[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: wa2egp at att.net
>Date: 2007/04/16 Mon PM 12:08:36 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

>> >I started at $13K.  My wife started at a major company two years later at $25K.
>> >Same education.  This is my 27th year.  Only a few years ago did my pay 
>> >exceed hers due to a balloning in the last two years before top scale.  BTW,
>> >before I taught at my present job, I left a factory where I got $16K.
>> 
>> 27 years ago, teacher pay sucked, now it doesn't - it is pretty reasonable, 
>> IMHO, if not excessive in SOME cases. Very few on this list (or in my home town) 
>> get guaranteed pay raises in spite of annual performance. Job security is 
>> another alien concept to most of my neighbors, but those are just certain 
>> elements of the jobs - it takes a different person to teach than it does to say, 
>> program, engineer, etc.
>
>In NJ, most district are below $40K.  Other professions start at higher 
>amounts still. (estimate $60K)  Cost of living here is outrageous.

WTF "starts" at $60K? You have to have something more than an English degree and a fondness for small children to make $60K in NJ.

Cost of living is outageous in NJ - agreed.

>Job security was never a factor when teachers were getting crap pay and
>there was job security in othere professions.  The attitude is still 
>there.  During one strike a few years ago, a person in that town was
>on the news saying, "We can always get teachers."  Teachers were sent
>to jail all over $20K in a multimillion budget in a town whose property
>values went from $350K to $6M (most teachers lived out of town).  Most
>wage earners in that town worked on Wall Street.  Took them several
>years to find teachers; non-tenured left, older retired quickly and
applicants were few.

Well yes, rich folks are a$$es, and they got what they deserved.

I can't wait to see what happens if our teachers *demand* more than 4% raise for their upcoming contract. If they strike, the community will be up in arms - literally - and dig in their heels and the union will never see anything more than 4%... (IMHO, based on neighbors I've spoken with)

>Yes, it does require different people to teach than to do other jobs.
>I think insanity is a requirement. :)

Funny, I thought is was the result of teaching...

My wife had a friend that went to a mid-level school here in NJ (Rowan College, not the best, far from the worst) and graduated with a teaching degree. Sent out 50 letters looking for a teaching job (one to each state board of education), and all said they were not hiring teachers. She decided that there were no jobs for teachers, and went into retail sales... I guess she didn't know we have over 600 school boards here in NJ that DO hire teachers every year... I think the students of NJ dodged a bullet with that one.

Lionel