Our union president Pete DeFina wrote an amazing informational editorial discrediting the mavens who spread misinformation with regard to teacher pay. His facts were intriguing, insightful and hammer home many fine points that Newsday and other media sources fail to take the time to understand. Here is an excerpt from his witty editorial.
Here's an anecdotal example of the reality facing teachers. My stepdaughter Karen is in her 5th year of teaching--doing a great job and loving it, by the way. If she were in Smithtown, her earning would have increased from a starting salary of about $42,000 to around $59,000. On the surface that looks lide a hefty 40% increase. However, most of that increase is simply her employer doling out a couple of percentage points each year as Karen slowly move toward "top step." Actually reaching top step is still wellover a decade away. Karen's sister, on the other hand, is set to graduate college at the end of this coming summer in the field of physical therapy. In all likelihood, she will not be working under a salary schedule. She'll enter her field making somewhere in the neighborhood of $80,000. She will not be getting those "nice" little built-in salary increments each year like her sister, because she will get the vast percentage of her full earning potential, up from and in her pocket--where, quite frankly, it belongs. This fact is the exact point that these private-sector geniuses consistency ignore and don't bother to understand as they yammer away about teacher salaries. From a salary perspective, Karen will eventually catch her sister, but not until she nears the very end of her teaching career. She will never even come close to her sister's career earnings--the salary schedule will have done its job well!
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