There was an interesting article in the Davis Enterprise introducing Gail Mitchell, who is the new president of the Davis Teachers Association. Unfortunately, any discussion of our schools these days necessarily centers around the budget, the loss of quality teachers and the parcel tax.
However, of particular note is the complaint by teachers that they are not fairly compensated, compared with other school districts. This may be true, it probably is, but right now the focus is on maintaining current programs. The economy is collapsing and public education budgets from the state to the local levels have been slashed. Now is not the time to redress those issues, now is the time to come together to save public education.
“We lost some excellent teachers who received pink slips, some of them more than once, in recent years, and felt they couldn’t wait until midsummer to see if they would be hired back,” Ms. Mitchell told Jeff Hudson of the Davis Enteprise. “We lost some really awesome teachers.
“With the pink slip process in the spring, we lose some teachers, even though those pink slips have been rescinded (in the end). They go elsewhere because they don’t want to wait around (to find out whether or not they’ll have a job).”
Ms. Mitchell went on to complain, as reported by Mr. Hudson in the Enterprise, that “Davis’ compensation and benefits package doesn’t compare favorably with what’s offered in some surrounding school districts.”
“We invest in our new teachers; our veteran teachers spend collaboration time training them,” Ms. Mitchell said. “And then, when the newer teachers leave, we have to start over again.”
She continued by telling Mr. Hudson that “she’s really hoping the district will not have to face another round of pink slips being issued, and then rescinded, next spring.”
Unfortunately, given the way the state’s rules operate, it seems likely this pattern will continue.
On the other hand, I think Ms. Mitchell raised an important point that, even with the generosity of this community, Davis schools have had huge cutbacks, both in the number of electives as well as an increase in class sizes – a war in which California had fought to reduce class sizes for nearly two decades, to have almost all of its victories lost in just five years.
“And our class sizes have increased at every grade level, yet we still have the same amount of curriculum to teach to our students,” she said. “But we truly appreciate the parents and the community supporting us and helping wherever they can. We really want to work with the parents and the community to support the renewal of Measures Q and W.”
Ms. Mitchell, as others have in the past, “expressed some concern about the board’s timeline for planning the parcel tax renewal.”
“We are only a couple of months away from when you are going to have to have the final language for the ballot measure,” Mitchell said at that meeting, as reported by the Enterprise
The Enterprise continued, “Board President Richard Harris affirmed that trustees intend to solicit input from parents and community members in a series of meetings in September and October.”
This prompted an interesting interchange between Steve Savage, who commented on the Enterprise article, and Board President Richard Harris who responded.
Wrote Mr. Savage: “I was disappointed to see that Mr Harris, while he apparently intends to talk with representatives of the community and parents about the upcoming parcel tax, makes no mention of actually discussing the issue with representatives of the teachers.”
This prompted a terse response from Mr. Harris, “Are you kidding me? This is how the DTA starts their communication campaign with the people of Davis.”
“This guy is a paid employee of the state teachers union and he obviouosly didn’t attend or watch the last school board meeting. I was quite clear about seeking input from the teachers on a renewal of the parcel tax,” he continued.
“Political pot shots at the school board from a paid mouthpiece is a ridiculous way to start an important relationship. Here’s hoping local teachers step up and tell him to stand down,” he concluded.
Reading this article prompts me to make a few comments.
I have been a strong supporter of the school district; I remain a strong supporter of the school district. I have had two kids in school at various times, and I think what Davis residents get from this district is very good most of the time.
I have nothing but good things to say about the teachers.
People like me are very supportive of teachers, and believe in general that teachers are not compensated nearly enough for their service to our community and our nation.
I hate having to write this, but given the depths of the budget woes and the fact that the district is desperately trying to keep its programs going, I do not find the idea that Davis teachers are less compensated than other teachers in other districts to be very compelling right now.
Every worker in this state is hurting. UC Davis has furloughed its faculty and cut their pay. The City of Davis is looking to cut personnel costs. The county workers have been furloughed for years now. State workers have had layoffs and pay cuts.
So to me, for Ms. Mitchell to say, “Davis’ compensation and benefits package doesn’t compare favorably with what’s offered in some surrounding school districts” falls on deaf ears.
When the economy improves, I will strongly advocate that teachers in Davis are fairly compensated for their great service to this community. But right now that is not the priority for most of us in the community who have supported the district and attempted to keep teachers from getting laid off through support of the district’s parcel taxes.
Right now, I believe that the district’s next parcel tax is in jeopardy. The last parcel tax, admittedly, was a raise barely passed by the skin of its teeth. The economy continues to falter. The citizens are about to be hammered with a huge water rate hike.
I guarantee a lot of people who read these words on this site will react very unfavorably to the notion that teachers need to be more highly compensated at this moment in time.
The district and teachers, it seems to me, share common ground. The district is committed to getting the parcel tax renewed. The district is committed to keeping the funding levels where they are. The district is committed to preserving core curriculum and programs.
It seems to me that both sides are in this war together, and need to fight on the same side. Once this crisis has passed, do what you have to do, get what you think you are entitled to, allow the collective bargaining to pass. Until then, I do not want to hear another word about anyone being undercompensated. It is not helpful right now. In fact, it harms your cause.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Ok… for City employees, particularly higher paid classifications, you espouse immediate, ‘permanent’ cuts, irrespective of the economy, for “sustainability”. For teachers, you recommend maintaining the status quo for the time, and more generous compensation when the economy improves. Have I captured your recommendations correctly?
What are your recommendations re: non-credentialed and/or “highly paid managers” employed by DJUSD? Should all those @ DJUSD making over 100k per year take a 10% reduction, on a ‘permanent basis’, in order to renew the parcel taxes?
[quote]Ms. Mitchell went on to complain, as reported by Mr. Hudson in the Enterprise, that “Davis’ compensation and benefits package doesn’t compare favorably with what’s offered in some surrounding school districts.”[/quote]
So is Ms. Mitchell asking for a raise for Davis teachers? Really, in this economy?
hpierce makes a good point…
[i]”… of particular note is the complaint by teachers that they are not fairly compensated, compared with other school districts.”[/i]
If this is true, the Davis board of education should address it and explain why it is the case and then decide if we need to change our salary structures.
Some things to consider which affect average teacher compensation are 1) if our non-salary benefits package is markedly different; 2) if we are spending more on services like janitorial, building, yard and landscape maintenance; 3) if we are spending more on administration; 4) if we are spending more on libraries; 4) if we spend more on debt servicing; 5) if other districts get more money in categoricals, especially for Title 1 and special ed; and 6) if we have smaller class sizes.
The answers to those 6 factors will explain most of the reason why DJUSD teacher salaries are comparatively low (if they are). I checked just now to see how Davis compares with Woodland, and it looks like Woodland teachers do make more in salary.
It seems reasonable to me that the DTA should want more money for its members. That’s the job of a union. But that does not mean that the district should change its policies. It should, at the least, explain them in the face of this charge.
On something only slightly related … It is time the members of the Board of Education stop accepting endorsements and more importantly cash from the DTA. Doing so has the appearance of corruption. The DTA is to the school district what the Fire Department union (plus others) is to the City of Davis. I, for one, will speak out in the strongest terms against any candidates for the Board in the future who don’t divorce themselves from this corruption.
Rifkin: I’m also not in favor of raising teachers’ compensation at this time, especially because to do so would end up leading to more pink slips under the current economic climate. Also, it is basically an employers’ market, right now.
At different times I have researched to some degree most of the things that you list as factors. I think you’re probably leaving out plenty of other things, however. You can find a lot of the info that you’d be interested in at:
[url]http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/[/url]
I think you’d probably find the results to be:
1) probably DJUSD teachers get less or equal in non-salary compensation compared to most other districts
2) probably DJUSD spends less or equal in custodial/maintenance compared to most other districts
3) compared to most districts our size, administrative costs are less
4) we probably do spend more on school libraries than most other comparable districts, but that is because Measures Q & W specifically covers a certain amount of that cost
4a) I haven’t looked much at debt servicing expenses, but I’m not aware that it has been a huge cost to the district.
5) Clearly, we do not get as much Title I funding as most other districts
6) Probably by this year we have smaller class sizes (elementary, especially) than many other comparable districts, but again, a significant reason is because parcel taxes specifically fund that.
WDF, you do realize that your explanations 2-5 don’t in fact explain why No. 1 is so?
Lowest
Davis$35,081
Dixon$36,495
Fairfield$39,281
Sacramento$39,885
Statewide$40,133
BA + 60
Davis$55,886
Dixon$55,593
Fairfield$63,014
Sacramento$52,419
Statewide$62,416
Highest Offered
Davis$77,965
Dixon$74,377
Fairfield$79,009
Sacramento$86,028
Statewide$80,729
Average Paid3
Davis$65,683
Dixon$61,771
Fairfield$63,473
Sacramento$62,499
Statewide$67,530
Benefits, health: single/twoparty/family
Davis 5900; 9800; 11900
Dixon 7252; 8688; 8688
Fairfield 9710; 9710; 9710
[i]”…of particular note is the complaint by teachers that they are not fairly compensated, compared with other school districts. This may be true, it probably is…”[/i]
Nope.
Not that I expect this to happen here, but it is food for thought:
http://news.yahoo.com/school-superintendent-gives-800k-pay-150206667.html
Thanks for clarifying, Don.
From what I understand, DJUSD debt-servicing related to construction of schools/facilities is covered within the bond measure. It wouldn’t come out of the general fund.
To add to Don’s average salary figures, it’s worth noting that those averages are influenced by teaching experience as well as educational background. I don’t have info on average educational background, but here’s info on average teaching experience.
Average years teaching experience:
Davis: 17
Dixon: 15
Fairfield: 13
Sacramento: 12
I’m actually baffled by Gail’s comments in this article. Davis is losing teachers due to pink slips? Every district in the state is issuing pink slips as far as I know. DJUSD pay is not out of line with surrounding districts. DJUSD benefits are lower for new hires, but higher for long-term teachers. If they want to keep their new hires, perhaps the contract could be negotiated more in line with those in Fairfield or Dixon. Statistics indicate that teachers stay in the Davis district longer than surrounding districts.
Overall, the interview was politically tone-deaf. UCD and state employees have lost, in many cases, 10 – 15% of their income. Employees in the private sector have not seen pay increases, and don’t have benefits approaching the public sector. Unemployment is very high.
I would like to see the DTA state publicly that they will not be seeking pay or benefit increases in the short term. That would help get local tax measures renewed.
I think you’re missing the main point. I didn’t read this interview as a call for more money for teachers. (It contained just one observation that Davis compensation packages are lower than some surrounding districts…true… and I personally know many great teachers who choose to teach elsewhere.)
Instead, I read the article as a “view from the trenches” on the effect of an endless pink slip cycle. The district lays off a bunch of teachers each year, then gives them their jobs back midsummer but…the best new teachers find new jobs elsewhere in the meantime. Davis High has lost some GREAT teachers in the past two years…I’m thinking especially about two great ag teachers who had exceptional rapport with teachers. The first one was snapped up by San Luis Obispo and last year’s…not sure where he went.
I agree with the DTA president that we have to find a more humane way to deal with new teachers and keep the best of them. Recruiting, hiring, and training a whole new crop every year is not the answer.
Sorry…meant “had great rapport with students” instead of teachers!
But this is why that does not make sense to me: [url]http://calcoastnews.com/2011/05/teacher-pink-slips-out-of-sync-with-budget-impasse/[/url]
[i]”I read the article as a view from the trenches on the effect of an endless pink slip cycle. The district lays off a bunch of teachers each year, then gives them their jobs back midsummer but …”[/i]
The district lays off a bunch of teachers? Come on. You do know that it is the teachers union which created the pink-slipping policy? The CTA runs the state legislature. They pour tens of millions of dollars into every single state election. There is nothing in the education code which the CTA did not put in there or would like to see removed.
If the DTA does not like the CTA’s policy, then the local union boss should be talking with the head of the CTA, Dean Vogel, who happens to be from Davis.
A couple of observations from the “free market” corner:
1. Experience is a poor way to estimate teacher quality and productivity. The highest paid teachers should be the ones who produce the best results and are most efficient. Unfortunately, the teacher’s unions strongly prefer to stay away from performance measurement as a way to protect all teachers.
2. In this job environment, and with the benefits that the schools offer, we should be working hard to recruit good teachers into the Davis school system. If many good teachers are leaving our system for other jobs, I think we’ll find plenty of willing new teachers, and highly qualified ones out there. Once they are in the system, the benefits program will tend to make them stay.
3. This is a great school system for a teacher to be involved in – high parental involvement and a community that cares deeply about education. It appears that our salaries and benefits are comparable to others, but not out of line . Our school district is an attractive place for employment, and if Gale and others want to vote with their feet, I think we’ll find plenty of replacements.
Steve Savage, who posted the comment in the Enterprise, and is mentioned in DMG’s article, is a regional representative for the California Teachers Association. It seems that he based his comment on the Enterprise article and not the actual school board meeting, as his point doesn’t align with what was actually discussed in the last school board meeting.
I don’t know the genesis of the long standing pink slip process, but I still think the original Enterprise article made a good point: If the district pink slips x number of teachers each spring, then inevitably hires back the same number of teachers each summer, isn’t there a good case to be made that the district is being overly cautious in its original estimate? And, according to the article, and my experience, that leads to too many teachers leaving Davis for other jobs.
But, according to ‘Adam Smith’ and others, that’s no big deal because, hey, we can always get more where they came from, right? And I guess that’s also why no one needs to be alarmed that half of all new teachers leave the profession within the first five years.
As a parent, I cringe when a first-year teacher appears on my kid’s course schedule. I know everyone has to start sometime but I also know that it will be a year when the teacher may be learning more than my kid. Needlessly creating a situation where we have more new teachers than we need to doesn’t make sense to me.
[i]”… isn’t there a good case to be made that the district is being overly cautious in its original estimate?”[/i]
No. They are following state law–a law written by the CTA. The union wants it this way to always make it look like education is underfunded. That is their political trick.
The reason so many more get pink-slipped than ultimately let go is due to the budget timing. The districts don’t know what their fall funding will be until the summer, when the state budget is agreed to. But the CTA policy forces the districts to pink-slip teachers in the spring, under the assumption that the state will come up with less money.
This would be avoided if the CTA would let the districts align their budgeting with the state legislature. But doing so won’t serve the nefarious needs of the union.
“Nefarious needs”? Wow, you really hate unions. Which, to my mind, is another neat “political trick”: blame everything on a convenient scapegoat (in this case, unions). Lots of recent books on education try the same trick, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/books/review/class-warfare-by-steven-brill-book-review.html?_r=1&ref=education
[i]”Nefarious needs”? Wow, you really hate unions.”[/i]
I don’t hate unions in general. I do hate the CTA and other unions, like the firefighters, who work hard to corrupt our politics.
Can you tell me what there is for me to love about the teachers unions in California if I am not in one of them?
I can be explicit about the bad they do:
1. They are corrupting. They pour tens of millions of dollars into every election. (Look up the numbers yourself if you don’t believe me.) They buy state senators and assemblymen. They own the Democratic Party and will destroy any Dem who bucks them. And they especially corrupt boards of education at the local level, such as in Davis.
2. Whenever given the choice between larger class sizes which produce worse educational results or a small pay cut for their members, the teacher unions always pick the former. They then turn around and pretend they are in favor of better education!
3. The CTA has fought hard against almost all major education reforms which have been aimed at improving student performance. They even fought hard to keep the failed bilingual education program in California, which was seriously harming Latino immigrant kids, all because it made money for their members. Fortunately the voters in Californa–including a large majority of Hispanic voters–beat them through an initiative.
4. The CTA has made it terribly expensive to fire bad teachers. The CTA would rather a bad teacher be kept on, harming students, than have him quickly disposed of. That is a horrible fact.
5. The CTA has fought vigorously against grading teachers and paying them for performance. It has always struck me as ironic that the job of teachers is in part to grade students. Yet they themselves have resisted being graded and paid based on how good they are at teaching. When the LA Times recently showed a good method of measuring added value by teachers, the teachers union organized a major boycott against the newspaper. Fortunately President Obama and Arne Duncan strongly came out in favor of the approach favored by the Times.
If a group of employees in a competitive market wants to organize themselves in a union, that is their right and no one should stop them. Unions can be very good for their members in cases where employers have a bargaining advantage over them, all else held equal.
However, I think most public sector unions are nefarious. They serve themselves at the expense of the public good. They never engage in collective bargaining, because the other side is not set up to bargain back. That is to say, those representing the public are not putting their own money on the line in the discussion.
Further, because the “industry” they are in is non-competitive, unions always end up protecting jobs for people who are incompetent, lazy and corrupt. When this happens in the private sector–and it does sometimes–the bad workers will run such companies out of business. But government doesn’t go out of business. They just operate inefficiently. I am not saying that all or even most government workers are bad. In my experience most are very good. But everyone in government–including in the public schools–knows that the bad employees don’t get fired for being bad. They are protected by their unions, and they harm the overall product of government.
(If you think I am overstating how protected government workers are from being fired for incompetence or poor performance, consider how impossible it is in California to fire a teacher for bad performance ([url]http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/03/local/me-teachers3[/url]): it almost never happens, yet we have many really bad teachers. I had a perpetually drunk teacher at Davis High who was never fired.)
RE: “Whenever given the choice between larger class sizes which produce worse educational results or a small pay cut for their members, the teacher unions always pick the former.”
But isn’t that what the local union agreed to last year: five furlough days (resulting in a pay cut) in order to keep programs?
And, if there’s going to be a “small pay cut” every time there’s a budget crisis, how is that going to work over the long haul…given that there’s never enough money to have the class sizes teachers/parents/students prefer? How low can we go and still attract quality people to this profession? I wonder about the logic: we have a bunch of bad teachers so let’s pay them less and give them less job security and that will attract better teachers?
And you can’t imagine how this constant drumbeat of (to my mind, mostly unfounded) criticism is affecting morale. I was talking to my cousin. She and her husband are teachers (she in a very challenging, low income school), one son is a cop (has been shot at twice in the past year), and the other son is a postman. All make modest livings and work hard. She asked me, “Hey, when did we become the bad guys?”
[i]”But isn’t that what the local union agreed to last year: five furlough days (resulting in a pay cut) in order to keep programs?”[/i]
Starting in 2008-09, when the teachers directly were asked by the school board to take a small pay-cut (not a furlough) or have more teachers laid off, the DTA chose teacher lay-offs. The same happened the year after and the year after that.
Accepting a few furlough days–far fewer than City employees accepted FWIW–is ultimately another way to lower the educational product. In other words, they could have worked for slightly less money per day in order to keep kids in the classroom just as much, but the DTA chose the route which shortened the number of classroom days, reducing again the classroom product.
In other words, “whenever given the choice between an action which produces worse educational results or a small pay cut for their members, the teacher unions always pick the former.”
[img]http://wordz.blog.com/files/2010/03/teacher-recruitment-agencies.jpg[/img]
I am also mostly certain–having spoken with a few Davis teachers about this–that there is a minority of teachers who thinks the union policies are wrong and that they have told me they would prefer to work for slightly less per pay period and not have had furloughs. In other words, they would like to be in the classroom.
There was no inflation in 2010.
[url]http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/2010-a-year-of-falling-prices/[/url]
Incomes in California declined in 2009, and probably in 2010 as well.
[url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/11/california-sees-incomes-d_n_679326.html[/url]
It was a combination of job losses, falling stock and dividend income, and declining wages due to reduced overtime and reduced working hours.
So there is no reason for COLA’s, and budget realities dictate pay cuts across the public sector. Moreover, in every other sector income decreases have been substantial. State employees have taken effective pay cuts of 10 to 15%. Private sector workers have fewer hours and lower pay overall, and little job security.
I understand the problem with the pink-slip process. But I don’t know of any other approach. When I was on the business advisory committee for DJUSD, Bruce Colby would report the latest revisions of projected income from the state every couple of months. There is simply no other way to plan the budget when the state’s economy is in free-fall. The chronically late budget was an additional problem; at least this year the state got a budget out on time, but they still have to revise the income figures.
I agree with your concern about morale, and it is disturbing to me to see people criticize public employees. I sometimes wonder, though, if the union leaders realize how out of touch with current economic realities they seem to be.
Rifkin: When pink slips were given out starting in spring 2008, apparently it had been a very long time since pink slips had been given out in the district; pink slipping teachers on a regular basis like this has been rare until now. I’m aware that the DJUSD issued pink slips in the recession of the early 80’s, also at that time in the wake of restructuring K-12 funding after Prop 13 passed, but I’m not sure after that. Given all that, it’s hard for me to see it as a regular intentional and cynical tactic of the CTA to feed a narrative of underfunded education, as you suggest.