About a week ago or so I learn we have 2 Billion + extra dollars this year for the state government of NC. Today I here that we are 912 million short on highway funds due to the federal government underfunding their previous projections. Am I the only one who sees a possible connection between these stories? Wouldn't these $$s be better spent on infrastructure then on whatever else the legislature is planning. State taxes suck here!

6/23/2006 1:09:43 AM

state taxes in NC do totally suck

i remember in boot camp when we'd get our paltry paychecks on the 1st and the 15th...we were all getting paid at the same rate--the only difference was how much was deducted for our respective state taxes. almost everyone got paid more than i did.

6/23/2006 1:30:27 AM

Yeah, screw those greedy teachers. They don't need the surplus.

But really... did they not see this over the horizon when they were talking about how to best spend teh surplus?

[Edited on June 23, 2006 at 1:48 AM. Reason : .]

6/23/2006 1:34:14 AM

Greedy teachers?

2 billion - 912 million = 1.088 billion =/= loose change

I was hoping that they would use the surplus to pay back the highway trust fund and the various municipalities the state stole, er borrowed, money from. But then Easley said that the state would never pay back that money.

6/23/2006 7:35:34 AM

They waste so much fucking money on the roads.

It's highway robbery.

6/23/2006 9:14:39 AM

I say that we spend the $2 billion on a shit load of lottery tickets.

6/23/2006 10:20:12 AM

They could definitely spend more on the proper maintenance of the roads.

Raiding a billion dollars out of the trust fund is a bit lame, especially when you've got the money to fill it back up (and you aren't doing it).

Neglecting the highways will just fuck over the infrastructure in the long run (and then we'll just get to spend even more money on maintenance, repairs, and new construction).

I'm sure they could also do a few tax cuts at this point as well... Unless we need about 200 teacup museums.

6/23/2006 3:27:26 PM

pay the senators and governors and different levels of council less

6/23/2006 3:38:23 PM

I bet we could save $ by investing a few million in fraud-investigators. Let's start an agency to trim the fat of all the other agencies, let's make agencies that sign-up unelligible individuals to their social programs responsible for that fraud. In my experience, social programs are pretty sloppy about allowing fraud. As long as they spend $ on x-number of people then they can say that NC helped those people. Wether those people actually needed or qualified for help is another issue. More accountablity on this issue would be great.

6/23/2006 4:06:57 PM

Yea, this shit pisses me off too.

6/23/2006 5:09:22 PM

$30,000 is not an acceptible white collar salary, yet it's what our teachers get paid.

6/23/2006 5:14:06 PM

Quote :

"remember in boot camp when we'd get our paltry paychecks on the 1st and the 15th...we were all getting paid at the same rate--the only difference was how much was deducted for our respective state taxes. almost everyone got paid more than i did."

They probably pay more in property taxes than you do, however. North Carolina has relatively high income tax rates but lower property tax rates. This is because the state is a responsible for a larger fraction of school expenditure and roads than in other states.

6/23/2006 5:21:56 PM

^ personal deductions have a big effect. state income tax is pretty minimal.

its real minimal here in Washington.

like 0% minimal.




[Edited on June 23, 2006 at 6:40 PM. Reason : ]

6/23/2006 6:37:45 PM

Quote :

"$30,000 is not an acceptible white collar salary, yet it's what our teachers get paid."

Plus summer work, plus benefits makes it more than that. Anyway, why should we throw a bunch more $$ on a system that is already failing. Perhaps we should consider other options, options that are not politically advantageous for the dems in NC.

6/23/2006 7:05:48 PM

^

1. Unpaid overtime more than negates two months off.

2. What white collar jobs don't have benefits?

3. The teachers should pay for a system that is beyond their comtrol?

6/23/2006 8:13:59 PM

Quote :

"The teachers should pay for a system that is beyond their comtrol?"

The rest of us do, why should they be any different?

6/23/2006 9:57:51 PM

The simple fact is that if you want to bring in talented people to do a job, you have to pay for it. If someone is talented at teaching, they could be making bank in the private sector doing something else. You have to be willing to pay for them to give up that private sector job.

With that said, primary education is not something where you need the best and the brightest as teachers, especially since they just have to teach for the test nowadays.

[Edited on June 23, 2006 at 10:02 PM. Reason : dsf]

6/23/2006 10:01:51 PM

Quote :

"3. The teachers should pay for a system that is beyond their comtrol?"

It seems that the people most resistant to dramatic reform of the educational system are teachers. Perhaps it's outside the control of an individual, but certainly the unions are another story.

Btw, at what point will the $$ be enough boonedocks? Consider this school bond for Wake county, 1 Billion dollars. That's 5% of the whole state budget just for Wake public schools. What do we pay now, is it $12,000 per kid? How many $$ per kid will allow public educators to do the job ?

Personally I don't think the problem is really $.

6/24/2006 12:31:23 AM

I might get burned here but I believe any new teacher who complains about making $24,000 a year should stfu. Seriously you should have looked at how much schools pay teachers. You should know that's what you're going to make...

$24,000 a year, with 2+ months of summer vacasion, + 2 weeks of vacation during... seriously... shut up already. You chose the career... you knew the price... take the time to earn a solid rep as a good teacher and then move to private schools where you'll make a good salary.

EDIT ^... the problem is not teachers, it's lack of space for students. Schools are given money based on location, size of student base, and parental nagging. The whole Cary-ite thought process that thinks all public schools should look like Star Trek TNG, is what is costing so much money. If the money given to the schools could be used for the right things... aka not buying Athen's Drive Football team new jerseys with the students name on it ($2000+). It's bad use of plentiful resources.

[Edited on June 24, 2006 at 1:02 AM. Reason : !]

6/24/2006 12:59:10 AM

Quote :

"Btw, at what point will the $$ be enough boonedocks?"

How about above 28k a year? 35-40k starting salary is reasonable.

And there's tons of things wrong with the system (I teach high school, btw). One of the greatest problems imo is huge class sizes because we can't afford to hire an adequate level of teachers. If only there was some correlation between supply and demand that would help us set a proper price for teachers...

6/24/2006 8:48:26 PM

Well, last I checked the average American public school system spends about as much on administration as it does on teachers salaries, so if we fired everyone in the "Department of Education" we could double the number of teachers. Would that work for you ^?

6/24/2006 10:42:04 PM

^but then who will supress the rights of children?

[Edited on June 24, 2006 at 11:24 PM. Reason : ]

6/24/2006 11:24:33 PM

Quote :

"If only there was some correlation between supply and demand that would help us set a proper price for teachers... "

ha, that's funny. If you were really for supply and demand you'd support vouchers, that way we could use our $$$ how we want not how the teacher's unions want. How can you really talk about supply and demand when you are essentially the only game in town. I'm no economist, but I think you need some legitimate competition before the free-market works it's magic. It's hardly a free market when if someone chooses to not use your service ( ie chooses to homeschool or private school ) you still get all their $$$.

6/25/2006 1:07:09 AM

LoneSnark, I'd love to see some overhead cut, but none of this affects whether or not teachers should be paid what they deserve. It's a particular means to that end, but nothing more.

But to address the overhead-- it's not some sort of conspiracy, guys. The school systems are given a whole lot of responsibilities by the state and federal gov'ts. The overhead is there to meet that demand, not to fill the coffers of the edomite principal's guild.

mathman: "lollerz what do teachers know about teaching?!" So instead of teachers holding the power, should it be politicians?

And yes, clearly we're opposed to vouchers because we want to monopolize the education market. It has nothing to do with what we think is best for the nation's education system (but again, what the hell do we know? You're the teaching expert!)

6/25/2006 2:09:31 AM

Quote :

"But to address the overhead-- it's not some sort of conspiracy, guys. The school systems are given a whole lot of responsibilities by the state and federal gov'ts. The overhead is there to meet that demand, not to fill the coffers of the edomite principal's guild."

Now that we have tracked down the causes I suggest we fix it.

County school systems should not be hampered by state and federal guidelines. If the county school board wants to allow child molesters to teach that is their prerogative.

Quote :

"So instead of teachers holding the power, should it be politicians?"

Uh, no, the point behind vouchers is that it takes the power out of the hands of teachers and politicians and puts it in the hands of the parents, which now get to choose which school gets their money.

Why should we blindly trust teachers and their administrators with a monopoly when we refuse to trust bakers with a monopoly? Are teachers just better people, angels on Earth compared to the rest of us, without the need for oversight?

Besides, one of the main arguments in favor of vouchers is that it gets the privatized school out from under the weight of all the state and federal regulations. If teachers are truly angels then they should have no need for such regulations.

[Edited on June 25, 2006 at 9:48 AM. Reason : .,.]

6/25/2006 9:40:44 AM

one of the main arguments in favor of against vouchers is that it gets the privatized school out from under the weight of all the state and federal regulations.



Accomidating SPED, low SES, and handicapped children is what creates the need for much of the "weight".

6/25/2006 11:36:48 AM

Quote :

"one of the main arguments against vouchers is that it gets the privatized school out from under the weight of all the state and federal regulations."

Yes, because you know politicians are just so much better at teaching children than teachers.

Quote :

"Accomidating SPED, low SES, and handicapped children is what creates the need for much of the "weight"."

Really? Odd, does it really require such a massive administrative body for a small percentage of school children? Do away with all of the administrative overhead and we could give every handicapped child his own personal teacher.

[Edited on June 25, 2006 at 11:54 AM. Reason : .,.]

6/25/2006 11:52:53 AM

I used the WCPSS 2004-05 budget to come up with some numbers:

- For those classified as 'Professional Educator,' WCPSS spent $373,730,502 on 83,510.70 man-months of work. A professional educator in Wake County earns, on average, $4,475.24 per month and $53,702.89 per 12 months.

- For those classified as 'Administration', WCPSS spent $45,319,741 on 7497.95 man-months of work. An administrator in Wake County earns, on average, $6,044.28 per month and $72,531.41 per 12 months.

- Principals and Assistant Principals (classified as Administration) cost $20,885,371 for 4,197.00 man-months of work. On average, Principals and Assistant Principals earn $4,976.26 per month and $59,715.14 per 12 months (the actual numbers are $69,311.88 and $53,874.20 for Principals and Assistant Principals, recpectively).

- If Principals and Assistant Principals are removed from the Administration numbers (differentiate between in-school and home office administration), the average administrator earns $7,402.22 per month and $88,826.68 per 12 months. The Superintendent earned $117,408.00 in 2004-05.

Assuming that professional educators work 10 months and administrators work 12 months, WCPSS employed 8,351 educators and 625 administrators. Enrollment was 112,970. Professional educators can be further broken down into teachers and non-teachers (counselors, media specialists*, etc): 7,624 teachers and 727 non-teachers.

Educator to student ratio: 1 : 13.53
Teacher to student ratio: 1 : 14.82
Administrator to student ratio: 1 : 180.75
Administrator to educator ratio: 1 : 13.36

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I take away from these numbers is:

1) Teachers and Administrators receive compenstaion that is comparable to other public service employees.

2) There is an excessive amount of administration. According to the ratios, teachers receive as much supervision from administrators as students receive from teachers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Links:

WCPSS 2004-2005 Budget
http://www.wcpss.net/budget/2004-05-official-budget/2004-05-official-budget.pdf

2004-2005 NC Public Schools Salary Schedule
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/salary_admin/salsched04-05.pdf

2006 NC State Employee Pay Schedule (for comparison to NC teachers)
http://www.osp.state.nc.us/salschd/2006/salsch06.pdf

2005 General Service (Federal) Pay Schedule (for comparison to NC teachers)
http://www.opm.gov/oca/05tables/pdf/gs.pdf

2006 Military Pay Schedule (for comparison to NC teachers)
http://www.dod.mil/dfas/militarypay/newinformation/WebPayTableVersion2006updated.pdf

*WTF is wrong with librarian?

6/25/2006 1:28:42 PM

Quote :

"Really? Odd, does it really require such a massive administrative body for a small percentage of school children? Do away with all of the administrative overhead and we could give every handicapped child his own personal teacher."

and

Quote :

"2) There is an excessive amount of administration. According to the ratios, teachers receive as much supervision from administrators as students receive from teachers."

The soap box has had this discussion before. IIRC it ended with some professional teachers saying there was probably some fat to cut, and people who hadn't been inside a high school since they were 18 saying there was definitely a ton of fat to cut.

Of course there's room for improvement, but as with any business, overhead is necessary. From people in charge of buying school buses to people who coordinate SPED curriculum to people in charge of overseeing new school construction.

I'd be interested in comparing our school systems' teacher:administration ratio to a large business' sales associate:management/marketing/acquisitions/HR/R&D/etc... ratio.

Quote :

"1) Teachers and Administrators receive compenstaion that is comparable to other public service employees."

Relevance-o-meter: 0/10

So compared to everything from state-employed janitors on up, we're doing well?

Or compared to other jobs that are also underpaid we do well?

I don't get how your comparisons were supposed to support your opinion.



[Edited on June 26, 2006 at 1:13 AM. Reason : .]

6/26/2006 12:48:41 AM

Quote :

"$30,000 is not an acceptible white collar salary, yet it's what our teachers get paid."

Yes, some earn that. However, the average in this state is at $46,000 a year, if I am not mistaken, and recent government promises should ahve it over $50,000 in a couple years. When adjusted for cost of living and such, NC is actually one of the better paying states in the country.

The problem is not that teachers don't make enough but that they have skewed the pay benefits too heavily for seniority and left little room for performance based pay increases. If they didn't overpay the veteran teachers as much as they do then the starting salaries wouldn't be so shitty. I mean think about how overpaid veteran teachers must be if the starting salary can be as low as $24k yet the average is still nearly double that. To be honest, teaching gets easier as you get older because so much of it is about experience in handling the students and getting used to planning and curriculum. I think teacher salaries are a great example of where across the board percentage raises are a bad idea... you only create greater "separation of wealth" in the scale. Distribute an even amount instead of an even percentage. If you want to go halfway between and event amount across the board and a flat percentage, then that works too without magnifying the differences in salary as much.

I work for the state. As a software developer I make pretty decent money compared to the average state employee, but I still think its only fair to give even amounts instead of percentage increase. You put money into the pockets of those who feel the economic pinch the most but still maintain adequate separation between levels of pay. If there is a 1 billion dollar surplass then divide it by the number of state employees and cut the checks to everyone for that amount.

[Edited on June 26, 2006 at 1:51 AM. Reason : .]

6/26/2006 1:42:11 AM

Quote :

"The soap box has had this discussion before. IIRC it ended with some professional teachers saying there was probably some fat to cut, and people who hadn't been inside a high school since they were 18 saying there was definitely a ton of fat to cut."

starting with the teacher's union. "Fat" consists of more than just unnecessary employees. Tanzarian has given statistics on the state of NC, not the worst offender when it comes to over-manning.

My objection is not entirely based upon the fact that the school system has done a horrible job, but that based upon how the system is organized (dominated by government bureaucrats and labor unions) the results should have been horrible, imagine our surprise when the system turns out to be the most expensive in the world yet student test scores are sub-par.

The purpose of monopolies is to fleece customers, the purpose of a government funded monopoly is to fleece customers against their will.

6/26/2006 8:49:01 AM

Quote :

"I'd be interested in comparing our school systems' teacher:administration ratio to a large business' sales associate:management/marketing/acquisitions/HR/R&D/etc... ratio."

Allow me to clarify the term 'Adminstrator.' The Administrators are: Superintendent, Deputy Superintendents, Directors, Principals, Finance Officer, Assistant Principals, Assistant Superintendents, and "Other" (of which there are about 15). These are people in managerial positions--administration does NOT include HR, IT, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, etc.

WCPSS is extremely top heavy. There are approximately 1 principal and 2 assistant principals per school. That is reasonable. What is not reasonable are the 240 directors. That's about 2.5 directors per school, all of whom make more than teachers, and all of whom build their own little empires to impose on the principals and teachers below them.

Additionally, a quick look through WCPSS's strategic directives should convince you that management is in serious need of imrpovement. Many of the goals are broad generalizations with little objective basis for judging improvement. Those that aren't quite so subjective have success criteria like 'increases' or 'positive trends.'

Quote :

"I don't get how your comparisons were supposed to support your opinion."

First of all, everyone is underpaid. Just ask them.

The point is that teachers, when compared to other civil service employees, fall around the middle of the pay scales. Teacher's salaries are comparable to everyone else who works in the public sector. Civil servant pay is not, has never been, and should never be particularly spectacular. Also, keep in mind where teachers fall on a public school system organizational chart--near the bottom. I'm not trying to downplay the importance or difficulty of being a successful teacher, but the fact remains that the guys on the bottom always get paid less than those at the top.

Personally, I believe that the teaching community has fallen victim to the teacher's union and to some of their own rhetoric.

6/26/2006 12:52:12 PM