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Feeling is running high in Ontario because of the teacher strikes, and so here is an opinion piece representing one side of the controversy. Readers are of course more than welcome to weigh in with the other side.
The strike is largely about CONTROL. The principals argue with trustee backing that class size CAPS must be returned to the principal ’ s disgression for FLEXIBILITY.
Regent 242 which came at the insistence of OECTA forced seniority based hiring as their system was rife with nepotism.
Principals want the right to assign teacher prep time to more coverage for absent teachers. This is often capped. They also want also to assign other duties to teachers during prep time.
BTW the teachers will will all of these control fights because when the rubber hits the road arbitrators side as much as possible with the status quo arrangement.
The author is far off on salary. $95 000 is the top salary in any grid. It can only be attained after 10 years and maximum education. It is not the median or the average. If he is off on this fact how many more.
Many people are jealous of the teachers time off. None of this was ever NEGOTIATED. It was imposed by government. Any politician that attempts to change it finds out from the population that they don’t want it changed. (Cottages family vacation student labour…).
Having worked at a private school, that is continuing to expand in enrollment, and continuing to hire (and fire those who don’t meet expectations) teachers, I can tell you that my starting salary was $10.00 per teaching hour 4 years ago. I did have experience by this point.
The other colleagues who worked before me and continue to work after I left are paid $25,000 to start, with the top salary being $40,000. This is for the experienced teachers.
My conditions were different as I taught one subject to all grades - 150 students from ages 2 to 15. I was paid per teaching hour. Classes were half an hour, and my specialty course was twice a week. I taught 8 classes twice a week for a half hour each….do the math. I earned $80 per week here, in Ontario, 4 years ago. In this I had to do weekly lesson plans, put on 5 full school productions without help, hold parent-teacher interviews, arrange and attend school trips, clean up, deal with aggressive children, aggressive parents, and special needs.
While I decided to pursue other avenues, my colleagues continue to happily teach, and by all intents and purposes go above and beyond the call of duty. Work is thoroughly marked, returned on time, kids are attended to, one-on-one help is offered.
There are no benefits. Training is covered but expenses related to it are not. There is no pension. Some teachers I know have decided to move to unionized board run schools. Some were fired for not measuring up to demands and expectations. Most continue to teach because it is their passion; and they love the program because it is not the Ministry Curriculum. It’s more intense. Conditions are not great. Over crowding is becoming a problem. I spoke with them….no one is thinking of leaving, because seeing the kids light up, is their reward!
There are teachers…..and then there are TEACHERS!
EDUCRATS Say: “I’m all right, Jack!”
You will never win an argument with an educrat!
What other public service — roads, post office, health, recreation, police, defense, etc. — has the client begging for proper services? The only way the very generous tax dollars set aside for education will be appropriately spent on the intended product is for the client to drive the dollars. Education Savings Accounts (ESA) is a good idea gaining ground in the US. We just need our politicians in Canada to quit playing the establishment’s game and provide for more flexibility, choices and accountability by putting the credit card into the hands of parents of the students.
The education “system” will never reform itself. It’s an industry that oils itself — and strikes are just another way to intimidate the politicians to stand back. It’s unfair for the rest of us. Just give captive parents the money and they can find the services or develop the services as needed in the lifetimes of their children. Exit is the only “reform” that will save our children and grandchildren.
What is an educrat? While dictionaries still don’t acknowledge this term, we know what it means. It’s not just the combination of educator and bureaucrat. It’s the embodiment of someone in the system who is self-serving, callous and has the “I’m all right, Jack” attitude. Please look it up. Google “I’m all right Jack meaning”.
About this National Post story, which has already garnered over 480 comments, you will see that a majority of the public is pretty fed up with the shenanigans of teacher unionists. Give us back the humble competent teacher!
My comment to the story is buried in that section but I do want to bring forward another dimension when we attempt to talk reason with educrats — and that is — educrats don’t care about you. The public school system serves them very well, which is another reason they don’t want choices for others. Here is my comment to the NP yesterday:
** Teacher Privilege PLUS
If you are a parent you know how hard it is to get responsiveness from the system.
But if you are a parent AND a teacher the way is so much easier because you are an insider. Consider these advantages :
- Knowing how to navigate the system, the words to use, being aware of the extra services to claim, certainly puts you ahead of the queue for scarce, rationed services — e.g. special needs.
- While other parents are seen as “pushy” or helicopter parents, a teacher does not get that label.
- Getting a student switched to another teacher is no problem if you know the angles to maneuver.
There are many ways in which, as an insider, a person can extract all they can from a system seen as unfriendly to most other parents.
Add this extra advantage of insider privilege to everything else mentioned— and you get the teacher who just doesn’t understand crabby parents as their own family is well-served and their attitude is “I’m all right, Jack!”
The author of the column, Howard Levitt, is citing his info from the Drummond Report (see Chapter 6 Rec.6-20)
“The Q&E grant allows teachers to move to the high end of salary ranges relatively early in their careers. Based on the 2011–12 instructional salary matrix issued through the Grants for Student Needs, teachers in the highest qualification category will exceed the provincial benchmark salary amount of $72,879 by their seventh year of teaching. Moreover, about half of teachers are at the top level of the salary range (nearly $95,000 per year), up from about one-third in 2002–03.”
This article was delivered during BC’s teacher strike last year, which supports Doretta’s comments :
In fact Tara your article supports me.
After a decade of almost no hiring due declining enrollment we have reached a point where over half of the teaching force has 10 years experience. As a result, the maximum possible wage (without a POR) and the MEDIAN wage are exactly the same. If the maximum wage is $95 000 and 51% make the maximum wage then $95 000 is both the maximum and the median wage.
A median being the middle wage where half make more and half make less.
This is FAR different than the average wage.
Older teachers refuse to retire for 2-3 reasons.
1) They have had no wage increase in wages in years and their pension is 70% of the average of their best 5 years then then don’t want to retire until they get a big raise. As a result no new hires.
2) forced retirement at 65 is now illegal and therefore some will stay much longer.
3) declining enrollment therefore no new hires at lower wages.
When the baby boom teachers finally retire, both the median and average wage will actually fall.
You need to clear this up.
When Ontario teachers are paid the 2nd highest IN THE WORLD…only behind German teachers, I don’t think my contributions here would support your statements Doug. Any person reading your comments would be shaking their head right now, and asking how is it possible for ANY teacher, to be making the high salary of $95K PLUS benefits PLUS the ability to retire in their 50’s…all for working 10 months/year..?? Seriously?? In the real world most of us do that for much less, and for 12 months of the year. All the while working 10-12 hrs/day, volunteering our time on soccer fields or hockey rinks as coaches in our spare time, and generally just try and give back to the community same as everyone else. Not saying teachers don’t deserve to be paid fairly for all the hard work that they do, but given their working conditions, many believe they ought not to complain. Especially in Ontario. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask someone who spent a lifetime working at the Kellogg’s plant in London and is now unemployed, trying to figure out how to take care of their family?
Tara,
CD Howe research found a positive relationship between high teacher wages and excellent results.
Clearly if you want to attract the best people into teaching you need to pay the best money -right?
Tara
One political party wanted to take a very hard line with public sector unions during our last election. They lost a lot of seats and their leader had to step down on election night.
Yes there are a lot of people who agree with you but there are far more than that who don’t agree with you apparently.
Let me repeat…second highest salaries in the world…and yet PISA scores, PCAP and EQAO scores continue to decline in Ontario…losing out to many nations who’s education standards are yet higher, with lower teacher salaries.
Another theory springing up is that this strike is at this particular time of year in order to get out of EQAOs.
Teachers will “prove” kids didn’t suffer as a result of missing them. And they won’t be able to measure the school’s success. So they may start arguing they are a waste of taxpayers money.
But should this underhanded ploy be successful, the only thing to further suffer will be any measure of the schools’ and teachers’ (not students’) success or failure.
Perhaps this is all about further eroding any accountability, or lack thereof.
EQAO testing conspiracy?
I wish. No just a sidebar convenience to irritate the government without costing the teachers a nickel.
The tests of course are far worse than useless - they actually increase the dropout rate. Teachers are not measured by tests and in fact cannot be measured by tests.
It will of course show that the sun still comes up in the morning without tests.
The tests show us one and only one thing. The rich do better than the poor but then we know that and have always known that.
As Vito Perrine former Dean of the Harvard graduate school of education observes. “Standardized tests don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know”.
Last 3 teachers strike in BC all had teachers either begin job action in May, or teachers walking off the job in May/June. Has been that way ever since BCTF was formed, as my husband’s Gr.12 class had their provincial exams cancelled in 1984 as teachers refused to administer them.
CD Howe was comparing Canadian salaries to those of the US, remarking that Can teachers are already paid very well—-AND this is the main point of the CDH study: COMPETITION from PRIVATE schools was linked to better math scores in Quebec & BC http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/private-schools-behind-higher-quebec-math-scores-cd-howe-says/article19214599/
Plus the concern was tha MATH scores are falling despite all those high wages.
https://www.cdhowe.org/falling-pisa-grades-should-worry-provincial-educators-2/26462
CDH what works: http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/e-brief_177.pdf
The latest round of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows
statistically significant declines in mathematics scores for most Canadian provinces,
and in science and reading scores for many provinces.
The PISA background research sheds light on which policies – among many hotly
debated approaches – probably do improve student performance.
Policies that probably do work:
• Pre-primary (early childhood) education improves outcomes among 15-year-old
students – especially among socially disadvantaged students.
• School autonomy improves outcomes – provided school-level academic results
are posted publicly.
• Paying secondary school teachers well is associated with better outcomes –
clearly evident in a Canada/US comparison.
• Subsidizing a sizeable minority of students to attend private schools probably
helps explain Quebec’s superior mathematics results – in public as well as
private schools.
Policies that appear not to work:
• If the national student/teacher ratio is already below 20 (as is true in Canada),
lowering it further is unlikely to improve outcomes.
• Increasing instruction time for mathematics is unlikely, by itself, to improve
mathematics scores.
I always love this argument from conservatives.
We must pay CEOs, doctors, lawyers athletes or anyone in the private sector a great deal more money if we expect to get the best people to do the work.
However this does not apply to anyone in the public sector. Teachers, one of the most critical jobs in our society, can be seriously underpaid given their education but no problem. No relationship between higher pay and results.
Ya right.
I am simply not all that concerned about math scores. There is no shortage of engineers, scientists and so forth. Asians do much better in math but what do they get for it.
All of the innovation still comes from Silicon Valley in particular and the West in general. Asia is the one making adjustments to try to become more innovative like us.
Back to work order only grid negotiations to a standstill.
By siding with the boards and ordering an end to the strikes in Durham, Sudbury and Peel she has aligned the Liberals from teachers. They will head to NDP.
Those 3 boards can go right back on strike in September during federal election.
Paul Elliot can choose 3 other boards to put on a full strike or serious work to rule or kill extra curricular.
Unless the teachers get an agreement they like they will just “do the minimum” until they are happier.
To answer Mr Levitt concerns teachers want:
$120 000 per year
Restoration of sick days
Retention of class size (Wynne wants to increase them).
She wants the money for transit.
Let her raise taxes, tolls, gas tax to pay for transit not destroy our health and education systems.
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