The following letter is an email that I sent in response to the following article.
Dear Mr. Greene,
As a dedicated Oklahoma
teacher, I am offended by your assertions in your article from the Tulsa World entitled “What taxpayers should get for
$2,000 in teacher raises, and why it's hard not to love Markwayne Mullin.” Your
article prompted me to put pencil to paper.
Here is what I came up with so that you will know that the proposed
$2000 dollar raise is not even a drop in the bucket of what Oklahoma teachers deserve.
Below you will
find a graph that details my last week. This
is a typical week for me.
|
Activities
|
Hours
|
Minutes
|
|
Contract hours
(Includes 15 minutes before students arrive and 20 minutes
after students depart)
|
36
|
40
|
|
Prep for beginning of the day (average
arrival time of at least 15 minutes earlier than required)
|
1
|
15
|
|
After School Meetings (This week I had
three)
|
2
|
30
|
|
Outside planning/studying/researching/emails/parent
contact/tutoring
|
8
|
|
|
Attending sporting events/chaperoning
dances/dance recitals/rodeos, etc…; I do this to make connections with my
kids. I know not every teacher does this, but A LOT do!
|
2
|
|
|
Totals
|
49
|
55
|
Using the above graphic. I
devoted approximately 50 hours to my profession last week. So for argument’s sake let’s take away the making
connections line and the after-school meetings and the prep for the beginning
of the day. I know I go above and beyond in this respect, but let’s be clear I
believe most teachers do as well. That still leaves us with approximately 45
hours per week.
Now let’s look at the math:
Based on my current pay of $43,000
(this is total package not salary) divided by 180 days with contract hours of 7 hours and 20 minutes
per day I make approximately $32.60/hour
40 hours per week x $32.60/hr =
$1340/week
Multiply that by 36 weeks of
School = $46,944
If you add in 5 hours of “Overtime”
with time and a half, which is standard practice in most organizations,
5 hours per week x $48.90/hr =
$244/week
Multiply that by 36 school weeks
= $ 8802
That comes to a grand total $55,700.
If I were to work in Fort Worth,
TX or Fayetteville, AR this is where I would be in the salary schedule.
Please reference below – 16 years
of experience with a Masters:
Fort Worth Public Schools:
Fayetteville Public Schools:
I reference these schools because
I have seen our district lose at least five experienced and phenomenal
classroom teachers to these districts within the last three years. Why? They
are tired of being unvalued and brow-beaten by our State’s politicians.
On top of this I volunteer two
days a week to do cafeteria duty (my compensation- free lunch for the day) and
have a week-long morning duty every four weeks that requires me to get to
school even earlier to prep for the day.
Also, please consider this: When I began teaching I was given a week of
contract time to work in my room to prepare for students to come. This year between required meetings and
trainings I had exactly one half of one day of contract time to prep my
classroom. This does not mean I only
took one half of a day. I spent at least
40 hours getting ready over a two week period of time. Fitting this prep time in between 10 days of
training that I was required to attend to be current on district initiatives,
by the way, I was compensated for those 10 days @ $50/day. My average contract day is equal to
$239/day. By my math, “you” just received
almost a $2000 dollar discount for my time.
On top of the above issues, my colleagues
and I spend countless dollars of our own money on basic supplies as well,
providing for students in need and a lack of our districts’ abilities to
provide these supplies with the current level of funding from the state. My wife (also a teacher) and I have averaged
over $800 each year on our classroom the past three years.
You also mention the raises should
be tied to Merit rewards. This is great
on paper but is too difficult a concept to implement. There is no fair way to do this. We as public educators are like the Statue of
Liberty, give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free. If a student comes
to us hungry, abused, with little knowledge of the English language or with
little support from home (whether due to lack of resources or knowledge) we as
teachers love them and educated them despite these difficulties. You should want your best teachers teaching
the toughest students, but if you implement a merit pay system that good
teacher is penalized by the system for taking on the tougher students, because
our current system is based on meeting a criteria not growth of students. We,
as teachers, should be the lamp beside the golden door of education for all students—not
just the ones who are ready to top the scores of a standardized test.
By the way, under the
current proposal I would rather not have the raise. It does not make fiscal sense for our
schools. I believe the raise is more
than needed but not at the expense of class size and putting our districts in
fiscal dire straits.
So please, Mr. Greene, don't ask what more you will get. I give
you tremendous value for my current compensation. The proposed raise doesn't
even begin to cover the current value we teachers give to the State of
Oklahoma, especially considering that teachers have not had a true raise in at
least 6 years.
Respectfully,
Brian Davis, MEd.
