Competent Teachers and Competitive Salaries

Teacher salaries are in the news...and teacher bashing is not far behind.

According to the Chicago Tribune 4% of teachers statewide, "About 4 percent of teachers statewide earned $100,000 or more — 5,457 teachers — but the vast majority worked in the Chicago suburbs, with heavy concentrations in north Cook, DuPage and Lake counties. In all, 32 Chicago-area districts paid at least 20 percent of their teachers six figures — five times the state average." Interestingly few faculty in our College make six figures. A few associations have raised objections to these teacher salaries.

What should the faculty salaries be compared to? Relative to the CEOs, where a Carly Fiorina can make a mess of HP and still walk away with $20 million or more, or a Dick Fuld can amass millions in salary and bonus while Lehman went bankrupt, the top teachers are a bargain.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, in his book "What Were They Thinking?" proposes that the CEO compensation keep going up because every CEO claims to be "better than the average" and the Board believes that the CEO it has hired is "better than the average" so he/she has to be paid higher than the average. The result is that the average compensation keeps going up. Similar logic applies to the compensation of managers and coaches in major league sports. Perhaps the CEOs and the managers need to go back to school and learn about statistics.

Illinois teacher salaries: Some educators in suburban Chicago earning more than $100,000 - chicagotribune.com: "In the Chicago region, $100,000 salaries are most common in fields ranging from algebra, biology and U.S. history to art, instrumental music and physical education.

The Tribune examined salary information for nearly 132,000 full-time Illinois teachers who worked a traditional nine- or 10-month school year in 2008-09. Salaries provided by the Illinois State Board of Education encompass all earnings, including extra stipends for coaching and sponsoring school clubs as well as retirement perks."—About 4 percent of teachers statewide earned $100,000 or more — 5,457 teachers — but the vast majority worked in the Chicago suburbs, with heavy concentrations in north Cook, DuPage and Lake counties. In all, 32 Chicago-area districts paid at least 20 percent of their teachers six figures — five times the state average.

—Districts used taxpayer dollars to pay $100,000 salaries even as they struggled with red ink. A third of districts with unusually high concentrations of teachers making six figures — at least 10 percent of teachers — posted operating deficits in 2008-09, according to state financial data.

—Six-figure teachers were unevenly distributed, with high school teachers making up 60 percent of the group — more than double their representation in the teaching force. Affluent suburban districts had the largest concentrations of six-figure teachers. Less than 1 percent of Chicago Public School teachers earned $100,000 or more in 2009.Elected school board members determine the appropriate pay for teachers, said Ken Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association, and take into consideration the characteristics of the school community, including housing costs.

"In a high-wealth, high-cost-of-living district, if you want a teacher to be a resident in, or close to, the community, they're going to need to have compensation that allows them that option," Swanson said.

Teacher salaries are based on a pay scale that gives pay hikes for acquiring more years of experience, college credits and degrees. It's not unusual for teachers to get double-digit raises in one year when they can combine hikes for both education and experience. It's also common to boost pay by coaching sports teams.

A now-retired physical education teacher and longtime football coach at Addison Trail High School in DuPage County earned more than $184,000 in 2008-09 — the highest teacher salary in the Tribune's analysis. He had 35 years of teaching experience and a master's degree, all factors that boosted his salary.

Maine Township High School District 207 in Cook County posted an operating deficit of more than $10 million in 2008-09 and has laid off staff and increased class sizes, said Mary Kalou, assistant superintendent for business. The district twice asked the teachers union to reopen talks on reducing salaries but got no for an answer, according to Kalou.

Likewise, Glenbard Township High School District 87 in DuPage asked its union to reopen contract talks "and they were not interested in doing it,'' said Chris McClain, the assistant superintendent for business services. Glenbard is cutting staff and reducing costs as it projects declining revenues and reserves in the next five years. A third of its teachers earned $100,000 or more in 2009.

Elsewhere, teachers in Lyons Township High School District 204 recently agreed to a partial pay freeze for 2010-11, though the pay schedule still allows for double-digit pay hikes in some circumstances. About 38 percent of the district's teachers earned salaries of $100,000 or more in 2008-09.

The district is in good financial condition, said director of business services David Sellers, and "our ability to afford what we're paying our teachers is pretty much unquestionable."

Lake County's Township High School District 113 is working on a plan to reduce pay increases related to experience and education for new hires beginning in July 2011, said Barry Bolek, assistant superintendent for finance.

Though the district is in solid financial condition, it has been cutting expenses because of the economy.

In Lake County's Community High School District 128, based in Vernon Hills, about 41 percent of teachers earned six figures in 2009, making the district competitive with other affluent and high-performing districts in the area, said Superintendent Prentiss Lea..."