The New Math:

How a 4.63% raise becomes an 8.5% raise

This fall, the Chicago Teachers Union joined the ranks of so many other teacher unions, threatening to go on strike to demand substantial increases in pay and benefits. As is often the case, the Chicago Public Schools were paralyzed by Illinois law and unable to put up effective resistance. The result was a generous contract that most working class people would be delighted to receive.

This contract was dubbed a "four percent raise". The Chicago Tribune was good enough to examine the contract using a hypothetical case of a 5-year veteran with a Master's degree. This teacher, whose current salary begins at $44,256/yr ends up making $59,820/yr after four years.¹

But how can this be? After all, one would need an annual increase of over 7.82% to reach this final pay. That's almost twice the advertised amount.

Numbers Game

Simply put, the 4% figure is a distortion based on the details of how teacher pay is actually computed. Publication of this low number is no accident; it is done intentionally to minimize public outrage over teacher pay. The "teachers are underpaid" myth is starting to collapse, and not a moment too soon.

Jack Roeser of the Family Taxpayers Network (http://www.thechampion.org/) exposed this phenomenon some time ago. He showed that District 300's "20% 3-year" raise was actually a 37.5% raise.² Not surprisingly, District 300's February 2003 referendum suffered a humiliating defeat.

How It Works

In a typical unionized district, teacher pay in any given year is based on two things: seniority and education. Subsections of District 50's pay tables appear below. (The complete tables are available here) Note that student performance, teacher competency, and teacher workload have no effect on pay.

District 50 pay table section, 2002-2003³

Year/Education	MS	MS+12	MS+24	MS+30
Q	$54,720	$56,147	$57,575	$59,002
P	$52,767	$54,144	$55,520	$56,897
O	$50,885	$52,212	$53,539	$54,867
N	$49,069	$50,349	$51,629	$52,909
M	$47,318	$48,553	$49,787	$51,021

District 50 pay table section, 2003-2004³

Year/Education	MS	MS+12	MS+24	MS+30
Q	$57,253	$58,747	$60,240	$61,734
P	$55,210	$56,651	$58,091	$59,531
O	$53,240	$54,629	$56,018	$57,407
N	$51,341	$52,680	$54,019	$55,359
M	$49,509	$50,800	$52,092	$53,384

Every column represents the education level of the teacher. District 50's table has six education level columns (the two BS columns are not shown in the figures). Pay increases with higher degrees, regardless of the teacher's actual skill level.

Each row, starting with "A" at the bottom (not shown) represents years of service. In each successive year, a teacher moves up one row until he/she reaches the top.

There is one table for each year of the contract. District 50's current two-year contract contains two such tables. The difference in salaries between the two tables is quoted as the "contract raise". By dividing the increase in any box from 2002-2003 to 2003-2004 by the 2002-2003 salary, the "contract raise" is computed. For this contract, it is about 4.63%. This is the number usually attributed to a contract.

Devil in the details

At a minimum, teachers receive two raises every year. The "contract raise", shown by moving from one table to the next, and the "seniority raise", moving up one row.

Example: A teacher with a Masters degree in 2002 at the "M" level earns $47,318. In 2003-2004, the new table is used, providing a 4.63% raise, and the teacher advances to the "N" level automatically. This puts the new salary at $51,341, an 8.5% raise, not 4.63% as advertised. (See below)

In 2002-2003, teacher has a Masters degree and 13 years experience...

Year/Education	MS	MS+12	MS+24	MS+30
Q	$54,720	$56,147	$57,575	$59,002
P	$52,767	$54,144	$55,520	$56,897
O	$50,885	$52,212	$53,539	$54,867
N	$49,069	$50,349	$51,629	$52,909
M	$47,318	$48,553	$49,787	$51,021

...in 2003-2004, teacher pay moves to the higher table and moves up one row!

Year/Education	MS	MS+12	MS+24	MS+30
Q	$57,253	$58,747	$60,240	$61,734
P	$55,210	$56,651	$58,091	$59,531
O	$53,240	$54,629	$56,018	$57,407
N	$51,341	$52,680	$54,019	$55,359
M	$49,509	$50,800	$52,092	$53,384

This example is typical. In fact, all positions with more than three years experience will receive 8.5% raises in 2003! Less experienced teachers will receive anywhere from 7.23% to 7.77%. Less than the 8.5% crowd, but still out of line.

Does this "4 years or more" have some significance? Strangely enough, it is the same length of time required to attain tenure in Illinois. Apparently District 50 feels that tenured teachers deserve larger raises as well as a lifetime job guarantee.

Education Riches

In most cases, teachers will "only" receive two raises. But if, in addition to becoming one year older, a teacher manages to increase his/her education level, the teacher can expect three raises. If in our previous example the same teacher also completed the 12 hours of extra college, the 2003-2004 salary jumps to $52,680. This makes a grand total of an 11.33% raise.

This might be acceptable if student achievement climbed 11.33% annually!!

When viewing the numbers in these tables, bear the following in mind:

Teachers typically work 180 days per year³, compared to the standard 250 days. This alone increases the per-day pay by over 38%.
A teacher's workday is usually less than the standard eight hours. Many actually teach between 4-7 hours per day⁴. (Don't believe the union line about the long "uncounted" hours teachers slave. Every profession has workers like that, but in teaching as in most other professions, it is NOT the norm).
District 50 teachers receive 14 "sick days" per year, of which up to 180 are paid out upon retirement.³ If one considers 5 days the "norm", teachers are ahead by 9 days per 180, or 5%!
Teachers have among the best benefits in any industry.
The Illinois Teacher Retirement System is headed for bankruptcy. State law requires that taxpayers bail it out. This represents even more teacher pay.
Tenured teachers have virtually guaranteed job security.
Teaching jobs suffer no risk of being sent overseas.
The District 50 contract allows retirement will full benefits (including a $11,000 retirement payout) at age 55³, 10-15 years earlier than many Americans.

Sensible Reform

We at CRAFT have proposed No Taxpayer Left Behind as a means to restore bargaining power to Illinois school districts. Whether the system is reformed through NTLB or other means, reform is inevitable. When school costs continually outpace inflation by over 2:1, collapse is not a question of "if", its a question of "when".

Education experts generally agree that merit based pay is essential to school reform. Most teacher contracts are designed to protect bad teachers and fail to reward good ones. If pay tables are the preferred salary tool, we propose something of this form:

Rating/Workload	under 150 hrs	150-175 hrs	175-200 hrs	Over 200 hrs
Outstanding
Excellent
Good
Average
Poor

In this pay table, the two parts to teacher pay are workload and the teacher's rating. The workload is measured in "student hours" per day. Teachers who can effectively teach larger classes get rewarded. Teachers who teach more students get rewarded. The unions have pushed the "small class size" nonsense as a means to increase enrollment (union dues) and enhance bargaining power. The beauty of this table is that individual teachers will prefer larger classes, saving money on salary, benefits, and buildings.

Of course, quality must be the dominant factor in any pay system. Administrators would be responsible for conducting performance reviews of their teachers. Reviews would be solely performance based. Seniority and education level have no part in this system, since they have no direct link to a teacher's value.

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References:

Chicago Tribune, November 14^th, 2003.
Family Taxpayer Network http://www.thechampion.org.
District 50 2002-2004 Collective Bargaining Agreement.
"The Worm In The Apple" by Peter Brimelow.