The Observation Deck

Oh my that Nicholas Draganic sure laid you low in the letters to the (PD) editor today. See Draganic's response to Bill Call's letter to the editor.

Saying things like “I have yet to meet a schoolteacher who has made his first million dollars teaching.” And taking umbrage at being labeled a “government elite.” And saying “teachers, just like everyone else, pay our own property taxes...”

Well I did a little digging....

Bill did you know that the salaries of all public school employees can now be easily found at....

All Ohio Public School Teacher Salary Database. Just type in the last name and up comes the info.

Mr. Draganic is 39 years old, has been teaching in Parma for all of 12 years. He currently makes $75,417 for teaching Social Studies to seventh graders at Greenbriar Middle School.

And according to the Cuyahoga County Auditor's site, he now lives in Strongsville with his lovely wife Laura in a brand new 4000 square foot home that they purchased in 2008. He moved there from a 2,400 square foot home in Brunswick. Maybe Laura is the real breadwinner? Certainly an underpaid public servant like a social studies teacher cannot afford a brand new 4000 square foot home.

My guess is that Nicholas (“Nick”?) taught for a couple years in another district before going to Parma, maybe he's been in teaching for 15 years, since he was 24. So if he teaches another 15 years and assuming with step and COLA raises, he'll easily pull down $100,000 in his 30th and probably final year of teaching, at the age of 54. That's around $1,275,000 between now and then. On top of what he has made already in his first 15 years.

But here's the real kicker. At the ripe old age of 55 (same age as I am now) Nicholas will start collecting his STRS pension, amounting to 90% of the average of his last three year's salary. That means he'll collect around $90,000 (inflation adjusted) a year for the rest of his life, which for a man that makes it to 55 should be around the age of 80. So 25 years at $90,000 a year, that's a cool $2,250,000. For seventh grade social studies! A job from which he cannot be fired no matter how bad he teaches, unless he gets caught and convicted for banging one of his students.

Bill, you and I, we have to work until we are 67 to collect $18,000 a year in Social Security. He starts collecting $90,000 a year at age 55. And he has the temerity to say he is not part of the government elite?

And as for his assertion that he doesn't know a schoolteacher who has made his first million. By my estimation he will make about $4 million between the age of 25 and 80. For teaching social studies to seventh graders nine months a year.

And as for his property taxes (since he brought it up), not one penny of them goes to the city that will pay him around $4,000,000 during his lifetime.

These people are even better than Goldman Sachs at draining the life out of our country. Because there are so many of them. Millions in fact. So many that in not too many years all our tax dollars will go toward paying their pensions and there will be no money whatsoever to pay for the programs that they are supposed to provide. We'll just have millions of public sector employees sitting around going nothing because there is nothing we can afford to do.

Tim Liston wrote:Oh my that Nicholas Draganic sure laid you low in the letters to the (PD) editor today. See Draganic's response to Bill Call's letter to the editor.

Thanks for the support and the research.

Overall the Plain Dealer is a good paper. However, its reporting on government unions and school issues is designed to disinform. They have never met a tax increase they didn't like.

I think I'll pass your information on to the PD in the form of a letter they will never print.

I have a friend who has a degree in chemistry. He worked for years in the private sector. You know the story. $65,000 a year with two weeks vacation and 50 hour work weeks. The last time he was laid off he decided to return to school . He got a teaching degree. Because of his science background his district was eager to have him.

He gave me a call last week to tell me he agrees with me. He says he has to bite his tongue all day as he listens to teachers complian about how tough it is.

I also got a call from a lady from Seven Hills who thanked me. That makes up for all those calls from people who say "I'm not a teacher but you don't understand how hard it is and don't you care about the children?" or worse.

When they take my name in vain I know I struck gold.

Chris Christie, New Jersey Governor wrote:One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits -- a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?"
"A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing -- yes, nothing -- for full family medical, dental and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime. Is it 'fair' for all of us and our children to have to pay for this excess?

How similar is Ohio to New Jersey in regards to its state pension system?

My daughter-in-law is a language arts teach in Akron. In addition to teaching these junior high kids (half of whom are special needs and can't read) she coaches basketball and track.

She is earning $29,000.00 a year for all of that. She puts in about 70 to 80 hours a week, creates and modifies her syllabus according to the student's needs, deals with all the discipline and poverty issues.

Can anyone get her into Parma, for pete's sake?

Just curious, have a question...

Even if a teacher works longer hours than 40 a week, don't most or all of them have the whole summer off usually?

Teachers are paid on a daily rate for days taught.

They are not paid for summers; and oftentimes these days, those summers are spent taking more coursework.

The Parma City School District, by the way, has significant financial issues ahead for their tri-city district.

As for the point expressed on this thread...

Whatever salary that particular teacher (originally alluded to) might possibly make, as Sharon points out, there are many more teachers making much less. (even in Parma) For the first 10-15 years of a teaching career, teachers often struggle to make ends meet, particularly since they are forced to return to college for more and more mandated training (often paid out-of-pocket) during those lean years.

If a teacher in fact, would be making that kind of money, it would be a virtual certainty that he would have both the academic credentials and the time put in to justify that salary. As well, there may be supplemental contracts figured into the equation for coaching, or other after-school activities.

There are flaws inherent with casual internet research. Check a variety of sources, and beware of drawing conclusions on the basis of incomplete information. I think, for example, that if one were to check with STRS, (State Teachers Retirement) they would find that at 30 years of service, teachers receive nowhere near 90% of their teaching salary as a pension. (I seem to recall that the actual figure these days may be closer to 60%, and those actual figures depend upon a number of circumstances) A teacher would have to teach many additional years to pull down anywhere near that lofty 90% of pay status at their retirement.

And, by the way, teachers generally have to contribute to their medical/dental plans, whether while they work, or at retirement.

Another point- A teacher is absolutely under no obligation to live in a community where they teach. That issue should have no bearing whatsoever in this type of discussion. The rest of America generally does not have to live in the community where they work. A teacher's responsibility rests solely with the education of the students coming into their classroom. In point of fact, teachers do generally pay income tax in the communities where they work, as well as in the communities where they live. They also pay a substantial annual contribution towards their STRS account.

As far as so-called lifetime earnings go, one could run those numbers for just about any profession, and probably come out with equally hypothetically astronomical figures.

The one good thing about this thread, to me, is that it certainly highlights a few of the reasons why teachers historically organized into professional associations to work together for their futures. Public school teachers have one of the most important jobs in the world. They are certainly entitled to professional respect, and adequate financial compensation for their efforts.

Just as a personal observation, but as far as "early retirement" goes at 30 or 35 years for teachers?

It would be interesting to see some of public education's detractors try and spend 30 MINUTES attempting to teach a modern public school classroom.

Back to the chalkboard, er, the banjo.