PINE RICHLAND RESIDENTS...increase in school taxes/teacher contract negotiations....are you concerned? (Pittsburgh: foreclosure, loan)

[southeastlady]

Originally Posted by LIRefugee

Teachers, in general, are very important to the long-term viability to a society. Without education, you have zilch. If you want high-performing teachers, you have to pay for them. You get what you pay for.

Not with tenure you don't.

[LIRefugee]

So you feel that high salaries are not necessary to attract high-performing teachers, and that talented people would be content to be paid little?

[gg]

Originally Posted by LIRefugee

So you feel that high salaries are not necessary to attract high-performing teachers, and that talented people would be content to be paid little?

Who ever said anything about being "paid little"? Being over paid is not saying we don't want to give teachers a good wage. Look at the wildly high wages they are paid for working 180 days. In my district they can make over $100K. What about not paying into their medical? What about those wild pensions that are the noose around our children's necks? What are you going to say to the 3rd grade kid when they get to high school and there is no music and very little options in any art, or physical education? Who is going to pay for all this? Do you feel everyone living in any school district in our region has deep pockets? What about those who are on fixed incomes and they are retied living in the same home for 50 years? Too bad, we have been giving in to teacher's unions for so long we had to raise taxes for the past 10 straight years and you are just out of luck. We don't negotiate with teacher's unions because we fear a strike.

No one said anything about not paying teachers well, but there are limits and what you seem to be overlooking is who this will hurt in the long run. It is going to hurt educating our kids because there will be no money left due to these crazy pensions. Why can't people see this coming? Heck it is already here and people STILL can't see it.

[southeastlady]

Originally Posted by southeastlady

Not with tenure you don't.

Originally Posted by LIRefugee

So you feel that high salaries are not necessary to attract high-performing teachers, and that talented people would be content to be paid little?

How do we know how talented these teachers really are if they are completely secure in their jobs once they reach the tenure level? This is not a merit system.

Salaries are based on steps and not job performance so there is a great disparity in salaries between the newer and more seasoned teachers regardless of their teaching ability in Pine Richland.

Due to tenure, teaching positions are so difficult to acquire regardless of your degree accomplishments that these poor folks just want a job and are not looking in simply the highest salaried districts.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

Hopes, where are you moving to? Are you merely moving across the county border? Or are you really leaving the area for a quaint rural small town like Ligonier?

Still in the planning phase. We could end up across the county border, in a quaint rural small town, or in another city entirely out of state. Heck, we might leave the country! (We plan to do that eventually anyway.) At this time, we are seriously considering a relocation out of state but might end up in a quaint rural small town. We're tossing around the possibility of some high cost of living areas vs some low tax states. We have plenty of years until retirement so we're in no rush, but there is nothing holding us to the Pittsburgh area now that our children have left the nest. I'm a wanderlust at heart. Hubby can work anywhere. It really depends on which direction I want to take my business. I'm torn between something that requires land and outbuildings for creative space or a trendy city with great storefront neighborhoods.

[LIRefugee]

So no one can agree that teachers are valuable to society and should be paid well (assuming they do the job well)?

[Mtl-Cns]

Originally Posted by LIRefugee

So you feel that high salaries are not necessary to attract high-performing teachers, and that talented people would be content to be paid little?

Of course that makes total sense, as does tenure in a situation when you've got a group of people like this trying to tell you how well you are doing your job and how much you should be compensated despite the fact that they have no training or understanding of how to do your job at all! Something that would NEVER happen in private industry, and in fact couldn't happen, which is exactly why public sector jobs require a different type of protection and collective bargaining. Time to capitulate here because at this point this argument is like trying to convince a bunch of Fox news addicts that Obama isn't a Muslim.

[southeastlady]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

Who ever said anything about being "paid little"? Being over paid is not saying we don't want to give teachers a good wage. Look at the wildly high wages they are paid for working 180 days. In my district they can make over $100K. What about not paying into their medical? What about those wild pensions that are the noose around our children's necks? What are you going to say to the 3rd grade kid when they get to high school and there is no music and very little options in any art, or physical education? Who is going to pay for all this? Do you feel everyone living in any school district in our region has deep pockets? What about those who are on fixed incomes and they are retied living in the same home for 50 years? Too bad, we have been giving in to teacher's unions for so long we had to raise taxes for the past 10 straight years and you are just out of luck. We don't negotiate with teacher's unions because we fear a strike.

No one said anything about not paying teachers well, but there are limits and what you seem to be overlooking is who this will hurt in the long run. It is going to hurt educating our kids because there will be no money left due to these crazy pensions. Why can't people see this coming? Heck it is already here and people STILL can't see it.

You are right on the money with your post.

It is unfortunate that people just sit back and do not choose to inform themselves with the politics of their district until it is too late.

As far as attracting quality talent, in Pine Richland when the average benefit costs are added to salaries, the average daily total compensation range is from $337-$606 per day or from $43-$78 per hour.

Anyone our there interested in working nor $43/hour???

[southeastlady]

Originally Posted by Mtl-Cns

Of course that makes total sense, as does tenure in a situation when you've got a group of people like this trying to tell you how well you are doing your job and how much you should be compensated despite the fact that they have no training or understanding of how to do your job at all! Something that would NEVER happen in private industry, and in fact couldn't happen, which is exactly why public sector jobs require a different type of protection and collective bargaining. Time to capitulate here because at this point this argument is like trying to convince a bunch of Fox news addicts that Obama isn't a Muslim.

Since you brought this up and this thread is referencing public education, in Mr. Obams's first book, "DREAMS FROM MY FATHER", he stated that he received a better education in the years he attended the Muslim Madrassa than he did in the years he attended the Indonesian public school system.

I would bet that the Muslim Madrassa did not use the "tenure sytem".

[WhoIsStanwix?]

Originally Posted by southeastlady

You are right on the money with your post.

It is unfortunate that people just sit back and do not choose to inform themselves with the politics of their district until it is too late.

As far as attracting quality talent, in Pine Richland when the average benefit costs are added to salaries, the average daily total compensation range is from $337-$606 per day or from $43-$78 per hour.

Anyone our there interested in working nor $43/hour???

If you live in P-R, I hope you're making double that. All joking aside, you're living in a desirable area. Would you want your own teachers to be priced out of your neighborhood and residing elsewhere? It's a serious question, but your answer may just be that you want them to live elsewhere. Ignoring taxes, home prices are still such that it would be tough to make less than that and afford to live there, especially because it's unlikely a teacher could make more than $15-20 an hour in the summer if they so chose to work during that time.

Edit: I notice that you say the hourly compensation numbers include benefit costs as well (not sure if this is pension benefits or just healthcare). Maybe a teacher would need triple that income to live in the area and not be underwater in debt. If your goal here is to preserve property values, which you alluded to before, are you really just saying that you want more and more young families priced out? That's what goes on in some towns in CT (where I've lived in the past), where high-income or fixed-income empty nest tax bases prefer high property values to keep young families out of the area and therefore keep public education costs down.