NewYorkCityTeacher

Sound Byte:  Newsflash: Teachers aren’t in it for the money!

Short Answer: It’s hard to make some people understand that there are rewards other than money.  Our society has been trained for decades to believe that money can motivate anyone to do almost anything.  I’m not suggesting that teachers are altruistic – I look forward to payday like anyone else – but you’d have to be crazy to accept a job as a public school teacher if your measure of success is tied to your bank account balance. If politicians really want to motivate teachers and lure intelligent, hard-working people into our profession, they can begin here: Stop trying to reduce our salaries, stop trying to take away our benefits, stop trying to end our collective bargaining rights, and stop holding us accountable for things that are beyond our control.  “Merit-pay” is yet another attempt by politicians to pit teachers against one another in order to weaken our resolve at the bargaining table.

In-depth Answer: Teachers are not motivated by money.  I want to make it perfectly clear that I AM NOT complaining about my compensation as a teacher, but I can’t think of any other profession that requires so much personal expense (tens of thousands of dollars in student loans as well as supplying the everyday needs of a classroom full of children with pencils, paper, glue, scissors, markers, easels, chart paper, rugs [yes, rugs!], etc…) and offers so little in monetary compensation.  The starting salary of a NYC DOE schoolteacher is $45,530, and the minimum education requirement prevents them from reaching the $60,000 mark until they work for 7 years AND put themselves through graduate school at their own expense.  Again, I say this not to advocate for more compensation, but to show that teachers do not choose to be teachers because they are motivated by money.  The best way to motivate a teacher is to acknowledge their hard work, give them good healthcare benefits and a dignified retirement plan, and provide them with the tools they need to do their job.

That aside, teachers and schools should never have to compete against one another.  Competition among coworkers is a great thing for a company that makes consumer goods, like computer software, or raincoats.  Any expense the company incurs by funding the bottom 20% of workers who design sub-par software or leaky raincoats is more than offset by the top 20% of workers who design superior products that can then compete with Microsoft and Land’s End in the marketplace.  You pay the top 20% more money for doing a good job, and you replace the bottom 20% with new employees who bring in fresh ideas.  It’s a good business model designed to turn a profit for the shareholders of the company.  I would invest in a company that used this business model.  But here’s the problem with using this business model for our education system:  It incentivizes employees and companies to keep their ideas to themselves.  Since they are in competition with each other, they don’t share their strategies for success.  They call it “trade secrets” and “proprietary information”.  It all works because the sub-par software and leaky raincoats will never see the light of day.  The company will throw them in the trash and the profits will be made on the good ones.  That model cannot work in education, where every single leaky raincoat is someone’s child.  One of the things I love about teaching is that I can walk into the teacher’s cafeteria and tell anybody, even people who I don’t know, what I’m having difficulty with, and I will have a number of thoughtful, experienced, motivated people give me advice and new ideas.  Tell the person you are arguing with, “If it were your child or grandchild I was asking my coworkers about, you wouldn’t want them holding back to increase their odds of getting this month’s ‘merit pay’”.

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Sound Byte: Tenure prevents discrimination, sexual harassment, and cronyism.



Short Answer: All tenure is, is a system of due process. It requires that administrators provide evidence of a teacher’s wrongdoing or incompetence before terminating them.  This system prevents administrators from firing teachers because they don’t like their politics or their personality, or because they want to create an opening for their wife’s cousin’s best friend who just graduated college. It also prevents administrators from firing teachers who don’t respond to, or who complain about, inappropriate sexual advances.



In-depth Answer: Nobody wants bad teachers in the classroom — ESPECIALLY good teachers. They make us all look bad, but more importantly, the children deserve a teacher who is motivated and engaged. There are two reasons to fire a teacher — they are dangerous, or they are ineffective.  Administrators MUST have the power to remove dangerous teachers from the classroom immediately, and they do. The problem, of course, is who is actually “dangerous” and who is just being accused of being dangerous by someone with an ax to grind and who knows how to dial 311. Principals already have the power to remove teachers from the classroom immediately, pending an investigation. Teacher tenure just guarantees that the investigation is fair, impartial, and complete.  If it is, and if they’re found guilty, they should be (and are) fired at the very least. 

     Incompetence is another story.  It is potentially more subjective, and thus, harder to prove. But, it is the administration’s responsibility to do just that. Tenure requires administrators to first notify teachers that they are performing unsatisfactorily, then offer them training and the chance to improve themselves, and finally show that the teacher, despite all this, was not able to improve their performance.  Very often, administrators don’t want to bother collecting the evidence and making the case. Partly it’s because they just don’t want to dedicate the time and effort, and partly it’s because shining a light on a bad teacher sometimes inadvertently exposes administrations that don’t follow rules the way they should. Therefore, many administrators feel there is no incentive to pursue bad teachers. It’s easier to shuttle them from one assignment to another, or put them in positions that require less responsibility.  This is an unacceptable solution. First, New York City should not be employing people who are incapable of doing their jobs effectively. Second, giving ineffective teachers “easier” jobs is, in effect, rewarding the very behavior we should be condemning. It is a slap in the face to the tens of thousands of us who are good at what we do.  The answer to this problem, however, is not to just make it easier for principals to fire teachers.  The answer is to hold administrators and the Department of Education responsible to do THEIR jobs thoroughly as well.

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Sound Byte: We get paid for the work we do September through June.  The DOE spreads out our pay over 12 months so the city can have an interest-free loan through the summer. You’re welcome.



Short Answer: Teachers don’t determine the length of the school year. Much has been made about lengthening it, but this is a fight that does not need to be fought. Politicians and supporters of longer school years can not even figure out how to budget their money properly to adequately fund education now, so there is no way they will be able to seriously figure out how to adequately fund a LONGER school year anytime soon. Until they do come up with an idea about how to do this, the argument is pointless.



In-depth Answer: We are paid to do a job — teach the children of NYC while school is in session. Very few people are going to argue that teacher salaries are too big.  Most people, including teachers, feel we are either adequately paid or underpaid.  How that pay is distributed to us is irrelevant.  However, that having been said, New York City WITHHOLDS a part of our pay so that they can spread it out through 24 pay cycles (2 per month).  Most teachers are fine with this because it means we don’t have to budget our money to cover two months without a paycheck.  However, the city of New York benefits much more than we do by this arrangement. It is very difficult to find the average NYC teacher salary, but according to the NEA, the average NY State teacher salary is $69,118. We will use this as a close approximation.  Divide that by 24 pay cycles, and you come up with $2,880 per paycheck before taxes. By the end of June, we have fulfilled all of our contractual requirements, yet we still haven’t been paid for all of our work.  Every single teacher has 4 paychecks withheld at the end of their work year (2 each in July and August), which comes to $11,520 withheld per teacher. There are over 80,000 teachers in NYC, which means that every June NYC teachers give our city $896 million dollars worth of interest-free loans.  At a meager 3% interest compounded daily, teachers save New Yorkers over 2.7 million dollars every year by “paying us to do nothing.”

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Sound Byte:

Nobody works “all year round”, and we are not complaining about what we have.  We just don’t want our rights taken away from us.

Short Answer:

This whole argument is based on the fact that there are 185 days in the school year and 365 days in the calendar year.  But it is absurdly disingenuous to infer from that that we work half as much as everyone else.  The people who argue this point conveniently forget that they themselves have 104 days off in weekends alone (52 weeks in a year times two) without taking vacations and sick days into consideration.  It is a ridiculous argument.

In-depth Answer: 

I love the fact that we have a significant number of vacation days, and I would never complain that it is not enough.  That would be selfish and absurd.  It is just as absurd to argue that we are “entitled” to these vacation days because we “deserve” them more than others do.  Most people work hard at their jobs, and everyone feels like they are entitled to vacation time.  The answer I always give is: It is what it is.  This is the job.  Taxpayers decided long ago that students should have two months in the summer off.  To attack teachers for not teaching during July and August is a little like attacking firefighters for not working when there are no fires to be put out.  If teacher vacation time is so appealing to the arguer, then why didn’t they do what we did and study to be a teacher?   

That aside, the “truth-o-meter” reading on this argument is practically non-existent.  Instead of allowing them to lead with the math, we should.  We are teachers, after all.  I argue it this way:  Our school year lasts from the beginning of September to the end of June – 10 months (don’t allow people to claim we get three months off in the summer, which they often do).  Those 10 months are no different than most similarly trained/experienced/educated professionals.  We have off on the weekends, we have the same federal holidays off that most people have (Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, MLKJr., Presidents Day, and Memorial Day), and we get about 3 weeks vacation (remember that everyone has Christmas and Presidents Day off anyway, which fall into our vacations).  This is not significantly different from most professionals.  The only real difference is July and August, but even in July and August others still have off 20 days or so for weekends and holidays. So what we’re really talking about here is a little more than 40 days of vacation.  I don’t think for one moment that it is a small difference, but remember what the original argument was – that we work half as much as everyone else.  Clearly that is not even close to true.  In addition, midwinter recess (Presidents Day break) was created by New York City in the 1990s, not teachers, in order to save the city money by not having to heat the schools during the coldest weeks of the year.  And, of course, the regular school year has always ended in June.  We did not negotiate that either.

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 Sound Byte: 

This country would be much better off if everyone had an opportunity to earn a livable wage, have access to quality healthcare, and retire with dignity.  Teachers and public employees don’t ask for, or receive, any more than that.

Short Answer: 

All we want is a livable wage, affordable health care, and a dignified retirement.  All workers should be able to attain these things.  Unfortunately, for the past thirty years corporations have been shipping manufacturing and customer service jobs overseas.  Because of this, and because they have successfully teamed with politicians to all but destroy private-sector unions, very few jobs remain in this country that provide these simple rights.  It is not our fault that the people arguing against us most likely have less job security than we do.  They should try to unionize, too.

In-depth Answer: 

If you compare the “average” private and public worker it’s true that public-sector workers make more money, but that doesn’t take into account the fact that we have, on average, more experience, more training, and more education.  There is no public-sector equivalent to a department store stock boy who makes $8.50 an hour, or a Walmart greeter, or a waitress.  The fact is, the vast majority of private sector jobs are low-wage, low-experience positions.  When you compare similarly experienced, trained, and educated private and public workers, it turns out that the private-sector once again has the edge. 

I have never been afraid to tell the person I’m arguing with exactly what I’m getting from the taxpayers: I have been a teacher for 4 years.  In order to qualify to do this job, I now have to pay 43K in student loans, plus an additional 2,000 or so I paid out of pocket for the 30 above my master’s degree.  As a result, I make a little more than 60K per year.  Is that too much?  I don’t think so.  I’d like them to find a private sector job that pays less than 60K and requires that much out-of-pocket education and expense.  

Are my health benefits over-the-top? I don’t think so. First of all, most medical insurance plans offered to us are not free. I chose one that is, so I pay a $15 co-pay when I go to the doctor, and if ever I need to go to the hospital I’m reasonably sure I won’t have to worry about losing my house to pay for it. Is that a lot to ask? When did basic medical and hospital insurance become “over-the-top”? We are also able to go to the dentist to get our teeth cleaned and our cavities filled.  We can go to the eye doctor every other year to get a new pair of prescription glasses (designer frames are paid for out of our own pockets), and we have a $5.00 copay for generic prescription drugs ($15.00 for brand-names).  After two refills our copay doubles for generics and almost triples for brand-names ($40.00).  Is that extreme?  Are we scamming the taxpayers?   The problem isn’t that we have health insurance.   The problem is that health insurance in this country is a powerful, for-profit, multi-billion dollar industry with powerful ties to elected officials.  As such, healthcare costs in the United States have spiraled out of control over the last few decades, providing record profits to healthcare insurance companies.  This is certainly a problem, but the answer isn’t to stop providing healthcare to employees, the answer is to stop the healthcare insurance industry from holding the American people hostage. 

Is my pension over-the-top?  Guess again.  Teachers pay into the pension fund throughout their professional career.  They must pay in for 10 years to be vested (to collect at least a partial pension when they leave).  According to the NIRS, the average New York State pension benefit is $24,263. [http://www.nysut.org/nysutunited_16179.htm]   Is that too much?  Between that and social security we should be able to manage a dignified retirement, but I don’t think I’ll be buying a house in the Cayman’s.

People who argue this issue have no idea what public sector workers make or what they sacrifice.  They only know what they are told by people and news organizations who want them to feel cheated.  Tell them what you’re getting.  Show them you are not “scamming the system”.   

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Sound Byte: 

Politicians should not be able to fire the most experienced, and therefore the highest-paid, teachers so they can balance their budgets.

Short Answer: 

“Lay-offs” happen because there is not enough money to keep all of the teachers on the payroll. The longer a teacher is in the system, the more money and time they have invested in our profession.  This is the rationale behind LIFO.  The people who are paying off tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, and who have been, year after year, spending their own money and time on their students, should be among the last to be affected by city budgets.  This issue is a ploy by politicians to get rid of veteran teachers, who make the most money, in order to help balance their budgets. 

In-depth Answer:

Attackers are intentionally using the terms “firing” and “laying-off” interchangeably.  They are not the same things.  Teachers are fired because they are either dangerous or ineffective. Dangerous and habitually ineffective teachers should be fired regardless of budgets or seniority.  No one disagrees with that.  Lay-offs are totally different.  They occur when there is not enough money in the budget to pay the salaries of all teachers. They have never had anything to do with teacher job performance.

Good teachers are always lost when lay-offs occur.  The question is, which good teacher are we going to lay-off?  It is our position that it should not be the veterans who have the most experience and who have invested the most time and money in our profession.  The issue of LIFO is not about teacher effectiveness.  Politicians are using this issue to frighten new teachers and make them resentful of the union.  The goal is, and always has been, to weaken the union and balance the budget on the backs of the public sector so millionaires and corporations can keep their tax cuts.  Once principals are given the power to “lay off” anyone they want, politicians will always find ways to justify lay-offs, if for no other reason than to allow principals to cull the ranks of the veterans to save money in their (and, consequently, the City’s) budget.  

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