By Nicholas von Wettberg
According to a recent follow-up telephone survey of 400 likely Davis voters, over half of those polled were in support of a $960 parcel tax for improvements in Davis Joint Unified School District (DJUSD) schools.
While the overall numbers from the research reflected positively on the district-wide school climate, the amount of potential interest, however, fell well short of the required two-thirds vote for such a measure.
As a result, EMC Research will recommend to school board members at Thursday’s meeting that the dollar amount originally proposed for the measure appear on the November ballot.
Trustees requested the follow-up survey after they were given results from the firm’s initial study, in which 71-percent of 400 likely Davis voters responded that they would support a school parcel tax at a proposed $620 for 8 years.
The board could be called aspirational in its decision to further explore voter support for an increase in the funding of district programming, especially with a sampled 41-percent voter base unaware of a current parcel tax, but the difference in tax amount would raise approximately $5 million more per year for Davis schools.
Much of that additional funding would go toward one of the district’s current priorities: closing the achievement/opportunity gap, in the form of “providing more support for struggling students, high-quality teachers, additional literacy and math specialists, innovative science programs and improved art and music.”
In the follow-up survey, conducted from May 15-22, the tenth question presented was, “If the election were held today, would you vote yes to approve this measure ($960 for 8 years) or no to reject it?”
Fifty-five percent of the voters responded with a solid yes to the question, which amounted to a 16-percent drop compared to answers from the study in April.
In both of the EMC interviews, there was a plus/minus Margin of Error of 4.9 percentage points.
One key finding was that, similar to the previous survey, subgroups including older voters and high-propensity voters were less in favor of supporting an increase “than the overall support level.”
The follow-up survey also revealed that district parents had some trouble supporting the increase, with 57 percent of parents of a DJUSD student voting a solid yes – a 14-percent decrease when compared to the findings from the first study.
If Davis renters and others were the only subgroup to cast a vote in the General Election, there might be a chance for an increased amount to be placed on that ballot.
A sizable 71 percent of that category (enough to surpass the threshold) replied with a solid yes to the support for the $960 amount. The same could be said for voters, ages 18-49, whose responses recorded a similar percentage.
Voting homeowners, on the other hand, were not so receptive to a boost in yet another tax, as successful and important as the extra funding has been to Davis education for the past 32 years.
Only 47 percent of homeowners responded with a solid yes, which was down 19 percent from the previous survey.
Component-wise, the study confirmed that voters are concerned about issues like retaining high-quality teachers, providing outstanding academic programs and providing more support for struggling students.
As for the term, “support for struggling students,” there was a marked difference in importance level between how it was worded in each survey.
In the proposal for a $620 measure, it read, “Providing support for struggling students,” which garnered a reply of very important from 58 percent of likely Davis voters.
Comparatively, only 46 percent of voters gave a very important reply to the phrase, ”Closing the achievement gap by providing more support for struggling students.”
Other language tested in the polls showed favorable ratings (an increase of 17 percent) when a word like “maintaining” was used instead of “improving,” or through the omission of the word “additional.”
Questions 21 through 27 in the survey gauged the support level of voters when presented with reasons for backing the measure.
Respondents were asked, “Now I’m going to read you some additional information about the proposed school parcel tax measure for Davis Joint Unified School District. After hearing each statement, please tell me if it makes you much more likely to support the measure, somewhat more likely to support it, or if it makes no difference to you.”
The statement voters supported the most was, “This measure will prevent the district from having to lay off over 100 teachers.”
Just over half those polled (51 percent) answered that they would be much more likely to support the measure for that reason.
The second highest percentage (44 percent) of voter support came after being read the statement, “All of the revenue from this measure will be spent here in our local schools and cannot be taken away by the state.”
Conversely, when posed with statements that opposed the proposed increase, over half of the reported voters were less likely (25 percent much less and 28 percent somewhat less) to support the measure, not only because of the overall amount involved but also because the increase comes at too fast a rate.
The statement read to voters was, “$960/parcel is just too expensive and it represents an 80% increase above what we currently pay for Davis schools.”
It seems clear that after hearing the results of the follow-up survey the board will reject an increase in the amount for a school parcel tax, sticking instead to the original plan for a measure of $620 for 8 years (raising approximately $9.5 million per year for programming).
So folks, when taxers come after you for what they claim to be a temporary tax never believe it. Once they get their hands any new funds they never want to relinquish that pipeline.
Vote no, your vote counts twice as mine.
Yes I always have that option, but I can express my opinion too, right?
Anyone else have a problem with people that have no skin in the game voting to tax homeowners and property owners?
If you live in a rental house or an apartment, then you pay for the tax indirectly through your rents. When I lived in a rental house, my rent went up proportionally to the amount that parcel taxes went up.
BP
“Anyone else have a problem with people that have no skin in the game voting to tax homeowners and property owners?”
I don’t. “No skin in the game” is a subjective assessment. What if you are a renter ? You don’t believe that you are helping to defray your landlord’s increased expense ?
We just recently went through the numbers on this. With the new structure of the parcel taxes due to the Granda lawsuit apartments no longer are charged by the unit. So a 100 unit apartment building will pay the same tax as the poor schmuk homeowner. So let’s take the proposed $650 school parcel. That comes out to 54 cents a month per apartment. Do you really believe any apartment owner is going to raise each apartment’s rent by 54 cents a month?
But in turn the poor schmuck homeowner’s family gets hit with a $650 yearly charge.
Not everyone rents apartments.
Duh.
wdf1 wrote:
> If you live in a rental house or an apartment,
> then you pay for the tax indirectly through
> your rents.
How about letting everyone in Davis vote to make all students in town pay a $1,000/year tax since we will pay for the tax “indirectly” though the higher wages they will demand from their part time jobs in town?
SoD: How about letting everyone in Davis vote to make all students in town pay a $1,000/year tax since we will pay for the tax “indirectly” though the higher wages they will demand from their part time jobs in town?
It might be fun for you to talk about, but it isn’t legal and won’t happen in this universe.
SoD – Brilliant suggestion!
As for what may or may not be legal, who cares? What is and isn’t legal is merely the current whim of the politicians currently in power. Oink!
BP, according to the City Attorney, the Granda law suit settlement does not apply to the City.
What are you talking about? It applies to DJUSD school parcel taxes and that’s the topic. No?
BP: What are you talking about?
The city also has a parcel tax. I don’t think it was structured so as to charge apartment dwellers differently from single family homes. Measure C was (the school parcel tax). That’s the one that’s affected when it expires.
BP: So folks, when taxers come after you for what they claim to be a temporary tax never believe it.
That’s one way to look at it. The state has also changed the rules for school funding in the meanwhile. They’re not giving money to DJUSD at levels that they were giving to the district before the recession, Instead “Local Control Funding Formula” gives back more money to districts with more students who are lower income, English language learners, and foster youth. The district comes out unfavorable by those standards.
Davis JUSD has 27% unduplicated students who are free/reduced lunch, English language learners, and foster youth. Dixon comes in at 58%. Winters, Woodland, and Washington Unified (West Sac) come in at about 70%. Esparto comes in at 78%.
wdf1 wrote:
> Davis JUSD has 27% unduplicated students who are
> free/reduced lunch, English language learners,
> and foster youth.
Davis needs to start a whisper campaign to get more parents to sign up for free lunch. It is a win win since rich parents get a free lunch for their kids and the district gets more money (I have heard from friends that other districts in N. Cal are doing this)
Yes, I’ve heard that the whole free lunch program is a scam.
http://educationnext.org/fraud-in-the-lunchroom/
SoD: Davis needs to start a whisper campaign to get more parents to sign up for free lunch. It is a win win since rich parents get a free lunch for their kids and the district gets more money (I have heard from friends that other districts in N. Cal are doing this)
I think most parents with means would choose to forego free/reduced lunch. I would. Our first year in Davis with kids I now realize that we could have qualified for free/reduced lunch, but we didn’t sign up. At the time I don’t think I would have even if I had known.
BP: Yes, I’ve heard that the whole free lunch program is a scam.
Does that mean that you don’t really think that Winters, Esparto, Dixon, Woodland, West Sacramento have more students than Davis who need free/reduced lunch?
In general, the participation rates in free/reduced lunch are equivalent in magnitude to the percentage of low income households for that community from census data.
Having a background in market research and an interest in school politic these results do not surprise me. Like Lake Wobegon almost all parents see their children as above average. The term “struggling students” means “someone else’s stupid kids” and “achievement gap” is code for “a different racial group”. So when the interviewer asks “Closing the achievement gap by providing more support for struggling students” what people hear is “we want to take money from you and spend it on stupid kids from other racial groups” and it does not test well. Surprise.
What is surprising is the lack of linkage between school achievement and real estate values. I recently lived in a town that had a prestigious public schools district and consequently house prices were 50% higher than houses across the street in a different district. This delta is particularly noticeable among older adults without children where their house is their main asset. They don’t want to support kids but do want to support home values.
What I hear from other parents is that they want a high performance option for their own kids. If the goal is to increase school revenues they need to focus people who think education is worth spending money on.
re: linkage between school achievement and real estate values
DJUSD is the only district in Davis so we don’t have the across-the-street phenomenon. However, you can compare property values across the agricultural fields to Woodland JUSD. According to Zillow, the median home price in Woodland is 318K and the median home price in Davis is 594K.
A number of families have discovered the best of both worlds, buying homes in Woodland and through inter-district transfers, have their children attend DJUSD schools.
And the Woodland parents with children in the DJUSD schools don’t have to pay the high DJUSD school parcel taxes to boot, we do.
The biggest reason for the price difference is we have a world class university in Davis, not so much because of the school district.
quielo: “achievement gap” is code for “a different racial group”.
In Davis, I would argue it doesn’t quite work that way. Adults will say, “I have friends who are of _______ race, and I’m okay with them, and their kids seem to be doing fine.” These adult friends might be co-workers or next-door neighbors. They’re likely also college-educated.
If there is a code behind “achievement gap,” then it can be a reference to lower income families who also have lower levels of education. African-Americans and Latinos in Davis who have parents who are college educated generally do better than African-Americans and Latinos in Davis whose parents might not have a college education. In Davis, it so happens that there is a significant percentage of Latino students who come from families who don’t have college education.
wdf1
Sorry for the perhaps ridiculous question. But what is an “unduplicated student” ?
“Davis JUSD has 27% unduplicated students who are free/reduced lunch, English language learners, and foster youth. ” I presume that means not cumulative.
Yes someone who qualifies as all three but only gets counted one time is, I believe, unduplicated.
Yes, I think Misanthrop is correct. It is common that an ELL student might also be on free/reduced lunch. It might be helpful to know that a student needs those 2 interventions, but at some point you also don’t want to count more students than actually exist in the universe of these kinds of interventions. Hence, “unduplicated.”
Not an identical twin…
Thanks to all who clarified…and especially to hpierce….who correctly assessed that an obstetrician might need a little extra help.
Totally predictable outcome. What a waste of money. The school board got sold a second poll to find out that if they raise taxes even more fewer people will vote yes. I think the hope was that if they explained it with a push poll laying out the benefits perhaps they could get past the high 2/3 bar for passage. Yet with the pass rate on the previous poll in the low seventies it should have been obvious that there was no point in pressing their luck. I wonder how much they wasted on the second poll? Every penny they waste is money that doesn’t help kids. We can add this to amount to the money wasted on a Differentiation Coordinator, a Public Information Officer and investigating the Volleyball Coach and it starts adding up to the cost of a teacher, a counselor and perhaps a nurse. Your school board at work.
Every penny wasted also adds to how much more they’ll try and milk homeowners out of.
Nicely said, Misanthrop!
Misanthrop – they need to stop trying to figure out how much they can get passed and figure out what they need, lay out why they need it, and make the case to the public. I don’t agree with BP on most things, but I agree with him that selling the public on the idea of temporary is disengenuous. They might have thought it was temporary but the reality is we don’t have enough money because we get short-changed on our take from the state.
DJUSD does not get short changed, it receives what the formula provides. DJUSD happens to receive less in supplemental funding for demographic reasons. The real issue is how the district uses its basic funds and how it proposes using additional funds from a parcel tax.
Spot on! So far I have not been impressed…
The formula short changes Davis children.
And how does everyone feel about a formula that short changes Davis children to take care of other districts because they have a high number of illegal immigrants?
The formula puts more money towards at-risk kids. That’s not a pool of exclusively undocumented immigrants.
So are you really going to imply that illegal immigrant students in CA schools are not indirectly costing Davis schools some of their state funding?
I’m implying that the children of undocumented immigrants are only a portion of the at risk kids.
BP
I feel just fine about supporting the education of any children that happen to be here. If they are here, we will all benefit from educating them in the long run regardless of whether or not their parents are in possession of what we perceive to be adequate paper work. Or do you not believe that the fully educated daughter of undocumented parents is likely to be able to contribute more to our society, including in taxes, than she would be able to if we support her illiteracy ?
I guess it depends on how you view the funding formula but I think the people on the school board at the time LCFF passed should not have acquiesced so easily and fought harder for the district they represented to get a fairer share. One thing that LCFF did was it based the formula on district demographics. This ended up underfunding districts like Davis that have low but significant numbers of students that should qualify for additional funding. PPIC issued a special report last year confirming this was a problem. For the record one member who was on the DJUSD Board at the time is still on the Board today.
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_quick.asp?i=1127
You’ve got to love these surveys, poll the citizens to figure out how much the district can get away with to gouge the homeowners.
My problem is that they are still not figuring out what we need and how much it will cost.
Actually they did figure it out, it came to $960 a parcel. They then polled that number and it failed to get enough support. Of course from the previous poll where they tested simply renewing the current taxes it was obvious that there wouldn’t be enough support for the higher rate. Where they wasted money was on commissioning the second poll.
I remember in 2012, Richard Harris pushed for a much higher parcel tax, and while he didn’t get the board to go along, he pushed them much further than they would have gone. I don’t agree with Richard Harris on a lot of things, but he did well there.
“And how does everyone feel about a formula that short changes Davis children to take care of other districts because they have a high number of illegal immigrants?”
I’m okay with other districts getting more money because they have more english learners and other needy kids. My problem is that some on the local school board signed off on the Governors funding formula instead of fighting to get more money for our district. My complaint is that it doesn’t need to be a zero sum system and we need to realize that the entire state has underfunded public education for more than the last 30 years.
I agree with that point. But you’re never going to convince BP of it.
As for the issue of “Illegal immigrants,” its not like these kids are rapists and drug dealers. They may be illegal but they aren’t criminals. Being undocumented is not a criminal offense. They are kids and we ought to help them help themselves by providing them with the opportunity to get an education. My grandparents were immigrants and this country welcomed them and gave my parents the opportunity to get an education. I see helping the next generation of immigrants as giving back. Just as this country offered my family opportunity I don’t mind providing opportunity to those coming here now.
Misanthrop: Being undocumented is not a criminal offense.
It can be. I think you’re implying whether it should be.
You are 0-2 today
“Being in the U.S. without proper documents is a civil offense, not a criminal one …”
http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/21/immigration-debate-the-problem-with-the-word-illegal/
Frankly the codes you cite are not for simply being undocumented something that by itself is not a criminal offense. By the way many undocumented people simply don’t leave when a visa expires they didn’t even enter illegally.
Misanthrop
“My grandparents were immigrants and this country welcomed them and gave my parents the opportunity to get an education. I see helping the next generation of immigrants as giving back. Just as this country offered my family opportunity I don’t mind providing opportunity to those coming here now.”
Beautifully spoken. This for me is the heart of the difference between an attitude of gratefulness for what our grandparents and parents were willing to provide for our generation, and an attitude of being entitled to what we have.
So if pouring money into low performing school districts is supposed to bring up their scores than in turn one could surmise that taking money from better districts will hurt their performance? So are all of you ‘I want to take care of illegals’ willing to lower Davis school performance in order to achieve that goal?
You’re mischaracterizing it as them taking money. They just aren’t adding as much.
Have we gotten back to our pre recession levels of funding? Part of the problem for DJUSD is money they would’ve received from the state is now being funneled to lower performance schools. If California students were funded equally across the board we probably wouldn’t be needing to gouge homeowners for more money. As long as some districts are willing to gouge their residents do you really think the state will ever come up with every district’s rightfull funds?
BP: As long as some districts are willing to gouge their residents do you really think the state will ever come up with every district’s rightfull funds?
I think a local community response is far better at getting a satisfactory solution than waiting on the state or federal government to finally get it right. In the meantime I also think we build far more value in the community.
You are assuming that there is a linear relationship between money and outcomes. It is, of course, more complex than that. You are also stuck on this robbing Peter to pay Paul analogy. One of the problems with LCFF as I, citing PPIC, point out above is that by applying the formula at the district level we are short changing the target demographics in districts like Davis. Further I would point out that because of a 30 plus year history of underfunding K-12 public education in this state all the public schools are underfunded. Schools in both poor districts and rich districts need more money. Thankfully, DJUSD has been blessed with the support of the community to help bridge the gap. Davis has done this for the 30 years to cover the structural shortfall that has persisted since Prop 13 and prison construction led to the underfunding of the schools. LCFF didn’t help us but it alone is not at the heart of the problem.
BP wrote:
> So are all of you ‘I want to take care of illegals’ willing
> to lower Davis school performance in order to achieve
> that goal?
The easiest way to close the “achievement gap” is to lower the scores of the top students.
Maybe that’s the plan?
Except that our students are not simply competing intra-district they are competing against the whole world. Of course you probably were being tongue and cheek. Sadly the board majority that will do anything to kill the Gate program is actually implementing that solution where mediocrity for all is the goal of the district instead of excellence.
It is a great deal less expensive to educate someone than it is to incarcerate them. Putting extra money into the schools with a greater percentage of disadvantaged youth is a good investment in the future, just as is giving extra services to those same disadvantaged youth.
Do you have any evidence that it makes any difference? At LAUSD they have used the money to increase the number of administrators by 20% while reducing teaching staff by 9%.
Every district receives the same base per pupil funding, adjusted for average daily attendance. There are additional supplemental funds provided for students that are presumed to require higher educational costs, such as english learners, and foster children. Hence, there is no shift or taking of funds from Davis to other districts. However, there is a lot of gamesmanship with attendance and demographics.
Crafting a better funding mechanism and making better use of education dollars is technically easy, but politically almost impossible.
Certainly the current system provides some perverse incentives. Paying school districts on the “butts in seats” (BIS) model has directly fueled problems in many districts. LAUSD has implemented a “no suspension” system to increase BIS funding. This has created significant additional discipline problems there. The discipline problem was supposed to be resolved through the magic of “restorative justice” however it has not worked out that way.
The biggest issue for me is the spending of money on kids who do not want to learn anything. It’s much more cost effective to spend money on kids who want to learn and therefore this is the way to go.
That isn’t the reason LAUSD is trying to reduce suspensions. They are not doing it to increase ADA.
Having been on several LAUSD parent committees and being in touch with current parents, this is widely believed by both teachers and staff.
Basically the money is needed to hire more CTA members.
Go here http://transparentcalifornia.com/
In 2014 the average full-time teacher in California made $84,889 and about 34,750 teachers were paid more than $100,000 in total compensation (remember, working only 9 1/2 months of the year). One hundred superintendents made more than $250,000.
Don’t kid yourself kids, the money is NOT for the kids.
How much do you think teachers should be paid?
Would you be ok with the funding going to pay for teachers if they weren’t union members?
What do you think school funding should pay for?
Without the unions we would have fewer bad teachers (people that are in the wrong career field) and more pay variance because we would have pay for performance policies.
Only things that fund a commensurate improvement in odds that every student will be adequately prepared for their next life-step toward the ultimate goal of economic self-sufficiency.
“Without the unions we would have fewer bad teachers (people that are in the wrong career field) and more pay variance because we would have pay for performance policies.”
The history of the world doesn’t bear that out. Without unions, teachers wouldn’t have the ability to bargain for their salary and they would get paid less. Fewer bad teachers is speculation. It’s quite possible that there would be more bad teachers not less as non-teaching reasons might become the basis for hire and fire.
I wonder how you got those numbers and what they include. Total compensation might include salary, medical insurance, overtime, teaching summer school, pension contribution, coaching managing a department. I couldn’t find those averages when I looked at the link. I do agree that too many administrators make ridiculous salaries while getting mediocre results. I suspect that some teachers with high total compensation aren’t only working 8-5, 9 1/2 months a year.
Claiming its about CTA and not providing educational services to kids is rather cynical and offensive to many people who go to work in schools every workday and give it their best effort to help kids.
“too many administrators”
Far too many.
“make ridiculous salaries”
Amen.
“cynical and offensive”
Consider the source.
There are several different issues here. It is a matter of public record that the CTA & SEIU (among others) fought hard for and won the “local control” part of the LCFF. “Local Control” means there is no accountability for how the money is spent and it was anticipated by the unions that the money would primarily benefit their members through higher wages and benefits. This is so well documented that trying to deny it is more a matter of lack of intelligence/awareness than than a policy discussion.
The second issue is what should CTA/SEIU members make and what should the taxpayer demand in return. This is a different discussion.
Frankly: In 2014 the average full-time teacher in California made $84,889 and about 34,750 teachers were paid more than $100,000 in total compensation (remember, working only 9 1/2 months of the year). One hundred superintendents made more than $250,000.
What does this have to do with Davis? Average salary in Davis is just under $65K. I know of no DJUSD teacher making $100K or more.
Total compensation?
I went to transperantcalifornia which lists salaries and benefits for public employees. Davis had no data but Woodland did. There are 71 individuals who made more than $100K salary+benefits in 2014.
Lavoi Debra E Superintendent $237,561.74
Calvin Debra A Associate Supt Ed Services $186,167.23
Ramos Rosenda F Asst Supt Business $175,480.44
Molina Hector J Administrator Child Attend Wel $156,911.96
Pritchard Thomas R Asst Supt Human Resources $148,692.34
Bottum Carolynne T Director I Spec. Education $135,764.89
Callahan Kerry A Principal, Hs $135,739.84
Castillo Gary W Director, Mnt., Oper., & Fac. $131,728.11
Seijas Michelle Principal, Hs $130,429.82
Ballesteros Garcia Luis A Director Iii, Fiscal Services $130,072.93
Parnell Denise L Director Ii Consolidated Prog $129,721.27
Kaur Gurpreet Behavior Analyst $128,770.23
Lewis Garth W Director Ii Prof Developments $128,561.95
Lampkin Elodia O Director Ii Eld Interventions $128,468.47
Delsol Jerry Teacher, Hs $126,218.03
Nevarez Olga Principal, Continuation $123,412.51
Leehane Kathleen M Principal, Jhs $123,341.67
Brunson Jonathon W Principal, Jhs $123,071.05
Moylan Susan L Principal Of Adult Ed $123,070.17
Hanson Kelli R Elementary Principal – Large $121,477.66
Ahnen Jill L Director Ii Transportaton $120,664.40
Oropeza-Enriquez Irene Elementary Principal – Mtyre $120,543.95
Ewing Raylene L Learning Comm. Director $120,121.27
Kasta Alison Principal, Elementary $118,707.79
Olvera Armando Elementary Principal – Small $118,695.03
Lewis Maria G Elementary Principal – Large $117,849.12
Villalobos Lonny A Elementary Principal $117,826.72
Clary Scott H Elementary Principal – Large $117,781.21
Perez Francisco R Elementary Principal – Large $117,702.99
Chaidez Juan M Elementary Principal – Large $117,647.54
Slagle Antonia L Learning Comm. Director $116,311.99
Gonzalez Eduardo Elementary Principal – Large $115,742.78
Dyer Eric L Teacher, Hs $115,527.54
Brian Robert M Teacher, Hs $115,424.78
Castiglia Jonelle M Administrator Spec Ed/Alt Prog $115,077.37
Duncan Diane C Psychologist $114,052.25
Lambie Christina D Coord Curric Assess, Research $112,568.95
Herms Barbara S Sci Tech Administrator $112,447.42
Flores Christina Coord Child Development $112,436.35
Burkhart Tina M Director Iii, Technology Serv $112,052.76
Van Court Lance Learning Comm. Director $111,957.31
Evert Tracy Teacher, H-S $111,357.70
Roseen Sarah C Coord Btsa/Par $110,733.01
Markwick Elson T Information System Programmer $110,352.76
Skopal Justine N Principal, Jr. High V P $109,936.74
Roberts Clifford Teacher, Hs $109,742.90
Andres Elgene S Lead Vehicle Mechanic $109,288.15
Meyer Brittaney D Learning Comm. Director $109,084.80
Morales Anibal O Teacher, H-S $108,740.28
Tooley Phillip W Lead Energy Mgmt Specialist $108,052.21
Ferguson Jerald A Learning Comm. Director $106,308.73
Lis Patricia R Speech Therapist Preschool $106,228.29
Saenz Parveen Elementary Vice Principal $106,038.86
Morones Noemi M Exec Asst To Supt/Board $105,870.89
Birdsall Brent P Teacher, H-S $105,595.98
Holt Jacob L Learning Comm. Director $105,058.43
Miles Michael Teacher, H-S $104,995.48
Molina Graciela M Teacher, Jrh $104,979.24
Carson Rebecca J Speech Therapist $104,064.66
Russ Anatoliy Information System Programmer $103,539.77
Tosta Seth Principal, Jr. High V P $103,481.27
Ross Susan L Program Specialist $102,855.99
Emigh Paula L Teacher, Sh $102,664.08
Smith Kriss P Teacher, Jhs $102,537.81
Park Mary C Teacher, H-S $102,349.07
Salerno Margaret G Bus Driver $101,924.95
Medina Estrada Leanee R Director Iii, Operations $101,417.71
Villa-Buck Mary C Teacher, Jhs $100,435.89
Springer Spencer Director, Child Nutrition $100,346.28
Reese Barry E Teacher, H-S $100,301.18
Mc Griff Sandelle L Teacher, Sh $100,210.60
“I suspect that some teachers with high total compensation aren’t only working 8-5, 9 1/2 months a year.”
True for both highly compensated, and not so highly compensated teachers.
I have known and been close friends with many teachers through the years. While attending teaching conferences, setting up classrooms ( frequently with materials they have purchased), drawing up lesson plans, grading papers, meeting with parents, tutoring children after school, organizing and attending special school events, mentoring less experienced teachers or just those attempting to upgrade their techniques, I have found it unusual ( if not not existent) for a teacher to work “8-5, 9 1/2 months” a year.
I guess if it is not paid by the hour or as overtime, or does not involve “making a deal” then it does not count for some of our posters as “work”.
For me the issue with teachers is not what they make but whether they are good teachers. I have experience with three public districts including most recently DJU. The smaller district I came from had uniformly good union teachers. LAUSD had many teachers who were either lazy or crazy. At one open house I considered calling the PET team on a math teacher.
PET=Psychiatric Evaluation Team
(My first thought was Positron Emission Tomography.)
Here is a survey of what teachers say they work:
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/talis/talis2013/talis2013results_2.asp
This shows the US is sixth in a list of 35 industrialized countries in the number of teacher hours worked per work-week. However, what is missing here is the fact that most of these countries have a smaller summer break. I think the northern European countries tend to give the students 6 weeks off, not 12 like the US. So with a condensed work year, it makes sense that US teachers put in a few more hours.
Here is a great table that shows the average workweek by category of work for those that work full time. Unfortunately there isn’t one that I can find that separates out the public and private sector workforce… because we would expect the public sector work week hours to drag down the number of hours for the superset. But professional and related occupations work 43.3 hours per week if male and 40.8 per week if female (let’s now talk about the gender wage gap!).
So teachers say they work 44.8 hours per week except when they are taking their 2.5 weeks off. And the superset of professional employees are working 43.3 hours… but all 12 months of the year.
Conclusion… teachers do not put in any more time than do other comparable workers. In fact, when we spread their hours worked as full 12 months of employment, teachers work significantly fewer hours per week than does the average professional employee.
Another interesting data point is the number of hours actually spent teaching kids. For that the US is #1. However, again I would think that some of this is explanation is the need to make up for the 2.5 months off of the 3-month summer vacation.