Teacher salary report: Teachers "will be scratching their heads"

Financial crisis could wipe out gains made over the years, says LFT president

(Baton Rouge – October 30, 2010) A recent announcement that average teacher salaries in Louisiana have risen by 85% over the past 15 years may be a tribute to the accomplishments of the past, but says little about the challenges of the future, according to Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan.

In a report that was heard Thursday by the state’s Education Estimating Conference, consultants said the average Louisiana teacher salary rose from $26,461 in 1994-95 to $48,903 in the 2009-10 school year.

Members of the commission refused to officially adopt the report, perhaps indicating dissatisfaction with its methodology and confusion over its meaning.

“Many teachers who see this report will be scratching their heads and wondering how this average was derived,” said Monaghan. “It seems to depend heavily on experienced teachers moving up into the top brackets in higher-paying school systems.”

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Union leader: performance-based pay working in Jefferson Parish

When President Barack Obama suggested more performance-based pay for school teachers, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten gave provisional approval, saying "the devil is in the details."

Here in Louisiana, Jefferson Federation of Teachers President Joe Potts said essentially the same thing when Times-Picayune reporter Barri Bronston sought comments for this article.

The key to a successful program, Potts told the reporter, is openness by administrators:

"Otherwise, teachers start feeling like they bought into a bill of goods," he
said. "Then you start losing the enthusiasm and respect for administrators.
The whole key is in how it is presented."

Potts said the program in Jefferson Parish seems to be working well:

...partly because bonuses, which range from $1,000 to $3,300, are based on how
much students grow academically from year to year, as opposed to how high
they score on standardized tests in single year.

There is another significant factor at work. Teachers in Jefferson Parish have a mature relationship with the school board. Because of the collective bargaining agreement between the board and JFT, it is possible to try new programs in collaboration with teachers.

Similar partnership agreements in other school systems would make it much easier for teachers to embrace change, secure in the knowledge that their concerns must be taken into consideration. Currently, only Jefferson, St. Tammany and three other school systems have collective bargaining partnerships between school boards and their employees.

Memo to the T-P: We want more

The Times-Picayune's uptown Brahmin's have their knickers all in a twist because the LFT wants our teachers to be paid as well as any in the nation.

Just wait until they find out what else we want.

Improved school buildings, advanced technology and lower pupil-teacher ratios, for starters, ought to give the editorial writers apoplectic sticker shock. And that's not all.

This year, the Federation will press lawmakers to determine how much we should be spending on public schools. What does it cost to educate our children, to provide each of them with what Superintendent Paul Pastorek refers to as a “world-class education?” Do we have the texts, technology, facilities and personnel that are necessary? What do these components cost?

Once we know that figure, that is what the LFT will ask for. It will probably be a lot.

Just as it was not the fault of the people of New Orleans that substandard levees failed and must be rebuilt at huge cost, it is not the fault of Louisiana's teachers that public education has been shortchanged for years. And it certainly is not our fault that the legislature and Gov. Jindal handed out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax breaks just as oil revenues tanked.

We are not naive enough to believe that the legislature will fund all our requests this year. But we have to ask. We have to ensure that the real needs of our schools, our educators and our children do not fade from the public discourse.

When the huffy potentates of his day asked labor hero Samuel Gompers just what unions wanted, he replied:

“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.”

For the teachers and support staff in our schools, for the children they serve, and for the future of our state, we want more.