Wisconsin schools hiring more teachers now due to elimination of exorbitantly-priced former union medical plan

fellow ohioan wrote:

Nobody forced you to be a teacher. If you don't like it, do something else. If you are so valuable, you should get rich in the private sector.

Good luck with those teacher layoffs when school boards can't balance the budget. You have 15 years in so you'll probably be safe. You and those crusty old teachers who would have been fired years ago if they had private sector performance reviews.

I'm curious if the rest of your political beliefs follow the same bumper sticker series as the ones you just regurgitated from the back of the Lexus your husband bought you.

WI teacher here.

First, our district didn't really lose or gain teachers because of the collective bargaining bill. True the district saved money on premiums, but we lost money in other areas. Operating costs, pay scale raises, etc went up, so it was pretty much a wash.

What a lot of people outside of WI don't realize is that Walker eliminated the per pupil funding for all state districts. I believe it comes to about $550 per pupil starting in the 12-13 year. That will cost our district approximately 3,000,000. It is going to be a devastating winter as our district has cut all the easy things over the last few years. That $3,000,000 will be teachers. Period. There's absolutely no other place for that money to come through. Right now my class sizes are about 30-34 (up from 24 just 5 years ago). I'm going to estimate class sizes around 34-39. On top of that, many, many teachers will lose their job. No question. The quality of schools will suffer. And we are not a unique district.

BTW-starting pay in our district is about 29,500. We are a suburb of Madison, so living expenses are reasonable, but not cheap by any means. So the 12% payment to our health insurance and 6.5% towards retirement was a huge pay cut. but I guess I'm living the high life or some BS like that.

madrunner wrote:

WI teacher here.

BTW-starting pay in our district is about 29,500. We are a suburb of Madison, so living expenses are reasonable, but not cheap by any means. So the 12% payment to our health insurance and 6.5% towards retirement was a huge pay cut. but I guess I'm living the high life or some BS like that.

Yeah, it amazes me how rich and greedy all you teachers are.

Hopefully you'll get that masters degree and bump up to 33k, where you can crack bags of Franzia and make it rain like Krystal in a 50 cent video...

Teachers aren't the enemy. I thought I made that pretty clear. Frankly, it was all the government employees that came before you that were able to retire comfortably in their mid-50s with big checks, capital gains, and full medical that should be asked to sacrifice a little. Because your taxes are funding their bloated entitlements based on flawed actuarial assumptions, all the while they lived through 30 years of prosperity by mortgaging your future (Clinton got rid of Glass-Steagall and the Dems mainly held sway when it came to the house of cards that were the GSEs that STILL have their hands out). If they didn't save for a rainy day, it's not your fault. But, frankly, unions have had their day in the sun. Most of them have become parasitic, money-sucking, third-party entities with their own agendas, while they give you the crumbs and convince you you've gotten a good deal. Sounds kind of like the insurance cartel, no?

Keith, there's no purpose in arguing with you. Just like Lance, you cherry-pick (I like your non-response to my agreement with you that cronyism needs to be rooted out in both the private and public sectors, though we likely have different ideas about how to go about it). The Russian example had nothing to do with the state of affairs there now or the oligarchs, just that a banking collapse can be absorbed and austerity isn't a bad thing when you can no longer borrow -- see Greece. They're at the point where they have NO choice). Were you in support of TARP, because I sure as hell wasn't? I'm sure you were railing on the AIG bonuses but completely mum on the even bigger bonuses paid out to Fannie and Freddie. Hypocrisy at its finest. But, hey, you're smooth... Do you look like the guy in the Keystone commercials, because I can't get that picture out of my head?

Unions no doubt constraint the financial flexibility of a political entity.

I live in Fairfax Virginia and their budget is in much better shape than Montgomery County (on essentially the same tax base) because the union contracts make it far more difficulty for Montgomery to tighten its belt in lean times.

And I am not sure the lack of collective bargaining has chased anyone from county jobs here (including the schools). They are prized (the teachers are generally very good) and the benefits are better than found in the private sector, even if they don't match those of Montgomery County. I question whether the lack of a public union chases good teachers away in Fairfax.

The real issue is whether public sector unions should exist at all. Defenders of public sector unions and the political machines they drive tend to forget that public employees have civil service codes and job protections that are unheard of in the private sector - one significant reason that historically (until recently) employees received lower pay in the public sector in exchange for job security. Remember, especially in urban areas, there are not two sides at the table in a public sector labor negotiation - the unions are negotiating with the same people they elect. What cannot be sustained must stop.

And Sagarin is correct about one thing - since 1970 - we have nearly tripled (even after adjusting for inflation) our spending on education with no gain in results. The education bureaucracy has benefited, but the students have not. But let's be clear - this by and large is not the fault of teachers. Through our social programs and other incentives, we have more and more people giving birth to children in homes where they cannot be raised properly and value education. Our demographic disaster, particularly when it comes to single parenting, is destroying us. And lest anyone think (as is so often the case with reflexive thinkers on this board) that this is addressed at any one race or ethnic group - forget it - our demographic problem cuts across all races and ethnic groups - albeit with the problems being worse with certain ethnic groups. At some point anyone rational does have to ask what we are obtaining for all of these expenditures.

everyone is different wrote:

And Sagarin is correct about one thing - since 1970 - we have nearly tripled (even after adjusting for inflation) our spending on education with no gain in results.

I guess if you keep repeating this false statement enough times people believe it.

America IS NOT falling behind in education. America's top 10 percent is on par if not ahead of most countries in the world. Our bottom 10% is ahead of every country in the world. When you look at the actual data you have to look at who is tested in each country.

Most countries in the world do not test all of their eligible students. America is one of the few that tests all students of age thus our scores are not fixed like other countries.

If you put in the testing data of all students Americas education system ranks way up near the top only falling behind a few very very small European countries. Which small countries have an advantage in education of very large population countries.

Of course China and Japan will look to have a better education system if all they allow to be tested by international tests is their best and brightest.

Stop the propaganda and watch something other than Faux News.

I agree. The education budget has increased 3x's in the last 40 years. How is that compared to the increase in other government spending? Also, how many additional programs have schools implemented during that 40 years? Free/reduced lunches, school social workers, police officers, at risk tutoring, homebound teachers provided for pregnant/sick students, after school daycare, free pre-school, etc. All of these programs have been adopted, usually because of a lawsuit, and it costs schools more money to raise the kids.

The way I read the original post, Wisconsin got rid of the teacher union and was able to procure a health insurance company that provided the same benefits (and assuming same payroll deduction) at a cost that saved $1.9 million in some districts even after adding more jobs and providing raises for everyone.

Is this true?

It's hard to tell because the details of the different health plans are not in the article.

a typical health plan (family) in our district is about $1300/month. The employee portion is about $115/payroll. (we pay 12.5% of premium)

We did not hire additional employees this year. In our department, for example, we had three retirements and rehired only two. If I remember correctly, we lost four+ FTEs in our building.

Like I said above, we will lose more than that this year.

Sagarin wrote:

Completely false. Conservatives want more competition and less "tenure" in schools, sure, because it WORKS. We throw more and more money at education every year and get inferior results. Obviously, a lack of quality parenting and the cultural depravity we have cultivated in our secularized society is a huge part of this, but the Department of Education got @ a 15% raise last year? For what exactly? What do they actually accomplish? How about giving that money to the states? How about eliminating a full layer of bureaucracy in public schools and giving the teachers more control in terms of curriculum, cohesiveness with the board, etc? Private and charter school teachers are paid less, but mostly (not always) get better results, because they have more flexibility. That's certainly been our experience.

You obviously don't know what the Dept of Education does. The vast majority of the money goes directly to states. That 15% raise you claim the Department got is probably in reference to the Recovery Act programs. Guess where that money was targeted...STATES. Race to the Top (straight to states), State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (straight to states...look at the title), Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (straight to states), I could go on but I think you can notice the pattern.

Really what ought to be done is eliminate the State level departments because they are the unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. And in what other sector are there 50 high performing organizations?

And charter schools perform no better on average than regular public schools. While there are some high performing ones, there are also some incredibly high performing regular public schools.

fellow ohioan wrote:

A lot of private sector workers have forgone salary increases and have had to pay in more to their healthcare. If you haven't noticed, the economy has been pretty bad since 2008.

The "economy" has been bad, but private sector profits have never been better. The fact that workers' wages have stagnated for decades is a result of the deunionization of America's workforce. Workers should stand up for their right to earn a fair wage when the company they work for has had its profits go through the roof. The problem is that companies have all of the leverage and so it is the average worker that gets screwed. Unions actually give a worker some leverage when negotiating their wage. I hate to burst your bubble, but the labor market in no way resembles a free market, especially when the economy is driven be enormous multinational corporations. Unions just level the playing field, and when they disappear we have witnessed the results: stagnating wages and once deleveraging is finished declining standards of living.

The public sector ought to be a model employer, not encouraging a race to the bottom. So unions belong there just like they do anywhere else. And finally, vote no on issue 2. You can rewrite contracts through collective bargaining if the budget needs it, but eliminating collective bargaining is a huge step down that slippery slope to the bottom. And both public sector and private sector workers deserve better.

You know it can't be that great if conservative radio hosts are campaigning against it and GOP mayors are standing up to the governor.

everyone is different wrote:

.. we have nearly tripled (even after adjusting for inflation) our spending on education with no gain in results. .

I always see this crap and quite frankly, it's retarded. The world is quite different today. How much spending on computers, tvs, smartboards- did we have back then? ZERO. Hell, my daughter elementary schools is better equipped than my university was in 1990s. We are simply demanding more of our schools and sorry but we have to pay for it.

and simply adjusting for inflation is equally dishonest.

So does LetsRun have live coverage of next week's running events. No? Ok, let's talk about teacher unions instead.

Pathetic.

just saying wrote:

You obviously don't know what the Dept of Education does. The vast majority of the money goes directly to states. That 15% raise you claim the Department got is probably in reference to the Recovery Act programs. Guess where that money was targeted...STATES. Race to the Top (straight to states), State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (straight to states...look at the title), Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (straight to states), I could go on but I think you can notice the pattern.

Really what ought to be done is eliminate the State level departments because they are the unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. And in what other sector are there 50 high performing organizations?

And charter schools perform no better on average than regular public schools. While there are some high performing ones, there are also some incredibly high performing regular public schools.

Some of that money trickles to the states, no doubt, but there's an awful lot of bureaucratic constipation in there (even as it's obviously tainted to promote the DOE):

The intent of the original article that kicked off this entire debate is that a Superintendent of a specific school district fostered cohesion among a broad spectrum of faculty and didn't simply have to negotiate with a small proxy of teachers and union negotiators as per collective bargaining status quo. As a result, he was able to get broad agreement among the teachers to change the plan when they KNEW their deductibles were going up and forge cost savings. That's the kind of cohesion we need more of, where the benefactors are directly involved in the process. Unions are for, of, and by themselves anymore. Why do you think companies are trying to flee for right-to-work states? Why do you want to force a further exodus of capital and jobs?

old-skooler wrote:

I always see this crap and quite frankly, it's retarded. The world is quite different today. How much spending on computers, tvs, smartboards- did we have back then? ZERO. Hell, my daughter elementary schools is better equipped than my university was in 1990s. We are simply demanding more of our schools and sorry but we have to pay for it.

and simply adjusting for inflation is equally dishonest.

What are the few areas, besides housing, where we see significant deflation and increasing productivity on a consistent, yearly, hell, monthly basis? Computers, TVs, smartboards, etc. Strawman.

This is so true. Everyone wants to look at how we are falling behind but we are the only country that wants to educate and test everyone. Compare our top against any other countries and we are fine. What I worry about is how large our bottom is getting due to the fact we have no backbone and will not stand up to anything in our society.

just saying wrote:You obviously don't know what the Dept of Education does. The vast majority of the money goes directly to states. That 15% raise you claim the Department got is probably in reference to the Recovery Act programs. Guess where that money was targeted...STATES. Race to the Top (straight to states), State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (straight to states...look at the title), Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (straight to states), I could go on but I think you can notice the pattern.

This. Btw, Sargin... I'm still waiting for your response *why* the Union had a reason to trust walker during negotiations after his botched rollout.

I'll say the teachers on this thread have made me feel a little better about voting NO on Issue 2 here in Ohio. I still wish teachers didn't have a union, but since it is there, I'm not really for taking away negotiated benefits.