Teachers in Detroit may not be in class when school opens on the day after Labor Day — tomorrow. They are striking for higher wages and better use of classroom resources; the district is asking for $88 million in cuts to salary and benefits. Here is a summary of the issues from the Detroit Free Press.
Detroit’s troubles demonstrate, simply, that education reform is not easy.
There are test pressures:
“We don’t want to disrupt the education environment of our students,” said Lekan Oguntoyinbo, spokesman for the district. “We have MEAP exams coming up in a couple of months here. We’re striving to be more competitive. Every day is important.”
District officials plan to replace 9,500 teachers and other union members with 250 administrators, to manage the 129,000 students.
Parents want good teachers in the classroom:
Kizzy Davis, whose 5-year-old daughter is to start kindergarten, said putting non-teachers in classes concerns her. “I wouldn’t send my child to school” without teachers, Davis said. “I’d put her in another school district.”
Superintendent William F. Coleman III had promised to hold classes whether teachers showed up or not. And about 250 teacher-certified administrators attended orientation sessions so they’d be ready to hit the classrooms Tuesday. But Saturday, Coleman said the district might reconsider.
Delores Smith Jackson, whose grandchildren attend King Academic and Performing Arts Academy, said schools shouldn’t open if they don’t have enough administrators to fill the classes.
“It would just become a warehouse,” Jackson said.
But she said if school went on, “I’ll be right there, doing whatever I can to assist.”
Teachers and administrators go in completely opposite directions on the salary negotiations:
The sides have been negotiating for months. The district says it must cut $88 million from teachers’ salaries and benefits to help account for a $105-million deficit. The union has asked for 5% pay raises over the next three years.
District officials said they don’t have the money to meet teachers’ demands. But union officials said teachers haven’t had a raise in three years and insist the district has the money but that it’s mismanaged.
Teachers want more than money, too — they are asking for enough resources to make the classrooms places of learning:
“It’s not just the money we’re striking for,” said RaQuel Harris, an English teacher at Central High. “It’s really a matter of how they are spending the money. We don’t have supplies we need to educate the students. I only have one set of novels for my students to read, which means the students cannot check the books out and take them home.”
And the Detroit district is a model for voucher advocates –– it faces stiff competition from alternative methods touted as ways to improve foundering districts like Detroit, and foundering schools like many in Detroit. Charter schools and the ability to transfer students out only rob the district of money it needs to keep going, however, far from sharpening any competitive ability:
District officials had feared that if schools don’t open, even more parents would enroll their children in neighboring school districts or charter schools. Detroit has lost about 50,000 students over the last several years. In Michigan, public school funding is based on enrollment, and the exodus of students has fueled the district’s financial crisis.
Federally-mandated testing accompanied with no funding to fix classroom deficits or increase teacher salaries probably do more damage in this situation than help. Bumper sticker solutions — “give kids a choice;” “students don’t have a prayer;” “what kids need is a moment of science” — don’t even produce a smile in Detroit.
Solutions will take time. Every year sees another 10,000 students sent off without the education everyone says they need to have; this is not the first year of such crises.
What would it take to get you to sign up to teach in Detroit?
Update, September 7: Here’s an example of anti-teacher bias at two or three.net that clarifies my views: The teachers are probably right in demanding more money. A pay range of $36,000 for a college graduate, topping out at $70,000 for a Ph.D. with 30 years of experience, is an insult to humans, to education, and especially to any teacher with the guts to teach in Detroit. It’s a pay scale designed to scare away the best and the brightest. (Those who answer the call are saints.) I hope the school system can figure out a way to get the money to meet the teachers’ demands, and I fear that the anti-public education people are winning the fight to kill Detroit’s schools, and Detroit.
Update, September 14: The Education Wonks have a related post, “Dept. of Ed. retreats on teacher quality. Tip of the scrub brush to the 84th Carnival of Education at Current Events in Education.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Ed – how about we both just take a deep breath and give it a rest.
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Ed – why don’t we both just take a deep breath and give it a rest.
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There are words that say the law protects the worker’s right to join a union. Interesting words with no teeth. Almost all of the states you name are “employment at will” states, as well — which means workers can be fired for no reason at all. It’s nearly impossible to organize a union under such circumstances. Companies have policies — unwritten to be sure, but clear — that require the firing of any employee who joins a union or who tries to organize a union at that company. Consequently, drives to organize a collective bargaining unit are extremely rare.
Right to work laws pay a lot of lip service to employee rights, but there are no teeth to protect employee rights.
Now, there are pockets where unions were able to get a foothold prior to the state’s law, or where a given industry is union everywhere else, and so the shops in that state go along, too.
If there are no cases where a right-to-work law has protected an employee from an abusive employer, then your earlier claim that such laws would do that, is suspect at best. There are far more abusive employers than abusive unions, numerically and percentage wise. Heck, even abusive unions work for higher wages, safe jobs and more benefits.
I’m no familiar with Bennett’s study. I worry about it. I keep hearing that Texas has a higher standard of living, but that’s not what I see. Fully 25% of the kids in this state have no health benefits, and it shows. They don’t have glasses, so they can’t do schoolwork. They need dental work, and so they don’t eat. They get a cold, it turns into a raging sinus infection, and instead of being out for a day waiting for anti-biotics to kick in, they are out for two weeks. Better standard of living for whom? At what cost?
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Ed, you’re just not making a whole lot of sense here. Did you actually read any of the right to work laws? These laws specifically state that they protect the rights of workers to join a union. You say that right to work laws do not have the effect of protecting a worker’s right to join a union, and that they are intended to frustrate collective bargaining agreements, and generally do. How is that? Please explain exactly how right to work laws frustrate collective bargaining agreements. You seem to imply that they only way to protect the rights of union members is to require everyone to participate. That is nonsense. In fact, I have worked for an employer in a right to work state where there was a union present (about 60% of us were members of the union). The right to work law did nothing to infringe on the rights of union members. Union members shouldn’t have a right to compel other workers to join the union.
There is a 1994 study by James Bennett, PhD, a professor of economics at George Mason University, that indicates that standards of living in right to work states are actually higher than in states without right to work laws. This make some economic sense, because, as the study points out, the overall cost of living can be lower in states where wages are lower. Dr. Bennett’s study shows that the lower cost of living in right to work states more than makes up for the lower wages in those states.
You say that you can’t think of any occasion where a right to work law has protected a worker from an abusive employer. I can’t either. That wasn’t even what I was arguing, Ed. I was arguing that right to work laws protect workers from abusive labor unions. Good grief!
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Right to Work laws do not have the effect of protecting a worker’s right to join a union. Such laws are intended to frustrate collective bargaining agreements, and generally do.
Wages in right-to-work states tend to be significantly lower than in other states.
It doesn’t help when legislatures pass companion laws that prohibit collective bargaining in some cases, or laws which prevent collective bargaining by undermining the tools available to unions in negotiation.
I can’t think of any occasion where a right-to-work law has protected a worker from an abusive employer. How that might work remains a mystery to me, since the protection generally comes from the power of the union in collective action. Without that threat of action, employers are not cowed by demands from one worker.
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One more thing about right to work laws. They would protect workers from abusive employers just as well as compulsory union laws. Right to work laws prohibit a worker from being forced to join a union, but they also protect a worker’s right to join a union if they so choose. To view the right to work laws in the 22 states that presently have them go to the National Right To Work website and click on the state whose law you want to read. I suggest Texas, Ed’s home state. The entire law for Texas is about a page long and very easy to understand (you don’t have to be a lawyer).
Right to work laws, I believe, would provide the proper balance between a worker being taken advantage of by their employer and the worker being taken advantage of by their union. With right to work laws, employers are aware that workers are always free to join a union if the need arises. Employers can’t stop workers from organizing. With right to work laws, unions are aware that workers can always resign from the union if they feel that they are being taken advantage of. Unions can’t keep collecting dues from workers who don’t want to be union members.
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Now wait a minute, Ed. You say even the lazy teachers deserve raises? The lazy teachers need to be shipped out, not paid more. Unfortunately, the unions make it next to impossible to get rid of lazy and incompetent teachers. The fact that bad teachers are paid the same as good teachers is an insult to the good teachers. Higher pay doesn’t chase out lazy teachers, it only makes them more determined to stay right where they are. If we want more good teachers then we should raise the pay for the good teachers, not the bad ones. Get rid of the bad teachers to make way for good teachers (that’s my motto). But first the unions have to change the way they do business.
Getting the unions to change the way they do business is a very difficult proposition, especially in a state like Michigan that does not have a right to work law. Public school teachers in Michigan have no choice as to whether they pay union dues or not, even if they don’t want to be union members. They either pay their dues or lose their job. That makes it almost impossible for teachers who want to go against the union to do so. I taught at one of the community colleges in Michigan for several years. After two years I got a letter from the union that said I was to authorize them to withhold dues from my pay or I would be fired! They didn’t necessairly care if I joined the union, they just wanted my money. There’s nothing teachers can do about it except get the politicians to change the law. Good luck. What this all means is that the teachers don’t have available to them the one best way to make the unions sensitive to their needs and desires: the option of taking their money elsewhere. That option almost always works.
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Journalism is near the bottom of the pay scales for college graduates, alas. I share your pain.
That’s less than $10.00 an hour. I see ads for lots of custodial positions starting at $15.00 and up.
All teachers deserve a pay raise, even the lazy ones. Higher pay chases out the lazy ones — at least, in a market situation, that would obtain. If we want more of the good teachers, we’ll raise pay. We raise pay because we like the kids, because we think education is valuable, because we know the price of ignorance, because we want to improve education. Trying to find reasons to leave teacher pay low doesn’t do anything for kids or education.
Cutting the U.S. Department of Education wouldn’t do much for public schools. Public schools now get about 7% of their total budget from federal dollars, on average. But I’m not offended. I used to speak to teacher groups, and without fail I’d get a huddle of teachers afterward who would tell me that I needed to get a classroom by myself for a couple of years to begin to understand the issues — even when they agreed with me. You know what? They were right.
Now, administrators in school districts, that can be another kettle of fish. But overpaid administrators do not number enough to make a significant dent in the pay for teachers. Teacher pay is too low for what we ask of the job, and it is too low to attract the numbers of best and brightest whom we should be attracting to teaching.
With the possible exception of the Oakland Athletics, no one in Major League Baseball thinks they can make a championship team by paying less than they absolutely can. The competition in baseball — which is also unionized, and with a union that is out of favor with just about everyone including the members — is for higher-salaried players. Generally the highly-paid guys are the ones the managers want, and the ones the fans want to see. It’s an imperfect market — but I think it makes the point. Nowhere else do we rationally argue that holding salaries down attracts the better workers, nor do we act surprised when holding pay down drives the best away.
I haven’t looked at the situation in Detroit today. Alabama’s teachers are getting a pay increase, I hear in radio news, partly as a result of a budget surplus for the state. I suspect Michigan does not have a surplus like other states, but I know that starving the school system is not a good way to make it run like a thoroughbred.
I understand that 10,000 students a year are leaving Detroit’s school system. I wager that the poorest and most needy — those who would benefit most from good teachers — are the ones left behind. Denying the teachers there a pay raise is just one more way of kicking the poor and at risk kids in the behind. It’s a sad contrast from the title of the federal bill, “No Child Left Behind.”
I think you need to take another look at the Detroit situation. Students are leaving the district, sure — but there is no indication that the teachers are driving the exodus. Look at what the teachers demand: Books enough for the kids!
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Who said anything about cutting the teachers salaries to get increase performance? My question is what is Detriot school district supposed to do. They are losing money every year. Everyone else has taken a pay cut. They are asking teachers to cut osme benefits, no cut in salary.
If you want to play the socialist card, can we talk about everyone with equal experience and education making the same thing. One teacher may be dedicated, staying late every day to grade papers and tutor struggling kids. One teacher may be lazy, handing out pre-made worksheets, looking forward to summer’s off. Do they both deserve the same pay because they have the same degree and have been teaching for 5 years?
As an aside, just to really anger you since you worked in the Dept. of Ed. I would give more money to teachers and classrooms, by cutting positions like the one you had. If we got rid of more bureaucracy we could spend more in the classroom.
As to your wages, I think you are skewed a good bit. I don’t know of any custodians who start out making over $30,000. I’m not sure any of the jobs you listed start out at $36,000. Again, as steven said we are speaking about right out of college jobs.
With a college degree in journalism, I brought in a whopping $18,000. Now with five years of experience in journalism and graphic design I make a good deal less than $36,000. I could leave my profession right now with my degree and my experience and start out making more as a teacher tomorrow.
But again, you miss my entire point if you think this is an anti-teacher tirade or even anti-public education tirade. My gripe was (and is) against the unions involved not the individual teachers. The vast majority of teachers care deeply about their students, unions care about bringing in more money. That’s my concern.
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“Those who can’t do, teach.” How do you like that statement, Ed? I would presume that most teachers would be extremely offended if they heard it. It offends me as well. That statement just assumes that anyone who winds up in teaching does so because they can’t “do” anything else, as if teaching were not doing anything.
Equally offensive is the statement that you and many other teachers make which is something like “you wouldn’t last two days in a classroom”, or some other similar nonsense. Your statement above implies that those who are not teaching, such as accountants and attorneys, are not doing so because they lack the capacity to deal with the demands of teaching.
Many accountants and attorneys are self employed, which means that we run our own business. We’re not like the accountants at Ernst & Young that you are familiar with, Ed.. We run our business and we have to know the tax laws and accounting regulations. We deal with angry business owners who can’t understand why they don’t have any money left in their bank account but still owe taxes. We have to make sure that our suppliers and employees are paid on time. These things take talent as well as teaching does.
Let’s give teachers the credit they deserve, but let’s not put them up on a pedestal where they are presumed to be smarter and more talented than everyone else.
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Ed,
Equivalent education levels in accounting DO NOT start at $75,000, even on the high side. Look at the Robert Half 2006 salary guide. For LARGE public accounting firms the average starting salary for someone with one or less years of experience is between $42,750 and $52,000. For MEDIUM public accounting firms it is between $36,750 and $46,000. For SMALL firms it is somewhat less. For a corporate accountant in a LARGE firm the average starting salary for someone with one or less years of experience is between $33,250 and $42,750. For MEDIUM firms it is between $32,000 and $39,250. For SMALL firms, again, it is somewhat less. We’re talking starting salaries of people “just starting out”, which, I presume, is what Aaron is talking about. For those with a masters degree or a CPA certificate the Robert Half survey says the salaries should be about 10% higher.
It’s not really all that difficult to look this stuff up when you have a resource such as the internet to do so. It took me about five minutes. Hopefully you do a better job of fact checking for your students.
This may surprise you, Ed, but I don’t believe that the teachers are the problem with education. In many ways they are the solution. The system itself is the problem, and the teachers unions contribute greatly to this. In fact, I believe that if the teachers had control of their unions, instead of the other way around, they could have a tremendous impact on making improvements to our education system. And from what I hear in my neck of the woods, this is what most of the teachers would like to see. They are just afraid to speak out against the union. Being able to weed out poor teachers without spending megadollars in attorney fees, and being able to pay teachers based on how well they teach, instead of how long they have taught, would help. The teachers unions are roadblocks to these kind of changes that are needed to improve education.
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Can you name one other profession where we claim we need higher quality performance, and so we cut the pay? I don’t know if you’re an advocate of free market economics such as that proposed by Milton Friedman, but only under a socialist dictatorship has such a proposal been made with any serious thought that it might work — before now.
And since I don’t think most of the people urging that we cut teacher pay and benefits are socialists, I must conclude that they bear ill will towards the institution of public schools or towards teachers. I could give chapter and verse, I suppose, but let it suffice to say that I have encountered that animus in very real fashion in my work in education policy for Congress, when I worked in the executive branch outside of education, when I held a leadership position at the Department of Education, in politics since then, and in public education today.
How many other jobs start out at $36,000? A lot! Police dispatcher, legal secretary, McDonald’s manager , CostCo clerks, plumber, school custodian, garbage collectors in most major cities . . . we’re talking $18/hour over 2,000 hours, which is a reasonable estimate of the time teachers actually spend working for education (it’s generally a 10- to 12-hour a day task during school).
As I noted, equivalent education levels in accounting and law start at $75,000 on the low side, and go up to $145,000. Starting. (Of course, there is the reality that the average lawyer in the U.S. earns about $45,000/year, so obviously there are discrepancies.)
The question is, how in tarnation do we expect to attract ambitious, highly qualified people, first to teaching, and then to teaching in Detroit to make a difference, if we don’t pay competitively?
As I write this NPR reports the court in Detroit should rule on ordering the teachers back to work, sometime today. The state pays the district $7400 a year per student. Teachers note that the district lacks basic supplies to make the schools work, or to clean them. Some schools do without toilet paper.
Who else is demanding toilet paper for school kids in Detroit? It looks to me as if the teachers are the only ones paying attention to the kids and the kids’ needs. Maybe they are right.
I know a lot of lawyers. I know a fair number of accountants. No slam intended, but most of them wouldn’t last two days with fifth graders, maybe one day with seventh graders.
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Thanks for linke, but I need to clarify some things myself.
First, I have no anti-teacher bias. My mom has been in education for over 30 years. I am actually considering becoming a teacher myself.
If you want to say I have a union bias, then you have a little more ground to stand on. If you read my post then you saw that I specifically said the unions, not the teachers themselves.
As to the pay issue – how many other jobs start out at $36,000. I don’t make that with a college degree and five years of experience in my field.
But to a further point, show me the evidence that increased school spending and specifically teacher pay brings about higher achievement. It has nothing to do with spending and the stats bear that out.
I don’t blame the teachers unions, especially not the teachers, for all the problems in Detriot. That is a difficult situation, but it will not be made better by demanding more money for teachers. All the non-union employees in the district office and elsewhere have taken 10% put cuts the last two years, but the teachers are striking for more money?
We do agree on one thing – solutions do take time. This is going to take hard choices from the top down. I just don’t think unions calling strikes for more money is going to solve any of the problems facing the district. The losers in this whole situation are the children.
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