Teaching in Moscow...

[Don Kaag <dkaag@turbonet.com>]

Walter:

University employees don't get an automatic cost of living raise
annually.  My wife is on the faculty at WSU, so I know.  She does,
however get rated on her job performance every year, and generally gets
a raise based on the fact that she is very good at what she does.

But comparing the mechanisms of public school salary increases and
university salary increases is comparing apples and oranges.

Consider these facts:  Idaho is 48th in the nation in teacher's
salaries.  Even in Idaho, Moscow School District salaries have been
losing ground gradually for the last 20 years in terms of real income.
Meridian School District in Boise as well as Lewiston Independent School
district pay higher salaries based on educational level and years of
service.

Do you remember Gerry Weitz's posting of a comparison between Pullman
schools and Moscow schools?  One of the things I found odd about it was
that it didn't address comparative salaries.  I am sure it was because
Pullman School District is a Washington district, and is therefore on
Washington's statewide salary scale, which has teachers with comparable
qualifications making 5 to 10 thousand dollars a year more than we do
eight miles away here in Moscow, and with a salary grid set up to
compensate teachers for a much higher educational level than Moscow's
"Masters plus 36" cap.

Another issue is insurance costs.  Every member of Moscow School
District, as a condition of employment, must be a member of the
District's insurance plan.  Every year for the last four years the cost
of the insurance has gone up substantially, and the benefits have been
reduced.  Although the District picks up a portion of the cost per
individual as part of the negotiated agreement, actual out-of-pocket
monthly insurance costs have even further reduced real income for the
District's employees.

I have a "Masters plus 36", which is the equivalent of two Masters'
degrees, and a goodly number of postgraduate credits past that level,
and have been teaching here in Moscow for 13 years.  I am "maxed out" on
the salary grid, so no matter if I continue my postgraduate education to
improve my teaching, I can earn no more money.  I don't think you can
find anyone on the Palouse in a professional position at that
educational level and with those years of experience who makes as little
as I make.  I work hard at what I do, and I turn out well-educated kids.

And I don't want to hear about "summers off"  Most new teachers spend
their first five or six years working on their Masters degrees in the
summer.  For more experienced teachers who have gotten their Masters
degrees, Idaho has a continuous educational recertification
requirement.  That means whatever your educational level, you must earn
6 college credits every five years in order to remain certified as a
teacher.  So after school is out in mid-June, most of us head off to UI
or some other university and pay to go to school.  Which means we can't
get a summer job to suppliment our teaching income.  And many of us
spend the remainder of our summers working "off the clock" without pay
on our lesson plans, teachng materials, and our professional reading.
And we generally show up two weeks ahead of school's start at the end of
August to work in our schools to get ready for the new school year.  We
don't get paid for that, either.

Don't get me wrong.  I teach because I enjoy it.  I love working with
kids.  It is a job that is continually different, that keeps me young,
and that gives something back to the community and the future of the
country.  If I didn't like doing it, I would go do something else.  The
part that is hard for me is to figure out how to live on a teacher's
salary, and to pay my daughter's college tuition.

Don Kaag

WMSteed@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 6/1/02 7:50:09 AM, dkaag@turbonet.com writes:
>
> << I for one am not ashamed to ask for a salary increase that is
> at least ahead of the yearly inflation in the cost of living >>
>
> I'd be curious what percentage of all employees on the Palouse
> actually get
> such a raise annually.  I'm pretty sure not at U of I or WSU.
>
> Walter Steed