Capt. Al Haynes sorta OT.

Ummm, who paid for all those airports and ATC facilities you and your
customers use? Without those federally funded airports would you even
have a business?

Actually, my research shows that our airport was built by Boeing Air
Transport.

Of course, since then it's accepted federal funding...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Newps wrote:
A year ago December the teachers in our district went on strike for
better pay and benefits. The conventional wisdom is that your typical
public school teacher is lucky to make $30K after many hard years of
teaching. Since teachers salaries are a matter of public record a full
page ad was taken out in the Sunday paper the first weekend of the
strike. Every teacher in the school district was listed, by name, and
how much they made for that current school year. Turns out the average
teacher salary is $41.5 here with 25-30% of the teachers making more
than $50K per year. Starting pay was mid $20's. You could literally
see the support for the teachers evaporate on that Sunday. A settlement
was reached shortly there after. A teacher strike will not ever happen
here again.

Did the teachers then post the salaries of the administration personnel?
That would be very eye opening...

Even the salaries you list above are way below the average in my area
for jobs that require a master's degree. Maybe they are competitive in
your area, but they wouldn't be in PA or NY. Skilled labor in our area
make in the 40s and that is with no college education at all. The must
complete an apprenticeship, but this is paid, they aren't paying for it.

Matt

Margy Natalie wrote:

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote:


Richard Hertz wrote:

I am changing careers. After working for 12 years in the computer science
industry I am going to "semi-retire" to teach math and computer science.
Many family members and acquaintances teach and when I compare their
lifestyle and working hours and stress to mine I conclude that the pay cut
is worth the reduced hours and the retirement benefits are almost criminal.
(in my opinion)

Let us know what you think after completing your first year of teaching.
Good luck! I've often thought of this as well, but I know several
teachers very well and low stress isn't in their job description.



One of our newer teachers who left industry to teach stated at the end of his
first year "now I know why teachers have the summer off, they need it to
recover". He said he had never been so tired and burned out in his life. He's
still teaching and rather good at it.

I still may well give it a try as a second career if I get a shot at an
early retirement package from my current employer. I think my CS/EE
degrees would qualify me fairly well to teach math and science.
However, I have no delusions of it being a high pay/low stress job.


Matt

Margy Natalie wrote:

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote:


One other big problem is the non-meritocracy of government/school systems.
Pay is based on years of service and so-called education credits. In the
"real" world pay is based on performance, merit, etc.

Yes, that is my biggest beef with the teaching system at present. And
the fact that it is unionized. I don't believe that "professional" and
"union" go together, but then many pilots are union also...



I'm in a "right to work" State so Union doesn't mean anything. The real reason
teachers don't have a merit system is they discovered it was detrimental to the
students. Right now if I write a lesson that really clicks and works great I
make copies and give it to all the other teachers. We help each other out to
give the best to our kids. Under merit pay (which many districts had for a
while) teachers would keep their best lessons to themselves so they could be in
the top 5% to get the raise. It didn't work. Another problem is how to score
teachers to rank them.

We have the same problem in private industry, but there are ways to
mitigate it and I still believe that pay for performance is critical to
achieving high performance. You could have merit pay based on the
performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation). You can also base merit pay and promotions
on how much a teacher helps and mentors other teachers. This is an
explicit promotion requirement for technical professionals at my
company. If you are keeping the goods to yourself, you'll not get
promoted. No system is perfect, but I've worked in both environments,
and I'll take a merit/performance based compensation system any day.


Matt

Morgans wrote:
"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote

You could have merit pay based on the

performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation).


Matt


So you want to base teacher performance on student achievement? What is the
incentive for the students to pay attention to what is being taught, learn,
and do well on the test? There is none, for most students, at present.
They are only there because the law says they must be there.

Have you ever watched some students take a standardized test, when there is
nothing in it for them? They go A,B,C,D,A,B,C,D. Don't laugh, I have seen
it, more than a few times. This is how you want merit pay to work? I don't
think so.

I welcome good answers to the problem. Problem is, no one seems to have
any.

When I was in school there were teachers able to motivate almost any
student and teachers that couldn't motivate anyone. No system is
perfect, but I want the teachers that are best at motivating their
students to get the best pay and have the greatest chance of staying on
the job. And maybe the other teachers will watch and learn from the
teachers that have figured it out. I'm not saying it is easy, but if
all schools have this problem, then the playing field is level and
whichever teachers are best in even this environment should be rewarded.


Matt

Morgans wrote:
"Dennis O'Connor" wrote in message
...

In NYC it is common for the head janitor to be over a hundred grand...


DAmn!



But have you checked the cost of living in NYC lately? 100 grand is
probably barely above poverty level... :-)


Matt

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:1IFLb.8790$8H.22679@attbi_s03...
Ummm, who paid for all those airports and ATC facilities you and your
customers use? Without those federally funded airports would you even
have a business?

Actually, my research shows that our airport was built by Boeing Air
Transport.

Of course, since then it's accepted federal funding...

It's only in the past 40 years or so that airports were first built by
governments (yes, there were exceptions) rather than by businesses.

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...
We have the same problem in private industry, but there are ways to
mitigate it and I still believe that pay for performance is critical to
achieving high performance. You could have merit pay based on the
performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation). You can also base merit pay and promotions
on how much a teacher helps and mentors other teachers. This is an
explicit promotion requirement for technical professionals at my
company. If you are keeping the goods to yourself, you'll not get
promoted. No system is perfect, but I've worked in both environments,
and I'll take a merit/performance based compensation system any day.

Correct; no system is perfect; OTOH, a system that has no incentives, or
worse, negative incentive, is doomed to failure. Public schools are a prime
example of negative incentives.

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote

You could have merit pay based on the
performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation).

Matt

So you want to base teacher performance on student achievement? What is
the
incentive for the students to pay attention to what is being taught,
learn,
and do well on the test? There is none, for most students, at present.
They are only there because the law says they must be there.

You're (properly) addressing two issues pertaining to the problem.

If a failure has three causes, you won't fix it by fixing ONE problem area.


Have you ever watched some students take a standardized test, when there
is
nothing in it for them? They go A,B,C,D,A,B,C,D. Don't laugh, I have
seen
it, more than a few times. This is how you want merit pay to work? I
don't
think so.

I welcome good answers to the problem. Problem is, no one seems to have
any.

There are definitely answers, problem is people want to address only one or
tow aspects of a problem that has SEVERAL aspects.

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote

You could have merit pay based on the
performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation).

Matt

So you want to base teacher performance on student achievement? What is the
incentive for the students to pay attention to what is being taught, learn,
and do well on the test? There is none, for most students, at present.
They are only there because the law says they must be there.

Have you ever watched some students take a standardized test, when there is
nothing in it for them? They go A,B,C,D,A,B,C,D. Don't laugh, I have seen
it, more than a few times. This is how you want merit pay to work? I don't
think so.

I welcome good answers to the problem. Problem is, no one seems to have
any.
--
Jim in NC