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Really? This is exactly what Long Island is! The districts with the highest taxes have the best schools!
Highest taxes in what way? Total taxes per home, tax as a percentage of home value, or total taxes received from all homes?
Districts with the highest median incomes have the best schools. This is independent of taxes charged. That is because economic status, parent participation, family values, and many other factors are strong predictors of educational success then the earnings of the teachers.
In fact, I would argue that paying teachers less might lead to better educational outcomes, simply because if you paid teachers 75% of what they currently made and took that money and reinvested into hiring more teachers you could hire 33% more teachers. We know that class sizes has an effect on education, so more teachers would be better for the children. Therefore, less pay for more teachers is better then more pay for less teachers.
That article is funny, where the Suffolk County Director says how voters realized how important schools are. No, we realized 3 things about school budget votes.
1. Teacher's salaries aren't included in the budget vote
2. They extort us by threatening us that if we don't accept the increases then we will lose certain aid, that they successfully lobbied to have attached to a budget being passed, and our property tax increases will end up being even more ludicrous without the aid.
3. That when you "vote" for the budget you only vote for a small portion of the budget, usually sports and after school activities.
What I propose is that you make the community vote on the teacher's contract. When a teacher contract is negotiated the members of the union have to vote for the contract. They allow the people that pay the salaries to vote on whether or not they want that contract as well. This would give us a better demonstration of what the taxpayers think of their teaching force.
Highly unusual (they each earned over 50,000.00 in coaching and summer school activities) and I would agree that it takes about 30 years to get to the highest points on district salary scales (about $ 130,000.00). Your article indicates average salary (at 15 years or so) to be in the mid-eighties.
I know of two brothers, both teachers, one made $128,000 and the other $138,000 in 2010 as strictly a school teacher. Not an admin, not a coach, stricly teaching from 8-2:30 from September through June. I'm happy for both, as they have wives that are teachers as well and live very well. $500k+ home by the bay, luxury automobiles, multiple vacations a year. Living the dream, they certainly made the right career choice.
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