Comments about ‘Utah Legislature: Teacher merit pay resolution raises new questions’

This is not rocket science...time for all the experts to step aside and let people with common sense and no personal interest to decide how to fix this simple problem.
If you do not have enough money for your public slush find that is completely mismanaged; STOP trying to find other ways to get more and look for ways to manage what you have better, like all the rest of us!!!
Stop paying huge sums into pension funds (should be like everyone else in the world, if you pay in 4% there is a 4% match).
Stop paying huge insurance premiums (we are talking about taxpayers money funding excellent insurance that few others get outside gov't).
Stop paying all the high salaries to administrators who have limited intelligence.
Stop building elaborate schools that require large budgets to maintain.
The list could go on and on...
ALL taxpayers should stand up to completely irresponsible legislators...help these people manage our money better. OR stop giving it to them...

I'm confused...are the teachers taking tests? So if a student does poorly it's the teacher's fault? Not the student's fault?

My wife teaches the "special education" students in high school. Her kids will never test as well as the "normal" students, and her teaching efforts are greater than "normal" teachers have to accomplish. The merit plan puts her at a great disadvantage. She has a master's degree and has topped out track-wise, but her students will end up holding her back through no fault of her own.

By all means lets talk about merit pay right now, when you are already don't have enough money to pay the bills. Are these people really as clueless as they appear?

Every "solution" to the problems in public schools makes things worse! The biggest problem is that we remove all responsibility from the students and place it squarely on the teacher. The teacher absolutely has a lot of control - but a teacher can't teach an absent student, can't teach a student who refuses to bring a pencil, and can't teach a student who flat-out refuses to do any work.

Padfoot - good point. I've seen a lot of students bomb those tests on purpose because they don't "count" for anything to them.
PC Parent - I think you ought to examine the physical "benefits" of teaching a bit closer before you go pontificating on them.

Just another example of someone regurgitating things heard from someone else who didn't have a clue. I am a teacher. I have been for 17 years. I have been very successful by every standard discussed in the merit pay arguments. I have a Master's degree and an additional post-grad certificate. I make $44,351 per year and my "excellent insurance that few others get outside gov't" (your words) has a $1,000/person deductable and covers less every year. My retirement is the ONLY monetary benefit that I have that makes my job worth keeping. I can only assume there are many teachers who feel the same as I do. I don't have any problem with merit pay as long as it is set up in a fair and impartial way. But, by golly if the people of Utah think that teachers are going to teach your kids as a church calling they are dead wrong. There is absolutely nothing keeping me in this state other than the retirement I have earned over the years. Take that and all you'll see is my backside as I leave for greener pastures.

I respect your position, but at least find some real arguments and data to back it up. Your post looks incredibly foolish.

I am a teacher in Utah.

If I pay into my pension with 4% of my salary, the district matches the first 2%. My pay went down over 12% in the last year. You already can see my salary online, do you want to see my W-2 also?

My "excellent insurance" has deteriorated to "average insurance". My wife has similar coverage, at a better price to her, then my district coverage. I pay just over $500 a month for family medical coverage, not including dental or optical. My co-pays are $20 for the doctor, $30 for InstaCare or after hours, $100 for ER, with a $500 per person deductible.

Administration is probably overpaid. The Superintendent is hired and pay is set by the School Board, so get elected and make the changes.

Schools built in the last 10-20 years are more cost efficient then schools built over 20 years ago. We also need large schools to fit all the children inside the building and not in portables. Maybe we should just rebuild all the old schools.

Teaching is not a respectable profession anymore, you will get what you pay for.

Even the poorer teachers deserve the current pay for what they go through with current policies and students. If they're going to implement merit pay, it should be extra, over and above what is there now. That's been one of the biggest problems with merit pay proposals. We SAY we are willing to pay for good teachers, but when it comes time to pony up, we don't.

I understand your frustration. It costs a lot of money to educate our population. And while the current system has flaws, it has been pretty effective. As an educator, I would love to have some independent review of how to cut costs and still effectively educate. However, the independent experts would bring in their political agendas. If it was a conservative committee(as would be the case in utah), it would try to shut down the schools completely. If it was a liberal committee, it would try to make schools control every aspect of our childrens' lives.
As for taxpayers funding excellent insurance, I have to disagree. My insurance is lousy and it costs me and the school district nearly $15,000 a year.
Regarding matching funds, I would be all for that but most school districts did away with that many many years ago. The pension is all we have.

PC Parent's post doesn't look any more foolish than yours. You raise a ridiculous strawman by demanding that there be "real arguments and data to back it up." The post suggested ways to improve:

1. Pension reform (the proposal seemed to suggest shifting to a 401k)
2. Reform of health insurance coverage, reducing the employer-subsidy
3. Cut out high-salaried district-level employees
4. Stop building elaborate school buildings

Each one of those suggestions has the potential to cut costs, so the original post was just fine. If you don't think those suggestions will cut costs, then explain why. This "arguments and data" requirement runs both ways - the original post made some initial suggestions, so let's see whether you're willing to ante up.

Utah legislature- STAY OUT OF MY LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT.
Teacher pay is a local issue not a State issue. I elect my school board members to determine how my children are educated. Where is the conservative values in this bill? It was proposed by a Democrat who is trying to take away local control. Call your legislators and tell them to not support this bill.

The oldest, most experienced teachers will go to the best students and make the most money. The new teachers will continue to be stuck at the worst schools, make less money and get burned out. Administration at the poorer schools will make life easy as possible for experienced teachers just to keep them in the building and there will be a number of new teachers every year that get the worst schedule, lowest pay, and lowest performing students.

@re PC Parent,
Pension Reform - The Schools, County and State all goes under the URS system. basically the retirement is 2 percent of your salary goes into retirement. That's it! 2 percent. Now, If the employee elects to put into his 401K, then the state will add 1.5 precent to the pile.

Reform of health Care- Here is the kicker dude, the benifit cost for the employee is pretty reasonable, but if this employee adds his family to the plan it can cost as much as 500.00 a month to do so. With the low wages, don't you think that is a bit much? Not is not including deductables, co-pays, etc.

The real problem is that the State has allowed only Insurance Carrier (PEHP) to provide service (the same ones that gave the state 6 mill last year.

I like your idea about cutting High salaried staff, but I don't think it should stop there. Let tax ALL Utahan who have children at the rate of 5 percent more for each kid. That's sound about right.

Why are we even trying to educate the lower end students. Let's make the students get to a certain very high achieving level and make the rest fend for themselves in the real world. We only need mathmeticians and scientists.
We could save millions upon millions if we quit pandering to the lower end students.

We need a reform.

I recently read where our legislators sent a letter to Washington claiming they could manage health care, medicare, and transportation better than the feds. They asked the feds to send them the money and they would run those programs.

Guess what.

I propose that our local school district can manage education better than our legislature. The community council knows what they are doing and it is composed of parents, teachers, and administrators.

Send us the money. The actual money that is supposed to be for public education. You know all of the income taxes you keep designating for other things besides public education, which by the way, is unconstitutional.

I guarantee, as a parent, I can do a better job than you are.

Give it a try? What do you have to lose except being last in funding?

I sat on my local school's community Council and I would say that is the last place a school's funds should go. Those people all have personal agendas and are not representatives of anything. There was a father whose only purpose on the SCC was to get rid of all Mac computers and only have PC's in the school. If he had a say over how school's spent even part of their budget it would have all gone to his personal agenda. He was clueless about what education is and should be- he only cared about getting rid of Macs. I guarantee there are plenty of other parents that would do the same thing at their schools. Imagine Gayle Ruzicka on a community council and how she would spend that money.

Here is a little thing from the real world.
Find the solution.
Put a bunch of teachers in a room and tell them to come up with a merit system that they will be happy with.
Let them budget it all out.

Pay all teachers on the curve.
Each according to the area that they teach.
So 20% of special ed teachers get the top spot and pay
Ect...
do so for each area.
Why should everyone get paid the same?

Great idea. It's called charter schools.

Guess what.

Some do a better job than the district, some do worse. The education may not be much better, but I do get to have my opinions heard.