Shawn
The reference to a "bonus" is really a misnomer. The Board's rate of contribution to STRS is a part of the collective bargaining agreement, and as such is actually part of the scheduled compensation. Although referring to it as a "bonus" is inaccurate, it does foster a discussion of compsenation tied to performance.
Jeff
Should Lakewood Teachers Give Up Their Bonus?
Moderator: Jim O'Bryan
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Jeff Endress
- Posts: 858
- Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:13 am
- Location: Lakewood
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Charyn Compeau
- Posts: 324
- Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 3:11 pm
Shawn,
While I can appreciate the desire to see results for your tax dollars invested in teachers - there are some factors that make it more difficult that one might think at first blush.
Taking your cook for the example - when a cook is held to the standard that he must make the food promptly and properly it is important to also realize that the cook is provided a complete kitchen, working equipment, and quality products to work with.
If the oven is broke - no baked goods
If the turkey is spoiled - no turkey
Those instances are not held against the cook, In fact, the cook is rewarded if he can work around those obstacles and still make all of the plates that don't require an oven or turkey with the same standard of promptness and accuracy that he would if he faced no obstacles.
I am sure you see where I am going with this... teachers that face problems with facilities or supplies, or teachers that have disruptive children or children with special needs in their class, face unique challenges that make benchmarking difficult even in the best school systems.
this is the crux of the argument against NCLB.
While I do agree that we do need to keep schools accountable, I also believe we need to tread carefully in how we establish the metrics we will use. And then at what point does the monitoring begin to interfere with the educational system? How much money do we want to earmark for monitoring & testing? Etc.etc.
What none of us should do is jump to conclusions or expect that there will be an easy answer. Jeff makes some great points. At one point or another we have to make choices about taxes, budgets, etc.
FFT
Peace,
Charyn
PS - And as for the wild generalizations... there comes a point where they speak for themselves and they are no longer worth addressing.
While I can appreciate the desire to see results for your tax dollars invested in teachers - there are some factors that make it more difficult that one might think at first blush.
Taking your cook for the example - when a cook is held to the standard that he must make the food promptly and properly it is important to also realize that the cook is provided a complete kitchen, working equipment, and quality products to work with.
If the oven is broke - no baked goods
If the turkey is spoiled - no turkey
Those instances are not held against the cook, In fact, the cook is rewarded if he can work around those obstacles and still make all of the plates that don't require an oven or turkey with the same standard of promptness and accuracy that he would if he faced no obstacles.
I am sure you see where I am going with this... teachers that face problems with facilities or supplies, or teachers that have disruptive children or children with special needs in their class, face unique challenges that make benchmarking difficult even in the best school systems.
this is the crux of the argument against NCLB.
While I do agree that we do need to keep schools accountable, I also believe we need to tread carefully in how we establish the metrics we will use. And then at what point does the monitoring begin to interfere with the educational system? How much money do we want to earmark for monitoring & testing? Etc.etc.
What none of us should do is jump to conclusions or expect that there will be an easy answer. Jeff makes some great points. At one point or another we have to make choices about taxes, budgets, etc.
FFT
Peace,
Charyn
PS - And as for the wild generalizations... there comes a point where they speak for themselves and they are no longer worth addressing.
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Kevin Galvin
- Posts: 49
- Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:35 am
I have mixed feelings on this subject. Probably because a few different topics come to mind.
The actual question being asked is something that won't happen until at least the next round of union negotiations. As a union negotiator for the police officers years ago I can tell you that the process usually starts with a "wish list" from both sides. From labor's standpoint you go in with your current package as base zero and negotiate upwards. I should point out that it was approx. 10 years ago for me and at that time we fought hard to maintain fully paid medical coverage. This was because it was changing across the country and our legal advisors explained that arbitrators were leaning more and more towards management in requiring some type of employee contribution. Because of that, we "gave up" some other requests in order to keep medical. For that reason I can only assume the teacher's negotiators gave up something to get the pension pick up. As it turned out our lawyers were right and employee contributions for health care is pretty much a given nowadays. It would seem to me that the entire package is what should be looked at.
I don't know what the last teacher's package included, but I do recall that we were told that a levy was needed so that we could offer a higher starting salary in Lakewood. I disagreed then and still do now. We were told that the avg. salary in Lakewood was equitable but starting pay was lower. In fairness I should point out that I am a fiscally conservative person. I don't claim to know a great deal about the number of "quality teachers" available statistically but I offer the following for my reasoning.
My neighbor's daughter became a teacher four years ago. She was unable to get a full time school district job in the entire Cleveland area. She related that in college prospective teachers were being offered the moon if they would re-locate south or west. Since her soon to be husband had a job in this area already she decided to take a job at St. Luke's for less than half of the starting pay Lakewood offered. If you recall, Cleveland was in the process of laying off at that time and teacher's strikes were going on here and there around the area. What this meant was that there was no shortage of qualified teachers in this area. There was a lack of jobs for the qualified teachers. Basic supply and demand told us that we weren't competing with many for the few good teachers, many good teachers were competing for the few openings. My neighbor had told me that she was one of more than fifty who applied at Westlake for the posted TWO openings. This deception at the time of the levy request turned me off and they may never get me back on their side because of it.
My other problem really shows where my mixed emotions as a union man comes in. Teachers, police, fire, and most unions fought hard to protect employees rights. Civil service was started to prohibit a new mayor from coming in and firing an entire police or fire dept. so that he could give out those jobs to his friends. The problem is that the pendulum went too far. Not long ago Lakewood schools had to pay out some anstronomical amount to get rid of a teacher. (over 200k I believe?)
What I would like to see is that the unions are told that they will get a deal to keep the pension pick up the same, and they will receive decent size package, BUT the school board or city, whichever the case may be, will be able to get rid of a poor employee without going through such expensive hoops. I know precautions would have to be in place and the average employee needs to be protected, but the dead weight hurts all of them.
Others have mentioned the need for quality teachers. I think this would help. If all teachers knew that incompetency, excessive sick time, laziness ect... could cost them their job that may be all the incentive they need. We all knew the older burnt out teacher who continued working past retirement age because they knew they could come in, turn on the movie projector or have the kids take turn reading out loud until the bell rang and then be out the door at 3. Having them change or simply retire to bring in a young energetic teacher who interacts with the kids and spends his evenings at the school activites would be a plus in my mind. I can tell you that police and fire know who the dead weight is in their job and I'll bet teachers know also.
Anyway, just food for thought and no real answers.
The actual question being asked is something that won't happen until at least the next round of union negotiations. As a union negotiator for the police officers years ago I can tell you that the process usually starts with a "wish list" from both sides. From labor's standpoint you go in with your current package as base zero and negotiate upwards. I should point out that it was approx. 10 years ago for me and at that time we fought hard to maintain fully paid medical coverage. This was because it was changing across the country and our legal advisors explained that arbitrators were leaning more and more towards management in requiring some type of employee contribution. Because of that, we "gave up" some other requests in order to keep medical. For that reason I can only assume the teacher's negotiators gave up something to get the pension pick up. As it turned out our lawyers were right and employee contributions for health care is pretty much a given nowadays. It would seem to me that the entire package is what should be looked at.
I don't know what the last teacher's package included, but I do recall that we were told that a levy was needed so that we could offer a higher starting salary in Lakewood. I disagreed then and still do now. We were told that the avg. salary in Lakewood was equitable but starting pay was lower. In fairness I should point out that I am a fiscally conservative person. I don't claim to know a great deal about the number of "quality teachers" available statistically but I offer the following for my reasoning.
My neighbor's daughter became a teacher four years ago. She was unable to get a full time school district job in the entire Cleveland area. She related that in college prospective teachers were being offered the moon if they would re-locate south or west. Since her soon to be husband had a job in this area already she decided to take a job at St. Luke's for less than half of the starting pay Lakewood offered. If you recall, Cleveland was in the process of laying off at that time and teacher's strikes were going on here and there around the area. What this meant was that there was no shortage of qualified teachers in this area. There was a lack of jobs for the qualified teachers. Basic supply and demand told us that we weren't competing with many for the few good teachers, many good teachers were competing for the few openings. My neighbor had told me that she was one of more than fifty who applied at Westlake for the posted TWO openings. This deception at the time of the levy request turned me off and they may never get me back on their side because of it.
My other problem really shows where my mixed emotions as a union man comes in. Teachers, police, fire, and most unions fought hard to protect employees rights. Civil service was started to prohibit a new mayor from coming in and firing an entire police or fire dept. so that he could give out those jobs to his friends. The problem is that the pendulum went too far. Not long ago Lakewood schools had to pay out some anstronomical amount to get rid of a teacher. (over 200k I believe?)
What I would like to see is that the unions are told that they will get a deal to keep the pension pick up the same, and they will receive decent size package, BUT the school board or city, whichever the case may be, will be able to get rid of a poor employee without going through such expensive hoops. I know precautions would have to be in place and the average employee needs to be protected, but the dead weight hurts all of them.
Others have mentioned the need for quality teachers. I think this would help. If all teachers knew that incompetency, excessive sick time, laziness ect... could cost them their job that may be all the incentive they need. We all knew the older burnt out teacher who continued working past retirement age because they knew they could come in, turn on the movie projector or have the kids take turn reading out loud until the bell rang and then be out the door at 3. Having them change or simply retire to bring in a young energetic teacher who interacts with the kids and spends his evenings at the school activites would be a plus in my mind. I can tell you that police and fire know who the dead weight is in their job and I'll bet teachers know also.
Anyway, just food for thought and no real answers.