More Public Pension Woes—Constructive Suggestions Wanted

[FinanceDude]

As an average figure across a school system it sounds about right
You have to pay what it takes to get qualified people.

Here is a survey from 2004

International Education Indicators - Education Across Levels - Teacher Characteristics
All of the major countries we compete with have well paid unionized teachers.
"The United States paid the third lowest average salary to public primary and upper secondary school teachers with minimum training plus 15 years of experience (about $40,000) (figure 1). Compared to the United States, England, Scotland, Japan, and Germany reported higher average salaries for public primary and upper secondary school teachers with minimum training plus 15 years of experience. In all of the G-8 countries, public school teachers at both education levels with minimum training plus 15 years of experience earned at least as much as the average GDP per capita in their respective countries (table 1)."


The USA GDP per capita is about $46,000 Remember this is just salary and does not include retirement or health benefits

Per capita income where I live is about $77,000 and teachers salaries are higher by that difference

We can go round and round forever debating the benefit and pay packages of teachers, what I am looking at is sustainability. Regardless of what promises were made in the past, those promises can not be made in the future in a lot of cases. As an educator, you probably don't understand why a lot of taxpayers outside the public sector don't want to keep paying more and more for what we perceive to be, in a lot of cases, less.........

 

[Emeritus]

Ok name the country where teachers do not get employer or state funded health insurance
I've only worked with teachers in Germany Austria Switzerland the UK and Ireland.

The UK has the lowest benefits and salaries, possibly because government schools are not the place where the elite get educated.

"
International Comparisons of Teacher Salaries

Internationally, teacher pay scales in the United States tend to be lower than those in a number of other countries, including Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands, and teaching hours tend to be longer. The gaps are particularly wide at the upper secondary (high school) level because a number of countries, unlike the United States, require higher educational qualifications and pay teachers significantly more at this level than at the primary (elementary) level. For example, salaries for upper secondary teachers with 15 years of experience and the minimum level of education and training required to be certified exceeded $40,000 in 1998 in Denmark, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands and exceeded $60,000 in Switzerland (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2000.) The comparable salary for the United States was $35,000.



See also

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/teacher-pay-around-the-world/

 

[FinanceDude]

Ok name the country where teachers do not get employer or state funded health insurance
I've only worked with teachers in Germany Austria Switzerland the UK and Ireland.

The UK has the lowest benefits and salaries, possibly because government schools are not the place where the elite get educated.

"
International Comparisons of Teacher Salaries

Internationally, teacher pay scales in the United States tend to be lower than those in a number of other countries, including Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands, and teaching hours tend to be longer. The gaps are particularly wide at the upper secondary (high school) level because a number of countries, unlike the United States, require higher educational qualifications and pay teachers significantly more at this level than at the primary (elementary) level. For example, salaries for upper secondary teachers with 15 years of experience and the minimum level of education and training required to be certified exceeded $40,000 in 1998 in Denmark, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands and exceeded $60,000 in Switzerland (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2000.) The comparable salary for the United States was $35,000.



See also

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/teacher-pay-around-the-world/

I guess I don't really care what happens in other countries, we are talking about the USA here...........

 

[ziggy29]

Ok name the country where teachers do not get employer or state funded health insurance

If its state funded; i.e. a core benefit all citizens receive separate from employment, then the public employer does not have to include the cost of health insurance as compensation. In other words, more of the compensation can come as cash.

Take two examples:

(a) $50,000 base pay with employer-provided health insurance costing $15,000 a year;

(b) $65,000 base pay and no direct employer health insurance costs (because it's taxed and managed universally by the government outside of employment).

This is equivalent compensation. But it makes it look like (b) is better compensated if one only looks at the cash component of compensation. And because U.S. employers (including government employers) tend to directly pay the bulk of employee health insurance, it stands to reason that cash compensation of U.S. teachers would be lower than in countries where employers have much lower direct costs of providing health insurance for employees. It is true that (b) would likely be taxes higher for having more income and to pay for the national health program, but on the income side, that's not relevant.

Also, to compare apples to apples it should be noted that most developed nations have school years that are longer than that in the U.S.; the typical U.S. school year is 180 days whereas in many other places it's over 200 and as much as 240 days in Japan. So yes, a shorter year means more time off the job which should also correlate to lower annual salary.

 

[youbet]

Comparing average levels of public teacher salaries across countries is ridiculous. The averages mean absolutely nothing. The disparity in teacher compensation from a beginning teacher in the rural south to a six figure salary in a rich urban area shows we have both severely underpaid and wildly overpaid teachers here, regardless of the "average" pay.

What matters is whether what we pay in any school district is just what it takes to attract and retain (to the extent we even want to retain) competent teachers in a competitive marketplace.

 

[ziggy29]

What matters is whether what we pay in any school district is just what it takes to attract and retain (to the extent we even want to retain) competent teachers in a competitive marketplace.

Bingo. You don't nearly need to pay as much in my town as you would in San Francisco, or even in Austin for that matter. Where I live, $40K is a great job. When I lived in San Jose? Not so much. It's all about what's competitive in your local job market.

 

[youbet]

It's all about what's competitive in your local job market.

And it's about whether the market place is being allowed to function free of artificial constraints or barriers to entry, such as union contracts or union - political party relationships, or if those things are muddying the waters of supply and demand.

If we want sharp, effective, hard working math teachers and you have to pay $100k to get them, so be it. But that doesn't mean that social studies teachers in massive oversupply and willing to work for $30k should get the higher wage as well.

We really need to get the competitive forces of supply and demand working again.

 

[FinanceDude]

The cost of public education in Wisconsin per student is nearly $13,000 a year. That is a LOT of money.............

 

[HsiaoChu]

If we want sharp, effective, hard working math teachers and you have to pay $100k to get them, so be it. But that doesn't mean that social studies teachers in massive oversupply and willing to work for $30k should get the higher wage as well.
We really need to get the competitive forces of supply and demand working again.

This of course means that social studies is a waste of time and no one needs to have quality education in this area. I suppose also since early childhood education is less important because people might think that its less involved to teacher early childhood reading despite the fact that without a solid base nothing in higher grades will be accomplished.

I differ strongly in the view that certain school subjects are inherently more important than other subjects and that because of this importance that the professionals in those subjects should be paid less. I certainly know that the training is no less intensive , and no less rigorous. Just because my daughter needed to have me pay a huge amount of money to get her through high school algebra 2, and her brother actually majored in both Mathematics and Physics doesn't make his knowledge base better than hers.

If its the market place that does it, then the job that she has where her writing skills are required and her ability to do calculus is not, makes her marketplace experience more important than his.

When people start talking about using the marketplace to determine who gets the most salary in education, to me, its more of a sign that the person has a very skewed view of what education needs to be in a public setting. Now in a private setting, where the student may go to a mathematics and science school, or a music and arts school, then that's different. But in the public setting, the school has a responsibility to make sure that the students get quality education in ALL AREAS OF LEARNING, not just those that may be in short supply.

This is the difference between having a "free and appropriate" education provided by the government. Every area of learning gets to have the same importance attached to it. We screen our social studies teacher with no less level of preparation and accomplishment than we do with our mathematics teachers.

I choose to differ with this poster on this subject.

Z

 

[yakers]

I am somewhere in between. I do not believe some subject in inherently more important than another. Who knows, PE may be critical for one kid, or music or history. But it does need to be acknowledged that it may cost $100K to get a good high school math teacher if the area is near any large city with a demand for math specialists in industry. I have seen this in the Federal Govt, we want to employ physicians but the top pay is about $150K and that is at career high and head of a department. So only people with non financial motivations tend to go into these parts of govt service.

 

[FinanceDude]

This is the difference between having a "free and appropriate" education provided by the government.

How is education "free"?

 

[ziggy29]

This of course means that social studies is a waste of time and no one needs to have quality education in this area. I suppose also since early childhood education is less important because people might think that its less involved to teacher early childhood reading despite the fact that without a solid base nothing in higher grades will be accomplished.

I differ strongly in the view that certain school subjects are inherently more important than other subjects and that because of this importance that the professionals in those subjects should be paid less. I certainly know that the training is no less intensive , and no less rigorous. Just because my daughter needed to have me pay a huge amount of money to get her through high school algebra 2, and her brother actually majored in both Mathematics and Physics doesn't make his knowledge base better than hers.

For most of the real world, the amount of "rigor" in the studied curriculum has little or nothing to do with it. Ask any company out there -- one that actually has to worry about silly things like competition and market forces -- and see how many of them will pay the same amount to a typical employee with a master's degree in social studies as to one with a bachelor's in math, science or engineering.

The M.S. in social sciences will probably get paid considerably less despite having a couple years more education than the B.S. in engineering.

 

[clifp]

Or a real one: In 1983(or back when the interest rates were unbelievable and people thought we were turning into Germany in the 30's) my aunt took advantage of the 15% bank interest rates on CD's and bought two 30,000 buck CD's for a 30 year term. What possessed her bank to offer that rate at 30 years is beyond me. When she died in 1995, interest rates were down to ABOUT 5%. They were so happy that they didn't have to keep paying her $9000 a year which she was just rolling letting it ride. God did she make an awful amount of money on that bank over those 13 years.

But they should have been able to say, "Hey Louisa, I'm sorry interest rates have dropped, so I'm sorry we're converting your CD's to an adjustable rate."

Z

AFAIK, most CDs are issued with a conditional put on the death of the holder. In normal circumstances, this simplifies disposing of an estate (i.e. not having to wait for the CD to mature), although I obviously in some cases this is a great deal for the bank also. So I think banks was not violating any contracts.

Smart aunt BTW, since most people back in then (Including me with my 13.75% mortgage) thought high interest rates were here to stay.

 

[HsiaoChu]

For most of the real world, the amount of "rigor" in the studied curriculum has little or nothing to do with it. Ask any company out there -- one that actually has to worry about silly things like competition and market forces -- and see how many of them will pay the same amount to a typical employee with a master's degree in social studies as to one with a bachelor's in math, science or engineering.

The M.S. in social sciences will probably get paid considerably less despite having a couple years more education than the B.S. in engineering.

This is one of the many reasons why public education is a function of government not a business. If we had no public education, and only private business oriented education, only the rich would be educated. That was the system before free and appropriate education existed.

There are many other reasons, not the least of which is that 85% of what educators have to do(and that most taxpayers hate) comes from mandates, funded and unfunded from your state and Federal politicians.

Z

 

[HsiaoChu]

AFAIK, most CDs are issued with a conditional put on the death of the holder. In normal circumstances, this simplifies disposing of an estate (i.e. not having to wait for the CD to mature), although I obviously in some cases this is a great deal for the bank also. So I think banks was not violating any contracts.

Smart aunt BTW, since most people back in then (Including me with my 13.75% mortgage) thought high interest rates were here to stay.

I know the banks never violated any contracts. When she died, I discovered every tax return back to the beginning of federal and state income taxes. She patiently kept records on ever transaction she ever made from 1933 to 1995.

 

[ziggy29]

This is one of the many reasons why public education is a function of government not a business. If we had no public education, and only private business oriented education, only the rich would be educated. That was the system before free and appropriate education existed.

But on the other hand, you get a situation where we can't get the best math and science minds in the classroom because we ignore the laws of economics in the public sector and insist that their labor is of equal worth when the marketplace very clearly says that's not the case.

So I'm learning a lot here. Some educators clearly don't seem to want to have their performance evaluated, don't seem to want pay based on merit, don't seem want to acknowledge economic realities like supply, demand, competition, market-based economics and job insecurity. Guess that's why they chose a career in the public sector in some cases. Apparently the thought is that we can pretend economic forces aren't relevant there forever.

 

[Westernskies]

But on the other hand, you get a situation where we can't get the best math and science minds in the classroom because we ignore the laws of economics in the public sector and insist that their labor is of equal worth when the marketplace very clearly says that's not the case.

So I'm learning a lot here. Some educators clearly don't seem to want to have their performance evaluated, don't seem to want pay based on merit, don't seem want to acknowledge economic realities like supply, demand, competition, market-based economics and job insecurity. Guess that's why they chose a career in the public sector in some cases. Apparently the thought is that we can pretend economic forces aren't relevant there forever.

+1

 

[youbet]

This of course means that social studies is a waste of time and no one needs to have quality education in this area.

There is an insulting level of dishonesty in this statement Z. My post makes no demeaning statement regarding the importance of social studies, only that social studies teachers (in our area) are in over supply and math teachers in under supply. We cannot afford to pay all teachers a salary level high enough to attract sufficient people into teaching math. So we do without. It's a shame to do this to the children and I feel it's an unsavory union tactic.

I suppose also since early childhood education is less important because people might think that its less involved to teacher early childhood reading despite the fact that without a solid base nothing in higher grades will be accomplished.

Only if you are saying that, and apparently you are. My post makes absolutely no such argument. Your insinuation that that is what I think is dishonest.

I differ strongly in the view that certain school subjects are inherently more important than other subjects and that because of this importance that the professionals in those subjects should be paid less. I certainly know that the training is no less intensive , and no less rigorous. Just because my daughter needed to have me pay a huge amount of money to get her through high school algebra 2, and her brother actually majored in both Mathematics and Physics doesn't make his knowledge base better than hers.

I made no mention of importance of subjects in school. But I do believe that if highly qualified teachers of some subject areas are consistently in over supply, it is ridiculous to pay them as much as teachers in stark under supply. I can, however, understand how unions fight for these equal pay rules as it benefits them...... but it certainly does not benefit the children.

When people start talking about using the marketplace to determine who gets the most salary in education, to me, its more of a sign that the person has a very skewed view of what education needs to be in a public setting.

Only if it's your view being skewed. My view is that we need to provide an outstanding level of public education to the children of all families who require public education. Excellent teachers should be recruited and should be retained if their performance is outstanding. Pay should be directed where it is needed to attract the talent that is needed and never wasted on over paying talent that is readily available for less.

 

[youbet]

So I'm learning a lot here.

I think we all are. Although I'd encourage you to not draw any conclusions based only on the voices of a small number of teachers.

Some educators clearly don't seem to want to have their performance evaluated, don't seem to want pay based on merit, don't seem want to acknowledge economic realities like supply, demand, competition, market-based economics and job insecurity.

It is really their union talking. Teachers unions are the strongest in the country today. The behaviors you mention are common union tactics and there are pros and cons. The con here is that the equal pay for all subject areas issue keeps school districts from being able to afford to pay enough to attract hard-to-recruit teachers (math, science, languages, special ed, etc) and needs are going unmet. It's a shame. It's the children that are paying the price.

Guess that's why they chose a career in the public sector in some cases. Apparently the thought is that we can pretend economic forces aren't relevant there forever.

It some cases I'd agree. I think most teachers are sincere in their desire to be good at their profession and act in the best interest of the children. Sometimes self-interest and/or greed becomes the overriding factor. We need to be careful not to paint with too broad a brush.

 

[samclem]

We've drifted a bit in this thread (what's new!), but here's an article about CDS products some state and municipal employees/retirees might find interesting. If you think your municipality might go broke, you can "bet against" their bonds and make some money if they default. I don't know if you have to own the bond or not. From the article:

As U.S. cities and towns wrestle with financial problems, investors are finding a new way to profit on their misery: by buying derivatives that essentially bet municipalities will default.
. . .
The proliferation of the derivatives is angering treasurers around the country, who say the derivatives are sending a negative message and possibly driving up their costs of borrowing at a time when they need all the help they can get.
. . .
Municipal CDS are documented by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., which settles derivatives trades. The contracts are currently trading on California, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Maryland and Texas. Credit default swaps also are traded for New York City, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and many other taxing districts.
The derivatives also can be traded through an index called the Markit MCDX set up in 2008 by data provider Markit. The index tracks CDS for an underlying basket of 50 issuers of municipal bonds. It is now trading at a spread of about 1.3% of the value of the bonds being insured, but has been as low as 0.40% and as high as 3.5%. The spread is what the buyer must pay to the seller of the protection every year over the life of the contract. This is calculated as a percentage of the value of the contract. California, for example—the state with the widest spread—is now trading at just under 1.9%. That means if a buyer wanted to protect $1 million worth of five-year bonds, it would cost about $19,000 a year for five years.

 

[youbet]

They are in Wisconsin.there are 2 buckets, fixed and variable. The variable bucket lost 25% or so in the 2008 meltdown, so in my dad's case. the variable payout amount of his pension went down 25%. It is reset each year. He grumbled but he only has 50% in variable. Mom has always been 100% in fixed so she didn't complain.........

I like the Wisconsin system.

Here's a pdf with an explanation of how they did in 2009 and the respective adjustments to the Core (fixed) and Variable options.

http://etf.wi.gov/news/pr_20100309.pdf

The WRS, unlike many public employee pension systems, does not provide for an annual cost-of-living increase. Annuity adjustments depend solely on the investment returns of the trust funds and current and projected WRS funding needs.

 

[clifp]

We've drifted a bit in this thread (what's new!), but here's an article about CDS products some state and municipal employees/retirees might find interesting. If you think your municipality might go broke, you can "bet against" their bonds and make some money if they default. I don't know if you have to own the bond or not. From the article:

"California, for example—the state with the widest spread—is now trading at just under 1.9%. That means if a buyer wanted to protect $1 million worth of five-year bonds, it would cost about $19,000 a year for five years. "

That is interesting because 5 year California muni bonds are yielding between 1%- 3.2% so basically it cost as much to insure them as they are yielding..

 

[HsiaoChu]

So I'm learning a lot here. Some educators clearly don't seem to want to have their performance evaluated, don't seem to want pay based on merit, don't seem want to acknowledge economic realities like supply, demand, competition, market-based economics and job insecurity. Guess that's why they chose a career in the public sector in some cases.

What you don't understand here is that compared even to the somewhat regulated occupations, educators have very little control lover what they do and can do. More than 85% of the requirements for public education come from funded and unfunded public mandates from yours and my politicians.

Beyond that, educators have no problem being evaluated, but its not like their product in an inanimate object. Its a human being, and as such the number of variables that educators have no control over is great. In other occupations which have a product, that they have to have evaluated, they control for the variables. And they make great effort TO control the variables.

I suggest that you move to this forum(below listed) and look at some of the significant variables that impact education. If you have a class of 20, and even three of the kids are seriously affected by these variables, your whole averages will be brought down dramatically, and then you have a bad teacher, when none of that is true.

Anyone who has actually taught a class for any period of time knows how many of these variables for education are not controlled, and if teachers are to be evaluated on performance, then we need to look more seriously at this. Right now its simply being ignored as if it didn't exist.


Economic demand and competition should not have to impact the quality of the education that you want for your children. This is why we have public education. The availability of education isn't and cannot be determined by the market place. If you do that, then we should do the same for firemen and the police. Public services must be available to everyone at the same rate. You shouldn't just have some kinds of services available and others not. If this is not obvious, then you should try it with the market place running everything. I don't think that you'll like the result. And in places where services need to be provided, but only those which have high marketing get any thing, people do complain.

If you take it a step further, and simply give the math and physics people the $100k then you will have to take it away from the kdg teacher, who will then find some occupation. What will happen is that we will then develop rolling shortages of different kinds of educators. The end result will not be a consistent and stable education for your child, nor will these rolling shortages allow the educational system to properly train its workforce.

Right now Boeing has some plane that they've been making for years. The workforce on this place is very skilled and they are concerned that if there are no more orders then the workforce that is very highly trained will be dispersed. This is just for an inanimate object, not out children.

Another aspect of this whole problem involves the wrong idea that the education and training of skilled teachers is simply the goal of the teacher. Functional educational systems develop their programs cohesively across the district, making sure that research based programs are used and that research based teaching methods are used. These research based methods are very rarely taught in the universities because those organizations are generally about 15 years behind the times. The difference between good and bad teachers in regards to teaching often comes down to whether the district administrators are any good, because they are the ones who set up the climate and the on-going training to keep teachers up with the latest research based strategies.

This really is ROCKET SCIENCE. The whole issue is the most complicated of any issue that we confront today because its not widgets that we have to make malleable but children. And besides all of this, children are not just small adults. They are busy physically maturing during the process(a moving target). From age birth to 10 their brains actually double in size, and then just as they have stabilized in their brain growth at age 10-12, their hormones kick in. But we treat kids as if they are like college students. BELIEVE ME THAT AFTER 40 YEARS IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES........Nothing could be further from the truth.

For a larger discussion of the variables for education go here:

Variables that teachers have no control over.... - Education -universities, high schools, elementary schools, teachers... - City-Data Forum

Z

 

[Texas Proud]

Z....

Again, your post seem to be saying that we can not measure teachers because of all the variables etc... but then you say that we need to keep teachers 'for a properly trained workforce'... if you can not measure how a teacher does, how do you know if they are properly trained

I am not a policeman or firefighter, but I do think they are measured... someone can chime in on that...

Your quote "The difference between good and bad teachers in regards to teaching often comes down to whether the district administrators are any good, because they are the ones who set up the climate and the on-going training to keep teachers up with the latest research based strategies."


SOOOO, you admit that there ARE good and bad teachers... that is progress IMO... before you seemed to imply all teachers were the same.. because we could not 'measure' if a teacher is good or bad.. now that we KNOW that there are good and bad teachers... HOW DO WE GET RID OF THE BAD ONES


My sister was a teacher for 40 years also... and I remember her telling me once that the number of children who had this problem or that problem had increased may X over the years... it seems that the admin wanted as many children labled as 'damaged' so they could show that they could not educate them the same because of the variables... I think one of the is ADHD... she said she did not see any difference over the years... but the number listed skyrocketed... so this seems to be CYA on their part...

 

[Emeritus]

Sure there are bad teachers. There is simply no easy way of determining that from standardized tests on the children. We measure police and firemen but not by testing the fire or the criminal

Not to mention who would want to be a teacher under such circumstances?