The wisdom of rewarding Montgomery’s school employees (Washington Post)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8:17 here, I'm not the teacher, but I'm on her side.

I certainly don't have MCPS turnover data because I have no association with MCPS besides sending my kids there. However, I work in research, so I'm aware it's quite common for data to be released with a lag of 1, 2 or even 3 years. Think about it: first, somebody (schools? central admin?) needs to report turnover stats, so if the fiscal year ends in June maybe they have until September to report. Then the statistic types in central admin need to compile it, somebody needs to compose a press release, about a dozen other people need to sign off. The worst part is tracking down the outliers: quite frequently, you get data like Poolesville reported 120% turnover (I'm making this up), but we know this isn't right, so we go to Poolesville to ask for an explanation or correct figures, and it sits on someone's desk at Poolesville for 2 months. I work with federal data and I see this sort of thing all the time. A friend worked at the World Bank and he claims the country-level data there really needs to be scrubbed.

So consider: FY2010 closed in June 2010. We're almost in July 2012. In my long experience with federal data, 2 years is about on course and maybe we'll get the new release soon.

Sure, BLS releases inflation and unemployment data with a 2-month lag. But that's the result of thousands of surveys, interviews and the rest. It's very expensive to do this, but it's considered worth it to get good, current stats on the economy. Do you really want MCPS concentrating proportionate resources on turnover data?

So I certainly wouldn't read anything nefarious into MCPS' failure to provide data for 2010 by now.

I am in research too. I produce quarterly statistics and they just roll right out of a controlled process. They are audited and checked constantly. It really is not that expensive to produce once the process is set up. We are now 6 months into 2012, do you really think MCPS doesn't know the turnover rate at the close of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years? I think these numbers exist. They may even be public, but I can't find them. MCPS put out these numbers for 2009 and the previous 8 years, so I know it is possible.

But let's leave this aside because you are proving my point. Either there is or there is not data that shows increasing turnover around the pay freeze period. In 2009, turnover was around 5%. I didn't raise the issue about how the pay freeze is causing increased teacher turnover, some of the teacher posts did. Based on your premise, however, there is no way to even prove that turnover is increasing. Therefore, I don't think teacher retention should justify the pay raise. Retention has just not been proven to be an issue. If I am wrong, then show me some evidence of teachers leaving MCPS because of pay. That is the point I want to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here.

1. Why are some of you arguing that since you're not getting a raise, teachers shouldn't get one either? The Country (probably influenced by union) decided. Fight them/kick them out if you think they decided wrong.

2. You don't have to be fighting in Afghanistan to be doing a hard job. Teachers often work 60-80hrs a week to keep up with the work (I've known many teachers and they grade/plan on vacation, at night, in the morning, in the commutes.) Not to mention they have to be social worker, child psychologists, comedian, cheerleader, and role model to children. Your children. You try to get someone else to do all that work, and you'll be paying a lot more. (aside note, I had a friend complain that the private tutor doesn't address the DC's study habits. The tutors response was that I get paid to teach the materials, not to raise your child.)

3. Fighting amongst yourselves for the raises that teachers (and other public workers get) just means the 1% is winning the culture wars. The poor fight amongst themselves so they never fight the 1% who get preferential tax breaks and subsidies for being job creators (capitalism my butt. they feed on govt more than public workers).

4. Those of you complaining about union benefits/influence. Not so many years ago, people laughed at public workers be cause they gave up raises and high pay to work in public sectors. They chose job security and benefits over high pay and mobility. Govt had trouble retaining workers because they jumped ship to get better pay in the private sector. Now that economy's tanking, people blame "high wages and benefits" of public workers. Ya? Tough shit. It wasn't the public workers who tanked the economy. You're too chickenshit to blame the greedy bankers.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am in research too. I produce quarterly statistics and they just roll right out of a controlled process. They are audited and checked constantly. It really is not that expensive to produce once the process is set up. We are now 6 months into 2012, do you really think MCPS doesn't know the turnover rate at the close of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years? I think these numbers exist. They may even be public, but I can't find them. MCPS put out these numbers for 2009 and the previous 8 years, so I know it is possible.

But let's leave this aside because you are proving my point. Either there is or there is not data that shows increasing turnover around the pay freeze period. In 2009, turnover was around 5%. I didn't raise the issue about how the pay freeze is causing increased teacher turnover, some of the teacher posts did. Based on your premise, however, there is no way to even prove that turnover is increasing. Therefore, I don't think teacher retention should justify the pay raise. Retention has just not been proven to be an issue. If I am wrong, then show me some evidence of teachers leaving MCPS because of pay. That is the point I want to make.

Your "controlled presses" almost certainly rely on automated systems that probably costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and require at least one IT person to run. For the "auditing and checking constantly" you mention so casually, you're talking about 2-6 trained people who do NOTHING but focus on these statistics. I'm in research and I earn 6 figures, and DH is actually in statistics and he also earns 6 figures. That's the kind of operation you're talking about, with anywhere from 2-6 (or more!) IT people and statisticians dedicated to these statistics.

Let's compare to MCPS! We're talking about paper reporting, at least at the initial stage, by some multi-tasking person in some school or MCPS office who has a dozen other more pressing tasks besides one. Somebody else who has to enter the data. We're also talking about some number-cruncher who also has a real job besides hounding others to (a) report their data and (b) resolve inconsistencies. We're talking about MCPS administrators who probably have more pressing tasks than this one, and although they do take too may junkets, I for one am glad they haven't made this particular worm hole a priority. So the 2010 data probably doesn't exist yet, for all the reasons I've listed.

How can you possibly complain about MCPS spending more for teacher salaries -- when you're talking about spending maybe a million to hire half a dozen dedicated people, and automate their reporting systems, for ... what was that again ... turnover statistics?

As for the link between pay and turnover, another PP answered it a few pages ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here.

1. Why are some of you arguing that since you're not getting a raise, teachers shouldn't get one either? The Country (probably influenced by union) decided. Fight them/kick them out if you think they decided wrong.

2. You don't have to be fighting in Afghanistan to be doing a hard job. Teachers often work 60-80hrs a week to keep up with the work (I've known many teachers and they grade/plan on vacation, at night, in the morning, in the commutes.) Not to mention they have to be social worker, child psychologists, comedian, cheerleader, and role model to children. Your children. You try to get someone else to do all that work, and you'll be paying a lot more. (aside note, I had a friend complain that the private tutor doesn't address the DC's study habits. The tutors response was that I get paid to teach the materials, not to raise your child.)

3. Fighting amongst yourselves for the raises that teachers (and other public workers get) just means the 1% is winning the culture wars. The poor fight amongst themselves so they never fight the 1% who get preferential tax breaks and subsidies for being job creators (capitalism my butt. they feed on govt more than public workers).

4. Those of you complaining about union benefits/influence. Not so many years ago, people laughed at public workers be cause they gave up raises and high pay to work in public sectors. They chose job security and benefits over high pay and mobility. Govt had trouble retaining workers because they jumped ship to get better pay in the private sector. Now that economy's tanking, people blame "high wages and benefits" of public workers. Ya? Tough shit. It wasn't the public workers who tanked the economy. You're too chickenshit to blame the greedy bankers.

+1

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here.

1. Why are some of you arguing that since you're not getting a raise, teachers shouldn't get one either? The Country (probably influenced by union) decided. Fight them/kick them out if you think they decided wrong.

2. You don't have to be fighting in Afghanistan to be doing a hard job. Teachers often work 60-80hrs a week to keep up with the work (I've known many teachers and they grade/plan on vacation, at night, in the morning, in the commutes.) Not to mention they have to be social worker, child psychologists, comedian, cheerleader, and role model to children. Your children. You try to get someone else to do all that work, and you'll be paying a lot more. (aside note, I had a friend complain that the private tutor doesn't address the DC's study habits. The tutors response was that I get paid to teach the materials, not to raise your child.)

3. Fighting amongst yourselves for the raises that teachers (and other public workers get) just means the 1% is winning the culture wars. The poor fight amongst themselves so they never fight the 1% who get preferential tax breaks and subsidies for being job creators (capitalism my butt. they feed on govt more than public workers).

4. Those of you complaining about union benefits/influence. Not so many years ago, people laughed at public workers be cause they gave up raises and high pay to work in public sectors. They chose job security and benefits over high pay and mobility. Govt had trouble retaining workers because they jumped ship to get better pay in the private sector. Now that economy's tanking, people blame "high wages and benefits" of public workers. Ya? Tough shit. It wasn't the public workers who tanked the economy. You're too chickenshit to blame the greedy bankers.

+1000!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am in research too. I produce quarterly statistics and they just roll right out of a controlled process. They are audited and checked constantly. It really is not that expensive to produce once the process is set up. We are now 6 months into 2012, do you really think MCPS doesn't know the turnover rate at the close of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years? I think these numbers exist. They may even be public, but I can't find them. MCPS put out these numbers for 2009 and the previous 8 years, so I know it is possible.

But let's leave this aside because you are proving my point. Either there is or there is not data that shows increasing turnover around the pay freeze period. In 2009, turnover was around 5%. I didn't raise the issue about how the pay freeze is causing increased teacher turnover, some of the teacher posts did. Based on your premise, however, there is no way to even prove that turnover is increasing. Therefore, I don't think teacher retention should justify the pay raise. Retention has just not been proven to be an issue. If I am wrong, then show me some evidence of teachers leaving MCPS because of pay. That is the point I want to make.

Your "controlled presses" almost certainly rely on automated systems that probably costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and require at least one IT person to run. For the "auditing and checking constantly" you mention so casually, you're talking about 2-6 trained people who do NOTHING but focus on these statistics. I'm in research and I earn 6 figures, and DH is actually in statistics and he also earns 6 figures. That's the kind of operation you're talking about, with anywhere from 2-6 (or more!) IT people and statisticians dedicated to these statistics.

Let's compare to MCPS! We're talking about paper reporting, at least at the initial stage, by some multi-tasking person in some school or MCPS office who has a dozen other more pressing tasks besides one. Somebody else who has to enter the data. We're also talking about some number-cruncher who also has a real job besides hounding others to (a) report their data and (b) resolve inconsistencies. We're talking about MCPS administrators who probably have more pressing tasks than this one, and although they do take too may junkets, I for one am glad they haven't made this particular worm hole a priority. So the 2010 data probably doesn't exist yet, for all the reasons I've listed.

How can you possibly complain about MCPS spending more for teacher salaries -- when you're talking about spending maybe a million to hire half a dozen dedicated people, and automate their reporting systems, for ... what was that again ... turnover statistics?

As for the link between pay and turnover, another PP answered it a few pages ago.

Please tell me your view on pay and turnover. I guess I didn't see it a few pages ago. Can you update me?

I am going to leave the numbers argument alone. I have made my point. I guess we disagree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Please tell me your view on pay and turnover. I guess I didn't see it a few pages ago. Can you update me?

I am going to leave the numbers argument alone. I have made my point. I guess we disagree.

It's not "my" view on pay and turnover, although I give it weight since it's coming from actual teachers who are in a better position to explain how *they* view the tradeoff than you are. Their posts are scattered through this thread, I just went back and spotted a few easily. However, I'm not going to regurgitate their views, you'll just have to go back through the thread yourself.

Your numbers argument seems to be as follows: instead of teacher pay raises (or hiring more teachers, or other worthy objects), you expect MoCo to spend hundreds of K, maybe a million, to update payroll and other systems, and hire numbers crunchers, so you can have better, faster data on turnover. Is that right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Please tell me your view on pay and turnover. I guess I didn't see it a few pages ago. Can you update me?

I am going to leave the numbers argument alone. I have made my point. I guess we disagree.

It's not "my" view on pay and turnover, although I give it weight since it's coming from actual teachers who are in a better position to explain how *they* view the tradeoff than you are. Their posts are scattered through this thread, I just went back and spotted a few easily. However, I'm not going to regurgitate their views, you'll just have to go back through the thread yourself.

Your numbers argument seems to be as follows: instead of teacher pay raises (or hiring more teachers, or other worthy objects), you expect MoCo to spend hundreds of K, maybe a million, to update payroll and other systems, and hire numbers crunchers, so you can have better, faster data on turnover. Is that right?

I guess the teacher distraction threads work. Teacher posts originally said roughly that if we don't raise salaries, then teachers would start leaving. In fact, the wording sounded pretty dire and that without the raises turnover would be a real problem. Someone then posted some statistics that showed 8 years of turnover rates at 8% or lower. As we entered the economic slowdown in 2008-2009, turnover was only 4.7%. They also showed extremely high teacher job application counts so that even if teachers to leave, there were plenty of folks in the pipeline ready to take over. This was all from MCPS data with a link posted to a web site. This conformed my idea that MCPS is already one of the, if not the, highest paying school system in the area (I also shared a link that says MCPS has an average teacher salary that is 9K higher than Fairfax County) and that retention is not a problem. If you support a raise, fine, but retention is not a problem.

The response to this argument was that the data only goes to 2009!!! I say either show better data or admit that you don't know if there is a teacher turnover problem. Anecdotes don't really help. We already know there is a 5-8% turnover rate. Again, if you still want to support the raise, then fine. Just don't use teacher turnover as the reason or at least admit that this is just a conjecture.

What I think happens is that some of these posts throw some pretty strong langugage out there, but when pressed, there is not as much validity as is presented. I will accept that turnover is potential problem if salaries get too low, but in this economy with the previous MCPS salary structure, my opinion is that this is an extreme stretch.

As for the data, I can only say that MCPS was able to produce it up to 2009 apparently, so I don't think money or systems is the issue. This issue is just a distraction, however. The real issue is that teachers will get a raise, while many taxpayers will not. One of my kids had a kindergarten class with 18 or 19 students a few years ago. Another one of my kids had a Kindergarten class of 28 recently. That tells you what I see as a parent.

[Anonymous]

Yawn. I can't keep repeating myself. The 2009 data was probably produced with a 2-year lag, because it takes time to get data together unless you're talking about a state-of-the-art production instead of payroll systems from 2002 or something, and that's why we don't have 2010 data yet! And as someone else pointed out, just because some people aren't getting raises doesn't mean that nobody should get a raise and we should all suck eggs together -- why? this is just really bad logic.

You're looking for a bogeyman here, and you've settled on unions and teachers. I'll let you decide whether this makes you a tool, when you buy the line that "unions and government workers" are responsible for our nation's economic problems. However, like the other posters here, I think you're barking up the wrong tree, and in a way that's potentially destructive in oh-so-many way.

Good bye.

[Anonymous]

The union should take a look at the Wisconsin election.

[Anonymous]

The vast majority of DCUMers are in the top 1%- 5% percent income bracket. If you don't like your child's class size or feel they are not getting enough related arts enrichment, enroll them in private school or tack on an extracurricular activity. Please leave my middle class teacher salary alone.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of DCUMers are in the top 1%- 5% percent income bracket. If you don't like your child's class size or feel they are not getting enough related arts enrichment, enroll them in private school or tack on an extracurricular activity. Please leave my middle class teacher salary alone.

Thank you.

We'd be happy to leave it along. It's YOU who want it changed.

[Anonymous]

For those who believe that anyone concerned about the teacher raises is a tea-party republican in sheep's clothing, there was an interesting opinion piece in the Post this morning about the divisions within the Democratic party. It was in the context of the Wisconsin recall, but is equally applicable to this discussion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-democrats-are-playing-with-dynamite/2012/06/06/gJQAwDdbJV_story.html?hpid=z7

[Anonymous]

If you look at public policy in general, it’s important that we have a public school system that sets students up for success.   We have a shrinking middle class, unfortunately.  And it looks  more and more likely that our kids’ generation will require, at minimum, a college education just to have a good shot at being and staying middle class.  It’s unbelievable and shocking to me how many have fallen out of the middle class over the past 5 years, and the numbers are highest for minorities.     With that in mind, I think everyone in society, regardless of income or parental status, has a right to discuss the public policy choices that impact our schools.  We need our schools to set this next generation up for success.  That will mean preparation for college or some other sort of additional training beyond K-12.   I think it’s a legitimate question  whether increasing teacher salaries at this time somehow benefits kids more than spending money on something like lower teacher:student ratios, evidence-based curricula, and the ability to offer differentiated instruction.        

[Anonymous]

The rich get richer....