...And It Begins

Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia officially released his proposed budget amendments today. The details on how his budget amendment proposal would impact our beloved county is still to be understood, but it's impossible to cut money out of a budget without there being an impact. Brace ourselves, we must. (I don't know why I just wrote in Yoda-talk.)

According to Rob Jones of VEA, there are supportable details found within the Governor's amendments. Tackling an announced $2.9 Billion deficit will not be easy. Rob passed along the following notes this afternoon.

He cut education less than any other area.

He looked at both sides of the ledger, and raised the cigarette tax, tweaked the land-preservation tax credit and eliminated the “dealer discount” (paid to merchants for collecting the sales tax) to reduce the harm to essential state programs.

We have grave concerns regarding the fact that:

He made $400 million of the cuts to education permanent cuts that will be with us even when the recession is over ($400 million in SOQ funding reductions partially offset by $60 million in loss mitigation for the 2009-2010 school year). The impact on next year is $340 million. The impact into the future is $400 million per year. This eliminates the state share of funding for 13,000 positions including custodians, finance officers, HR directors, assistant superintendents and central office personnel).

What we know about the cuts for the next school year?

$340 million SOQ cuts to support and administrative components of the formula
$78 million in teacher salary
$82.5 in school construction

Total = $500.5 million, or slightly over ½ billion

No doubt many of you will want to know what can be done faced with the reality of the budget shortfall (could end up being larger than $2.9 Billion). I can almost say with complete certainty that the budget will be amended. What we must do is help direct the amendments in a positive direction for public school education.

On January 9, I plan to join our education coalition partners in Lynchburg at a state budget hearing. At that hearing, I will no doubt push for examination of different revenue generating plans that would soften the blow. Re-instituting the estate tax, along with the cigarette tax increase, is one idea that is being considered (tax on estates valued over $2 million).

Most importantly, we must fight hard and strong to keep any cuts that happen from becoming permanent. This is paramount! Any cuts made in the remainder of the biennial budget must remain temporary. Virginia is already ranked 37th in support for public schools in America. That dubious ranking would slide further if these cuts were to become permanent.

President Boitnott will present a petition at the budget hearing in Richmond on January 19 that all members, friends of members, relatives, parents, and citizens are invited to sign. The petition clearly speaks to the issues we care deeply about. Please sign this on-line petition and urge your colleagues, family and friends to sign on as well. Our battle is to prevent permanent cuts to education funding.

The petition can be found at:

http://www.fundqualityschools.org/

Penny Hodge, Assistant Superintendent of RCPS, is working on getting a clear picture of how the proposed amendments may affect Roanoke County. Right now, this early in the budget process, it's really too early to tell. However, brace ourselves, we must.

On a side note, I'm experimenting with a new service on this blog. I realized that from time to time, I want all of you to be able to see documents that relate directly to a specific topic. Meg Swecker, master of all things technology, pointed me to a site called, Drop.io. With Drop.io, I can upload all kinds of documents, sound, and pictures and have you access them at your leisure. You can view and download the files as you wish. So far, I've added all of the back-issues of the RCEA News from this year, Governor Kaine's press release from today, and a few other documents that will be related to future blog entries. You can test out the service by clicking on the link in this article for proposed budget amendments or you can visit the whole RCEADistrict4 site.


Thom Ryder
RCEA President

Most Likely To Succeed

The New Yorker has published a piece by Malcolm Gladwell that delves into the murky world of determining who is and who isn't effective as a teacher called "Most Likely to Succeed." Gladwell compares predicting who will be an excellent teacher with determining who will succeed as an NFL quarterback. He notes that NFL scouts have failed more often than not when trying project NFL success onto a college quarterback (Jim Druckenmiller anyone?). So it is with projecting the success of teachers.

Gladwell also looks at some pioneering research being done at UVA's Curry School that is trying to identify what is excellent teaching. He takes that research a step further and suggests that what we sorely need is an open enrollment of teachers, credentials aren't important. Enrollees would need to complete a rigorous apprenticeship where they must prove themselves effective by raising test scores by a significant amount or be released. Those who make it through the apprenticeship successfully would be richly compensated.

Currently, the salary structure of the teaching profession is highly rigid, and that would also have to change in a world where we want to rate teachers on their actual performance. An apprentice should get apprentice wages. But if we find eighty-fifth-percentile teachers who can teach a year and a half’s material in one year, we’re going to have to pay them a lot—both because we want them to stay and because the only way to get people to try out for what will suddenly be a high-risk profession is to offer those who survive the winnowing a healthy reward.

I remember when I was teaching in Albemarle County back in the late 1980's, the school board decided to do something about "bad" teachers, so they imposed a merit pay scheme. Turns out that so many teachers proved themselves meritorious that the school board was forced to pay out rewards to a whole lot more people than they anticipated. After a couple of years of providing a "healthy reward" to so many teachers, the school board abandoned the whole plan and went back to a more traditional teacher pay scale.

Merit pay schemes have always seemed like empty ideas to me. While the research going on at UVA is intriguing, do experts really know enough about what makes a great teacher to confidently identify it so that those teachers can be rewarded? What's with this idea of teaching a year and a half's material in one year? Doesn't the author realize that we teach rigidly prescribed amounts of material every year...no more, no less. Are we really going to base a reward system on what are arguably flawed tests. It's already sad enough that we place so much emphasis on them; is more emphasis a good thing?

These are all questions that came to my mind as I read Gladwell's piece. I would certainly reccommend you read the piece and form your own opinions. Feel free to deposit your comments here.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=7

Bail Out

Robert Reich, most famous for his time spent as a cabinet secretary in the Clinton administration, opined recently that, regarding public school education in our country, we're all out of whack. We bail out corporations, while we are starving and throttling our educational system.

Our preoccupation with the immediate crisis of financial capital is causing us to overlook the bigger crisis in America's human capital. While we commit hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street, we're slashing our outlays for public education.

Education is largely funded by state and local governments whose revenues are plummeting. As consumers cut back, state sales and income taxes are shrinking; three quarters of the states are already facing budget crises. State revenues account for about half of public school budgets and most funding of public colleges and universities. In addition, as home values drop, local property taxes take a hit. Local property taxes account for 40 percent of local school budgets, on average.

The result, across the nation: Teachers are being laid off and new hiring frozen, after-school programs cut, so called "noncritical" subjects like history eliminated, schools closed, and tuitions hiked at state colleges and universities.

It's absurd. We're bailing out every major bank to get financial capital flowing again. But we're squeezing the main sources of our nation's human capital. Yet America's future competitiveness and the standard of living of our people depend largely our peoples' skills, and our capacities to communicate and solve problems and innovate ­ not on our ability to borrow money.

Reich continued,

It's our human capital that's in short supply. And without adequate public funding, the supply will shrink further. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying funding is everything when it comes to education. Obviously, accountability is critical. But without adequate funding we can't attract talented people into teaching, or keep class sizes small enough to give kids a real chance to learn, or provide them with a well-rounded curriculum, and ensure that every qualified young person can go to college.

So why are we bailing out Wall Street and not our nation's public schools and colleges? Partly because the crisis in financial capital is immediate while our human capital crisis is unfolding gradually. Headlines scream what's happening to our money but not to our kids.

As our state stares a $3.5 billion budget deficit in the face and as our school division considers what and whom will be axed, Reich's words ring with a sense of authenticity. When will people wake up and start investing in the foundation of education in our country?

Some will say that the educational system has all the money it needs and that there is tons of waste embedded within the system. As a teacher, I've learned that there is some merit to those arguments. Waste does exist in the educational structures, but that waste generally is does not filter down and enrich anyone at the teacher/student/classroom level.

The greatest waste both financially and instructionally is the propagation of the ridiculous national and state accountability systems. These mandates, which are easily recognized by their acronyms- SOL, NCLB, and AYP, strike fear into the hearts of communities, administrators, teachers, and students. The tacit threats attached to them have encouraged the development of a seemingly slimy accountability business resplendent with guides, formative assessments, data-driven analyzation tools, and testing materials all peddled to frightened school divisions by data sharks.

The ultimate result of this destructive movement, is that the real art and process of teaching has become hopelessly caged and filtered. The intentions may have originally been good, but the results have been destructive.

So I'm with Reich. We do need to bail out the public education system in America. We need to bail out of the myopic accountability mandates. Accountibility is important. Teachers must be accountable for what they teach, but parents and students must be held accountable for their end of the bargain as well. We need to bail out of inferior funding formulas for our schools. State and local governments must be held accountable for providing funding that is more than basic. The nonsensical SOQ game our state plays with public school funding as it seeks to further and further reduce and shirk its responsibility for fully funding its share of the budgets for our public schools needs to stop. We need to improve the physical infrastructure of our schools, reduce class size, fully fund preschool initiatives, and attract highly qualified professionals with highly attractive wages and benefits. Education needs to be the priority.

If you don't bail out a canoe as it charges head-long down a turbulent stream, it will eventually sink.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/03/of_financial_capital_and_human/

Extinction of a Species

A friend of mine, Joe, chided me today for not adding new content to this blog for quite some time. I took his ribbing in stride and agreed with him that new additions are long overdue. So beginning today (at 12:25 am) after taking the summer off, I'm going on a new content blitz. Beware!
~Thom

Another friend of mine, ex-RCEA President Bud McWhorter, presented me with a most amazing gift. At an estate sale over the summer, his wife uncovered a treasure-trove of papers from the 1960's. At first glance the papers didn't look all that unique, but upon closer examination, the McWhorter's were in possession of the October 1963 edition of the R.C.E.A News. Bud has entrusted me with that newsletter along with two NEA newspapers from the 1963-64 school year as well as an NEA Journal from 1960. I plan to feature the two NEA newsletters a little later on in my content blitz, but I thought I'd focus a bit on the RCEA News.

The times were different. John F. Kennedy was the U.S. President, a sad thought knowing how soon his life would end. Segregation was the practice and the law in Virginia. Already in Virginia, students were being denied public school education (Prince Edward County)with rankle and dissent bubbling to the surface. The RCEA was a strong professional organization back then, but it faced the challenge of unification. Back then, membership in VEA and NEA was optional. However, out of the 603 RCEA members, 594 also chose to belong to VEA and 445 joined NEA. The feeling of the RCEA Executive Board was that..."only by participation in NEA could teachers hope to change policies that they are not in accord with."

The newsletter was professionally published with content collected by local association building reps. The newsletter was packaged and edited by a man I respect immensely, Dr. Fred R. Eichelman. Dr. Eichelman was a career teacher at Northside High. He taught government and ran the school newspaper. Dr. Fred is also the father of our very own RCEA member, Carol Webster-the dramatic English teacher at William Byrd High School.

In that newsletter, Dr. Eichelman opined a passionate defense of our profession. I transcribe it here for you, today's professional. I believe that what Dr. Fred wrote of 45 years ago, is just as relevant today.

Extinction of a Species

It has been said that the world would not end "with a bang; but rather with a sigh." Teaching as a profession could also well end this way.

A profession is defined as "a calling or vocation; especially one that requires mental learning and dedication" - dedication to become a successful teacher, the feeling of being called to duty.

We are now playing witness to those who wish to "debunk" this as trite sentimentality and those who may be someday responsible for the "death of our profession."

We tend to ignore those who will not join our professional organizations, those who will not pitch in to help our association leaders to set high goals; and reach them. We ignore those who will not go the "extra mile" to help in programs designed to improve instruction or to better community relations, just as we ignore those too intellectual (so they say) to take an interest in School-Community affairs and the building of citizenship by showing an interest in local as well as national government.

By ignoring this minority group we are most guilty of all. Dedicated people will spread their dedication and loyalty to others. Professional people want their colleagues to share ideas of loyalty in service and high standards in work.

The critics of education associations are vocal as are the critics of education in general. If we honestly feel we are members of the most important profession open to man, then we owe it to our community, our children, and to ourselves not only to be participating members of all three associations; but willing to speak out in answer to our critics.

The "Teacher's Union" in New York City* has caused its members to be classed as "non-professional" in the eyes of the public with a leadership status in the community that now may be considered "nil."

If we are indifferent to the job ahead of us, then teaching will slowly become extinct as a profession- just as extinct as the DoDo, the brontosaurus, and the round kitchen table.

F. R. Eichelman
October 1963

* {Editor's Note: Dr. Eichelman may have been referring to the one day teacher's strike in New York City called by rival teacher organization, American Federation of Teachers. The AFT was the sole bargaining agent for teachers in NYC back then, and they were being squeezed by both the education board and the state. The strike was a one day affair but led to chaos as students were left unattended in their classrooms all day. For the record, the NEA-the largest national education association- opposed strikes as being a counter-productive tool.}

{Click for large image}

In addition to that article by Dr. Eichelman, the R.C.E.A. News also provided a historical look back at public and private school education in Roanoke. I'll bring that article to you in its entirety soon, but I thought I'd leave you with a historical glance back at public schools and and teacher salaries. Again click on the picture for a larger image.

You may want to check out a couple of things. First, a Roanoke County teacher was paid $27.18 a month back in 1871. Those teachers worked on average of 4.5 months out of the year. By 1945, the salary had crept up to $1350 a year. By 1960, that had more than tripled to $4354.91 (Editor's Note: my first salary back in 1982 was $10,500 in Greene County, VA).

The chart had a perplexing notation. It took me several minutes to figure out what "W" and "C" stand for in the chart. Soon, it dawned on me. The early 1960's in Virginia were especially racially charged; however, segregation was still taken as a matter of fact. That would change soon. In this chart, the "W" stands for "White" and the "C" stands for "Colored." In 1960, there were 28 "White" schools and 4 "Colored" schools.

One other thing that interested me is how many schools there were in the county back in 1895 for example. If the figures are correct, there were 77 schools (57 White/20 Colored) in the county back then serving 3419 pupils. That's an average of 44 pupils per school. I suspect that most were one room schools. Those one room schools must have remained open until around 1925 when consolidation must have occurred.

So that's my look back at the RCEA in 1963. It's amazing how much times have changed, but how some things remain the same. I'll leave you with a little filler that Dr. Fred put on the last page of that issue.

The emphasis on good grades has become even more intense this year. Now the problem is not only to provide more schools and teachers, but to graduate 90 percent of the students in the top 10% of the class. :)

~Thom Ryder

Trouble in France

In France the battle is not over activity fees; it's over jobs.

Trouble in France

Here in Virginia, the issue is activity fees. Teachers were concerned after learning of a decision to erase all activity fees for the upcoming school year due to litigation brought against the school system by concerned parents.

The RCEA is extremely concerned about how the decision to nullify the fees will negatively impact the instructional program. Teachers may have to do without certain basic supplies or dig even deeper into their own pockets in these difficult economic times to provide the supplies the county no longer can afford.

We are also concerned about how the erasure of these fees, which will have a major financial impact (yet to be determined), will impact future salary considerations. As people are fond of saying, "The pie is only so big."

The RCEA will be vigilant and appropriately outspoken.

The State of the Budget

The State of the Budget

The school board budget summit on March 6 was an exhaustive session that delved into every nook and cranny of the 2008-09 school budget.

The school board meeting got off to a fine start when news broke (thanks to Rob Jones of VEA) that the House of Delegates has withdrawn their myopic education funding scheme that would have effectively band-aided the state’s budget on the financial back of public school education. However, the news wasn’t all cheery. Seemingly as retribution for their “concession”, the House ripped any support for teacher raises from the biennial budget. In fact, more support for state employee raises was factored back in as support for teacher raises was erased. This issue is not dead. We will not lie down(or lay down for that matter) and will continue demanding state support for teacher compensation.

It had become apparent to RCEA members who have attended recent school board meetings that the RCEA salary proposal, where we asked for a 4% across the board raise and a scale adjustment of 1%, was being taken seriously. However, it didn’t seem to be carrying the support needed for passage. There was also some differing financial information regarding how much our proposal would cost. Considering that and in order to preserve the greatest possible raise for our employees, we withdrew the scale adjustment language in exchange for flipping the cash from that scale adjustment provision back to our across the board proposal. We did clearly make the point, however, that the Roanoke County teacher compensation scale is weak in the middle steps and will need to be dealt with in the future.

It would be irresponsible to announce a final salary percentage at this time since the state and locality have not finalized their budgets, but there is broad consensus that school employees will be able to receive a healthy raise this year. The coming years, after the new money from the recent real estate tax reassessments flows through, may end up being a more difficult climate for pushing through any kind of raise. We will have to fight that battle at that time.

We must also guard against the Roanoke County’s supervisors dropping the real estate tax rate. A one or two penny drop could seriously affect new monies coming to the school system and consequentially any potential raise we may enjoy. We will continue monitoring their deliberations and seek meetings with the supervisors to let them know our needs as Roanoke County’s largest employee group.

So by and large…the state of public school education in Roanoke County is good right now.

An Open Letter to RCEA Members

February 18, 2007

An Open Letter to RCEA Members

The Assistant Superintendent for Finance recently showed me an email where I was reportedly promoting the idea that the County would receive $11.9 million in new money from the state if all goes according to plan in the General Assembly this year. If I claimed that, I was in error, and I apologize.

In early January, VEA produced a projection where it took into account various sources of new money for the local budget and came up with the figure of $10.9 million in new state money. At the same time, Penny Hodge projected $8.9 million in new money. In the past, VEA’s projections, according to Pat Wood our Uniserv Director, have been very accurate. Then again, so have Penny’s projections.

I can’t, at this point determine why there is such a discrepancy between the projections; however, I suspect the answer lies in the numbers used for the Average Daily Membership (ADM). As you may know, the state pays localities based on the number of days that each student attends school. A conservative guess would yield a smaller amount and a less conservative guess would yield a larger amount. Whether that is the case or not, I cannot determine at this point.

Of course, any discussion of new money is really quite premature until the General Assembly decides how it is going to handle the state’s financial crisis. Right now, things are looking less and less positive. You can follow their progress by visiting the VEA’s Daily General Assembly Report. (http://www.veaweteach.org/legislative_ga_reports.asp)

Again, I apologize if any of my comments at any time have confused the issue.

Thom

Apples to Apples

Apples to Apples

Over the last two years, the RCEA has made a concerted effort to provide accurate salary data for Roanoke County and surrounding school divisions for our members so that they can draw fair and unbiased comparisons.

Over the same period, RCPS has produced an annual benefits statement which packages all of the benefits offered to our teachers by the county. According to the 2007-2008 statement, RCPS teachers received the following benefits: Salary, FICA Matching (7.65%), VRS Contribution (100%), 457 Investment Plan match up to $120 per year, Basic Term Life and AD&D Insurance Premium (100%), $9,790 or 78.5% of the Employee Health Care Premium (Dental Included?), Sick Leave, Personal Leave, and Partial-Pay personal Leave.

Our school board has made a point to support and promote their benefit package for employees. In the past two years, they have added the 457 match program where they will match up to $120 annually that an employee contributes to a Nationwide 457 investment account. Hopefully over time, this incentive to save will spur employees to take advantage of tax-deferred investment accounts. Currently, only about 18% of school employees take advantage of either 457 or 403B investment plans. Private sector investment account participation rates by employees are much higher.*

The VEA just released a report that compares the “Employer’s Cost of Salary Plus Certain Fringe Benefits for 2006-2007” between all school divisions across the state. Unfortunately due to the complexity of the data, this detailed information is not yet available for the 2007-2008 school year. As far as we can tell, the VEA study is a snapshot of teacher salary at step 10 on the local scale with the addition of family health insurance premiums, income protection, family dental, and the employee share of retirement. Leave and life insurance are not factored into the report.

Locally, the report shows that at step 10, Salem is the king of salary plus benefits by a wide margin. RCPS is a close third in the region just behind Botetourt and just ahead of Craig.

2006-2007 Salary Plus Benefits
	Step 10	Step 10	Step 10 Salary	Step 10 Salary
Locality	Salary	Salary Rank	Plus Benefits	Plus Benefits Rank
Bedford	36,676	95	44,138	92
Botetourt	41,519	32	47,938	51
Craig	38,279	71	46,992	63
Floyd	34,900	118	40,209	127
Franklin	36,100	102	41,505	119
Montgomery	36,844	91	44,105	93
Roanoke City	37,345	81	45,002	79
Roanoke County	38,450	69	47,790	56
Salem	40,640	39	49,552	37

We would very much enjoy seeing a comparison of all benefits offered to teachers across all steps on the salary scale in local school divisions. We would especially be interested in learning what type of retirement packages neighboring localities offer employees.

* “By contrast, the participation rate is 56 percent for workers between $20,000 and $40,000, and 70 percent for workers between $40,000 and $80,000.” 2004 http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba495/

A Day in Oz

A Day in Oz

The Roanoke County School Board met today at their annual school board retreat. In past years, the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors would join them and open, frank discussions would take place over the issues facing the county and the school system. This year, the supervisors chose not to attend, much to our loss.

The retreat took place at the spacious and comfortable confines of the Roanoke County Schools central office boardroom on Cove Road from 8 am until 4pm with a 20-minute break for lunch. Water and Chik-fil-a nuggets and wraps were provided for the staff and board members. Certainly, no one can possibly accuse them of misusing taxpayer’s money on this retreat!

I also attended the session along with our Uniserv Director, Pat Wood. Together, we also played the role of “The Public” at the meeting. Few formal decisions were made at this meeting; instead, the purpose of the meeting was to take stock of where our school system is now and what we hope to pursue in the near and long-term future. To that end, the discussions were detailed, rich, and lively. Many of the discussions will bear fruit in policies adopted at future school board meetings, so I won’t report on them here and now.

As many of you know, the Roanoke County School Board was shuffled in the last election with Fuzzy Minnix and David Wymer being elected to the body. Today was their first opportunity for an intense and prolonged policy discussion. At the risk of heaping overwhelming praise on them, I would like to let readers here know that I was impressed with them today. Jerry Canada, chairman, has a breadth of historical knowledge which is key for keeping a group on course. Drew Barrineau, vice-chair, is an astute observer of county politics especially regarding the Board of Supervisors. He also has a keen eye for organizing a budget. Mike Stovall, besides having a depth of historical knowledge, has the unique ability to gather all of the ideas on the table and synthesize them. David Wymer possesses a strong understanding of the inner-workings of educational programs and internal budgets. Fuzzy Minnix brings a fresh perspective from the general public and a wealth of experience as a former supervisor. This board knows what they are doing, and that’s an important thing for the continued strength of our school system.

Those who know me, know that I don’t suck up to people. So my praise of the board is genuine. I’m sure that as time passes, there will be issues where our organization will disagree with decisions made and policies created by the board; however, I feel strongly that this board has the interests of the whole system in mind.

From the meeting today, several things are clear. I’m going to address them in list form with my perceptions, understandings, and opinions attached.

1. The state legislative season is jumbled even more than it has been in recent years. The General Assembly is split ideologically and politically. There is a real possibility of continued acrimony and gridlock. That does not serve our public school children or public school employees well. Despite that, there is a real opportunity for a significant increase of state monies this year, despite the turmoil and despite the soured economy. It seems that Roanoke is poorer so our composite index score is lower. This should bring us more dollars from the state via their funding formal for local schools. On top of that, the state has re-benchmarked their Standards of Quality. These two factors, even if the legislature doesn’t add any additional money for teacher salaries, means that the county will receive a nice increase in state funding for the next budget year.

2. It looks like the board is committed to providing a substantial increase in salary for classified employees (secretaries, building supervisors, nutrition specialists, and instructional assistants). While it may take two or more years to accomplish the goal of making these categories the regional leaders, this board seemed resolute in making that happen. While the RCEA has not taken a position on that, I personally applaud that move. We represent about 35 teaching assistants and all of the teachers in our organization work closely with these people daily. Their dedication and loyalty should be rewarded. They deserve our support and the board’s support in raising their wage to a more respectable level.

3. Teacher pay was like the big gorilla hiding out in the open in the room. It wasn’t discussed, but it was always in the background. The RCPS Salary Committee will meet on February 14 to hash out the official committee position. Hopefully, the committee will come into agreement with the RCEA’s salary position: Multi-year approach to improve salaries to the best in the region (more on that later).

4. A decision was made on the laptop initiative. I’ll hold off commenting on that until the central office staff has the opportunity to discuss release that information. I will say that the board has provided a clear direction on how technology will be integrated into the entire system.

Many more topics were discussed at the meeting. Ideas were thick and fast. All told, it was a great meeting.

Virginia Tech beat Boston College 81-73 today!!!!!!!

On another note, our members are very concerned about teacher salaries. I’ve heard from many of you. Many of you are upset that the Governor did not include money for the state’s share of salary raises for teachers in the first year of the biennial budget. I’m upset about that, too. Governor Kaine professed to be “The Education Candidate,” and he is coming dangerously close to joining recent governors Gilmore, Allen, and Wilder in the book of non-supporters. Here are some points to consider. Again another list.

1 VEA may still be able to persuade the General Assembly to amend the budget. Then it will be up to us to persuade the Governor to accept the amendment.

2 No matter what the state does for salaries, the salary war will be fought at the Board of Supervisor level. Will they pass along the increased state funds to the schools? We will have to persuade them.

3 I’ve heard those neutral on salary increases for teachers state that you really shouldn’t have to improve salaries to the National Average because that’s a “moving target” that can never be hit (Wouldn’t it be nice to hit the target for a change instead of continually missing?). Instead, they say that our state should compare itself to salaries in our region. They also proclaim that we shouldn’t necessarily be paid at or above the state average, because Northern Virginia skews that average, and the cost of living is much less here. Finally, they matter-of-factly state that teacher salaries in Roanoke County should only be compared to other systems in the region. So I’ve been thinking about all of that…

…and now a list in response to number 3

A. National Average-Moving Target: Okay, let’s play their game. Twenty years ago, Virginia was a leader in salaries for our region (VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, TN, KY, WV, MD, DL). By 2004-05, the state had slipped to 5^th in that group. In recent figures just released by NEA for last school year, Virginia had fallen to 6^th on that list. Looks like the target IS moving…away.

B. The State of Northern Virginia: In the latest national salary rankings, Virginia is ranked 31^st in the country. If we were to allow the state of NOVA to succeed from us, the average salaries for the remaining school districts would drop to 46^th in the country. I suppose that Virginia would no longer be the 7^th wealthiest state either, but we certainly wouldn’t be the fourth poorest either.

C. Systems in the Region: As we’ve pointed out in recent blog entries, the unquestioned leader in teacher salaries in the area is Salem, a school system born from Roanoke County Schools about 30 years ago. Roanoke County surely would be second on that list, right? Wrong. We come in, generally, fourth or fifth in the region behind Roanoke City, Botetourt, Franklin County, and sometimes Craig County at various points on the teacher pay scale.

Why don’t teachers in Roanoke County have top pay in the region? I’m not one to tie test performance to pay, because we all know that there are many factors that affect whether or not a school makes AYP. But if I was that kind of person , a strong argument could be made in favor of rewarding pay for RCPS teachers.

So I guess the point of this little exercise is that a group can excuse, deflect, and deny the fact that teachers are underpaid, but no matter how the facts are twisted, teacher pay scales in Virginia and Roanoke County are, to adopt a word made famous by Tom Hanks in the movie- “The Terminal,” unacceptable.

A Message From VEA

VEA President Princess Moss has sent VEA members a special video message regarding our salary initiative and how to affect change. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first video message ever for VEA. We live in amazing times.

Presidential Address
http://www2.nea.org/mediafiles/PrincessVideo_Rev.wmv


The response to our petition and letter writing drive has been excellent so far. If you haven't done so, please sign the VEA petition and write a letter to your legislator. If you've already done so, thank you! Please feel free to leave your comments here regarding the salary issue (you can be anonymous or use your name). You can also email Thom Ryder (newt999@gmail.com) and let him know how you feel about our salary efforts, the state effort, or anything else.

Figuring It All Out

Figuring It All Out

Back on December 14 of last year, The Roanoke Times ran an editorial entitled, “Figuring Out Fair pay For Teachers.” I remember reading that piece and just shaking my head and wondering exactly what reality the editorial writer lives in. I decided to remain mum on that editorial and let my anger and disgust settle.

Since that time, several things have happened on the teacher salary front. VEA initiated their statewide campaign for teacher salary improvement and the Governor included no funding for teacher salaries for the first year of his proposed biennial budget. In response, VEA has launched a petition drive to rally support for teacher salary improvements.

In addition to the talk of salaries, our local school board has initiated the budget process which you can read about here on this blog. We are pleased to stand shoulder to shoulder with our school board, superintendent, and central office staff in fighting for increased funding for teacher salaries and benefits.

The fight, however, will not be easy. My experience tells me that in good financial times, the state begins repairing the infrastructure. For schools that may mean fronting money for capital construction projects. Teacher salaries are usually a secondary consideration. During stressful financial times, teacher salary concerns usually get pushed further back along the funding chain. The net effect is that over the last seven years, teachers in my school division have generally lost between 3 and 14% in buying power thanks to the powerful ravages of inflation.

One main point that The Roanoke Times was trying to make in their editorial back in December is that we shouldn’t be comparing our teacher salaries to national teacher salaries. Instead, we should look to see how our teachers compare with other teachers in the region. Luckily, just this past week, VEA published its annual “Salary Schedules for Teachers.” In that document, you can do exactly what the RT suggests. So below, you will find bulleted information relating to how Roanoke County teacher salaries compare with their regional and state colleagues. For each category, I’ll share the ranking of each locality listed below with the rest of the state. I’ll include other data as it is warranted.

Roanoke County

Roanoke City

Salem City

Botetourt County

Bedford County

Franklin County

Floyd County

Montgomery County (Bulletin: Asking for 8% salary increase for 2008-2009)

Craig County

· Career earnings for teachers with 30 years experience (2007-2008 Scales)

Roanoke County	77	$1,390,233
Roanoke City	62	1,412,650
Salem City	28	1,524,035
Botetourt County	42	1,480,728
Bedford County	101	1,314,813
Franklin County	44	1,466,950
Floyd County	117	1,277,683
Montgomery County	95	1,344,905
Craig County	86	1,365,161

· BA Benchmark Salaries By Locality 2007-2008

Roanoke County
Min	85	34,500
5 years	74
10 years	71
15 years	79
20 years	84
25 years	46
30 years	68	53,285
Roanoke City
Min	80	34,859
5 years	91
10 years	89
15 years	78
20 years	38
25 years	61
30 years	59	53,928
Salem City
Min	12	39,600
5 years	22
10 years	42
15 years	40
20 years	42
25 years	54
30 years	20	61,185
Botetourt County
Min	87	34,430
5 years	56
10 years	32
15 years	28
20 years	29
25 years	60
30 years	77	52,646
Bedford County
Min	103	33,412
5 years	101
10 years	99
15 years	95
20 years	96
25 years	108
30 years	107	50,110
Franklin County
Min	108	33,000
5 years	103
10 years	80
15 years	10
20 years	22
25 years	48
30 years	82	52,325
Floyd County
Min	90	34,000
5 years	110
10 years	122
15 years	125
20 years	117
25 years	112
30 years	104	50,316
Montgomery County
Min	126	30,968
5 years	107
10 years	93
15 years	89
20 years	86
25 years	84
30 years	96	51,361
Craig County
Min	116	32,065
5 years	97
10 years	76
15 years	74
20 years	60
25 years	67
30 years	48	55,219

· MA Benchmark Salaries by Locality 2007-2008

Roanoke County
Min	98	36,105
5 years	82
10 years	77
15 years	81
20 years	83
25 years	53
30 years	68	55,560
Roanoke City
Min	97	36,159
5 years	105
10 years	102
15 years	87
20 years	49
25 years	60
30 years	64	56,028
Salem City
Min	9	43,005
5 years	19
10 years	35
15 years	35
20 years	37
25 years	44
30 years	18	64,590
Botetourt County
Min	79	37,030
5 years	52
10 years	33
15 years	27
20 years	29
25 years	56
30 years	74	55,246
Bedford County
Min	110	35,083
5 years	110
10 years	108
15 years	99
20 years	98
25 years	103
30 years	103	52,616
Franklin County
Min	105	35,500
5 years	98
10 years	78
15 years	12
20 years	22
25 years	49
30 years	77	55,075
Floyd County
Min	89	36,500
5 years	108
10 years	119
15 years	123
20 years	114
25 years	112
30 years	101	52,816
Montgomery County
Min	124	32,968
5 years	112
10 years	97
15 years	91
20 years	86
25 years	88
30 years	100	53,361
Craig County
Min	121	33,565
5 years	109
10 years	86
15 years	80
20 years	68
25 years	76
30 years	54	56,719

I remember a time when Roanoke County was ranked in the top 30 across the board. It’s also interesting to compare our salaries with Salem. For those who don’t remember, Salem City Schools were born from Roanoke County Schools in the mid 1970’s. It’s interesting to see the direction teacher salaries have gone in each school division.

Make no mistake that our school board is doing a good job trying to win higher salaries for teachers. However, in the county, the board of supervisors hold the purse strings. That coupled with the state sometimes not funding their share of a decent cost of living salary raise puts our locality further and further behind on salaries.

There is more information packed into the VEA research report. I’ll bring that to you in a later blog. Remember to sign the petition and write you legislators!

Daily General Assembly Report

Rob Jones and our very own Doris Boitnott put together these reports during the General Assembly season. Their reports are detailed and fascinating. You must become a regular reader.