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Philly schools cancel Teachers' union contracts

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!, Oct 6, 2014.

  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Is this supposed to be a compelling case that administrators are overpaid? Because it isn't.

    A principal makes an average of $137,000. That's a career destination job that requires a Ph.D., a decade or more of experience, and the ability to manage a staff of dozens of people while serving the needs of hundreds of families. A similar job with similar requirements in the private sector would yield a salary double or triple that.

    So, if $137,000 is overpaid ... then they're addressing that with a 15 percent pay cut. And if $120,000 is too much to pay for a person with that background, good luck finding people to do that job.
     
  2. old_tony

    old_tony Well-Known Member

    The catch is that they retire at 55 and have a pension at 80% of their highest salary for the next 30 years.
     
  3. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    That isn't so much a "catch" as a "negotiated agreement that has been known to everybody for decades."
     
  4. old_tony

    old_tony Well-Known Member

    And it's why they're being forced to close schools and layoff teachers. It's working so well, isn't it? But that's what happens when one interest spends 40 years on both sides of the negotiating table.
     
  5. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Blah da de blah da de blah. In this specific case we have a governor who pulled money to the schools and routed them to the prisons. Good priorities.

    Anyway, that article you posted was ridiculous.
     
  6. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    They're also not being 'forced' to do nothin' except as a result of their sand-in-the-gears/ starve-the-beast policies by which they've been strangling public education for decades.

    Cut funding, bitch about poor performance, enable parents to bail out and send their kids to private schools, cut public school funding more, bitch more about declining performance, repeat repeat repeat.
     
  7. old_tony

    old_tony Well-Known Member

    Is it your position that more and more and more money has worked? Yes, or no?
     
  8. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    It's likely to work better than less and less money.

    That is, if you don't think the entire concept of public education, in and of itself, is a waste of money, which is kinda the whole point.
     
  9. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    So do prison guards. Would we rather be spending money on teachers or on prison guards?
     
  10. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    No, in this specific case we have a governor (Rendell) who plugged gaps in the state education budget with federal stimulus money, which had run out by the time Corbett took office.

    That, and Corbett started counting retiree benefits as part of the normal education budget, which had not been done previously.

    And, you have a governor invoking a state takeover law that was passed in the 1990s under Tom Ridge and with the blessing of Philly Mayor John Street.
     
  11. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Yeah, but you can't compare just salary. You do have to look at the full compensation plan.

    Free healthcare, a generous pension, and -- yes -- summers off are all part of what make teaching attractive.

    That entire package is competitive.
     
  12. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    Mayor Michael Nutter: "In the 21st century, it becomes increasingly untenable that folks aren't paying something for their health-care coverage and for a variety of other benefits. At the moment, those are the only other additional dollars that are available to the school district."

    Ed Rendell: He's "on the side of the teachers, but the union has to be realistic. Something had to be done. The education of our kids depends on significant savings coming from the contract."

    Again, that's the same Ed Rendell who tried to balance the budget by CUTTING state education spending and replacing it with temporary federal stimulus money.
     
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