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Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

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Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#371

Post by beej71 »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #367
beej71 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if underperforming teachers were fired and replaced with high-performing teachers? This is really what needs to happen, but... It's way harder to find high-performing teachers when you lowball salaries. It's actually way harder to find _any_ teachers when you do that. So if you're not willing to raise pay, you'll take what you get and you'll like it. > In the rest of the professional world we have to earn our sa…

Absolutely if underperforming teachers were all fired, the bar was raised along with pay I'd be happy. Now, that's hard and I get that, just deciding how to measure teacher performance is difficult, but if it can be done it should be done.

There seem to be a lot of people here who know an underperforming teacher when they see one. :)

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#372

Post by toast0 »

RajT88 wrote: post #364
toast0 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public school budgets are set of course by property taxes. If you teach in a rich district, you get paid more. If you teach in a poor district, you get paid less. The way public schools are funded helps keep the rich rich, and the poor poor. That depends on the state. In California, most school districts have their budgets set by the state funding formula which provides state funding above the local property tax re…

I wasn't aware of this funding system, so I had to look it up. The (quite prolific) literature suggest that the funding system was severely limited in 1978 by Prop 13.

Sure, school funding has been limited; but the point is that excluding the basic aid school districts (which are mostly smaller districts, afaik, the largest is Newport-Mesa Unified), all of the school districts across the state have been subject to the same funding formulas.

Your comment was that equalizing funding would make society better; my question is, given that funding has been mostly equalized in California, is society better?

In Washington state, funding for basic education is apportioned from state revenues; local districts can raise taxes for enrichment, but there's a cap, and state funds are provided if local taxes don't meet a minimum. I'm not familiar with other states, but there have been several court cases where states were forced to reform systems that relied on local property tax [1]; and I'd imagine many states would have changed their systems after seeing those results, rather than waiting for their own case.

[1] https://edeq.stanford.edu/sections/section-4-lawsuits/landma...

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#373

Post by Ancapistani »

The idea of a single minimum salary nation-wide is absurd IMO.

In my state, the average starting salary for a degreed and certified public school teacher is ~$35k. That's one of the lowest in the nation, for sure, but my point is that New York's starting salary is ~$63k.

Making a $60k base salary law would cripple my state's ability to staff its schools, while having no impact on states like NY, as they higher cost of living there means that they're already well in excess of this proposed minimum.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#374

Post by 1-more »

fafafuf wrote: post #311
1-more wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recently I was thinking about opening a foundation that will create a universal multimedia "product" (combination of software, movies, games, maybe vr) that will teach kids around the world in schools subjects that all nations agree upon like mathematics, physics, chemistry, informatics etc. If this ever got made it would only be used my school administrators as a cudgel to discipline teachers unions. It would neve…

I would say that teachers unions will definitely not be happy about it as work style of all teachers will need to change and a lot of them will not be necessary anymore. But kids will have the best possible education. We do it for kids, right?

what is your experience with teaching?

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#375

Post by 1-more »

maratc wrote: post #354
fafafuf wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short "yes". Millions of teachers around the world every day do exactly the same work as other teachers - this is a huge waste of talented resources. If they don't need to do repetitive job, that can focus on individual learning for those who really need it or help society in other way.

Did you ask the kids whether they would rather be educated with a teacher in the company of fellow same-age kids, or with "technology" and "multimedia" without any chance to raise a hand, ask a question, get a slow answer? Sorry, but this just reeks brutal tech-broism to me. "We have such a powerful technology that we can do everything, nevermind asking if we should." My kids were confined to the home at the covid-19…

I work in ed tech and the best we can be is a force multiplier for teachers. If they have to spend less time creating and grading certain kinds of thing, that's good and that's what we aim to do for them. But replacing them is a) impossible b) a dumb idea anyway.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#377

Post by r00fus »

mc32 wrote: post #63

CoL differs significantly within states and across the country. There should be a base plus CoL adjustment adjusted annually to account for inflation or deflation. A flat standard amount for anything does not make sense given the CoL disparities. 60,000 dollars is good for someone in Ukiah CA or Huntsville AL, but not for someone in NYC or Burbank, CA. Reminds me of lots of things kicking in at $10Gs. A figure that w…

Then maybe we can do the same for the Federal minimum wage? This is just a floor. States can take this and run with it to increase local teacher salaries beyond the floor. Sanders knows it won't pass in this corrupt senate, but possibly a future one may take this seed of an idea and make something workable.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#378

Post by kennywinker »

indymike wrote: post #365
kennywinker wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh-huh. 13 years doesn't make me feel even a little confidant you've proven they work. The arc of social changes are long.

The biggest risk is the status quo - kids forced to spend 13 years in failing schools is guaranteed to get the same results. Vouchers are generally used at existing private and parochial schools, who do meet state education standards, and frankly, usually vastly outperform public schools on education outcomes... and in many cases offer opportunities outside the classroom that public schools can't really match (i.e. m…

False choice. It’s not failing system vs vouchers. It’s failing system vs vouchers vs fixing system.

You’re advocating for a solution to failing system, but it’s not the only one. And frankly, it’s likely it’s worse now than it was 13 years ago… i can think of one possible explanation why

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#380

Post by kshahkshah »

5544332211 wrote: post #247
kshahkshah wrote: post #24

I'm in NJ where we value public education, for the most part. According to National Center for Education Statistics our average teacher pay was $77,489 in 2022. This is excluding benefits/pension. Well worth it.

Does NJ really value education? Or do you value education funding for other reasons? I remember a while ago, googling around about the schools of Newark NJ, because of a rather complicated Mark Zuckerberg story. The school district's budget was around a billion a year, while a third of graduating students weren't proficient at reading. And when public officials were trying to do something about this, their motives we…

I don't live in Essex County so Newark's schools don't effect me directly.

Newark's problems are at the family level, not at the school level. Parental involvement is a baseline requirement for a successful student. It's unfortunate but Newark is hurting in this regard.

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