The Observation Deck

Dee,

Thanks for your clarification.

I think that, in your original post referencing me, you had intended to agree with me on some other point, but then simply added commentary to that same paragraph, not relating to that agreement.

Unfortunately, there was the opportunity for others to misinterpret.

It is wise not to put too much in writing, but to orally address issues directly with those involved, because of the liklihood of misinterpretation of the written word.

The written word expresses no emotional inflection, and offers no chance to immediately clarify meaning and context.

It is also forever, particularly here, since the demise of the "edit" button. That can be particularly important, when the lines of opinion cross into distortions, whether intentional or not.

As with all experiences looked at in a positive light, this can be a good life lesson for anyone.

And yes, I would indeed agree that Lakewood continues to be a very wonderful and special place indeed, and particularly so, in our schools.

Hi,
Ms. Martinez, you said:

"And to Mr Brown

Play all the games you want with numbers. The fact remains that the cost of everything has gone up in the last seven years EXCEPT the price of educating Lakewood kids."

It is not playing games when you use math correctly, is it?
Please also remember 1 other thing has gone down. The number of students in the school system. When the number of students drops drastically (say 20%) then the workload drops drastically too.

Mr. Rice, I find it odd to see a man of education saying:

"It is wise not to put too much in writing, but to orally address issues directly with those involved, because of the liklihood of misinterpretation of the written word."

I am grateful that historically educators have not agreed. I disagree with you on your view. I believe the written word is far less likely of being misinterpreted than the oral word. How different would our Constitution be today if it was not written down? Would you please clarify (in writing) why you feel so?

Mr.Farris

You truly are misinformed here.
In the first place, Lakewood schools have cut FTEs in each of the last 10 yrs. Beyond that they have bought out older teachers and replaced them with younger cheaper ones.

It is also indisputable that while Lakewoods overall student population is declining, its percentage of disadvantaged, ESL, and special needs children is increaseing. These are the students for whom the schools have no wiggle room. The state and fed govt says "you must provide"

Lastly, Ms Masters offered you some insight. She wants smaller class sizes. You want lower taxes.
You two need to fight it out.

Dee Martinez wrote:The fact remains that the cost of everything has gone up in the last seven years EXCEPT the price of educating Lakewood kids.

I disagree. The cost of educating Lakewood kids has gone up, like everything else. Take another look at the five year forecast. Expenses are outpacing revenues and reserves are being eaten up. The schools have done a great job in managing the costs which is why they haven’t needed an operating levy.

Donald Farris wrote:Please also remember 1 other thing has gone down. The number of students in the school system. When the number of students drops drastically (say 20%) then the workload drops drastically too.

Yes, enrollment has dropped off in recent years. Here’s one thing to consider though. If the Mayor’s housing initiative kicks in and starts making a difference by bringing families to Lakewood, enrollment could potentially increase as a result. The schools are choosing the middle road by neither increasing nor decreasing enrollment in their forecast numbers. I think this is a wise choice.

In the short term, they can manage their costs from year to year by making strategic cuts as they have recently announced. However in the longer term, they need to take the middle road.

Just to clarify one thing about me wanting smaller class sizes. I want what was promised us when the rebuilding was started and that was that class sizes would not increase. Just one example. This year one school has three kindergarten class with 14,18,and 17 kids and another school has one kindergarten class of 29. Note I have no children in kindergarten and none of my children attend either of the schools I am referring to. I understand that costs go up and I am fine with that but I think if reductions are going to be made they need to me made fairly. One school should not be allowed to not be touched, one school should not be able to not feel the financial crunch. The money needs to be spread fairly. Parents get upset when they see cuts only applied to certain schools. I hate to sound immature but it doesn't seem fair.

Related to special ed I received a letter in the mail the other day informing me that the schools will now be eligible to receive monies from medicaid for certain services related to eligible services. Some of the services covered by the district are: occupational and physical therapy, speech/language services, audiology, nursing, school psychology, and counselor and social work services. Hopefully that will help with some of the special ed services. I know I have two special ed students that use several of these services and it is wonderful that the district will be reimbursed for some of the services they provide to students.

Charlie Page wrote:

Dee Martinez wrote:The fact remains that the cost of everything has gone up in the last seven years EXCEPT the price of educating Lakewood kids.

I disagree. The cost of educating Lakewood kids has gone up, like everything else. Take another look at the five year forecast. Expenses are outpacing revenues and reserves are being eaten up. The schools have done a great job in managing the costs which is why they haven’t needed an operating levy.
.

Since two board members post here I will let them explain this in a more official sense.
But school financing in Ohio is 'front-loaded'
You pass an operating levy in Year 1 and build up a surplus that carrries you thru Year 3 (or in lakewoods remarkable case, Year 7) Eventually you burn through the surplus and thats when you need to go back and ask voters for more $.
Its not like a hamburger stand where you match revenues and expenses month-to-month, or even year-to-year.

Mr. Favre, Mr, Markling. Do I have this right?

Hi,
Ms. Martinez, you said:

"You truly are misinformed here. "

All I have stayed is enrollment is down 20%. That's according to Ohio BOE web site. That is the only claim I have made. That's significant and historically should have saved the Lakewood School system a great deal of money. You mention other factors. Well that could be true. Please inform me on how these other factors can consume the savings from a 20% drop in enrollment. Could you provide numbers and links to back up your views?

Elsewhere, you state:

"Lastly, Ms Masters offered you some insight. She wants smaller class sizes. You want lower taxes."

I do not recall ever saying I want lower taxes. I would love lower taxes. But in the discussion regarding the schools, I have been trying to point out that the schools should not need to INCREASE taxes now during these economic hard times. It would seem to me that with a 20% drop in enrollment class size should be dropping as well as staff cost dropping. Also, there are new schools which should have reduced operational costs.

Mr Farris

Maybe a smarter person can explain this better than I can.

Yes, enrollment has gone down by 20% over NINE years.(but we cant presume it will go down further)
If labor costs were FLAT, if teachers and support staff DIDNT get raises we could expect a 20% reduction over that time.
But since workers DO get raises (are you objecting to that?), that 20% reduction gets cancelled out and since you are citing a NINE year period, I dont see where it is so unreasonable that at some ponit, the schools would have to ask for a revenue increase.

I understand Mr Rices perspective about the teachers. I dont quite get the board members' silence on this.

Mr. Farris,

As I stand by my thoughts, so do you, yours.

Further...

None of us are under any obligation to clarify those thoughts beyond what we already have expressed, particularly when a rationale was already offered to those interested.

Please bear in mind that I was responding to a significant inaccuracy regarding my own supposed written remarks.

However, out of courtesy, I will explain more of my thought processes here.

My thoughts about a preference for oral over written words were primarily intended to be with respect to personal memos and e-mail/postings.

Our Constitution, on the other hand, and indeed other great documents of history, have been written and revised, and often re-revised. (and in the case of the Constitution, are still being revised; whenever new amendment processes arise)

Not so, brief personal notes and e-mails/posts. There is no opportunity to re-think, revise, or undo those documents, once delivered, and for reasons already expressed, misunderstandings can indeed arise.

I stand by my opinion that certain particularly important topics are best expressed orally in personal communication, if for no other reason that the immediate opportunity to respond and clarify ideas can help to avoid misunderstandings later.

Oh, and in my honest opinion, the best education is often experience.

Will,
I continue to be shocked at the disrespectful comments you make about teachers as a whole. Babysitters? When was the last time you followed around a teacher for an entire day? Or taught as a teacher to be an expert on what teachers do and don't do? Clerical work and babysitting? Are doctors and nurses doing clerical work when they chart for their patients? Are they babysitting when sitting with a patient and talking through fears or issues? What exactly is considered "babysitting"? I see principals out at recess or lunch during their lunch hour to make sure things run smoothly-at Hayes and in the Cleveland school where I student teach. I see teachers working through their lunch writing IEP's-legal documents that are certainly not clerical work siince you need a teacher's license to touch them. I see teachers bringing IEP's to homes when parents can't make it or won't make it to the schools and also meeting during lunch time if that is when parents can come in. There is a minimum of ten hours added to each work week for lesson planning and grading papers. Minimum. And many teachers do extracurricular for free to add on hours.

Schools have paraprofessionals to help with teachers' tasks at a much lower rate so that idea has already been thought of. And they are a valuable asset to every school.

I am not sure what the immigration argument is, but the only reason that is an issue is because the federal government has taken state control of education into a federal control by holding federal funds for schools over the heads of every school based on tests scores. Therefore the schools with higher immigration, like Lakewood, don't stand a chance to test as high as other suburbs based on English proficiency. It seems the federal government is realizing that by "added value" even though they have far to go. Lakewood still stands above other communities in implementing special needs and English as a second language and other programs, including gifted.

I have yet to see any "babysitting" or "clerical" work being done by teachers in any school I have been in. And I don't see a fact behind that insulting opinion. For the record, the average teacher annual salary in comparison to other white collar professions lags behind 12% (accountants, nurses, computer programmers, reporters, etc.,) even when the teacher has a master degree. -source: American Federation of Teachers, Survy and Analysis of Teacher Salary Trends, 2004-Washington DC.

Teachers go into the profession because they love children and want to help impact the future of the country. That is not an opinon but a fact from a survey "A Place Called School" by John Goodlad.

And, since colleges hand out income information for every school in the county to graduates applying for jobs, I can tell you that Lakewood is not at the highest or lowest, but right around the middle. I hope their mean and average stay high to keep some of the teachers who push our students to excellence in not only academics, but music and H2o community service programs and athletics and drama, and everything that makes the children well-rounded to be successful in life.

Justine: You are so easily shocked! Seriously, you seem to take personally every suggestion that our education industry could do better. Yet virtually everyone, except a student teacher somewhere in the Midwest, seems to recognize that our schools are not doing their job as well as we need, and as teachers are a main component of that faltering system, I think we would be foolish not to look at, among other things, how teachers are educated, and how they do their job, and how these could be improved.

It is true that I don't visit the Lakewood schools, other than going to a few entertainments. I know a number of posters here who seem to say they spend a lot of time in the schools, talking to teachers, and I wonder who is teaching the students while these parents are accruing points with their kids' teachers? Further, I wonder if we are serious about security in our schools if anyone can walk in, promising, of course, to check in at the office. You yourself admit that you have seen professionals monitoring hallways (and I would suspect lunchrooms). Incidentally, visiting a school is hardly the only way to find out what is happening there. Some teachers are willing to share their experiences, and students sometimes know more than we realize. In any event, much as you would like to have the profession be the only source of information as to the schools, I think those of us who pay the bills realize that the profession is not an unbiased source of information, and will remain willing to listen to opinions from those outside the profession.

So apparently we disagree on what is teaching and what is babysitting. You seem to feel that anything a teacher does is teaching, while I think that those caretaker tasks that teachers do are not teaching. If you needed someone to supervise your children at home during lunch, would you hire a teacher or a babysitter?

Your comparison of education to medicine is informative, because medicine has made tremendous leaps toward a more efficient system, while teaching has not. Dr. Welby, sitting in his office, asking you what your complaints are, examining you, giving you a shot or two, then scribbling a record of your visit, is gone. When I go to the doctor now, a clerk welcomes me, creates the initial document of the visit, and refers me to a nurse, who weighs me, takes my temperature and blood pressure, and any other test, asks my history and complaints, and puts it all into the computer. When I get to the doctor, she has my entire history, including my current complaints, already organized on the computer. She questions me, and pokes and prods me, and comes up with a treatment plan, which she enters in the computer with her findings, largely using macros, so if she feels I need another blood test in four months, and a return visit thereafter, she just makes selections from a menu. In short, I am getting the same level of care Dr. Welby would have given me, but in less time, and in less expensive professional time. A side benefit is that any other doctor who sees me in the future, or even my doctor, will have legible records of my history and test results, something I wouldn't have gotten from Dr. Welby.

By contrast, teachers are not nearly as efficient, and because the inefficiencies take time, they don't have enough time to do more teaching. They insist on writing their own tests and grading them by hand. I know some tests, such as essays, require the human eye, but many, if not most, tests and quizzes could be automated and would require no teacher time to grade, and minimal teacher time to create. But then you couldn't brag about all the extra time teachers spend on these clerical activities. (Don't forget that many working people are very aware of how long a teacher spends in the school each day, and it isn't nearly as long as the average worker spends in the workplace, so working an hour or two at home isn't the great sacrifice you would have us believe.) As to lesson planning, certainly you must realize that most teachers teach the same class over and over. Its not as though you teach English Lit. this year and physics the next. Now, a good teacher will spend a lot of time creating the initial lesson plan, I don't deny that. But as a student teacher perhaps you don't realize that the next time you teach that class, you don't create an entirely new lesson plan, at least if you have anything on the ball. You take the original, review it and analyze what worked well and what didn't, where you should add time and where you should spend less time, then decide what will work with this year's crop of students, and make the appropriate alterations to the prior plan; this is very similar to what a good teacher does during the year, evaluating how the plan is working and altering it to make it work better. So you invest a lot of time the first year, but less in following years. And the history is that the mediocre teacher doesn't spend any time in following years, simply repeating what was used the year before.

I don't contend that teachers are overpaid. But you seem to have some compulsion to complain about salaries. Perhaps they teach that in the teachers' colleges. But you are apparently upset that teachers'
salaries are 12 percent less than those in other professions. So let's look at that. Every time I write advocating year round schooling (a solution that would benefit all parties, as students would get more education, we would get greater use of our facilities, and, at least in my plan, teachers would get paid more) some teacher writes in stating that if we want them to work more hours, we will have to pay them more. Now, many workers would happily work a schedule with as much off time as teachers. I know many teachers who value the extensive time off, as they like to travel. But teachers have a lengthy summer vacation (approaching 3 months, I believe, perhaps more), a nice Winter holiday break, and further holiday breaks that add up. For simplicity's sake, lets use a combined figure of four months. So assuming equal vacation periods of two weeks for each profession, the teacher works about 33 percent less (8 months compared to 12 months) than the other professions. So if there was pay equity for time worked, teachers should be paid about 33 percent less than the other professions, not the 12 percent that you complained about. Oops, I guess you didn't really want to get into that.

As to "facts" the results of a survey, which of course cannot be independently verified, are not what most people consider to be a fact. People tend to give answers that make them look good, with little regard as to whether they are truthful. The perpetually unemployed invariably report that they want a job, but their history usually shows that they have made no serious effort to get a job. Convicts usually report that they are innocent of the crime for which they are serving time, but their conviction argues otherwise. And it is hard to imagine a teacher so politically inept that they would not report that the desire to help children was what led them to teaching. I am not saying that there are no teachers who got into the profession for altruistic motives, there are and I applaud them. But I am not gullible to believe that all teachers are that dedicated. Many teachers retire at the earliest opportunity, which is hardly consistent with a desire to help children.

Perhaps I didn't make clear my question about teacher pay. We know the budgeted amount for salary and benefits, and the number of teachers, so it is pretty easy to calculate the average compensation. What I wanted to know is how much more we pay a teacher for educational achievement, how much, if any, we pay them for experience (i.e., does a teacher with five years experience get paid more than one with one years experience), and whether we pay one in a crucial specialty, such as math or chemistry, more than one in a less crucial specialty. This information is more carefully controlled than the President's secret service call name, which I understand is Reneged.

Dee Martinez wrote:But since workers DO get raises (are you objecting to that?),

Yes.
Over the last ten years workers in the private sector have agreed to wage cuts and benefit cuts. It's time for the government unions to step up to the plate.

If school board employees agree to a 15% cut in wages, a 4 year wage freeze and to pay 50% of their health insurance premium I will support a levy in the amount needed to balance the budget.

Hmmmmmm....

Perhaps I should try telling my accountant and my attorney that they need to take 15% less from their fees....

Or maybe try that with my plumber? Electrician? Butcher? Baker? Candlestick maker?

Or perhaps I should try sending 15% less taxes in? Uh huh...

Dear neighbors, that's not the way our world works, and you know it.

As a matter of fact, each time negotiations occur in the public employee collective bargaining process, there is always the opportunity to renegotiate just about everything from salaries to benefit packages. Oftentimes, there are indeed trade-offs and give-backs during those negotiations. I know that during my own career, that these types of things came up at virtually every negotiation. Remember though that we as a community have to compete with other communities, so if we want to attract and retain quality people, we have to meet some standards.

In response to the question regarding teacher salary incrementals, yes, in most districts, those incrementals are based on years of experiences in the classroom and salary steps based on edcuation coursework attained.

Nice try guys, but I believe it would be safe to say that we teachers believe that we are worth every single penny that you've paid us.

Yes, I know that "education" is spelled "education"..

I knew that...

Honestly I did...

I know, I know...

Proof read your work before you turn it in, Gary!

JIMMY!!!!! EDIT BUTTON PLEASE!!!!!

However, one should never let education interfere with one's education.

Will,
your disdain and disrespect for teachers as well as generalzations have come across on every thread so it is apparent where you stand. And, while you refer to yourself and others who foot the bill, I also own a big old home in Lakewood so foot the bill as well. I come from both sides, a taxpayer and parent and a future and proud educator. I love teaching and read many of your posts as opinion, not with facts. You can discount a survey, but your "survey" is one person, yourself. No teachers in Lakewood aren't chatting with parents during school hours. We aren't even allowed in the class during or right before school. As for security, every parent volunteering in the school must be fingerprinted so no worries there. But you would know that if you were following around a teacher like you insinuated in your last post. And if an administrator wants to spend hish lunch hour supervising the kids outside or at lunch, I commend him, not put him down. If you don't think that makes a difference in reducing problems, including fights, you are wrong.

I laugh at your "example" of simplified lesson plans and many teachers would beg to differ since they teach many levels and some many subjects. Lesson plans and unit plans are written continuously, not just once. Your analogy of health care is lost on me since I think it has went down in this country. And God help you if you don't have insurance. Schools, on the ohter hand, turn down no one, regardless of race, income, or disability, while the medical profession can pick and choose still who they treat.

The point of argument I take personal, which I agree, is your continual need to blame teachers for everything wrong in education. Have you read "Closing the Racial Gap" by the Thernstroms? There is much data, much more than a survey in dissecting the real reasons behind the serous gaps in education in this country. You claimed "if you follow a teacher around for a day" yet you then said you haven't done it. I think the breakdown of the NEA website does a good job of refuting the myths on teachers' pay:
Myths and Facts about Educator Pay
MYTH: Teachers make just as much as other, comparable professions.

FACT: According to a recent study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the teaching profession has an average national starting salary of $30,377. Meanwhile, NACE finds that other college graduates who enter fields requiring similar training and responsibilities start at higher salaries:
Computer programmers start at an average of $43,635,
Public accounting professionals at $44,668, and
Registered nurses at $45,570.
Not only do teachers start lower than other professionals, but the more years they put into teaching, the wider the gap gets.

A report from NEA Research, which is based on US census data, finds that annual pay for teachers has fallen sharply over the past 60 years in relation to the annual pay of other workers with college degrees. Throughout the nation the average earnings of workers with at least four years of college are now over 50 percent higher than the average earnings of a teacher.

An analysis of weekly wage trends by researchers at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that teachers' wages have fallen behind those of other workers since 1996, with teachers' inflation-adjusted weekly wages rising just 0.8%, far less than the 12% weekly wage growth of other college graduates and of all workers. Further, a comparison of teachers' weekly wages to those of other workers with similar education and experience shows that, since 1993, female teacher wages have fallen behind 13% and male teacher wages 12.5% (11.5% among all teachers). Since 1979 teacher wages relative to those of other similar workers have dropped 18.5% among women, 9.3% among men, and 13.1% among both combined.

Teachers lost spending power for themselves and their families as inflation outpaced increases in teacher salaries last year, according to NEA Research. Inflation increased 3.1 percent over the past year, while teacher salaries increased by only 2.3 percent.
MYTH: Teachers are well-paid when their weekly or hourly wage is compared with other professions.

FACT: Teacher critics who make this claim use data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in its annual National Compensation Survey (NCS). But NCS data are based on employer surveys, and the NCS measures scheduled hours -- not the work teachers do outside the school day. Because teachers do not work the familiar full year and roughly 9-5 schedules that most professionals have, the comparison is one of apples to oranges.

Economic Policy Institute President Lawrence Mishel explains that in the NCS data "Teachers are measured by days worked (say 190 official school days divided by five, resulting in 38 weeks), while others are measured as days paid (work days plus paid time off: breaks, vacations and holidays)."

The bottom line: NCS data vastly understate the weekly hours of teachers and the weeks teachers work each year, and thereby significantly overstate the hourly wage or weekly wage for a given annual wage.

If you believe the NCS hourly pay data, then you believe that English professors ($43.50) make more per hour than dentists ($33.34) or nuclear engineers ($36.16).
MYTH: The school day is only six or seven hours, so it's only fair that teachers make less than "full-time" professionals.

FACT: Other professionals hardly have the monopoly on the long workday, and many studies conclude that teachers work as long or longer than the typical 40-hour workweek.

Six or seven hours is the "contracted" workday, but unlike in other professions, the expectation for teachers is that much required work will take place at home, at night and on weekends. For teachers, the day isn't over when the dismissal bell rings.

Teachers spend an average of 50 hours per week on instructional duties, including an average of 12 hours each week on non-compensated school-related activities such as grading papers, bus duty, and club advising.

MYTH: Teachers have summers off.

FACT: Students have summers off. Teachers spend summers working second jobs, teaching summer school, and taking classes for certification renewal or to advance their careers.

Most full-time employees in the private sector receive training on company time at company expense, while many teachers spend the eight weeks of summer break earning college hours, at their own expense.

School begins in late August or early September, but teachers are back before the start of school and are busy stocking supplies, setting up their classrooms, and preparing for the year's curriculum.
MYTH: Teachers receive excellent health and pension benefits that make up for lower salaries.

FACT: Although teachers have somewhat better health and pension benefits than do other professionals, these are offset partly by lower payroll taxes paid by employers (since some teachers are not in the Social Security system), according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

Teachers have less premium pay (overtime and shift pay, for example), and less paid leave than do other professionals.

Teacher benefits have not improved relative to other professionals since 1994 (the earliest data EPI has on benefits), so the growth in the teacher wage
disadvantage has not been offset by improved benefits.

If you want to see this as "coomplaining" go ahead, but I have no complaints. I enter the teaching profession as a new career with pride and with my eyes wide open to the salary and with the goal of educating and motivating and inspiring children, as many other teachers do.

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