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You can't hold me to the standard of providing evidence and avoiding spurious links between assertions and evidence, when you yourself are essentially saying that cutting pay (as that is what freezing pay is if you think about cost of living) won't negatively impact schools because, well, because you think so. Seems a touch like a double standard.
But I will maintain that my argument has the force of common sense.
I didn't claim that there would be a mass exodus of teachers. I will say that the market is just right for good teaching. People go to school to teach and want to teach here because the pay is good. That creates competition. That's what good ol Republicans want (unless they just want to pull apart the whole communistic notion of public education).
While it won't work to chase teachers away, I'll grant you, pay influences motivation. I want motivated teachers.
Your argument has the force of common sense?? HAHA If teachers have to suffer through not getting raises, just like almost everyone else, and they become unmotivated and do a bad job because of it than I don't want them as teachers to begin with!
The fact is taxes are out of control and attempting to hold them at pay by freezing pay is worth a shot because it may work. If what you say is true and the whole world collapses, then you can give the teachers their raise and all order will be restored.
Competition is an excellent thing, despite what many good ol demo's would have you think. However too much competition in a rigged market (ie: the teacher's market) is a symptom of a job in which the demand is significantly higher than the supply and therefore the costs could decrease.
Call me elitist all you want. It's ad hominem and a transparent way to avoid the point at hand. Cutting costs does one thing; it cuts costs. There is no reason to believe it maintains or helps the education system.
Taking money out of anything doesn't "help" whatever you are taking money from. However there are certain excesses that need to be corrected. Why do you seem to think it's impossible for our schools to be just as good as they are if teacher salaries were capped, or pay increases were frozen over a period of time? Do you not get the hint that there are thousands of applicants for the very few teaching jobs on LI each year? Do you not see that taxes over $1000k a month and growing cannot possibley be good for our local economy?
Or do you benefit from a teachers compensation package and thus do not want it to change?
Call me elitist all you want. It's ad hominem and a transparent way to avoid the point at hand. Cutting costs does one thing; it cuts costs. There is no reason to believe it maintains or helps the education system.
No one here is saying that cutting costs helps the education system. What we are saying is that it probably won't hurt because we can still attract great teaching talent to these schools.
Effectively, we have a huge supply of skilled teachers for Long Island positions. The demand or need for new teachers or open positions is very low. The result under any sort of open economic model would be a MUCH MUCH lower level of wage and benefit. It's simple economics.
However, what has happened is that corrupt politicians and unions have artificially propped up wages and benefits to a level much higher than the equilibrium point of supply and demand.
I would argue very strongly that you could pay a wage and benefit package closer to the equilibrium point and still maintain the same level of scholastic achievement. Afterall, this isn't rocket science here. There are professors all over this country that are paid less than many of these elementary and middle school teachers in Long Island.
I'm sorry, but under any simple economic analysis, this argument that we need to "spend more money" doesn't fly.
I also think we have to challenge a few assumptions here:
The key assumption is that the current crop of teachers is great--What's to say we can't improve our teachers? Let's assume we have a young very intelligent teacher with a ton of potential sitting out there. They'll take a lower salary than an older teacher that is just counting down the days until retirement. I'm sure there are some real lazy current teachers out there and ones that have gotten very comfortable in their system. Replacing these teachers with younger motivated teachers isn't necessarily a bad thing. At the same time, you've just saved the district a lot of money in cost.
Even if a current teacher is a hard worker, what's to say they've earned it? Afterall, nepotism did fuel a lot of these hirings over the last 30 years. Imagine a totally merit based system where you replaced the dinosaurs with younger talented teachers that would take a lower pay?
Our public school system should not be used as a welfare machine to support permanent employment of subpar teachers. We should expect more and do so while trying to cut the fat at the same time.
I also think we have to challenge a few assumptions here:
The key assumption is that the current crop of teachers is great--What's to say we can't improve our teachers? Let's assume we have a young very intelligent teacher with a ton of potential sitting out there. They'll take a lower salary than an older teacher that is just counting down the days until retirement. I'm sure there are some real lazy current teachers out there and ones that have gotten very comfortable in their system. Replacing these teachers with younger motivated teachers isn't necessarily a bad thing. At the same time, you've just saved the district a lot of money in cost.
Even if a current teacher is a hard worker, what's to say they've earned it? Afterall, nepotism did fuel a lot of these hirings over the last 30 years. Imagine a totally merit based system where you replaced the dinosaurs with younger talented teachers that would take a lower pay?
Our public school system should not be used as a welfare machine to support permanent employment of subpar teachers. We should expect more and do so while trying to cut the fat at the same time.
It sounds like you aren't challenging any assumptions, you're simply throwing out a different set of them.
New York has the highest rate of migration out of state in the nation. In fact, people are leaving New York at a rate that is 50% higher than Massachusetts with the second highest rate. When more people are leaving than coming in, even politicians should recognize something is wrong. This is a first step—a small but important step—in changing that. Statement from Tom Golisano
Higher pay packages does not mean better education,..Look @ Westbury, Roosevelt and the drug problems in Merrick etc.
Higher pay packages means the average Family has to work two or more jobs to pay their property taxes/health and less time with their children.
It's not the Teachers/Police pay,(People don't understand this)..it's the Pension and Health care. Retiring @ average 16k per month. Average age of retirement is 47 between Nassua Teachers/Police. This is where your taxes go.
They leave Long Island with our money and our kids follow because they cannot afford to stay here.
Pre Free Health Care and Pension, Long Island worked and thrived,..up to 1980's. Unions where strong and thriving as well.(Which was good).
To get elected,..Polls looked at the 300k plus Teacher/Police votes in NY and accepted to pass unrelized Union contracts.
Not just Long Island but all of NYS is in ruin and can not afford property taxes even before the housing bubble.
New York has the highest rate of migration out of state in the nation. In fact, people are leaving New York at a rate that is 50% higher than Massachusetts with the second highest rate. When more people are leaving than coming in, even politicians should recognize something is wrong. This is a first step—a small but important step—in changing that.
Statement from Tom Golisano (http://www.responsiblenewyork.com/blog/statement-from-tom-golisano/ - broken link)
Higher pay packages does not mean better education,..Look @ Westbury, Roosevelt and the drug problems in Merrick etc.
Higher pay packages means the average Family has to work two or more jobs to pay their property taxes/health and less time with their children.
It's not the Teachers/Police pay,(People don't understand this)..it's the Pension and Health care. Retiring @ average 16k per month. Average age of retirement is 47 between Nassua Teachers/Police. This is where your taxes go.
They leave Long Island with our money and our kids follow because they cannot afford to stay here.
Pre Free Health Care and Pension, Long Island worked and thrived,..up to 1980's. Unions where strong and thriving as well.(Which was good).
To get elected,..Polls looked at the 300k plus Teacher/Police votes in NY and accepted to pass unrelized Union contracts.
Not just Long Island but all of NYS is in ruin and can not afford property taxes even before the housing bubble.
It's sad.
Teacher retirement, depending on which "tier" they are, is 30 years on the job or age 59-62. No teacher retires at 47 years with full pension. That's cops who have a 20 year out.
Higher pay packages does not mean better education,..Look @ Westbury, Roosevelt and the drug problems in Merrick etc.
Higher pay packages means the average Family has to work two or more jobs to pay their property taxes/health and less time with their children.
You have a point. For instance, according to Newsday, one of the highest earning teachers on LI makes well over $200,000 a year (note: he also teachers summer school swimming and after school activities to earn this). He works in Central Islip, which is certainly not a stellar school district (about 6 from the BOTTOM in rank).
Then we can consider how local private schools (religious or otherwise) compensate their teachers, which is much more like the private sector than the public schools.
Private schools are doing their job.
People pay EXTRA for their kids to attend private schools.
Private schools also attract competent teachers. (I have not heard of a "teacher shortage" for local private schools.)
They do that without the comprehensive benefits, jumbo pensions, and higher salaries of the public school teachers.
Sadly for some, the 21st century payscale plus 1950s benefits and pensions are no longer sustainable. Something has to give, and if we look at how local private schools compensate their teachers, yet still manage to attract competent teachers and provide educations consumers are willing to pay more for, the theory that "High teacher pay and benefits is what keeps LI public schools good!!!" wears very thin.
I don't think the excesses in the compensation always lead to attracting the most qualified. It seems to me, that the LI school system has turned into an overly tight knit community that may not have open arms to an outsider that is more qualified over someone that's connected. Heck, I know people from here who can't break in! But he says city teachers have more job stability these days anyway.
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Won't buy ur dime for a quarter
