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Riverside Info » About Riverside

41. anonymous
    Member

    I am a parent / resident / taxpaying concerned citizen, not necessarily in that order. I do not receive any financial benefit from RB, nor have I ever received such benefits.

    I must have missed the Landmark's opinion that "we should embrace the challenges of restoring confidence and credibility to RB." Where was it? Would you mind linking to it?

    I agree with you wholeheartedly in your post with the exception of one thought. Instead of the "reign of error", for some of us it was indeed a "reign of terror".

    Posted Friday Apr 2, 2010 17:00 #

42. chrisrobling
    Member

    http://www.rblandmark.com/main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=3&ArticleID=5966&TM=54254.21

    Landmark editorial on March 23, 2010: "Crossing that bridge"

    Posted Monday Apr 5, 2010 14:05 #

43. Kelly
    Member

    I am truly all for paying teachers fairly. However, I was doing some research on how much law school professors earn. Compare this data to RB teachers’ salaries.

    At Harvard University, no law faculty member, including the Dean, earned more than $280,000.

    Here in Chicago at Kent College of Law, A. Dan Tarlock, a leading figure in environmental law and probably Kent's most eminent professor, earned $192,266.

    The most recent salary data shows the median law school dean salary at $229,561 and the average law professor salary at $136,634.

    http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2007/02/how_many_law_pr.html

    You just can't tell me that some (if not most) teachers at RB are overpaid.

    Posted Monday Apr 5, 2010 21:38 #

44. mrt
    Member

    While 'two wrongs don't make a right', there is the idea of 'apple vs apples', so we should probably be comparing RB teacher's comp packages with the comp packages of teachers that RB wants to consider as peers - that would be...fill in the blank... OPRF? LT? HS? HC? DG? Naperville? New Trier?

    Posted Monday Apr 5, 2010 22:08 #

45. Kelly
    Member

    Yes MRT we should be comparing the salaries of teachers in similar schools districts. Others have posted a comparison of teachers in other districts.

    I just found the law school salaries to be interesting.

    Posted Tuesday Apr 6, 2010 07:46 #

46. anonymous
    Member

    We cannot compare the teachers in our district to the teachers in other school districts because our school district in like no other. One of the towns is a national historic landmark, with virtually no industry relying close to solely on property taxes. The other two towns are small, with some industry, but not much, due to their sizes. The school districts that people most ofter compare us to have a lot of business and industry, such as Oak Park (not so much River Forest, although there is more than in Riverside), Hinsdale (including Clarendon Hills), and La Grange (Countryside). We simply are not in the same financial category as these districts. How can you even compare Riverside/Brookfield/North Riverside to Naperville? You are seriously delusional if you think we can compare ourselves to Winnetka and Wilmette.

    This is not to say that we aren't as smart as the students in any of these schools, because we most certainly are. I am speaking of comparing salaries of RB vs. the other school districts.

    Kelly, that is an interesting website. Do you know if there is a website that lists the salaries of other professors in the undergraduate world, not post-grad? It would be interesting to compare them with the teachers at RB.

    Let's compare the teachers to some other administrators in our state:
    http://www.illinoisloop.org/salary.html

    Yes. Our teachers are overpaid. Yes, teachers in other school districts are overpaid, too. Most administrators are overpaid. This is why most school districts are in financial difficulties, some bankrupt. Reports show that other public sector employees are overpaid, too, compared to the private sector. A big reason why the states are in trouble, too--

    Posted Tuesday Apr 6, 2010 09:22 #

47. mrt
    Member

    Well, let's choose Ford Heights High as RB's compensation peer group. Not much business or industry there. We should then be able to save to save some money - on teachers'/administrators' compensation, short term; long term, we might 'turn into' such a district by degrees with an erosion of property values. Recall the notion of 'dressing for success', 'acting like' what you aspire to?

    This is why I said for us to 'fill in the blank' of who we should be using to set compensation levels.

    Having said this, anon, that was a very interesting website you posted above. I liked the quote on that site from Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, which said,

    "It is difficult to get a man to understand something,
    if his salary depends on him not understanding."

    What is extra interesting, and a bit ironic, about that quote -- which was originally intended for 'the ruling class', the captains of industry who ran meat packing houses and the like at the turn of the last century, and who would not want to change the way they did their business since their income was dependent on this way of doing business -- is that it is now being applied, in part, to rank and file union members, the equivalent of the people packing the meat. It is also being applied to the administrators. Sort of like 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'. This is why that quote is profound.

    Posted Tuesday Apr 6, 2010 10:55 #

48. anonymous
    Member

    How about living within our means?

    We are living through what happens when we spend more than we take in. It isn't pretty, is it? Unemployment rate climbs, credit scores drop, and people foreclose on their homes, which drop the home values even more. Which decreases the property values, which decrease the amount of money which can be taxed on the homes, which decrease the amount of money which the school district can claim, which makes the school budget greater than the amounts of money which is taken in, which increases fees, etc., which calls for a decrease in teaching staff, which is right back to where we are now. Fun times.

    Posted Tuesday Apr 6, 2010 11:03 #

49. mrt
    Member

    There's a wild concept, anon, living within your means!

    Having trotted out comparison to a chosen peer group (above) - it is the conventional way of setting comp levels - I do believe that high academic expectations and standards are actually cheap. It comes down to the teacher placing a high standard on the child and the parent(s) at home making sure that the kid meets this standard no matter how hard it is. No privileges unless that standard is met. Pretty simple.

    What is the per child spending in k-12 catholic schools? My impression is that catholic schools 'do more w/ less $'. One important exception to this is that they do not 'take everyone' - special needs and the like - as the publics must. I know the catholic 9-12 HS 's even have an entrance test.

    Posted Tuesday Apr 6, 2010 11:41 #

50. anonymous
    Member

    I'm going to be the devil's advocate here. No, never mind....

    Some of my favorite people are teachers yet some of my least favorite people are teachers.

    Teaching is such a wonderful profession. In the past, there is no question about it, teachers were underpaid. This is the reason for the very generous benefits which they receive. If you can't pay them with money, pay them with benefits, including tenure. At some point in the recent past, we more than made up for their below average salaries with above average salaries. However, we kept the very generous benefits. So now they receive a very generous salary and a very generous benefits package, including all of the vacation days, sick days, and an unsustainable pension. Their salary package has far outpaced the private sector.

    Regarding the public vs. private school teachers, I don't know what the private school teachers make. Years ago I was privy to the salaries for a local Catholic school and was surprised to see what little money a 30+ year teacher made.

    The main beef with your argument is that the private schools are just that-private. Until they receive funding from the state and federal governments, which they won't although many have tried via vouchers, then they can admit who they want and reject who they want. They can also charge what they want and pay what they want--whatever the market will bear. That's what the issue is. The public school market has priced themselves out of the market----take a look around---layoffs and school closings all over the country, not just our area. We are not alone!

    Posted Tuesday Apr 6, 2010 12:46 #

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