Firefighters Starting Salary Higher Than Teachers Ending Salary – Late last week, Assistant Superintendent Matt Best and Davis Teachers Association lead negotiator Frank Thomsen issued a statement in which they acknowledged a tentative agreement on a new contract which includes a two percent one-time payment along with an ongoing two percent cost of living increase retroactive to July 1, 2013.
The teachers have been working without a contract since 2012 and the salary increase will be their first since 2008.
“Negotiations will continue on several other important items and both sides are looking forward to further progress in a spirit of cooperation and mutual respect,” the joint statement added.
The agreement must be ratified by both DTA membership and a vote by the Davis school board.
However, the agreement seems a long way from dealing with some of the core inequities that teachers – in what has been described as a grassroots and impromptu showing – came forward to complain about, regarding the huge amount of out of pocket expenses they were paying for health insurance.
As one teacher told the Vanguard, “This isn’t a leadership based move this time around.” Instead, it is “truly a grassroots upwelling of teachers who are at a breaking point.” In part, they explained that the district passed on to teachers a $200 per month increase in benefit costs, which amounts to a pay cut. As a number of people have explained, teachers are paying up to $1500 out of pocket for benefits and there are many, especially the younger teachers, who cannot afford to stay.
One teacher at Davis High, who gave permission to be quoted but not identified, told the Vanguard, “I take the family benefit package of $11900 per year which covers 100% of my vision plan and dental plan. The district contributes $951.91 per month towards my medical. My contribution is $1617.72 for Blue Shield.”
“I do not choose the cheapest option of Kaiser because I prefer the care offered by the UC Medical group,” the teacher said.
As the district explained to the Vanguard, there are three tiers of plans. $1600 is the gross premium for Blue Shield insurance, and the district covers about $951 of that. The rest is covered by the employees, about $650 per month. While this is pre-tax money, it comes to $7800 per year.
Teacher salaries range greatly, based on years of service and educational considerations. However, at the low end teachers make as little as $35,000 to $41,000 year a year, which moves up with time to $50,000 and potentially, with advanced degrees, into the $60,000 and $70,000 range. For the last contract, the highest salary was $77,965.
We have often compared police and fire salaries where firefighters on a regional basis are near the top of the region in pay while police are near the bottom. But the comparison is far more stark for firefighters and teachers, particularly when you consider level of education in the two fields.
Firefighters make more at their entry level than teachers do at any point in time in their career.
Compare the pay and benefits of teachers with what the city’s firefighters receive. An entry level firefighter made about $84,000 in base salary and that quickly escalated to nearly $96,000 for a Firefighter II, which encompassed at least three-quarters of all firefighters.
That does not include the mounds of overtime that pushed take home pay well over $100,000 for most firefighters.
Firefighters have more lucrative benefits, as a full time city employee receives $1657.86 for medical, $220.64 for Dental, $5.90 for life and $35 for LTD (Long Term Disability) for a total of $1920.40.
As teacher noted, “I do not know the exact difference between the two plans, but I believe it to be around $200 per month. I do know that a friend of mine who teaches in the Elk Grove school district pays $50 per month for the exact same benefit package.”
Now the district does not necessarily buy into this. For one thing, Elk Grove teachers have about the highest compensation coverage in the state and region. They covered this through continued enrollment growth.
The district believes that they provide better coverage than most districts our size. And the district believes they cannot ever cover full health.
At the same time, it appears the district needs to find a way to help out younger teachers who are lower on the salary end and paying out huge amounts from their relatively modest salary out of pocket for health insurance.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David, you can’t have it both ways. You complain that firefighters are overpaid then want to compare teachers’ salaries to them. I agree that firefighters are highly overpaid in Davis so their pay shouldn’t even enter the conversation.
I’d be having it both ways if I suggested that teachers should be paid what firefighters are paid, but simply comparing the two is not having it both ways.
Firefighter’s pay should’ve never entered the discussion.
Disagree. It was important to illustrate the gulf between what teachers get and firefighters get.
Hell, there’s a gulf between what firefighter’s make and most other jobs in Davis. Like I said, you can’t continually complain about firefighter pay and benefits then try and us that as a barometer to compare to other’s pay. IMO that’s very disengenuous.
David wrote:
> Firefighters make more at their entry level than teachers
> do at any point in time in their career.
Anyone that reads the Vanguard knows that I’m not a big defender of the firefighters, but on an average year they are at the firehouse close to DOUBLE the hours that teachers are at school…
It is important to point out that
SoD, that is a very timeclock-centric argument. Teachers do a substantial amount of their work (grading papers, etc.) off the clock.
You know that. Why make such an obtuse argument?
I disagree 100% G.I. It’s a very straightforward direct comparison … which do we value more, our children (grandchildren) or our worldly possessions?
It becomes even more stark when you realize that each of us has insurance to protect our worldly possessions, but no such insurance for our children.
There is some fundamental confusion in the assumptions behind this article. Overpaid firefighters do not justify overpaid teachers.
The questions we need to ask when setting teacher salaries are:
1. Is there an adequate number of highly qualified applicants when we advertise for positions?
(I assume yes. If not, then we need to increase salaries to attract new hires).
2. Can we afford a pay increase?
(This is dubious, unless we can operate without temporary emergency parcel taxes.)
3. Do teachers deserve a pay increase?
(In my opinion, if current teachers are doing an exceptionally good job and we can afford it, then we by all means should increase their pay. However if the current teachers are standing together to protect incompetent teachers that are ruining the educations of generation after generation of students, then they do not deserve an increase. Unfortunately this seems to be the case.)
“There is some fundamental confusion in the assumptions behind this article. Overpaid firefighters do not justify overpaid teachers.”
Nowhere am I saying or even implying that.
“Firefighters Starting Salary Higher Than Teachers Ending Salary”
Your own first line.
Yes. Nowhere in that line does it say we should pay teachers what we pay firefighters.
David wrote:
> Nowhere in that line does it say we should pay
> teachers what we pay firefighters.
If you didn’t want us to think that why did you write it (why not compare teacher pay to the typical NFL player starting and ending pay?)…
The answer to that is very straightforward. Which do you value more, the community’s children or the community’s inanimate possessions?
David’s article puts you in a position where you have to ask yourself that values question.
Class size is another variable to consider. You can reduce teacher supply shortages by increasing class size. So its more complex than you suggest.
J.R.: However if the current teachers are standing together to protect incompetent teachers that are ruining the educations of generation after generation of students, then they do not deserve an increase.
How do you define competence/incompetence among teachers in a way that will be agreeable to a broad consensus of the citizenry?
The recent issue of girls volleyball coaching seems to be an example of disagreement on competence in an educational setting. At least one set of parents (maybe more?) take issue with the recently dismissed volleyball coach, but others disagree. Extend that argument to an issue of salary/stipend increase. Would that volleyball coach deserve an increase or not?
You capture the problem in a nutshell.
We both agree that sometimes choices and options are not crystal clear.
I believe that nonetheless, one must make the best decisions one can to keep teachers out of classrooms who ruin the education of hundreds of children over their careers.
Others believe that because human decisions can be wrong, and mistakes can be made, and people can be biased, we should never eliminate incompetent teachers. Better to sacrifice hundreds of children than introduce the possibility that a teacher might be treated unfairly.
That’s fine, but those people should not pretend to care about children or learning in the schools. They should be as honest as teacher union leader Al Shanker, who famously said that he would care about children when they started paying union dues.
J.R.: …teacher union leader Al Shanker, who famously said that he would care about children when they started paying union dues.
That quote can’t be verified, and has been judged apocryphal, but it is very popular among people who seek to justify blaming teachers’ unions.
Washington Post Fact Checker, 5/29/2012: Romney’s unsubstantiated quote from union leader
David.. are you advocating that a beginning teacher should make a minimum of 84k per year? Plus fully paid medical, dental, vision, LTD and life insurance?
Did you see me say, “We should pay teachers what we pay firefighters now?” Just as the police piece wasn’t intended to argue that we pay police far less than firefighters, therefore we should increase police pay.
ok, what are you advocating?
I’m advocating that we need to reexamine the inequity the pay between teachers and city employees for one thing.
Which way, lower city employee salary/benefits, increase teachers/support staff/administrators pay/benefits? Both?
And if you advocate lowering lowering city employee salary/benefits, is that across the board, of just certain professions?
Not sure. But currently there is a huge inequity in pay/ benefits.
Suggest you compare engineer positions to teachers… they both require a BA/BS degree, both require professional certification. Yet teachers do not have to be “subject matter experts”, as engineers are usually selected for. Engineers usually need to have 2-5 years of professional experience before they earn their license.
I believe that engineers could easily pass the CBEST test, and therefore qualify to be teachers, EXCEPT for the fact that the educational “union” requires a credential program that requires potential teachers to pay for another year of “education” that you can pass with a “C”, and unlike engineers, teachers have to belong to a union, to help prevent a teacher from demonstrating either subject matter competency, nor instructional competency.
Suggest you compare CPA positions to teachers, not engineers. Engineers are in short supply and command a premium in wages due to private market supply and demand. Neither teachers nor CPAs are in short supply and both require similar credentialing.
However, CPAs and auditors only make 76% of the wages we are paying teachers on average. And when benefits are factored, that number drops to about 66%.
Good point.
Frankly: Neither teachers nor CPAs are in short supply and both require similar credentialing.
Teachers may become in short supply if efforts are made to reduce class sizes to pre-recession levels. Class size reduction has started taking place in DJUSD again.
I’ve read recently in The Vanguard:
1. We had an initiative that was successful at reducing class sizes, then,
2. Davis teachers voted to increase class sizes and eliminate teacher positions in order to maintain their pay levels, then,
3. The resulting increased class sizes are being used to justify pay hikes for current teachers, and now,
4. DJUSD is reducing class sizes again (which will justify raising teacher salaries again due to the short supply).
This sounds like a NeverEnding Story.
Perhaps a good reason not to reduce class sizes, at least on the economic front? Was in 30 pupil classes until I went to college, where most of my classes had 40 to 400 students. Think I turned out OK.
hpierce: I believe that engineers could easily pass the CBEST test, and therefore qualify to be teachers, EXCEPT for the fact that the educational “union” requires a credential program that requires potential teachers to pay for another year of “education” that you can pass with a “C”,
I understand that teaching credentials came into being before teachers unions came onto the scene.
Passing the CBEST requires a threshold command of the English language. There are many engineers hired in the U.S. who come in on immigrant visas, and I question if they all could pass the CBEST.
I know a teacher who could not teach in Davis because she couldn’t pass the CBEST. She was a native Spanish teacher who had taught high school Spanish elsewhere. In this case, I happen to think it was an appropriate consideration that she not teach at Davis High School, because, among other things, there is a heavy demand on teachers to write letters of recommendation for colleges, post graduation pursuits. Her English wasn’t strong enough as one might expect for a standard high school teacher.
I’m okay with raising the standards for the credential program. Make the standard passing grade a ‘B’ instead of a ‘C’. Also make it harder to get into the program. But I think that might mean fewer teachers on the market than would be needed to fill the available positions, which would create stronger pressures for greater compensation.
I suggest that people take a look at the Cbest test before they believe this. An average Davis junior high student could easily pass it, with no preparation.
I’ve taken it and passed it. But the test is in English. If your English isn’t at maybe an 8th/9th grade level for writing, then you probably can’t pass. I have also coached someone who learned English as a second language, and it isn’t easy for such a person. Do you think you could pass the test if it were given to you in Spanish? Including the written portion?
With an engineering background, my friend has bet me that he could pass the CBEST without any preparation at all, and teach trig and geometry equal to ANY teacher in the district, and probably motivate the students better by letting them know WHY trig and geometry could lead to successful, fulfilling careers. I believe my friend is correct. My friend has taught and mentored many co-workers at no extra compensation.
Many teachers have no subject mastery, and “teach to the text”, or “to the test”.
Have had great, inspirational teachers, and remember them fondly. They helped me succeed, and helped form my personality.
Yet, many teachers are just “doing the ‘job’ to get a paycheck. My children had many of these, in DJUSD. In my opinion, we need a merit based system, get rid of the “guild” system for training teachers (mandatory credential program, and instead do results-based competency evaluations), and then have continous evaluations for raises in column and step.
But that’s just me.
Great! So why is your friend not a teacher?
Because they feel they can better sere the community by being an engineer.
That is a one-way street approach to the question. perhaps the key question is whether firefighters should be paid the same as teachers. After all, there is virtually nothing that they protect that isn’t covered by insurance. The same can not be said about what teachers “protect.”
Dixon $842/month
Fairfield $650/month
West Sac $847/month
Woodland N/A but last I knew $600/month
So DJUSD is better than most. Teacher health benefits are underfunded with large out of pocket expenses everywhere in the region. Compared with other public employees teachers get the short end of the stick but that doesn’t mean others are overcompensated only that teachers are under compensated.
It is a myth that teachers are underpaid. It is not a myth that the money we are paying for public education far exceeds its value to society at this point and time.
Public school teachers comprise 30% of the 14.8 million state and local government workers, and adding public school administrators makes the total about 50%. The number of administrators has skyrocketed over the years. More about that 2-to-3 ratio of administrators to teachers later.
California teachers have routinely been recognized as the highest compensated in the nation. The average annual wages paid to California teachers is about $70,000. Only New York, New Jersey and DC pay higher wages.
The 2010 annual compensation survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) looks at average wages. In that survey the average hourly wage for elementary and secondary administrators was $46.85, for all other Management occupations it was $45.21. The average wage for elementary and secondary teachers was $38.39.
Engineers = $41.99
Computer occupations = $36.56
Administrative service managers = $34.18
Accountants and auditors = $29.33
Paralegals and legal assistants = $23.03
Average of all workers = $22.77
Now let’s add the value of the benefits.
Private business and finance managers = $58.44
Primary and secondary public school teachers = $56.59
All teachers, public and private = $53.87
All non-management professionals in private industry = $46.61
Average of all workers in private sector = $28.24.
Teachers are not grossly overpaid like firefighters. They are paid on average about 8% more than equivalent private sector teachers. Private sector teachers are paid market wages and benefits.
Private sector schools also have fewer administrators. The ratio of administrator-to-teachers is less than 1-to-5. Private schools put the money back into facilities, books, technology… basically things that benefit the students. Public school increasingly put the money back into things that benefit the public education employees and their unions.
When you total the 8% over-market compensation for teachers, and you factor the increase in inflation-adjusted cost per student… primarily driven by the explosion in numbers of highly-compensated school administrators… and you consider that the quality of public school education has fallen drastically over the last few decades… there is only one logical conclusion.
We are all stupid to keep paying more.
I agree about too many over paid administrators.
I agree on both points… too many, AND overpaid.
It is important to not just look at what teachers (or fireman) make “per year” focus on pay per hour (and see how many paid hours doing what you want while someone else has the kids (or sleeping or eating or doing what you want when other guys are on a call)…
Some public school kindergarten teachers work from 8:30-12:00 M-F and get summers, winter break, spring break and just about every holiday off (I dated one for a year).
While most teachers don’t make a huge amount “per year”, their pay “per hour” is more than most people (the girl I was dating made more per hour than I did at the time working for a “Big 6” CPA firm…
Absolutely. The canned response to this is that teachers work more hours during the regular school year grading papers, etc.
But then show me any professional employee in the private sector that does not work extra hours and does not take work home with them on a regular basis.
And just try to push for a 12-month school year with 2 weeks of paid vacation (the standard for the rest of us) and see how the teachers respond. They know that their summers off is a job benefit. They just don’t like everyone else seeing it that way.