Wash Post article on Montgomery County salaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8% raises would be insane...especially for a teacher who has summers off and a tremendous amount of vacation days (winter and spring break, holidays).

I would love to see you teach for one year and see if you felt the same way. I hope you don't have kids too. Wouldn't you want your children having a highly qualified teacher teaching your children getting paid what they deserve?

Teaching is one of many professions that are extremely underpaid for their work.

Newsflash: very few people are paid what they "deserve."

Starting salaries for public interest lawyers who work with homeless people and at-risk youth are under $50k. Ditto for social workers and nurses. And they don't enjoy the same health and retirement benefits that teachers do (since they don't have unions).

Think about that.

[Anonymous]

^And again: do the math. Divide your salary by ten months, then compare it to a social worker (who needs an MSW before she starts her job...ditto with the legal aid lawyer) by dividing their salary by twelve months. Teachers are paid much more, even without factoring in their significant health and retirement benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am an MCPS teacher who is leaving the public school system. I am sick of performing at a very high level while others coast and make the system look terrible. I believe there should be incentives and rewards for teachers who do good work, as opposed to uniform raises for all. I wish it were easier to get rid of bad teachers. Instead, the good ones flee, because the system is stuck in mediocrity and the wonderful teachers resent that the system equally rewards the great and the awful teachers. I also think the county should start tracking school retention numbers. If you want to see whether a school has decent leadership, evaluate the number of high-achieving professionals who are leaving. That will speak volumes.

While I don't necessarily disagree, how do you evaluate teacher competence? A great teacher could have a classroom full of idiots and only make a small gain despite a doing a fabulous job; a terrible teacher could have a classroom full of geniuses and make a large gain despite doing a terrible job. It's hard to measure what kids "should" learn since so much is tied up with the kids natural ability. I have friends who are teachers; apparently everybody "knows" who the bad teachers are. I'm just unaware of any way to rate teachers that's not heavily dependent on the luck if the draw in getting students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an MCPS teacher who is leaving the public school system. I am sick of performing at a very high level while others coast and make the system look terrible. I believe there should be incentives and rewards for teachers who do good work, as opposed to uniform raises for all. I wish it were easier to get rid of bad teachers. Instead, the good ones flee, because the system is stuck in mediocrity and the wonderful teachers resent that the system equally rewards the great and the awful teachers. I also think the county should start tracking school retention numbers. If you want to see whether a school has decent leadership, evaluate the number of high-achieving professionals who are leaving. That will speak volumes.

While I don't necessarily disagree, how do you evaluate teacher competence? A great teacher could have a classroom full of idiots and only make a small gain despite a doing a fabulous job; a terrible teacher could have a classroom full of geniuses and make a large gain despite doing a terrible job. It's hard to measure what kids "should" learn since so much is tied up with the kids natural ability. I have friends who are teachers; apparently everybody "knows" who the bad teachers are. I'm just unaware of any way to rate teachers that's not heavily dependent on the luck if the draw in getting students.

This is true. I work in a high FARMS/ESOL school and am considered to be good at what I do, by subjective and objective measures. But if my pay starts being tied to student performance under the guise of "teacher competence", then I'm high-tailing it to a different part of the county. I can't undo the effects of poverty in 6.5 hours/day. Ultimately I would have to put my family's well-being first.

[Anonymous]

Teacher pay will never be tied to test scores in mcps. Period.

[Anonymous]

I think the issue here is that there is a direct trade-off with class sizes. I would love to have well paid teachers, but classes are just getting too big and it just doesn't seem like a responsible decision to give pay raises now.

[Anonymous]

So what is the proposal? Zero? Less than 8? What?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm pretty sure we switched to 2.0 because not all of the kids were having their needs met. Glad to hear that problem has been resolved.

Actually we switched to Curriculum 2.0 because Maryland adopted the Common Core State Standards and so MCPS had to have a curriculum that aligned with the Maryland/Common Core standards.

[Anonymous]

People have to remember that the school system and actual county government aren't actually directly related. The school system does receive funding from the government but acts as it's own entity.

Back when it was voted to give up the pay raises during the downturn in the economy, all county government employees likewise did not receive raises. I think some city government employees still had raises during those years.

However when the school system reimplemented the raises afterwards, they were the only/first "county" organization to do so. And it caused controversy and maybe some resentment among other county employees. Where some would argue why the school system got raises, while others such as firefighters and police officers did not. So keep in mind to not group county services when talking about the school system's budget.

It's been argued on here back and forth about if teacher salaries are worth it. One of the arguments that I thought was a good one was that in many jobs, not just teaching jobs, people often work longer hours or put in more than they're officially paid for.

Also if you compare the salaries in Montgomery County Public Schools against the salaries of surrounding counties, it's evident that the employees at Montgomery County are well compensated based on salary alone. Fairfax County may follow similar scales to Montgomery County.

The issue as another poster in this thread mentioned is that the same benefits are given across the board regardless of performance. So a teacher who has a class of 75% FARMs students (to use an example of a previous post) will be given the same raise and benefits as someone who might have a cushier and easier job. This is also a point that some teachers make. Where some believe that teachers in more of the harder areas should be compensated a little bit more than teachers that don't have to deal with the same issues that they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don't get paid over the summer..

I know. They get paid for ten months and essentially work closer to nine months.

My friend earns over $90k...that's $10k a month.

That's not completely accurate. They don't get any actual vacation time. Paid time off is composed of 3 personal days and 10 sick days. Yes, thats zero vacation time paid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the "hate" stems from jealousy.

We have a great gig. We make an actual difference in peoples' lives. If you ask anyone who has had the biggest impact on your life, I bet you more than 50% of people would say a teacher or coach is that person.

Add that, to the fact we have eight consecutive weeks off and snow days, and we are not liked. They think we should be paid minimum wage as glorified babysitters.

We all had career day - some of us were smart and chose to become teachers.

So which is it: it's a sweet gig, or it's such a demanding job that you deserve to paid a premium?

Good point

Teachers don't seem to realize that, in 2016, no credible profession is unionized by law. And obviously that impacts pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an MCPS teacher who is leaving the public school system. I am sick of performing at a very high level while others coast and make the system look terrible. I believe there should be incentives and rewards for teachers who do good work, as opposed to uniform raises for all. I wish it were easier to get rid of bad teachers. Instead, the good ones flee, because the system is stuck in mediocrity and the wonderful teachers resent that the system equally rewards the great and the awful teachers. I also think the county should start tracking school retention numbers. If you want to see whether a school has decent leadership, evaluate the number of high-achieving professionals who are leaving. That will speak volumes.

While I don't necessarily disagree, how do you evaluate teacher competence? A great teacher could have a classroom full of idiots and only make a small gain despite a doing a fabulous job; a terrible teacher could have a classroom full of geniuses and make a large gain despite doing a terrible job. It's hard to measure what kids "should" learn since so much is tied up with the kids natural ability. I have friends who are teachers; apparently everybody "knows" who the bad teachers are. I'm just unaware of any way to rate teachers that's not heavily dependent on the luck if the draw in getting students.

This is true. I work in a high FARMS/ESOL school and am considered to be good at what I do, by subjective and objective measures. But if my pay starts being tied to student performance under the guise of "teacher competence", then I'm high-tailing it to a different part of the county. I can't undo the effects of poverty in 6.5 hours/day. Ultimately I would have to put my family's well-being first.

As the parent to a middle-class kid in a high FARMS/ESOL school, can I ask you a question? From the sidelines, it certainly seems like all the kids (including low income kids and ELLs) are making progress. They may not have started 2nd grade at a Q in reading, but they are making slow and steady progress from their own baselines. Do you not see the same?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have better health and retirement benefits than most people on dcum.

Quick show of hands: who got an 8% raise last year?

Anyone?

8% is a lot.

While my employer is legendarily stingy on salary increases, I got a 2% raise the last several years. However no raise in 2016 due to reorganization and related expenses.

Next raise opportunity is March, 2017. I'm not holding my breath.

8% is pretty large.

As a Fed, we got zero raises for three years, then 1% for the last two years.

We didn't get raises during the recession (like many orgs). We got 3% increases last year, and we are hoping to get 3% raises this year.

I'm sorry, but 8% is crazy.

What was their increase last year? And what about step increases?

[Anonymous]

I am a teacher in MCPS and I haven't heard 8%. That seems excessive and high. I have never heard of getting a raise greater than 3%.

Is the 8% over a certain number of years? The article doesn't say. I wish it included more information about that "average 8%"

And I love how the article mentions fire and police. The Post LOVES to pit fire and police against the teachers. Well done, Post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher in MCPS and I haven't heard 8%. That seems excessive and high. I have never heard of getting a raise greater than 3%.

Is the 8% over a certain number of years? The article doesn't say. I wish it included more information about that "average 8%"

And I love how the article mentions fire and police. The Post LOVES to pit fire and police against the teachers. Well done, Post.

I think the 8% is described here:

"About three-quarters of the $100 million is earmarked for the 156,000-student school system. In 2014, the county Board of Education signed an agreement with unionized teachers, principals and support staff that calls for a 2 percent general wage hike and a 3 percent “step” or longevity increase in September, followed by another step increase in March averaging an additional 3 percent for some school employees."

So it's coming from the two step increases that were making up for the years that they had salary freezes and I think the two percent general wage hike is the cost of living adjustment.

I'm not sure if all employees will get the two makeup step increases or only the ones that were employed when they had the salary freeze.