Red vs Blue States Public Education!

Walker's Act 10 brings Wage Disparity to Teaching.

Abrupt and ideologically based major policy changes often come with unintended consequences.

It never occurred to Republicans that there maybe a reason why our schools are public, and private schools are what they are...businesses.  

One teacher I know mentioned to me that the new business like approach has taken away many of the incentives to pursue other course work and degrees that can improve their ability to teach and make more money. High demand courses will soon create shortages in other fields of work. How long before people enter the teaching profession not as a calling, but as a way to make more and more money. 

And now, private sector wage disparity has come to our educators. A new study is telling us the female dominated field of teaching is underpaying women compared to men, largely due to Scott Walker's Act 10.

WKOW's Greg Neumann explains: 

Male teachers now make more money than their female colleagues in Wisconsin, and a UW researcher says it's because of Act 10.

In researching the teacher shortage in Wisconsin, Dr. Peter Goff - an education leadership and policy analyst - found men who teach in state public schools are earning about $300 more each year than their women counterparts. Dr. Goff said (the gap) is likely to grow. He said the public school system in Wisconsin now more closely resembles the private sector, where women earn about 79 cents for every dollar a man earns.

"One of the things that's very well known in business literature is that men tend to be a little bit more aggressive in negotiating for pay and there's also some evidence that when women are equally aggressive in negotiating for pay, that they're penalized for it," said Dr. Goff. "They're seen as being pushy."

Astar Herndon, state director for 9 to 5 Wisconsin - a women's employment rights group, said Goff's research mirrors what she's seen before. "Some managers are hearing a woman requesting a raise, whereas a man is due a raise because he is more - whether it's competent, he has a family - there's so many more explanations given to a man when he asks for a raise," said Herndon.

A spokesperson for Gov. Scott Walker did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Rep. Dale Kooyenga on teachers: "...tell your teachers...we're gonna work 7 am 'til 5 pm. You need to do that sometimes!!!"

Republicans have never been afraid to push their agenda down everybody's throats, especially when it's based on anecdotal "evidence" and utter nonsense.

Republican Justices are no different. Remember when the Supreme Court justices had to be told by a fellow justice the ACA marketplace wasn't like a shopping mall, where you could just go in and pick up contraception if you wanted it?

Or closer to the topic here, Republicans bashed supposedly greedy teachers for their high wages, negotiated by unions. Oddly, now under Act 10, teachers can get into education and focus exclusively on their greed, seeking out job offers by the highest bidding school district. That opens the door for exploitation, higher education costs, shortages in the core subject not in high demand, and an advantage for wealthy districts over rural schools. Problems solved...or made worse?

Here we go again. Right up there with lazy teachers having the summer off, Rep. Dale Kooyenga's anecdotal shot that "teachers don't put in a full day" got the kind of response he deserved.

Kooyenga: "Sometimes what you need in a change, is you need to tell your teachers, listen, we're in a tight spot. We're all gonna get here at 7 am, we're not leaving 'til 5 pm. You need to do that sometimes..."

Lauren Baker: "...we do that everyday and then we take our work home with us at 5 pm and we work on it the entire night. Let's go easy on that one, okay?" 

An amazing thing to assume, or even say in front of teachers. Can you imagine what he and his Republican comrades must be saying behind closed doors?

There was a collective gasp when Brookfield Republican and MPS Takeover co-author Rep. Dale Kooyenga had this to say about teachers. Thankfully Milwaukee Teacher's Education Association Executive Director Lauren Baker was there to correct him.

Feel free to let him know how you feel about this statement: (608) 266-9180. Rep.Kooyenga@legis.wisconsin.gov

I included two more topics in the clip below. The first half deals with the unfair school funding formula, where some students are worth more than others. The second half is a must see about vouchers, and the obscene money being made by some at a few failed schools, at taxpayer expense.

Did Republicans like Kooyenga ever bother to ask teachers about any of these issues? Not a chance.

Arizona Teachers Flee State after Republicans passed laws not quite as bad as Wisconsin's.

Now that we have been brought down to southern state status by Scott Walker and his band of plundering pirates, we can expect to see what happened below soon, since we're about to make even bigger cuts to education than sorry Arizona. Especially longer term. See if any of this sounds familiar (can you say one-size-fits-all policy): 

WaPo: Why teachers are fleeing Arizona in droves: Over the last five years, thousands of teachers have left the state, according to a 2015 report by the Arizona Department of Education, with this past school year being possibly the worst. Low pay, insufficient classroom resources and so many testing requirements and teaching guidelines that educators feel they have no instructional time and flexibility in their own classrooms, educators say.

Arizona is near the bottom of a state list of spending per student, $7,208, with the average per pupil spending around the country being $10,700. But it is near the top of a list of states in getting public education revenue from the federal government.

Fewer Arizona residents want to become teachers, and that the force of veteran teachers is shrinking. In 1987-1988, the “most common” teacher had 15 years of experience; by 2011-2012, 5 years of experience; In 2013-14, 29 percent of Arizona’s teachers had 3 or less years of experience, and  24 percent of first-year teachers and 20 percent of second-year teachers left their positions and were not reported as teaching in the state.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and the Arizona legislature have moved to end all state funding for two of the largest (community colleges) in the state. It also reported that Arizona “ranks first in the country in steep cuts to higher education budgets.” The Legislature recently passed a 2016 budget that slashed $99 million.

Act 10 Ushers in High Teacher Turnover, declining experience.

Those small government, small minded losers controlling our one party system have won.

What we’re now seeing after Scott Walker passed Act 10 is a noticeable change in the teaching profession, where dedication to our children is being slowly replaced by high turnover “employees” looking for the best monetary fit.

A free market based educational system will turn our dependable public schools into Dollar Store deals, where communities who once attracted relocating families due to their highly rated school districts will now be offering up well advertised private schools that could pick up and go anytime they feel they're not making enough money. 

It started with Act 10. jsonline-Erin Richards:

-In the summer of 2013, hundreds of veteran teachers retired from Milwaukee Public Schools, many taking advantage of the favorable terms of expiring contracts.

-One year later … there's been another, even greater, spike in teachers leaving. But those walking away now are predominantly educators with three or fewer years of experience

-MPS officials say … "There is a national trend toward not staying with the same employer for decades."

-Some teachers get a taste of today's workplace and leave education entirely … pressures and politics of the job have heightened in recent years … it's common to hear teachers say they feel disrespected by the public, unsupported by their administration and beaten up by parents.

-Act 10 has created an open market for teachers, which makes it harder for districts to retain staff with sought-after skills. "Everyone is talking about resignation rates, they're higher everywhere in the past several years," Johnna Noll, director of instructional services at the West Allis-West Milwaukee Public Schools said.

The trend is to take the dedicated teacher out, and replace those top professionals with “salaried competitive high turnover jobs.” The following list of changes should leave you with a hollow sinking feeling. It’s a world where privateers use the word “commodity” when they talk about our kids:

-Among teachers with three or fewer years of experience, 174 resigned in 2013-'14, compared with 67 in 2012-'13 and 63 the year before.  40% of the resignations were relative newcomers.

-Salary structures in teacher’s union contracts once rewarded teachers for staying with the same district until retirement. But under employee handbooks, pay raises are no longer tethered to years of experience … teachers might be more easily lured away by competing districts, which now have more ability to offer rewards such as signing bonuses.

-Many districts have implemented heftier financial penalties for teachers who resign midyear. MPS teachers who sign a contract of employment for the coming school year now can face fines of up to $1,000 to $2,000 if they resign for non-catastrophic reasons. In the past, MPS teachers were not required to pay anything to resign.

Here's the best explanation why so many young teachers are leaving:

Rachel Schlueter is a 25-year veteran MPS teacher, said she had "incredible teachers" in the rooms next to her, who offered support and tips. "I think now, young people are kind of thrown into it," she said. "There's never enough time to collaborate with colleagues and to get a lot of help from other teachers. In my opinion, that's when people get frustrated and leave any district as a new teacher."

Dumb Ron Johnson must think picking a career is like buying a car; can you afford it?

You've always wanted to be a school teacher, so you studied hard and decided to go college to fulfill that dream. Wait a minute big spender, not so fast. Can you afford that?

That’s what Dumb Ron Johnson is asking now in a piece that defies logic:

No one told the aspiring teacher to look before borrowing: One of the worse unintended consequences of good intentions in government is the way Washington has eagerly helped young Americans accumulate huge piles of student debt. Since 2010, the federal government has simply run most student lending, so this mess is Washington’s handiwork.

It’s not a mess at all. High tuition is a result of GOP cuts to public colleges, not student borrowing.

But here’s the most insulting part of Johnson’s twisted thinking; he’s saying it’s harder to be a teacher now because their pay isn't very high, making it harder to pay off your loan debt. Thank you GOP?

You can see the result in the testimony of a young woman, Brittany Jones, who wanted to be a schoolteacher. It’s honorable work that pays reasonably well, but it is not known for paying high salaries right out of college. Jones went to a four-year state college and graduated with “well over $70,000” in student debt … I asked her whether any high school or college counselors ever went through the calculation of how much debt was appropriate and whether she would be able to repay it, based on the profession she was planning.

She answered: “They did not. Actually, when we started the conversations about college, they simply, you know, let us know you can apply for millions of dollars in scholarships and grants. They're available, you just have to apply for them."

Did her conversation with that counselor ever touch upon the ability to repay?“Not in the initial stages. They simply were saying you have this much of a balance, you can pay with it using this financial-aid package of your subsidized or unsubsidized loan. And you can take them if you want, or you can borrow from your family.”

...student aid was meant to make college more affordable. It’s fair to ask whether it had the unintended and exactly opposite effect.