but not sure what that has to do with anything related to this debate expect that you feel the need to insult and somehow that makes you feel superior, but it doesn't prove anything at all.

Perhaps my job offers great benefits that offsets a pay raise. Perhaps my job offers other incentives to offset a pay raise for one year.

Perhaps I am paid well enough to let a year pay raise slip and wait until next year to decide what I would like to do?

Or perhaps I have decided that I am not satisfied with what transpired and I am looking for other opportunities. Not knowing my situation: it makes you look foolish to actually post on my specific situation.

But you missed the point totally. Teachers complained about the need to "fight for a yearly pay raise" and my point is that they are guaranteed a nice raise regardless of whether they are a good teacher or a poor teacher, they get the same raise regardless of their performance and the performance of the company in which they work, but want us to feel sorry for them.

In the real world, most workers are judged on an individual basis and your raise is based solely on your own performance and even then: you are not guaranteed a raise because the company for which you work might not be doing well and might not be able to afford to pay a merit increase for their employees.

Teachers don't understand how good they have it in this aspect. That is the point you are missing.

But feel free to insult me personally: it simply shows how little you have to actually contribute.

EducatedRedneck wrote:

Cathy:
What flavoring is in YOUR KOOL-AID??
Starting teacher salaries are at the upper-end of overall income of most residents in both the Chambersburg and Tuscarora Districts. This is not Bucks County or Radnor, nor Metro Pittsburgh - look at your map and see that we are in a highly agriculutral and low-density business region in the state.
Calculate our teacher's pay based on a 9-month year -and their lifestyle actually looks pretty good!!
Monday my teacher-neighbor was hitching up his boat and headed for 4 weeks of relaxation at his cabin in the mountains. I haven't been able to take a vacation for the last 3 years - no money and I don't have 4 weeks vacation time this year. I also can't afford a cabin. When he returns, he is working his "sumer job" until school starts in August.
Then, he will pull out basically the same lesson
plans he has updated each year for the last 15, and spend his day working with children.
Throw in our local "educators" GREAT health care plan (Tuscarora teachers are complaining about being asked to pay just 10% for their insurance coverage - a luxury most of us can only dream of), add in the other paid benefits, and trust me, they're doing just fine.
Don't reply back and tell me that they have advanced degrees and should be highly paid - many of my co-workers have advanced degrees too - and most of us feel lucky to even have a job in today's challenging economy. And don't tell me they put in long hours. Any paid professional - in any occupation - does the same da*n thing.
In Tuscarora we enjoy paying our teachers what they ask - OOPS - DEMAND --- so that we don't have to use that money to keep-up our buildings, install new learning labs, or God-forbid, build an upscale sports complex (or even have a swimming program).
Silly us. Yes, I know that Chambersburg has convinced their residents that only nicer buildings can improve test scores, apparently they're using the same propaganda technique on us here in Tuscarora!).
Folks like you should re-evaulate your comments in light of today's global business climate. Why support a group of people who do the same job year-in, year-out -- yet continue to produce an "inferior product" which can't meet ALL state and Federally-mandated guildines for learning basic reading, English and math??
Only in America do us taxpayers put up with such nonsense. If teaching were a true business, it would be closed and be filing for bankruptcy tomorrow. It's NO wonder we Americans are outpaced by the Chinese, Indians and others -- most of whom pay far LESS for educators in their school systems than we do!
My elderly neighbors have been forced to move from the home they loved, another widow has no idea where her extra tax money will come from, and my family feels squeezed and held hostage by our group of Tuscarora teachers -- the most self-serving, self-centered, and greedy bunch of professionals I have ever seen in my lifetime.
Starting pay is $43,000+/per year, and most are making $50,000+/year working 9 months a year.
I think it's time for Pay For Performance and then we can ship out the longer-term and tenured (read that word as "union protected") Leeches -- and bring in some fresh blood, some young graduates thirsty and hungry for a teaching job in Tuscarora.
These current pigs have grazed at the public trough long enough. OUT WITH THEM ALL.
PS --- JLG is laying off approximately 400 next month, and other local employers are doing the same.
Go visit the homes of these District residents - and tell them that their kid's teachers should get more than a 4.4% pay raise this year, the next, and the next. Tell them as they will lose THEIR health insurance, that teachers shouldn't be "expected" to pay 10% of their pay for such coverage.
Go on, I Double-Dog Dare Ya.
THEN come back here, and express your ridiculous opinion.

Yea -- what he said!!

Dave, I think that is the smartest thing you have ever written in this page... I agree with you 100% (I can't believe I actually said that.)