This post is an answer to the Letter to the Editor in the Burleson Star published in the 4/3/2011 edition. This letter is three times the length that the Star will publish but all the information is important so I'm posting it all here now. By Monday night. Click here , download and print the letter in order to read it. All this is proving once again,"Figures don't lie, but liars figure"
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There has been a lot of press these days about teacher layoffs, mainly due to those districts that incentivize retirement of those eligible and the termination of probationary contract holders. However, those were mainly maneuvers to decrease payrolls cost with less experienced and cheaper workers as well as reduce legal costs should the budget crisis intensify in the legislature as budget deadlines approach.
The real losers in this political rhetoric battle are the administrators that are being blamed for everything but the war in Libya. One thing that should be noted is that all administrators were once teachers. However, just as any business model in America, there has to be a supervisor and a CEO. Teachers cannot be successful in today’s educational world without a support group of other professionals, again, all who used to be teachers.
Senator Shapiro would have one believe that the state provides a curriculum that comes ready to be distributed to teachers who then pops the top and applies evenly to every student. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. In this day, every student has a right to learn in his/her preferred method, if they meet certain criteria for need. To insure this, each teacher will have multiple modifications to make to fit the different students who have individual educational plans to be implemented. Our own district has had an increase in students in need of remediation and extra services in the last 15 years.
However, to be fair, it would be good to look at the numbers that the 4/3/2011 Burleson Star letter to the editor writer provided in a different context.
Professional public school employees are paid by the day. Teachers are paid for 187 days as a rule. Administrators are paid 207 or 227 days. Neither get any paid holidays or paid Christmas and Spring breaks. They don’t get paid except when they are teaching/administrating, in training or on leave. Their pay for those contract days is spread over 12 months, giving the illusion that they are paid for the same amount of time. In Burleson, a first year teacher is paid $231.02 a day. An assistant elementary principal on the minimum pay scale is paid $246.00 a day. However, that administrator has already been a teacher for 3-5 years, has a Master’s degree and has earned an administrator’s certification.
Also, as evidence that Burleson has attempted to maintain quality teachers in the classroom they have put their money where their mouth is. Over the last 15 years, from 1995 to 2010, the average salary for teachers has increased 61%, more than for any other professional staff classification. Professional support staff were next at 50%, Central Office professional increased by 49% and the lowest increase was by Campus Administrators at 40%. While teachers comprise 47% percent of total staff in 2010, Central office and campus administrators make up only 4% combined. Professional support comprises 9% and educational aides come in at 10%. Ask any teacher if they would willingly give up their aides. It is also good to note that Central Office and Campus Administrators have not increased in percentage of staff in the entire 15 years from 1995 to 2010. Professional support (4%) and aides (2%) showed some increase with the largest being auxiliary staff by 7%.
TEA’s website does not support the numbers listed in the Burleson Star’s 3-2-11 Letter to the Editor. The actual number for operating expenditures per student in 2005 was $6310 and in 2009, (most recent year that TEA has published) it was $7601. Certainly not a 247% increase as was stated. I would suspect that the writer took the liberty to misinform by using the total expenditures of the district in 2010 which included the total bond sale for five elementary schools and one high school . Should that be the case, the number would return to normal once all the bonds are sold and bills are paid. However, TEA reports per student costs on operating and instructional expenditures only.
Finally, one last erroneous statement needs to be addressed; that some BISD neighborhoods have seen a 300% increase in taxes in the last 20 years. Perhaps, but if true, their property values have increased by as much. Taxable property value per student in 1995 was $131,400. In 2010, it was $361,903. Also, records on the district website indicate that from 2001 to 2010, the total tax rate for BISD was lower in the last 3 years than it was the previous 7 years; $1.68, $1.82, $1.78, $1.75, $1.75, $1.74, $1.59, $1.41, $1.47, $1.54. It’s a certainty the owners wouldn’t want to sell that property today for what it was valued at 20 years ago.
Try as they might, those who want to find fault with the BISD’s efforts to be good stewards of district resources and provide the best education possible for its students, will fail. Our students are achieving and our schools are operating with efficiency. Anyone that says otherwise, just doesn’t know the facts. Just sayin' Ann
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