Hubbert wants 7% raise for teachers
Posted by BrianThe Alabama Education Association said Monday that it will seek a 7 percent pay raise for school teachers, two-year instructors and support staff when the Legislature convenes March 6.
In Monday’s issue of School Journal, Paul Hubbert, executive secretary of the AEA, said the teachers lobby would ask lawmakers for the raise for all K-14 employees, which includes junior colleges and tech schools, and a cost-of-living raise for all retirees.
The AEA is seeking a statewide raise for its members after winning increases for teachers each of the past two years.
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Alabama teachers received a 6 percent raise in 2005. In this budget year, they got a 5 percent raise plus a 2.75 percent bump in pay after lawmakers extended the 175-day school calendar to 180 days. The increases cost about $256 million.
According to the American Federation of Teachers, the last raise brought the average teacher’s pay in Alabama from $38,300 in 2004 to about $42,600 this year. The national average in 2004, the last year for which the figure was available, was $46,600, according to the AFT.
I’ll be frank; I don’t support this pay raise, although I do support paying our teachers more. Hypocrisy you say? No, I want the teachers to be paid on a merit based system and I want them you have to compete with non-government run schools. It’s not too much to ask.
You get what you pay for and if teachers in Alabama are paid less (wages plus benefits) than neighboring states then we will have inferior teachers. I am not an advocate of having inferior teachers. But I want each and every teacher to have to earn their raises - the good ones deserve good raises, the bad ones get little or no pay increase, and the ones in the middle get what they deserve as well. It works in the real world, it will work in academia.
Additionally, education money should be tied to the students so that parents can send their kids to the school of their choice, public or private, religious or secular. That will give not only students and parents more options, but also teachers. When you work for a monopoly you take what you get. What are your alternatives? If schools had to compete for teachers you would see the good teachers parley the demand for their skills into higher wages.
Union boss Hubbert had this to say about his demand:
“To anyone who believes teachers are overpaid, we ask them to try doing their jobs for a few days,” Hubbert said. He said the job has become even more burdensome under the federal No Child Left Behind law. It requires teachers to bring each student’s achievement up to grade level, he said, “regardless of any circumstances or even if the child is incapable.”
This is an interesting statement. The first sentence is utterly ridiculous. If you think professional athletes are overpaid, go try to hit a 95 m.p.h. fastball and put 30,000 butts in the seats every night. If you think doctors are overpaid, go try to remove someone’s gall bladder. I could go on, but you get the point. No one can effectively do another professional’s job without proper training and talent. Teachers don’t have an easy job, but they are (or at least should be) paid based on supply and demand just like every other profession.
He is also saying that teachers deserve more money because now they have to actually teach the kids. It’s a subtle admission that before No Child Gets Ahead the teachers weren’t educating kids up to their grade level. At the same time it highlights the absurdity of NCGA by saying (I don’t know if this is Hubbert’s view or the actual requirement of NCGA) that the federal government demands the impossible. If a child is incapable of attaining a certain grade level then it is a waste of taxpayer resources and a hindrance to the education of other children to exert significant effort to achieve the unachievable.
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February 21st, 2007 at 11:27 am
How would you judge their performance? Would you use the methods we currently have which are obviously a failure? Also, public funds shouldn’t be used at a private school. If you want to send your kids to a private school that is fine with me, but I shouldn’t have to pay for it.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:03 pm
My wife has quite a few ideas on how to evaluate teachers. Maybe I’ll get her to put virtual pen to paper and we’ll post something one day.
Why shouldn’t public funds be used to send kids to private school? Here’s my take on it. The government takes taxes from us for, among other things, the purpose of making sure children get an education. I have no problem with that. But why does the government have to be the only one that can provide that education? Remember, the goal is educating children, not propping up a union dominated monopoly of government employees.
What I am talking about is taking the money currently allotted to government schools and “giving” each child an equal share. The children and parents decide where and how the kids are educated. Maybe a government school, maybe a private religious or secular school. I would personally choose the secular school for my kids because the subject matter I want them to learn that might not be covered accurately in a religious school. Government schools would still have a competitive advantage because their infrastructure is publicly financed whereas the private schools would have to secure their own accommodations. The beauty is that competition will weed out the bad schools and teachers and will reward the good ones.
I’m not saying that it will be a panacea and that all problems will end. Kids are kids and some are tough to teach. Some parents will not exercise good judgment in selecting a school, just like many people are bad consumers. But at least those who can’t afford to buy their way into a good school district can send their kids to a better school if they so desire. That is really the heart of the matter for me. When kids are zoned to government schools, the house property values are indexed based on school quality. The result is that some people just can’t afford to move into a neighborhood with good schools because of the property values. That is a broken system that perpetuates multi-generational poor academic performance.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:15 pm
It is important to TRY and insulate the education process from different ideological, religious, and other biases. The public school system, with all its flaws, is the best way to do this.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:47 pm
A few questions simply to spur debate:
1) Why is it important to insulate the education process from the things you list?
2) Who determines what things to “insulate out”?
3) If education should in fact be insulated from the above things, then how can the government, with its ideological politicians, accomplish that better than the ruthlessly fair and efficient free market?
4) If you don’t happen to agree with the government’s method for teaching your child is it fair in our land of liberty and choice for the government to tax you to the extent that you can’t afford alternative, non-government schools thereby robbing you of your choice?