Originally posted by tenfifteen:
What's funny is that two years ago, the base salary of a teach in Bal'more, City Of, was $35k--or a mere $5k less than the 2005 salary of the "higher class" areas that were pointed out.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the salaries haven't adjusted downward. Let's say +3% per year for two years, and that's $37k.
Oh, the horror. They might have to drive a Jetta instead of an Infiniti, but you know, I'd have been happy with that salary at 23.
"In Maryland" is where Baltimore is located. Just wanted to help out there.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the base pay is still about the same, especially considering that they've had tons of financial problems regarding extreme mismanagement at the top of the ranks and have very good reason to believe that their pay has not been increased at all. In fact, the media had noted that management was going to make up for their screw-ups by penalizing the teachers via pay and supplies. Same old, same old. That's quite common. In fact, a 3% pay raise for one year is a pretty high one for them. It's usually 1-2% if anything at all. Unlike Worcester County, they don't receive cost of living increases. I know that 1st hand. Also keep in mind that no teacher makes any overtime pay whatsoever. The exception is that a few districts will pay something like a token $1,000/yr to coaches. Most other teachers who run school clubs and such, which are sometimes required, never make one additional penny.
What's also not included is that the pay doesn't get much better once you've been there over the years, unlike most jobs. They stay pretty stagnant. At least, that's true for Baltimore City and many other districts. Some pay well but many don't. The only way to increase your pay is to aquire more degrees which cost more than you ever recoup. Even then, after you've obtained 2 Masters degrees, that's it except for a PhD which is even less cost effective; HOWEVER, the state of Maryland
still requires you to continue taking graduate classes just to hold onto your certification, hence, your job.
Funny thing is, Baltimore City has to keep hiring uncertified teachers just to staff the classrooms because so many teachers end up quitting. Certified teachers generally don't make any more money than the uncertified ones yet will lose their jobs if they don't play the certification racket game. If you don't, they think nothing of firing you and then replacing you with an uncertified teacher! That too is part of the game.
Can't speak for most teachers unions but I also know 1st hand that the Baltimore Teachers Union does almost nothing to protect it's teachers. They are such a scam!!! It's a closed agency which means that every teacher must contribute a whole lot of money to keep them afloat. They sold the teachers out when they agreed with the City to make it
illegal for the teachers to strike; hence causing them to loose most of their bargaining power. From my observations, all the Union cares about are smaller class sizes because it requires more teachers, resulting in more union dues in their greedy hands. Oh, and their own political careers. That's their other selfish concern. I could go on about how they have been part of the cause of more work without additional pay and how they often avoid helping teachers out who are being unfairly treated in the schools. And voting for union leadership is as big a farce as voting for an American president. It's incredibly corrupt and doesn't represent the teachers anymore. They only
say they do.
I fully agree with what Sir HC said about computers in the schools. I would also add library books to that. Have you ever noticed that whenever anyone donates something to a school, it always seems to be computers or library books? Not to discredit their potential values but they are the least that some of these schools need!!! In fact, some of the biggest needs don't even involve money but do involve things like real (not violent) discipline and realistic expectations.
Actually, I tend to think different than most teachers concerning money and the schools. You see, I don't eat up all of the crap that the unions and the politically correct establisments throw out there. After seeing so much mismanagement and other corruptions, I got to the point that I am sometimes against more money being thrown to many of the schools. You see, it got that each year I would hear on the news about Baltimore City receiving at least a million dollars more for their total budget every single year. Then when I would show up for the 1st day of school each year, I'd hear all this crap about budget cuts. After some personal investigation, that was the same line in all of the schools, not just mine. That's when I realized that something wasn't quite kosher concerning the inside distribution of funds within the school system itself. Found out about some principals embezelling money too and other crap. Didn't take me long to see that my personal taxes kept being increased to put money into the classrooms yet every single year I was, in reality, seeing much, much less. Fuck that! Get things straightened out first than I may rethink that issue.
With all that said, after 2 Masters degrees and 13 years of teaching, I never even saw $50,000 per year and the scale wasn't going up at all. It was just costing me more money to take useless classes just to keep my job, though it would never make me any more money, and that doesn't even consider what it cost of my time, efforts, and sanity. Even then, the pay factor was way at the bottom of my list of why I ended up quitting. Same is true for almost every teacher who quits. Everyone always thinks it's the money. It's not at all! That's all that some people think is involved. They are so way off that it's not funny. Keep in mind, there is a big reason why so many teachers across the country are quitting and most of it has nothing whatsoever to do with money. It's not at all the job that it was when we were students and it's not the job that most people think it is prior to entering.
Finally, about not joining the army if you don't want to have to deal with bullets. Well, I refused to join the military or the police force because I'm just not the right type of person to have to work with bullets. One of the hundreds of reasons that I quit my teaching job was because I got tired of having to deal with bullets and other weapons while I was trying to teach. Excluding possibly the Faulklands, I bet that I saw more action of that sort while teaching in Baltimore City than O'Mankie ever saw during his entire time in the Royal Navy. I bet anything that Tenfifteen couldn't handle even 1 month teaching in any Inner City classroom. He'd be out of there in no time flat!
I now work in a nursing home for less than half of what I made teaching and I would never, ever for even one second consider going back to teaching after all of the crap that I've had to deal with, most of which wasn't even hinted at here. Again, it's
not the money. I'm working with nurses now (who receive the bulk of the payroll) and as tough as it is, it's a piece of cake compared to most teaching jobs. You have to consider the districts too. Some are much better than others while some are horrific Hell pits that pay much, much less than the better districts.
Oh, and once I finally was able to purchase a very modest new car after several years of teaching, the week that it was finally paid in full, it was maliciously vandalized in the school parking lot. That was much better than being stolen like what happened to several other teachers that I know of. The schools refuse to help you find or penalize the thugs either, just like they refuse to penalize disruptive students.
In closing, fuck off, Tenfifteen! Flawd has so much more common sense than you do. He sees what's going on in the modern classroom of today and it scares the shit out of me when I think of our future!
