[wjb182]

While I agree that the funding model for a lot of services in California is broken, I think you're basing your opinion on a number of false premises. For example, speaking directly to your claims about educator pay:

1. You can absolutely be fired for cause as a tenured teacher in California, and it happens all the time. It's certainly more difficult than most other professions, but there is no law or policy preventing teachers from being fired.

2. Teacher pay is not entirely based on seniority. Graduate education, certifications such as the National Board of Teachers (which is merit based and does require observation) or a bilingual certification, coaching a team/leading a club, all can contribute significantly to a teacher's salary.

3.After a 10 years of service, a teacher with a masters degree in my area makes $63K/year. Adjusting to a 12 month schedule, they'd be paid $75K year. With only a BA that drops to $54K. Hard to argue they are overpaid at that rate IMO.

It's extremely easy to see the excessively high rates that some regents or college administrators make, and attempt to use that anecdata to draw a full conclusion, but in my experience the rank and file make on average 25-30% less than they could in private industry.

[gnicholas]

Not sure where in CA you're based, but in Menlo Park there are custodians with total comp in the low six figures (including benefits but on a 9-month calendar). The teachers make more, and counselors/administrators are in the $200k range.

As for teacher firing, it is very rare in CA. [1]

> California has more than 1,000 school districts and 300,000 teachers, yet only 667 dismissal cases were filed between 2003 and 2012. Only 130 of those actually got to the hearing stage, and 82 resulted in dismissals — fewer than 10 a year.

1: https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/01/25/firing-a-tenured-teac...

[wjb182]

The laws governing teacher firing were changed in 2014 [1], and credential revocation has become compulsory in a large number of cases. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing opened 361 discipline cases last month alone [2].

I'm in metro Sac and got my numbers from this local district [3]. Looking at the numbers for Menlo Park City [4], the max pay rate is still only $130K, and that would require a PhD and over 20 years of service. A teacher with a BA never reaches $100K.

1: https://www.davisvanguard.org/2014/06/governor-signs-bill-st... 2: https://www.ctc.ca.gov/docs/default-source/educator-discipli... 3: https://www.sanjuan.edu/cms/lib/CA01902727/Centricity/domain... 4: https://district.mpcsd.org/cms/lib/CA01902565/Centricity/Dom...

[malchow]

Great point. You can see CA public employee salaries here. [1] The numbers are shocking, not only because they are all overpaid (the effect of public employee unions owning California's Democrat government, a downward-spiral effect predicted by people as varied as right-wing economists and Franklin D. Roosevelt [2]), but because in many cases these people get $500K - $700K per year for life in retirement. A private sector person would need a $10-$20 million post-tax trust fund in order to have that.

[1] https://transparentcalifornia.com

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/18/the-first-b...

[KorematsuFredt]

> You can absolutely be fired for cause as a tenured teacher in California, and it happens all the time. It's certainly more difficult than most other professions, but there is no law or policy preventing teachers from being fired.

Possible ? Yes. Does it happen often ? No.

You can read this LA times article for detailed statistics.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-may-03-me-teach...

> 3.After a 10 years of service, a teacher with a masters degree in my area makes $63K/year. Adjusting to a 12 month schedule, they'd be paid $75K year. With only a BA that drops to $54K. Hard to argue they are overpaid at that rate IMO.

I agree here. Teachers in public school are not overpaid. It is mostly the rest of the public schooling system that is bloated and overpaid but not teachers. Teachers in public schools end up spending more than 8 hours per day on school related activities and have to struggle even to get a day off as they need to find a substitute.

The rest of the non teaching staff however is mostly bloated and is a jobs program for adults. Some of them directly hurt the learning and teaching process and yet have massive power over teachers.

> the rank and file make on average 25-30% less than they could in private industry.

True. But most of them will be unemployable in private sector due to sheer incompetence and actual accountability.

[rsj_hn]

Absolutely! People really don't understand the scope of the rot.

The LA Unified District has 25K teachers...and 50K administrative staff. Moving onto universities, Penn State has 8000 Academic Staff... and 17,000 administrative staff. The bloat is obscene.

[iammisc]

Yeah my mom was a teacher in and around la for many years. They don't really ever fire tenured teachers. There were cases of known sex offenders kept on administrative leave for years.

[mjfl]

> 1. You can absolutely be fired for cause as a tenured teacher in California, and it happens all the time. It's certainly more difficult than most other professions, but there is no law or policy preventing teachers from being fired.

My best friend from college was a guidance counselor at Hollywood high school. Besides from the foundations of the building crumbling, he told me that it was normal for teachers to get in physical fights with the students and in the aftermath you couldn't expel the student or fire the teacher. They were both locked into the system.