Teacher of the Year used by StudentsFirst to promote teacher pay bill he doesn’t support

[proud2BlibKansan]

n May of this year, Gary Abud, a science teacher at Grosse Pointe North High School, was chosen as Michigan’s 2013-2014 Teacher of the Year by State Superintendent Mike Flanagan. It’s an amazing accomplishment for a teacher who has only been at it for six years. Well-respected by both his students and his coworkers, Mr. Abud was a worthy choice.

To reward him for his outstanding achievement, the anti-union corporatist Mackinac Center — an ALEC and State Policy Network affiliate funded, in part, by the Koch brothers — did a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out how much money Mr. Abud makes. Once they found out, they proceeded to use him along with details about his salary to promote passage of House Bill 4625, a bill I call the “‘Teach to the Test’ Teacher Pay Act”.

HB 4625, a bill I have written about recently, changes teacher compensation rules to make it illegal for school districts to consider length of service as a criteria for teacher pay. Instead, it changes “job performance and job accomplishments as a PRIMARY factor in determining compensation and additional compensation”. Under the current law, the word primary is replaced with the word “significant”, giving local school systems flexibility in how they compensate their teachers.

In a post on their blog “Capitol Confidential”, the Mackinac Center wrote that Mr. Abud “made $56,876 in 2012-13, which is about $21,000 less a year than the district’s average salary of $77,969 a year.” Why does he make less than average? They falsely answer the question in the title of their post: “Union Salary Schedule Ensures State ‘Teacher of the Year’ Earns Near Bottom In Pay”, implying that this income disparity is the sole result of unions holding back good teachers rather than the fact that he’s only been teaching for 6 years.

Michelle Rhee’s anti-teacher group StudentsFirst, which promotes for-profit charter schools as the answer to all of our education system problems, picked up the ball and ran with it, sending out a deceptive email to their mailing list claiming, as did the Mackinac Center, that this problem would be solved by the passage of HB 4625, a claim which is flagrantly false.

more . . .http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/06/interview-teacher-of-the-year-used-by-studentsfirst-mackinac-center-to-promote-teacher-pay-bill-he-doesnt-support.html

[zbdent]

1. wait ... suddenly, the RWers are NOT calculating in the

"generous benefits, including the 'Cadillac' of health care" into the truly underpaid?

Are they calculating the pay in a really convoluted way, like ... take the "annual salary", which is stretched over the full year so that teachers get paid during the summer ... mark that down to hourly ... then calculate the "salary" by only applying the "hourly wage" to the number of hours in the school days "in session"?

[duffyduff]

2. I don't buy the "average" is 79k a year

A lot of times these liars will include retirement benefits and health insurance benefits in the salary. Sometimes they use the monthly salary and sometimes "pro-rate" it to an annual salary despite the fact salaries are based on the actual days you work and are typically spread out over 12 months so that teachers have some income during the summer (they don't qualify for UI when they are on layoff, which is what that is). They are not paid for summer vacation, spring break, or winter break. Teachers don't get vacation pay, unlike other workers.

Before I was illegally shitcanned, I made around $4800 a month. The way the liars would calculate how much I made yearly is they would multiply that amount times 12 rather than by 9. Then they could say, see, you weren't underpaid at all.

The top of the salary scale is typically that high of 79k after 20 years and a Ph.D., but the way things are going now, veteran teachers are being kicked out in cost-saving measures.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. It's certainly not average where I teach

None of our teachers make that much.

[duffyduff]

4. They don't in southern Oregon, where I am now

Teachers here top off at $61,000 after only 14 years.

No wonder veteran teachers don't retire here and why it is extremely difficult to get a job at this district--these teachers can't afford to retire.