Cass,

We've agreed and found common ground on most other issues in the past, but your opinion in this case is woefully uninformed.

You indicate that you feel it's appropriate for teachers with 5 years of experience and a BA/BS to earn about $50,000, or $60,000 with a masters, and that they should contribute at least $200/month to their healthcare. Let's compare your postulated salary and benefits to the actual numbers, because there's some major discrepancies - beginning with the fact that even in North Allegheny, the best paying school district on this side of the state, a teacher with 5 years experience AND a masters is BARELY making $50,000. In fact, your belief that teachers should be making $10,000 more for a masters degree is unheard of in public education - although in the private sector a masters will easily raise your salary by $15-20,000 annually. Typically, a masters degree adds $900-$1500 to a teacher's salary. Bit of a difference, right?

Here's the average 2009 salaries for Butler County districts, according to the Butler Eagle:

Butler $52,663

Freeport $54,326

Karns City $52,812

Mars $53,537

Moniteau $53,568

Seneca Valley $60,080

Slippery Rock $56,420

South Butler $51,249

You'll note that most are barely over $50K, and these numbers are from districts where the majority of staff members have over 10 years experience, additional degrees (multiple masters and doctorates), other professional staff that receive higher wages and work most of the year (such as guidance departments), and activity director/sports coach pay for staff staying well into the evening. In other words, these numbers represent professionals with a lot more experience, education, and responsibility than the base salary you suggested.

Let's take a closer look at one of the districts in this area that's had some trouble with contract negotiations: South Butler. Here's the Butler Eagle's list of every teacher/professional salary:

http://www.butlereagle.com/article/20090922/NEWS01/709229954

Please pay careful attention to both the low end of the scale - $33,000 for starting teachers, and the actual average for these numbers - $48,458. Why this number differs from the Butler Eagle's summary figure by $3,000 is another issue entirely, but worth mentioning.

Because you've said you're a software engineer, I'm presuming you have some experience with and appreciation for statistics, and also the importance of including mode and median values to better understand the full picture. For these salaries, the mode is $33,261, and the median is $45,091.

Also note that 89 of the 185 staff members have master's degrees - 9 actually have education beyond a masters. That's almost 50% of the staff that, according to you, should be making at least $60,000. And yet, in reality, only 46 staff members - less then 25% - make more than $60,000. Again, this is your figure for 5 years of experience, and many of these individuals have decades beyond that.

I'm not going to outline the entirety of the math here - as I think you're more than intelligent enough to do it for yourself, and probably are smart enough to already have reached an estimated conclusion at a glance - but based on this data, teachers in the area are underpaid by $15,000-$25,000 (some outliers even more) by your own standards of $50-$60K per year.

Now let's consider your proposal for healthcare contributions. You suggest a minimum of $200 per month. That's about $180 more than many teachers pay now, or $2160 per year. So now teachers are taking home even less, when we've already conclusively determined that they're underpaid by $15,000-$25,000 dollars by your own standards.

Let's do one last quick calculation. If, by your standards, teachers are underpaid by $15,000-$25,000 annually, and we assume a teacher works for 35 years, then the average teacher is, again by your standards, losing roughly $525,000-$875,000 over their lifetime. Add in just 1% interest, and that's $630,000-1,050,000. And that's not accounting for any cost-of-living increases, raises, or bonuses that the private sector earns.

You also complain about retirement benefits, so let's factor those in as well. Let's be extra generous and say districts pay $10,000 a year for benefits after retirement. Let's be optimistic and say that a teacher lives to be 80 (the US average is 78). That's 20 years of benefits, although no district I know of in the area pays past 15 years. Still, even with 20 years, that's only $200,000.

Subtract that $200,000 in benefits from the amount that your numbers indicate teachers are underpaid in salary, and teachers are still making $430,000-$850,000 less over their lifetime than you say they should be.

This is why I asked you for your objective salary and benefit levels. Some people, and I'm dismayed to see you've joined this crowd, have a preconceived notion that teachers are overpaid and receive regal benefits. The simple reality is that when a professional private sector worker (like yourself) is asked, point blank, what teachers should be making, the estimate is invariably much higher than the actual total that salaries and benefits yield.

I hope that this gives you a better understanding of the full situation, and I urge you to do better research before forming opinions in the future. You've always struck me as conscientious, so I'm hopeful that you'll realize what is, for most, an easy mistake.