Report Examines How Budget Cuts Affected Texas Schools
How Texas public schools coped with the $5.4 billion state budget cut in 2011 is sure to dominate the conversation at the Capitol about school funding in 2013.
In advance of the next legislative session, one group aims to provide comprehensive data on exactly what has happened. A coalition of nonprofit foundations and the Houston-based advocacy organization Children at Risk released their initial findings Thursday at a Capitol press conference.
There are two immediate take-aways. First, districts absorbed the cuts in diverse ways. Second, many of them were unable to do that without laying off teachers. Despite an average ...
Comments (7)
David Spratt
"Our salaries have not kept up with those in neighboring districts, and we have felt the impact," Grapevine-Colleyville Superintendent Robin Ryan said last week as he introduced a multiyear plan to bring salaries to a competitive level. "We have had talented and experienced people at all levels of our district leave for higher pay."
beginning 5 to 10 year
Grapevine-Colleyville $46,800 $47,446 - $48,755
Fort Worth $45,405* $48,813 - $50,869
H-E-B $50,225 $50,292 - $52,213
Birdville $48,000 $49,600 - $50,780
Arlington $46,276 $48,454 - $50,524
Teachers in Arlington, Keller, Grapevine, H-E-B and Mansfield are expected to receive raises up to 3 percent. Fort Worth and Birdville districts are awarding one-time bonuses.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/07/29/4136224/area-teacher-salaries-slowly-rising.html#storylink=cpy
This is the result of " draconian cuts?" Teachers across the state are getting raises while the people who actually pay their salaries are on food stamps and unemployment. Making 45 -50 k a year for 9 months of work is not a bad deal , considering they have better benefits and take more holidays than the average person.
Tens of thousands of people who USED to work in construction , a major part of our economy,, have been replaced by illegal aliens or work for 30% or more less than they did 10 years ago ,,, IF they can find a job. All the while teachers reap the benefits, if you can call it that,,, of the illegal invasion.Tens of thousands of their illegal spawn inhabit our classrooms on a daily basis,,, while they perform jobs Americans will not do for less than living wages.
So who is picking up the tab for educating their children who they can obviously not afford to educate since they work for less than the average American who has a hard time on what they earn?
No problem with someone trying to get more pay,,, but with things the way they are ,, and not looking much better,,,,,Maybe just having a job would be validation enough? Sometimes it does seem like it is more about the money than being " For The Children." And what's up with the media liaison for DISD making $180,000 a year, and getting a 20 to $25,000 raise over the last person?
Phillip Sanders via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Spratt, in case you have your head in a hole Texas is not suffering like the rest of nation. Also, as a teacher, I work more than 9 months a year. I work year round. You sure speak like you know a lot about my profession when you have never lived a day in the life of a teacher. You won't find another profession that gives so much for so little. And yes we are professionals getting paid very little. I don't complain about the pay though. I am there for my students first and they could care less about what you or anyone else has to say about public education in Texas. So take your negative crap and go whine and cry somewhere else.
GS Crispus
Spratt ignores that the 3% raise simply keeps up with the rate of inflation, and ignores significant benefits losses in insurance, and lack of payraises in previous years. To give an anecdote, one teacher I know lost $10,000 worth of benefits (he has two children and is married), when his district shifted to a less costly insurance plan. Furthermore, the legislature decided to cut back on their required commitment to TRS retirement plans. These are call paycuts for the uninformed.
Regardless, blaming this on illegal immigrantion is utterly ignorant. Low-skill labor such as construction has faced difficulties in the labor market for years, and would benefit from the federal government passing stimulus to put them back to work until the housing market fully recovers. That would require you to stop voting in Republicans that refuse to pass anything.
Don't blame teachers because they have a better ability to bargain for wages due to their skills and education level. You should be arguing for better educational opportunities for the unemployed, and for low-skill laborers to better organize and bargain for their wages.
Instead, you throw out the "blame the immigrant trope" because you are ignorant to basic economics.
Dave Mundy via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The pay for first-year teachers in the Gonzales school district was just raised to nearly $40,000. And they're *average* on the pay scale. I sure wish *my* salary was funded by tax dollars -- I've been in my business 35 years, and I make a LOT less than any first-year teacher in Texas.
Nonetheless, I'm not about to attack what teachers are doing; they're the guys in the trenches, still gamely trying to instill knowledge in minds that have been trained by television to reject it. Our foolish buy-in to the "it takes a village" concept has created two generations of lazy parents who use our schools as day-care and social-work centers, forcing teachers into roles never intended. And careerist administrators, anxious to keep their higher-paying jobs, are crafting touchy-feely curriculums like C-Scope that take the teacher completely OUT of the education equation.
blanca fogleman
while I am sure that cuts to the education budget have affected our schools, this issue has hidden the real issue. No teacher would turn away more money but what most teachers say when they are together is an altogether different story.
We need our time back. In many not all districts the testing frenzy is at an even higher level than neighboring districts. Kids have become so stressed that parents are pulling their kids out in order to home school or if they can afford it they send them to private school.
I find it amusing how those legislators who brought in the new STAAR test are now trying to downplay their part in it. There will have to be some real creative moves to make the results look right when they are released in January. We only have raw scores at the moment.
In once wealthier districts we bought so many- not necessary to teaching- programs for the "fad of collecting data" that we are not teaching. We spend our days preparing pretest, post test, graphing said results and then it is time to test again. In our district we bought into a very expensive data gathering company. I am not against data but just like the state standardized test it has become more important than actually teaching. This particular data gathering system begins with kindergarten and goes through 12th grade.Our focus is off of teaching.
Teachers do care about good pay but most teachers also have children and like any parent the bottom line is: is my child receiving a proper education. Being a teacher I am saddened by the fact that once again teachers are going to become the scapegoat. Even worse is the fact that we have no control about changing our situation except as best we can every day in our classroom for our students. We go in earlier and we stay later. To truthfully speak out is a career mistake. The real issues are things we cannot talk about to parents; it would be unprofessional and sounds like we are trying to get out of work. A new movie was just released that shows the ugly side of unions but what I love about the movie is that a parent finally said enough and demanded a proper education for her student. She did not care about what data shows she just wanted her child to be able to read. In many states there are no unions.
The important thing for Texans to understand is that the real problem across the nation is that we are not focused on curriculum and instruction. The buzz words are data driven instruction, accountability, standard core values, college readiness(through higher testing values)...no the answer is much simpler: protect the teacher's time to teach the lessons she has planned for the day.
gypsy314 ne
Cut Unions and illegal aliens from our schools and the money will be there for our children until then our children suffer at the hands of our leaders. I say when parents have had enough then something will be done. I ask all parents of the state of Texas are you ready to take our schools back and get rid of unions, pensions and illegal aliens going to school on tax payers dime. No one has the right to order Americans to pay for another country's I say it is time to stop them in there tracks.
Mustang Panther
School begins in August and ends in June. First grade math was awhile ago, but that looks like more than 9 months to me.
Moving up to 3rd grade math, 3% of 47,446 is $1,423. Divided by 11 months, that's an extra $130/month. Or, let's figure it out by 180 instruction days(forget planning and training). $8--ok, I rounded up from $7.90--per day raise. For a 5 year experienced teacher. Don't spend it all in one place!
Oh, wait, GCISD teachers saw their health insurance premiums go up, too. As well as in 2011. And 2010. Oops, no pay raises those years. Sooo...beginning to look less like a raise, and more like a smaller pay cut...
I'm not a teacher, just a parent of a first and third grader.