More on Jim Trageser's anti teacher rants found here:
http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2008/09/jim-trageser-editorial-nctimes-reply.html
http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/01/unfounded-charges-of-our-anti-friends.html
http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/02/jim-trageser-caught-in-lie-refuses-to.html
http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/03/trageser-spanked-again-for-bias-by.html
http://vistaschools.blogspot.com/2010/03/jim-tragesers-other-hit-piece-on-good.html
Below are the first several paragraphs of the new Jim Trageser tone apparently thanks to the miracle workers at Madison Middle School.
TRAGESER: It's time to talk, not fuss
By JIM TRAGESER -- jtrageser@nctimes.com Posted: March 14, 2010 12:01 am (6) Comments Print
I want to thank a group of teachers at Madison Middle School in Oceanside for taking time out of their busy schedules to meet with me last week and talk about a previous column of mine they didn't much care for, as well as the general situation facing public education in North County (and particularly the Vista Unified School District) these days.
To be clear, let me state a few points I assumed were obvious but that bear repeating in the interests of clarity:
-- Teachers should not have to purchase classroom supplies out of their own pocket. Ever.
-- Teachers should not feel compelled to work more than a 50-hour workweek, salaried or no. Their families need them, too, and balance is important in life.
-- Teachers' input should be taken seriously by the administration of every school district in the country. They're the ones, especially the good ones, who actually know what works at getting students to learn quickly and well.
Having said that, I'll reiterate what I wrote in the comments section of the online version of my column: "Step increases" are indeed raises, and when teachers and their unions argue that they are not, it only causes the rest of us to wonder why they're trying to downplay the fact that most teachers are eligible for a year-to-year increase in pay as their experience (and, often, education) increase. Look, if your paycheck is bigger this year than it was last, that's a raise.
Read the rest at the North County Times URL:
Here is what dumbfounded North County Times blogger wrote after reading Jim's latest column:
eric said on: March 14, 2010, 1:59 pm
I had to check the byline a few times while reading this column to make sure it was Jim Trageser. I would also like to congratulate those Madison teachers who talked to Mr. Trageser and performed this transformation. I never understood how anyone with children in our public school system could bash teachers as selfish and greedy. Or print things in his column like "The argument could also be made that teachers have made very clear that Vista students are not their priority."(2/21) Maybe it is just springtime making our hearts lighter. Or President Obama's moral leadership. Or both.
--------------------
Here is my blog post including why it is unfair to call step salary increases raises.
con no more said on: March 14, 2010, 7:54 am
Thank you Jim Trageser for having the courage to go to Madison and listen to teachers. Few on your side of the aisle are willing to listen to other points of view. Thank you as well for the change in tone of your writing. Teachers are not the enemy nor representatives of some evil empire, they are fine folks in our community who make tremendous sacrifices to try to educate our children.
Also I congratulate the Madison Middle School teachers for presenting their views in a professional and courteous manner that obviously had a positive impact on Mr. Trageser.
However, I still have a mild disagreement with Jim on step increases being seen as raises. The clear implication of this viewpoint is that there is no need to feel sorry for teachers who have not had any raises in three years and who will have substantial cuts in pay next year because after all they have their step increases.
Step increases are increases for experience. In any job those with experience perform better than those with none. The goal of any employer is to cut down on turn over and keep experienced employees. Hence all jobs have raises for experience. However few jobs make new employees wait a full year for that raise as teachers must.
I got a raise as a hamburger flipper after a month on the job. I understand that firefighters get raises after a few months of experience as do the police. Rookie pay is always lower than non-rookie pay. Even rookie newspaper folks get lower pay than those who have worked for years. (Although I do understand the terrible circumstances the newspaper industry finds itself in today may have changed some of the past promotion practices.)
On the VUSD teacher salary schedule, no teacher, no matter how many units they have earned and paid exorbitant out of pocket money for, gets more than 15 years of annual step increases in pay. To get 15 straight years of step raises, a teacher has to use his or her own time and money to get either 90 post graduate units or 75 units plus a master's degree. We are talking about many years of school and tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of out of pocket expense for a teacher to get these units. No teacher could afford the expense if there were no way to recoup it.
It is to a district's best interest to have teachers who are trying to get better educated. The more educated the teacher the more that teacher can share with his or her students. Incentives to get more units are needed by districts and those incentives must cover the time and especially the cost of those very expensive post graduate units.
No other profession that requires so much education, before a job is offered and more after the job is taken, pays so poorly in the first few years. My three nieces with accounting and majors started out in jobs that paid what my wife and I were making after more than a decade of teaching. My son with the law degree started in a job that paid one third more in his first year than my wife and I made after twenty years in the classroom with 90 post graduate college units.
The lower teaching pay to start is fine. That is the system. No one becomes a teacher to get rich. The incentive of a much higher salary in years to come is what keeps the low initial salaries from scaring away everyone who wishes to be a teacher.
Teaching has a very difficult learning curve. Students do not just sit and listen in their desks to a teacher lecturing. New green teachers have to master difficult classroom management techniques with very few allowable management tools to use. Almost half of all newbie teachers quit in five years or less.
They never see salaries at the top of the step column. We would lose even more new teachers if there were no incentives to stay. Step increases are routine in every district in California. To imply that only VUSD teachers get them is wrong. To call getting these step raises, "a dirty little secret" is wrong and rude. To imply step increases are ordinary raises, so teachers have no reason to complain about not getting a salary schedule raise, is mean spirited and shows a misunderstanding of what step raises are for and why they are fair way to bring and keep people in this poorly paid profession (At least poorly paid in the first few years).
No comments:
Post a Comment