Well-paid teachers must excel

When Newsday reported recently that more than 31,000 schoolteachers, administrators and professional staff on Long Island earn in excess of $100,000 annually, many eyebrows elevated. That’s about two-thirds of all such staffers.

That 15,000 of the educators earn $130,000 a year raised more. In 112 of our 124 districts the median salary is over $100,000. In 17 districts, the median is over $125,000.

The immediate response is, "Do they deserve it?" The more urgent point is, "Can taxpayers afford it?"

The questions have to be taken together. Neither is simple, and COVID has complicated the conversation. Many parents, forced to supervise their kids during remote learning, now see teachers as heroes. Others were angered that their districts and teachers did poorly at remote learning even though teachers kept getting full pay.

PAY ONE, PAY ALL?

Do educators deserve their earnings? The instinctive answer is mostly "yes." The highest-paid bring years of experience and advanced degrees to a crucial task: educating and caring for our children.

It’s reasonable for them to enjoy comfort and financial security and, on the Island, that costs.

But while many teachers are high performers, some aren’t. And thanks to collective bargaining philosophy that says, "Where there is a pay differential, there is no union," practically all are paid as if they’re at the top of the class. Teachers face little risk of losing positions, pay and generous benefits, no matter how they perform.

And the biggest problem with the least competent and caring educators is not that they get too much money but that they help students too little.

Such stragglers must be identified, helped to improve, and if they can’t shine, be replaced with stronger teachers and administrators.

Homes on Long Island cost twice the national average, but property taxes quadruple the national norm. The biggest reason is teacher pay that exceeds the national average of $65,000 by about 80%.

Can we afford it?

If you ask the unions the answer will always be yes, and if we ask the taxpayers, it will often be no, though Long Islanders do support their schools, often seeing them as the primary selling point of their communities. These taxpayers/voters rarely reject budgets unless they crack the tax cap and frequently return incumbent school board members to their positions.

GOOD WAGES AND PROSPERITY

And when the education reformers went to war with the teachers unions a decade ago in an attempt to create objective evaluations, an admittedly tricky and sensitive task, parents largely stood with the teachers. Over time, the politicians who’d supported new curricula and tougher standards for both teachers and students lost their courage, and the battle.

A society that can’t or won’t pay good teachers a comfortable wage won’t prosper. But if teachers unions push to remove the property tax cap, a possibility now that leading cap-champion Andrew M. Cuomo is no longer governor, taxes could again skyrocket. That would and should create a taxpayer revolt, because a return to the huge annual increases that double tax bills every 10 or 12 years would be catastrophic for the Island.

What’s more, the hidden cost of educator benefits packages needs to be more transparent. To say the median teacher educator in the highly paid Central Islip district makes $127,000 annually tells only half the story: a generous state pension, Cadillac health insurance, the ability to bank sick time and other personal leave for six-figure payouts tells the rest.

The sick-pay policies outlined in the Central Islip teachers contract include, for a 182-day school year:

• Sick leave of 15 days per year, accruing if unused.
• Five personal leave days each year, accruing if unused.
• Five "bedside care days" per year, accruing if unused.
• Three bereavement days, to be used when a close relative dies, which do not accrue.

Typically, a private-sector worker with 10 paid holidays and two weeks vacation works 240 days a year. Central Islip teachers who take advantage of all available paid leave properly could earn their full salaries and work just over 150 days.

Educators should be paid like professionals, but districts and teachers need to be willing to do what the kids deserve in exchange, and they need to do it well.

If students need school to run year-round, or be open later than 3 pm, educators need to help provide it. If the best or most affordable way to teach an advanced, niche subject involves a master teacher lecturing via screen and district teachers enriching that with study groups or question sessions, that has to happen too.

VALUE FOR TAXPAYERS

But the biggest issue is merit, or the lack of it. Teachers who want to make six figures are just like anybody else who wants to make six figures. They have to do a good job, based on objective and fair standards.

Long Island’s schools are the backbone of its prosperity and prominence, a key reason families come and stay and communities thrive. And the families are willing to pay for them, as long as they’re getting value. In exchange, they deserve to know that money is paying for great teachers, and that districts are doing everything possible to keep costs down.