Quality public schools need well-compensated teachers

From the editorial page of this paper to open public meetings and casual conversations, there are actually calls to offset the Summit College District’s $2.5 million loss in state aid by freezing or reducing teachers’ compensation. I believe this would be the wrong direction.

We appear to teachers to prepare our children for academic and career success, and to impart the fundamentals of very good citizenship. On a national level, we are told that community school teachers ought to do much more to prepare future engineers, scientist, and creative thinkers, lest the United States lose its edge from the global economy. Our children’s futures as well as the future of our communities, state, and country rest, in large part, in our teachers’ hands.

To fill this tall order, teachers are expected and, indeed, necessary to be bright, hardworking, and dedicated. To attract and retain the best plus the brightest, the Summit Board of Training should supply teachers with sufficient and steady salary and benefits. Otherwise, it's only a matter of time before smart, capable people forgo teaching for professions that garner greater compensation and far more respect.

Misinformation has fueled the attack on teacher compensation. Gov. Christie has led the charge by misrepresenting that teachers earn $100,000 salaries, pay out absolutely nothing toward benefits, and receive a 4-% annual wage increase. In reality, a teacher which includes a bachelor’s degree starts in the Summit community colleges at about $54,000 per year. On the same salary scale, a teacher using a bachelor’s degree who has taught for ten years earns about $59,000; a teacher with a PhD who has taught for ten many years earns $68,800. A small number of teachers earn in the $100,000 range, but they are already inside the Summit schools for decades, some as a lot of as 35 many years.

For most teachers, it is usually a slow creep up the 22-step salary scale. In reality, recent legislation requiring teachers to contribute at least 1.5% of salary to health rewards will effectively wipe out future pay out increases due under the current contract. Critics lament teachers’ wellness and pension benefits, ignoring that historically teachers received these advantages in exchange for modest salaries. If the open public expects teachers to carry far more in the price of rewards than they currently do, then teachers’ salaries must be increased accordingly.

Anti-union bluster has also contributed to the charge on teachers. In an effort to gain community support for his staggering $820 million blow to public training, the governor has painted the state union (NJEA) as a money-grubbing machine. He has driven a wedge in between union members, who have job security and fairly very good gains, and workers within the private sector who, via no fault of teachers, experience little security and stagnant wages. Rather than holding up teacher compensation being a model of what every single worker should love, whether from the community or private sector, the governor has denounced NJEA for creating “two classes of citizens in New Jersey: People who appreciate rich community benefits and those that spend for them.”

His attack has depersonalized the debate: it seriously isn't individual teachers who deserve less compensation; rather, it could be the union insisting on excessive pay out and rewards that need to be stopped. At the end on the day, though, teacher unions do absolutely nothing much more than speak for teachers, and freezes and cuts in compensation will hit teachers, not their union, individually and personally. Given how willing some Summit residents are already to throw teachers under the bus, the local union has its work cut out.

The call to cut teachers’ compensation is also grounded in the larger difficulty of undervaluing the teaching profession. Maybe mainly because individual profit maximization could be the norm, there seems an underlying assumption that altruism draws men and women to community service professions. If we can convince ourselves that teaching isn't function done for money, then it really is okay to accuse teachers of greed, as the governor did, or to demand that they make “sacrifices” for the benefit of Summit taxpayers. Obviously, teachers do not join their profession to become rich, and they may perhaps indeed be motivated by a passion for teaching or even a drive to produce the world a far better place, but it does not follow that they don't will need or deserve to generate a decent living.

Summit residents who understand the connection in between high quality public training and adequately paid teachers must take action.

First, we can tell our elected officials in Trenton to reject Governor Christie’s choice to slash community training. The Legislature is not bound by the governor’s proposal and has until the end of June to pass a final state spending budget. It can override the governor’s refusal to renew the so-called “millionaires’ tax” on annual incomes over $400,000, which alone would cover most from the proposed education cuts, and his choice to sunset the 4% surcharge on corporate business taxes. There are other revenue sources that really should be explored too, including increasing New Jersey’s gasoline tax, the third lowest within the country. Summit’s legislators voted against Governor Corzine’s college funding
decreases in 2008. Voters should tell them to again take a principled stand on community education by rejecting Governor Chrisite’s draconian proposal.

Second, the Summit Board of Education needs to hear from citizens who think decreasing teacher compensation is unacceptable. There will be no quick choices when it comes to closing spending budget shortfalls, but our exceptional colleges require sufficient and consistent teacher compensation.

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