Putnam City Schools to vote on purchasing 10,000 iPads

[Pete]

Here is something I routinely observed at several different schools here in LA: A good number of kids were merely placed in the back of the class and were not really part of what was happening. They sat somewhat removed, goofing around, not paying attention, etc. And the teachers pretty much ignored them.

At first, I was completely shocked, especially because this seemed to be common even in classes taught by teachers I thought were particularly good. I finally asked one of them and this is what she said (paraphrasing): "I call them the Walking Dead. They are beyond hope so I merely try to keep them separated so I can concentrate on those who have at least a small desire to learn."

It's that sort of reality that even good teachers can't do much about. The bad ones (and there were plenty) would sit and read magazines while the kids basically did what they wanted.

[BoulderSooner]

[QUOTE=SoonerDave;604387]

My wife has been in OK public schools for not quite a decade. She makes about 2/3's that. She's received great annual reviews, compliments from principals, and received appointment to special councils, and the automatic step increases have put her well short of your $45K figure.

so almost most 10 years and she makes around 30k ... i'm sorry i don't buy that not unless she is at some private school by choice

the 100% min she could make at 9 years is 35k+ ...

[SoonerDave]

[QUOTE=BoulderSooner;604575]

so almost most 10 years and she makes around 30k ... i'm sorry i don't buy that not unless she is at some private school by choice

the 100% min she could make at 9 years is 35k+ ...

Fine, Boulder, you believe whatever you want. I'm not pursuing this discussion with you any further.

[metro]

We pay teachers far below their value to society, but there are funds for ipads? Well, funds enough that 1.9 students can each share an ipad. So Susie can do homework on Mon and Wed and every other weekend, and Jonie can do homework on Tue, Thu, and every other weekend. And, in class they can just scrunch together at a desk to see the clips, articles, etc. that go along with a lesson. If if Susie's beau steps on the ipad on a date night, well, Jonie probably had a date the following night and wasn't planning on studying anyway.

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense ... as an example of how to botch a plan.

Wouldn't be an issue as no one has named their kid Jonie or Susie since the 70's, hopefully they are out of high school by now. I kid, I kid.

[BoulderSooner]

[QUOTE=SoonerDave;604588]

Fine, Boulder, you believe whatever you want. I'm not pursuing this discussion with you any further.

i don't have to believe whatever i want ... i have facts .. State Minimum Teacher Salary Schedule | State Department of Education

this is minimum salary for 9 years is 35,100 .... most teachers make more then the minimum

[ewoodard70]

A teacher's performance could be easily evaluated by a principal, department head, committee of peers... The same ways all other jobs are usually evaluated. And just like any other business, those that receive the best evaluations get bigger raises and those who aren't pulling their weight are put on notice and then terminated if there isn't significant improvement. Again, pretty standard operating procedure in any other business (save some government jobs).


As far as benefits and pensions, I am merely comparing what the teachers I know receive in these areas as opposed to what others typically receive in the same pay class. Teachers still receive good health insurance and pensions... The latter is almost non-existent in private industry these days and the former is increasingly rare.

Teachers can leave every day at 2 or 3PM if they choose, get tons of paid holiday leave (Christmas, spring break, fall break, etc.) plus every single summer off where they can either teach summer school or get another job for more income -- or merely just take months off every single year.

They are also routinely given automatic pay raises for completing advanced degrees; usually protected by tenure, etc.


I'm not saying teaching is some sort of easy street, but there are lots of upsides that never get spoken about because ALL you ever hear about is how they are woefully underpaid.

BTW, the average teacher in Oklahoma is paid around $45K in salary for 9 months of work, and benefits are year-round. Many teachers make well more than this and supplement their income in many other ways. It's certainly not fantastic pay but it's not horrible either.

Teachers have always been evaluated by building administrators. These evaluations and recommendations are then sent to the local school board and the board then decides to retain or not. These evaluations are also placed on our personnel files. What I want to ask you is what criteria would you use to determine who gets raises and who doesn't?

The tenure issue is about cause. The administrations has to show cause to fire a tenured teacher, and it is not as hard as it appears. All that has to be done is documentation that a tenured teacher is not doing the work expected of them. They will be placed on a Plan of Improvement and give a set amount of time (not sure how long) to show the required improvement. Our state legislature removed the trial aspect of this process to make it cheaper to fire a teacher. As a union teacher or not I should have the ability to stand up to administrators that I feel is not working in the best interests of the school/community without the fear of being fired for it.

I understand that our perks looks good those not involved with public schools, and I hear people say all the time they don't think they could do this job no matter the pay. So why are so many blaming teachers for the supposed failure of our schools? Every teacher I know works hard to teach the kids what the state says they must teach, even the kids that are not interested in learning that material. I understand that as teachers and as a union we have not done a very good job of elaborating what goes on in the classroom, but believe me that there are not as many bad teachers as the general public thinks.

I appreciate the dialogue here and would like to thank you for the politeness of your opinion, as I have dealt with many antagonistic types when dealing with this topic.

p.s. I'll try to do a little research on teacher retirement and get back with you.

[ewoodard70]

[QUOTE=BoulderSooner;604610]

i don't have to believe whatever i want ... i have facts .. State Minimum Teacher Salary Schedule | State Department of Education

this is minimum salary for 9 years is 35,100 .... most teachers make more then the minimum

That depends upon which district a teacher is employed. Some districts go above the state minimum, but not all. The pay scale is kind of difficult to read if you are careful.

I am at step 19 on the Bachelor scale, so my pay has 2 possibilities depending on the option I take. If I don't take the state sponsored health insurance then my pay is $42,037, but if I take the insurance my pay is $46,594. Include in those figures is 2,812 the district pays to teacher retirement. So if you take all of that money out of the equation then my pay is $37,362. that last number is my bring home pay. Yes I know that the insurance money is for my benefit, but the state legislature approved the money to bring teachers in line with other government employees. That does not change my bring home pay money. Now divide the bring home by 12 and you will see my monthly total before taxes and other deductions. I currently deposit about $2,500 (I also coach football for $1,300/year) after taxes and other deductions.

[BoulderSooner]

[QUOTE=ewoodard70;604618]

That depends upon which district a teacher is employed. Some districts go above the state minimum, but not all. The pay scale is kind of difficult to read if you are careful.

I am at step 19 on the Bachelor scale, so my pay has 2 possibilities depending on the option I take. If I don't take the state sponsored health insurance then my pay is $42,037, but if I take the insurance my pay is $46,594. Include in those figures is 2,812 the district pays to teacher retirement. So if you take all of that money out of the equation then my pay is $37,362. that last number is my bring home pay. Yes I know that the insurance money is for my benefit, but the state legislature approved the money to bring teachers in line with other government employees. That does not change my bring home pay money. Now divide the bring home by 12 and you will see my monthly total before taxes and other deductions. I currently deposit about $2,500 (I also coach football for $1,300/year) after taxes and other deductions.

i know steps and years of service are not always the same thing ... but according to the linked chart .. if you have 19 years of service should be $39,775 before any district payed retirement ..


i'm sure lots of small/rural districts pay the min ... but edmond for instance starts teachers at 3k above the min

[kelroy55]

My question is how many here would work the hours teachers do for what they get paid? I don't know if teachers get paid for the summer when they are off or if their salary is spread out through the year.

Oklahoma teacher pay...
Average Teacher Salary Rank: 47th
Starting Teacher Salary Rank: 42nd
Salary raise last year: 0.2 %
Oklahoma is 29th on our comfort scale with a starting salary of $35,880 and average salaries of $44,343.

Beginning with the 2012-2013 school year, teachers in the public schools of Oklahoma shall receive in salary and/or fringe benefits not less than the amount specified in the following schedule. When determining minimum salary, “fringe benefits” shall mean only the employee's share of retirement, if paid by the district. A teacher with 20 years’ experience and a Doctoral Degree will make not less than 46K a year which I assume they don't make a whole lot more than that..
State Minimum Teacher Salary Schedule | State Department of Education

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/f...-june-2009.pdf

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf

[BoulderSooner]

My question is how many here would work the hours teachers do for what they get paid? I don't know if teachers get paid for the summer when they are off or if their salary is spread out through the year.

Oklahoma teacher pay...
Average Teacher Salary Rank: 47th
Starting Teacher Salary Rank: 42nd
Salary raise last year: 0.2 %
Oklahoma is 29th on our comfort scale with a starting salary of $35,880 and average salaries of $44,343.

Beginning with the 2012-2013 school year, teachers in the public schools of Oklahoma shall receive in salary and/or fringe benefits not less than the amount specified in the following schedule. When determining minimum salary, “fringe benefits” shall mean only the employee's share of retirement, if paid by the district. A teacher with 20 years’ experience and a Doctoral Degree will make not less than 46K a year which I assume they don't make a whole lot more than that..
State Minimum Teacher Salary Schedule | State Department of Education

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/f...-june-2009.pdf

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf

a 20 year phd in norman and edmond make closer to 60 a year not 46 ... and as stated above most of the big school districts start well above and stay above the min

[Mr. Cotter]

My wife teaches in PC, and has a master's degree. We moved here from Ohio, and she will have to teach 14 years in Oklahoma before she makes what she made her last year in Ohio.

It's a whole lot of work for the money.

[BoulderSooner]

My wife teaches in PC, and has a master's degree. We moved here from Ohio, and she will have to teach 14 years in Oklahoma before she makes what she made her last year in Ohio.

It's a whole lot of work for the money.

is the cost of living the same here as in ohio??

[kelroy55]

a 20 year phd in norman and edmond make closer to 60 a year not 46 ... and as stated above most of the big school districts start well above and stay above the min

Those were the minimums listed. "make not less than 46K a year" It's still sad that a PhD. Educator makes less than I do and they are responsible for teaching our children.

[BoulderSooner]

Those were the minimums listed. "make not less than 46K a year" It's still sad that a PhD. Educator makes less than I do and they are responsible for teaching our children.

and you said "I assume they don't make a whole lot more than that" ..which is not correct

[Mr. Cotter]

is the cost of living the same here as in ohio??

Similar enough. Our monthy expenses to maintain the same level of comfort are roughly the same. The only big change has been our transportation budget, which is much higer in Oklahoma than it was in Ohio.

[Pete]

BTW, the never-ending moaning about teacher pay has another huge negative consequence: It discourages young people from considering teaching as a career.

Because this always, ALWAYS comes up when anything about education is discussed, it creates the impression that you have to be willing to live in poverty to consider joining the teaching profession.

I can tell you that for these reasons I never even thought about this career option and I know many others feel the same... While the truth is that if you are willing to work hard, continue your education, take on additional responsibility and work summers, you can make a decent and even a good living.


Teacher compensation is rarely accurately portrayed and that contributes to a lack of good people in that profession and consequently, the entire educational system suffers.

[ewoodard70]

[QUOTE=BoulderSooner;604621]

i know steps and years of service are not always the same thing ... but according to the linked chart .. if you have 19 years of service should be $39,775 before any district payed retirement ..


i'm sure lots of small/rural districts pay the min ... but edmond for instance starts teachers at 3k above the min

A step is the years of experience. You'll notice on the linked schedule that it starts with 0 and goes up, this is due to the fact that a 1st year teacher has no experience or service as you put it. Step 19 is a teacher that has taught for 20 years.

If you will take the time to search district websites you can find the district schedule that shows the negotiated base salary. Then you add in the district paid retirement and you get what is the total compensation. Then you will see where there are more columns to the right that are retirement credit, flexible benefit option 1, compensation option 1, flex benefit option 2, and compensation option 2.
Here are a couple that I found so that you can see what I am talking about.

http://www.mid-del.net/education/sta...etailid=48562&

http://www.guthrie.k12.ok.us/cms/lib...02012-2013.pdf

[NoOkie]

A teacher's performance could be easily evaluated by a principal, department head, committee of peers... The same ways all other jobs are usually evaluated. And just like any other business, those that receive the best evaluations get bigger raises and those who aren't pulling their weight are put on notice and then terminated if there isn't significant improvement. Again, pretty standard operating procedure in any other business (save some government jobs).

My concern with this is that there seems to be a move towards metrics-based assessments in our school systems. With all the focus on testing, I have concerns that teachers' performance reviews in this situation would be based on their students test scores as opposed to a fair supervisory and peer review.

While metrics can work for some types of jobs, I think it's a bad method for education. From talking to my step-sons and other parents, there seems to be a real focus on teaching the test and not actually educating our children. Standardized tests give numbers, statistics and charts that are easy to condense into reports for high level administrators. I imagine teachers would get sucked into the same scenario.

[Pete]

I agree that test scores are not a good or fair way to evaluate teachers, which is why I suggested more subjective measures that are commonly used in almost every other business.

One of the reasons metrics are being used, though, is because this is how the government is evaluating schools and districts... So, they are merely trying to pass this accountability down through the teaching ranks.


At the school/district level, metrics ARE important. Otherwise, there are too many incentives to just push kids through the system without any objective standards.

For example, most schools are paid through Average Daily Attendance numbers, so they do everything they can to keep kids in school -- but not necessarily make sure they are learning. In California for example, about ten years ago they mandated that all high school graduates pass a remedial proficiency exam before they received their diploma. This was necessary because districts were graduating kids without holding them to any real standard.

To show you how bad things get without some sort of standardize testing, almost half the HS students in Los Angeles USD (the nation's second largest district) could not pass this crazy easy exam. Keeping in mind that more than half the kids that start 9th grade in LAUSD do not even make it through their senior year, that meant less than a quarter of all LA high school students knew as much as most of us had already learned by about the 5th grade.


I think there is a way to do both... To hold districts accountable through metrics, while at the same time evaluating teachers on a more subjective basis.

[Hawk405359]

As for the topic at hand, why tablets? Have you ever tried to write a paper on a tablet? It's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do. You can read e-books on computers if you want to switch away from paper textbooks. Yeah, you have apps, but big deal, you don't need apps to learn anything and there's nothing in an app store that you can't get for an actual computer.

Just seems like a terrible investment to me.

[NoOkie]

As for the topic at hand, why tablets? Have you ever tried to write a paper on a tablet? It's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do. You can read e-books on computers if you want to switch away from paper textbooks. Yeah, you have apps, but big deal, you don't need apps to learn anything and there's nothing in an app store that you can't get for an actual computer.

Just seems like a terrible investment to me.

There are tablet specific education apps that don't exist for computers. Lots of enhanced textbooks. Some of them look pretty incredible. I find tablets more comfortable to read with than a computer, personally.

I think if you modify the curriculum to work with the technology, there's a lot of potential. I heard a story on NPR(Can't find the specific ones) about a school system that was using technology to time shift lectures(Basically, the students watch the lectures as part of their homework), freeing up class time for more small-group work and help. Coupled with some in-app methods of getting help after hours, it seemed like a clever idea. I remember reading another story about how college professors were using iPod touches in their class for a lot of surprising uses.

tl;dr Technology, when leveraged right, can be an awesome tool. Just buying some tablets, throwing them at students and saying "Technology will help our kids!" is worthless.

[Larry OKC]

I am not against ipads and technology in general for schools but taking out long term bond debt for something that is going to be obsolete in months is rather foolish. Like taking out a second mortgage on your home to get the oil changed on the car. There are appropriate things to use bond money for, this is one of them. Find another way to fund this kind of stuff.

It makes me think that Putnam City has run out of things (like buildings etc) where using bond money makes since and they are just looking for a project to spend money on...

[BBatesokc]

I am not against ipads and technology in general for schools but taking out long term bond debt for something that is going to be obsolete in months is rather foolish. Like taking out a second mortgage on your home to get the oil changed on the car. There are appropriate things to use bond money for, this is one of them. Find another way to fund this kind of stuff.

It makes me think that Putnam City has run out of things (like buildings etc) where using bond money makes since and they are just looking for a project to spend money on...

I think its unfair to say new iPads for students today will be 'obsolete' in 'months.' Schools, businesses, etc. get along just fine with computers that are many years old.

What I would like to see is the project savings if students/school move to tablet based text books over traditional text books. No only could tablet based books save money on buying books, but also on presentation material. No need for overhead projectors and such if everyone is on a sync'd tablet.

Are book publishers willing to cut their prices drastically for digital textbooks?

[LandRunOkie]

I like Apple products as well, or at least did in the Jobs era. But the iPad seems more of a status symbol than educational tool. About reduced price for digital books, not really. That's the surprising thing. Books cost about as much as e-books. I'm pretty tech savvy, but give me a regular book any day.

[Plutonic Panda]

I like Apple products as well, or at least did in the Jobs era. But the iPad seems more of a status symbol than educational tool. About reduced price for digital books, not really. That's the surprising thing. Books cost about as much as e-books. I'm pretty tech savvy, but give me a regular book any day.

Yeah my grandmother is like that. I guess she said she just likes the "feel" of a real book. I also think that Apple products are waaaaaay over priced though.