This week is Sunshine Week!
Sunshine Week, March 15-21, 2009, is a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know.
A recent survey by the organizers of Sunshine Feed ranked New York State fourth best.
Governor Paterson signed an amendment to the New York State Freedom of Information Law last summer which gave New York one of the best FOIL laws in the United States.
Legislation approved by Governor Paterson and effective August 7, 2008 (Chapter 223) modernizes the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) and clarifies several of its provisions. The amendments reflect a recognition of advances in information technology, as well as judicial determinations and advisory opinions prepared by the Committee on Open Government. It also provides guidance to agencies and the public concerning the costs associated with providing access to information that is maintained electronically.
New Rochelle government agencies have yet to fully embrace the concept of the public’s right to know although important progress has been made in several areas.
For years now, New Rochelle has broadcast City Council meetings on local access television but starting this month meetings will now be webcast live and, soon, the video will be archived. The service is provided by Webcasting.com which provides video services for many New York State agencies as well as local governments including Tuckahoe, Ossining, Yorktown, Peekskill, and Croton. City council members have told Talk of the Sound that the software will permit users to skim through
Documents are generally but not always made readily available by the City Government. The City Manager’s office is very responsive but the City Clerk’s office is still stuck in an analog past. We only requested one record from the Fire Department but found them to be responsible. The best department in New Rochelle by far is the New Rochelle Police Department which has never failed to produce a requested record and always done so in a timely manner. Our experience with the various quasi-independent boards is pretty poor.
By far the least complaint government agency in New Rochelle is the City School District which treats the their public of records as if they contained nuclear launch codes. Over the past few months the District has repeatedly failed to respond to our requests for records — even records that they are required to keep on file at the Clerk’s office. While we have gotten some documents we are entitled to all documents.
After repeated attempts to “encourage” the District to comply with the law without the need to escalate matters but those requests were also ignored so we were left no choice but initiate the appeals process.
Appeal of Constructive Denial to Superintendent Richard Organisciak
Teachers upstate do not make
Teachers upstate do not make $100,00 I am pretty sure. However, teachers in Westchester, Rockland and Long Island do — after 20 years of service usually. The salaries in New Rochelle should be compared to salaries in Westchester County, not Buffalo or Plattsburgh. Seen in that light, the salaries are competitive with other districts in this expensive downstate market.
Average Salaries in K-5
I am
Average Salaries in K-5
I am not sure how this post turned into a discussion about teacher’s salaries but here some information from the budget document (page 52) to consider — average teacher salaries this year for elementary school teachers, by school:
Trinity – $127,082
Webster $117,045
Barnard – $114, 163
Columbus – $ 110,052
Ward – $103,592
Davis – $96,453
Jefferson – $86,303
Now consider that, on average, a teacher spends less than three hours a day in front of students in New York State and that they work, on average 168 days a year. If you adjust that for a full-time job with 2 weeks vacation, the average teacher at Trinity is making:
168 days a year x .3 FTEs = 56 days
56 days at school / 240 for a typical full-time worker = Teachers work about 23.3% of a full-time equivalent year so you can multiply their salaries by a little over 4.5.
The average teacher at Trinity is making the equivalent of $571,000 a year.
Now, teachers will argue that they have prep time, parent-teacher conference grading tests and so forth. So let’s look at the same number where we give the teacher for working every minute of the regular school day which is 7 hours a day. That comes out to…
75% of a FTE day for the same 168 days a year = 126 days
126 days at school / 240 for a typical full-time worker = Teachers work about 65% of a full-time equivalent year so you can multiply their salaries by a little over 1.5.
The average teacher at Trinity is making the equivalent of $190,050 a year.
Now, let’s be totally generous and credit teacher with working a full-time every day for 168 days of the year.
100% of a FTE day for the same 168 days a year = 168 days
168 days at school / 240 for a typical full-time worker = Teachers work about 70% of a full-time equivalent year so you can multiply their salaries by a little over 1.4
So, even under the most generous scenario, the annualize salary of the average teacher at Trinity is making the equivalent of $177,800 a year.
That’s pretty good especially considering that once they are tenured, they are no longer paid based on performance or productivity.
One could extrapolate that
One could extrapolate that since teacher’s pay increases with time, experience and credits, Trinity has the most senior staff of the elementary schools.
If we look at the current permanent administrative staff at Trinity, we will find that it is the most junior overall in the City School District of New Rochelle. This is coupled by the fact that the school has had 3 different principals in the last 5 years.
Average salaries are one
Average salaries are one data point among many. The only thing that this data point tells us is that, on average, teachers are not, contrary to myth, poorly paid. A hundred thousand dollars a year to work 168 days a year is a healthy income so the “poor teachers” argument is not compelling. In fact, we have many teachers who, on an annualized basis, meet Barack Obama’s definition of “rich”.
It also doesn’t tell us much to compare teachers salaries between New Rochelle and other public school districts in the area. If you want a meaningful comparison you should compare New Rochelle teachers salaries to other educators — private and parochial school teachers, college professors, etc.
The problem is not the teachers as individuals. The vast majority of teachers in New Rochelle are good to excellent on any reasonable measure of performance.
And not all of the problems in New Rochelle are unique to New Rochelle but are a function of problems that have become endemic to public school education – lack of competition, failure to differentiate and reward excellence, etc.
Teachers unions are an easy target because the whole idea of a union is predicated on the notion that everyone is equal. Every union employee with the same background and years of service gets paid the same. The result of this sort of system is what is known as reverse cherry-picking. The worst performing people stay and the best performing people leave. The problem is that unions are needed because whatever ills comes with a teachers union the bad behavior of some administrators makes them a vital counterweight.
To understand this, think about the next time you buy fruit at a market. You see sign that says “Apples – $1.00 each”. You want to buy ten apples from among the many bushels of apples at the market. Since you can have ANY apple for $1.00 you take the time to select each apple – inspecting it for bruises and imperfections. You might sniff the apple for freshness. You might compare size. It doesn’t even matter whether the bushels of apples came from a great harvest or a bad harvest — you still want to pick the 10 best apples from among the available choices and it is worth taking a moment to consider each apple before you buy it.
Now consider the proprietor of our little fruit market. She stocks her market by buying apples from local farmers. Suppose that she puts up a sign that says “we buy apples for 50 cents per apple”. If she is the only market in the area then farmers have no choice but to sell all their apples to her for 50 cents. This is like the union mentality. All apples are the same and you can only sell the apples to one market and customers can only buy apples from that one market. Farmers get paid for growing their apples, the market makes a profit to run the market and the customers get apples.
What happens when a new market opens up across the street? The new market buys apples based on a quality grade of A, B and C. The proprietor of the new market inspects each apple, and pays 75 cents for A quality apples and 55 cents for B quality apples. The new market will only buy A and B quality apples.
Once you add this element to the mix all sorts of things start to happen.
If the new market wants to make a 100% markup on its apples it needs to charge $1.50 for A’s and $1.00 for B’s. Now customers and farmers have something called choice. At the old market customers were able to choose from among all available apples, each priced at $1.00 regardless of quality and farmers could only sells apples for 50 cents. Now the new market has introduced a new concept to the market – quality ratings and differentiated pricing – and everything changes.
Naturally, a customer would want to go to the old market, select 10 A quality apples and save 50 cents per apple. The problem is that farmers will not sell A or B quality apples to the old market because they can get more money from the new market. The old market will only have C quality apples because they are willing to pay 50 cents per apple regardless of quality. Since the old market does not differentiate for quality when buying apples, farmers will only offer the old market the C quality apples. For a customer who shops at the old market nothing appears to have changed – they can go through all of the apples in the market and pick the 10 best and pay the same $1.00 per apple. So, on a relative basis they can differentiate from among the available choices and walk away feeling they got to choose the best available apples. It will not take long, however, before customers to realize that for 10 cents more they can select from among bushels of B quality apples at the new market. At some point the old market will either have to start buying A and B quality apples too or drop their price to 75 cents per apple and become a cut-rate fruit market that sells cheap, low quality apples. Since they are selling them for less they will want to pay less – 25 cents per apple. Farmers, having no other place to sell their C apples will have to take the new, lower price.
So long as supply and demand for apples remain constant, this new dual-market environment will ultimately sort itself out and reach a stasis point where old market is the place to get cheap but edible apples – maybe the place to get apples to bake a pie – and the new market will be the place to get more expensive but better quality apples suitable as fruit snacks.
Suppose, however, that the King comes along and decides that everyone in town would benefit if everyone who wanted to eat apples ate them regardless of cost. To encourage this, he creates the King’s Market. He will sell apples for 1 cents per apple. To pay for the apples he initiates an apple tax on all his subjects whether they eat apples or not. To make sure he has enough apples, the King buys all apples regardless of quality for 60 cents.
The new apple tax will subsidize the cost of apples so that anyone who wants an apple get one for pretty close to free. The tax is calculated by determining the demand for apples, multiplying that number by $1.00 and sending everyone in a town an invoice for “their fair share” of the total cost of apples based on the King’s arbitrary $1.00 price.
Farmers are thrilled with new system because they are making additional money for their B apples and making a small fortune on their C apples. Customers are thrilled because they are getting apples for close to nothing – literally a “free lunch”.
Two groups of people in the kingdom are not happy with the new system – those who do not eat apples and apple gourmands who only want eat A quality apples and can afford to pay extra for them. Their concerns are ignored because their is widespread popular support for the King’s market among farmers and the majority of apple eaters. When these people complain about having to pay for other people’s apples, it is pointed out to them that apples are a healthy snack alternative, they are reminded of the old saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, they are told about the high cost of tooth decay among people who do not eat apples and so on. If they still complain they are shouted down, accused of being “anti-apple” and told to shut up or move away. When they threaten to move away they are ridiculed because all the neighboring Kingdoms have their own “apple tax” and King’s Market.
Eventually, some of the “complainers” do move away but most do not move to a neighboring Kingdom, they board a ship and go to the “new world” where the “apple tax” is much lower or non-existent. As they leave, the “fair share” of the apple tax increases for everyone who remains. The farmers don’t care and neither do the apple eaters because the King’s market is still a great deal for them. However, as the apple tax goes up each year, more people decide to leave the Kingdom. Meanwhile, farmers figure out that the added cost of growing B quality apples is not worth it. In fact, apple quality is irrelevant except for the highest quality apples. It does not take long before farmers are only growing C and A quality apples and selling all the C quality apples to the King’s Market. At some point, the apple eaters realize that the overall quality of apples is less than it was under the old system. They also realize that even though they only pay a penny for an apple, they too pay the apple tax so that the effective cost of the apples is 1 cent multiplied by the number of the apples they eat plus the apple tax divided by the number of apples they eat. as the apple tax goes up, even for some apple eaters, the King’s Market is a bad deal — and they have no choice about quality anymore. So, even some apple eaters start to move away.
This dynamic is at play in the movement of people out of the states like New York, Massachusetts, Ohio and Michigan and into states like Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Texas.
There is no simple solution. Everyone on the Titanic with a life preserver would fight to keep it even as the ship is sinking into frigid waters because even though most people are going to freeze to death you still want to hold on to what you’ve got if you think it gives you even the slightest glimmer of hope to survive. Similarly, everyone with a vested stake in the public schools is going to fight to keep what they have.
Clearly, some element of competition would help. Whether that means instituting performance based pay, a more aggressive “up or out” approach to evaluating teachers or opening a charter school, I can’t really say but clearly a system which rewards people simply for how many years they show up at a building with a pulse and pays them each the same amount regardless of performance is going to result in a race to the bottom.
I also believe that having great “consumer” input would make a difference. For starters, students should be able to rate their teacher and that information should be a part of an annual review process. Aggregate data from these reviews should be published so parents and students can make informed choices. A system to pay teachers MORE based on performance. There are many other experiments going on in the U.S. Few, if any, seem to have found their way to New Rochelle.
The salaries of teachers and
The salaries of teachers and administrators in New Rochelle are comparable to salaries with school districts throughout the county — New Rochelle school district is far from the most lucrative
public school employer. Compare the database for Eastchester and Yonkers to see for yourself.
How can you actually say
How can you actually say that? Do you really think teachers in upstate NY make over $100k or anywhere near that? I don’t think so.
The education system in new
The education system in new rochelle is top notch. I would pay 200k a teacher if that’s what it was. It always seems those who don’t do so well in school are the one’s who complain.
No teacher should make $200k
No teacher should make $200k a year, plain and simple. A far more reasonable figure might be in the ballpark of $60k – $70k, not the $100k our teachers now make.
Top notch in what way? The
Top notch in what way? The system is corrupt in it’s working behind closed doors. It’s indignation when someone dares to ask even the most benign questions. Have you read the post from A@nrhs ? This person has the natural intelligence to form an opinion, but somewhere along the way, somebody forgot to teach the most basic high school grammar lessons. You call this “top notch”? Listen I firmly support paying good teachers a good salary. This is fundamental to the development process in many ways. In this district,however, teachers salaries obviously have nothing to do with the education of this child. This child was cheated by the ones you call “top notch”.Take your head out of the sand.
There’s plenty of salary
There’s plenty of salary information posted in the Data Central section of the Journal News, thanks to freedom of information laws. Go ahead and plug in your favorite teachers name and you’ll see what he/she made in 07. Or you can scroll through the entire list of over 2200 employees.
If you’re like me, you’ll be totally shocked and dismayed to learn that many of your kids’ teacher earn $100k or more. And thats only working for 184 days or so a year, it isn’t even full time. And lets not forget to mention the deluxe medical and pension plans they also receive as part of their compensation.
How could we have been duped like this? There’s something really wrong with our school system if thats what the salaries have bloated to and the working people of New Rochelle struggle to pay their tax bills and get ahead. I feel that we could get the same or BETTER results for 1/3 or 1/2 the price. No wonder our tax bills are so high. I know this is a bedroom community with a very transient population that lacks a real watchdog population, but we better wake up soon before were all taxed to death.
I’m just happy to say I’ve never voted for school budget and don’t think I’ll start anytime soon, even with 3 kids working their way through the system.
And even though the 09/10 school budget hasn’t been released, I encourage every other outraged citizen to go out and vote against this year’s budget on principal. The principal that we’re just paying to much.