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2008 Legislature: Session ends on quiet note
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Math education used to do this quite will but has been simplified and dumbed down. There will be a task force to deal with math education. I urge those about to serve on this committee to do your best, to be dilligent and to restore what has been lost.
Our future will depend on your efforts and your dilligence.
Every year it's the same story...Record surpluses reported up front, then less than expected tax revenues expected hence, no tax cuts. WE ARE OVER TAXED but the legislators just want to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND OUR MONEY.
I think we need to change some laws that say ANY tax hike, state or federal, needs to be approved by the people who are paying that tax. What ever happened to 'no taxation without representation?'
This is an election year and I suggest we do something about our elected officials NOT serving the people but funding their own self interests and little pet projects.
Most teachers get nothing and have to beg for a legislative vote (on a yearly basis) for a raise.
Our raises (per pay schedule) are eaten up by increasing costs for medical insurance. I'm already having to cut off my own son for dental insurance. Just can't afford it!
All this, and we're about the lowest paid teachers in the country. Teachers are leaving the profession forever and many are going elsewhere.
The dept of education in universities are chock full of kids that will never see the inside of a Utah classroom. We subsidize their education through taxes and they go to another state!
If you want successful education, we need to keep people here.
Just the other day, our administrator announced that next year's schedules would be early this year because the district needs a few more months for hiring. They just have too many openings.
Less teachers=more kids per class=less education.
We're already WAY above the limit for kids/class. Don't believe the published numbers. They are averages and include small classes of resource and special ed worked in.
The legislature gives more money, but the class sizes still increase every year with the influx of people in the state. When the rising price of insurance and rising inflation, it is difficult to make a living.
I have taught English for six years. I routinely work ten-hour days and the custodians in my building make more money annually than I do (and I think they deserve to be paid well). I love teaching, and I work hard, but I routinely question whether or not it is worth it when I could double my salary in the private sector.
Believe me, $30,000, and a lot of unpaid overtime, is not enough for a family of four.
I hate the UEA and its whining every year. They fight against giving math and science teachers more money. Why? Because the UEA leaders usually don't teach and are looking to protect the old timers. They want the WPU money so they can negotiate it where they want.
I love that the legislature is giving money straight to the teachers again.
or special ed...
or language...
or history...
or english...
Let's not try and solve one problem by causing another. Fix it by raising the wages to the national average and fixing it there permanently.
Money doesn't make an intelligent teacher but it may bring some good ones in
Merit pay, supply/demand, easier ability to boot the crappy teachers and reward the better teachers, competing with your peers, etc.
Btw we start our professionals between $33k - $38k for 2015 scheduled hrs/year, we routinely put in considerable unpaid overtime. In the last 3 years, I've received 17.5% in raises, I have over 16 years experience. I'm not complaining. How does that compare to teachers? And can you help me understand where they're getting the shaft by the state?
It is true though that we also need to pay all of our teachers for the service that they provide to students. While it doesn't offend me to offer the best education possible to students through a variable salary structure (like one you'd see at BYU or UofU), I think that even the pay offered to English and history teachers is not currently enough to attract and maintain the level of education that we need in Utah to remain competitive.
To the previous poster:
Fine, you define what merit pay is. If you can do it fairly (and no one to date has), I'm fine with it. I put in more hours than I'm paid and spend the majority of my vacation prepping and going to classes and conferences. So stop the whining about your father. It was an easier time then, as any teacher of 30+ years can attest to.
Will I be paid per student, since it is much harder to teach 40 than 20?
Do I get a Christmas bonus based on the dividends of my company?
What happens if I have a good year? Will I get a large bonus?
Get real...
The $1,700 "raise" is not a raise at all, but a continuation (actaully a decrease) of the same ONE-TIME "raise" amount given last year. When they put these one-time amounts together and then make a percentage number out of it, they are stating a fallacy.
One-time raises are appreciated. Don't use them to tell a lie.
If you're buying dental insurance for your son, you're crazy!
It seems like many posters here have never taken or failed Econ 101.
I'm paid a decent wage. I can live on it. Fine. However, it is by no means a fair wage for the amount of work nor the amount of continuous training/education. Many others feel the same way, thus the exodus.
Teaching is not an attractive job because of the low pay, long hours, unpaid hours that never end, lack of bonuses and rewards for all the extra effort, and constant berating from parents, students, and the general public.
Honestly, if it were such a great job, why are we short hundreds of teachers, losing more next year, and ALL OF YOU WOULDN'T DREAM OF BEING A TEACHER?
Why?
As a second year teacher, your tune will change. LOL. Just wait until you have a family and bills.
And, btw, many charters won't say it, but they get to pick and choose which kids they teach. Don't tell me otherwise. I've had way too many kids come back to my classroom after being kicked out of charter schools. A dirty little secret charter schools don't talk about.
The core problem is not the pay, but the system that bind teachers down. They are the bottom rung of a totem pole, at the mercy of the bureaucrats that extend to the Federal DOE who are crapping down on them fiscally and regulatorily. There are also teachers that feel a sense of entitlement with the current system and fight any changes to it.
Until teachers throw off the chains of the system, the union, the bureaucrats, they'll remain at the bottom of the crapper. Pay increases are nice scraps to throw at their feet, but the problem won't be fixed, teacher shortages will continue, and kids will continue to be well schooled but uneducated.
Are there problems in education in the state of Utah? Absolutely. Will money solve all the problems? Absolutely not. Is it realistic to say that money has no part of the problems when the spending in the state of Utah is more than $3,000 per student below the national average? Absolutely not. Can you have the best education system without being the top spender per pupil in the country? Absolutely. Can you have the best education system in the country by being the lowest spender per pupil (which Utah is). Absolutely not.
Did the last minute revival of a series of bills that previously had been defeated do anything to help improve education in the state of Utah? Absolutely not. They were funded with one time money, what happens next year? The local districts will be responsible for funding those items just passed.
When it competes with private sector jobs, the teaching industry will hold its own.
The complaints come because we are locked into a payscale that doesn't pay a living wage for new teachers, most teaching education classes don't transfer over to other fields without having to go back for another degree, and quite frankly, other states pay much more!
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We have a major problem with a lack of Constitutional Lawyers watching the Chicken House.
Box Elder Court denies the Utah State Constitution
The Courts are operating Un Constitutionally
The Justice Courts are Courts of Prosecution and Collection
Forget the Justice part
This court is all about collecting money legal or not legal.
The Ordanances are violations of ones Civil Rights to live in their home un incumbered with Law Enforcement over stepping their bounds.
The cops are not your friends, Failed to learn the peoples rights