This letter came from Stuart Egan, one of North Carolina’s National Board Certified Teachers. The state has more NBCTs than any other, and almost the lowest salaries of any state. Egan responded to Senator David Curtis’s letter brushing off science tea her Sarah Wiles.
Stuart Egan writes:
I am a high school teacher from Winston-Salem / Forsyth County Schools.
On Monday, May 12, I read an article on WUNC’s website that published a letter (response) written by Sen. David Curtis to a young teacher in the Charlotte area. It can be found on the following link: http://wunc.org/post/teacher-email-legislators-draws-harsh-reply#.U3F64LlKCEE.email. It deserves a public response.
Dear Senator Curtis,
I have given your email response to Ms. Sarah Wiles’s letter entitled “I am embarrassed to confess: I am a teacher” much thought, and I am embarrassed that you represent our state with such an attitude as was displayed. You are right: Teachers do have an incredible influence on students, However, your response only highlighted the uninformed, and, quite frankly, pompous stance that many in the NC legislature have adopted toward public education.
It is obvious that you were blessed to have great teachers in your life to enable you to achieve all that you talk about on your website, davidcurtisforncsenate.com. Think of all those teachers who helped you in elementary school, middle school, high school, undergraduate school and medical school. Clearly, they instilled in you a love of learning that has carried you throughout your life. Your life also seems to center around your faith, which probably was influenced by Sunday school teachers, pastors who went to schools and seminaries, and by the teachings of the greatest of teachers – Jesus Christ.
My concern is that your North Carolina constituents are “picking up on your (negative) attitude” toward the teaching profession. Since you naturally want the support of teachers in the next election cycle, here are my suggestions for what you could investigate and consider. I simply took your original itemized remarks from your “imaginary conversation with a private sector employer” and responded to them.
1. “You (Ms. Wiles) expect to make a lot more than you made as a teacher because everyone knows how poorly compensated teachers are.” Of course any teacher who makes a move to the private sector would expect more monetary compensation. Almost every other profession that requires a similar level of education and training as the teaching profession makes more monetarily than a teacher.
2. “You expect at least eight weeks paid vacation per year because that is what the taxpayers of North Carolina gave you back when you were a poorly compensated teacher.” You mistake eight weeks of vacation with what is actually unemployment. Teachers have 10-month contracts. What you call “vacation” is actually unpaid time that is spent getting renewed certification, professional development, or advanced degrees—all of which are paid with teachers’ own money that gets taxed by the state. Until recently, the only way teachers can get a pay increase is to fund their own advanced education. But even that is no longer the case because of a crusade led by Pat McCrory and Thom Tillis to eliminate advanced-degree pay increases. Would you expect those who get their MBAs or MDs to forego the expected increase in salary? Of course not. Yet many of NC’s legislators seem appalled that teachers would expect the same.
3. “You expect a defined contribution retirement plan that will guarantee you about $35,000 per year for life after working 30 years even if you live to be 104 years old.” It is ironic that you talk about retirement plans for teachers, especially to younger professionals in education. Our retirement is tied to our salary. By law, we have to pay into the system. And don’t misunderstand me; I am grateful to have that. But when my pay stays frozen, my contribution to retirement stays frozen as well. As prices climb and as inflation exerts its influence, what I may get decades down the road probably will not support me and my family. Considering my age, I may not have the Social Security benefits that you will enjoy. In fact, the way it works now is that I pay into a system that will benefit you before I see any return in my own life. It is also ironic that you, too, will receive retirement pay from the state as a legislator, but have much more say about your state pension than I get with mine. If you need reminding, simply reference the following article:http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/02/26/1884711/amid-retirements-state-lawmakers.html.
4. “Your potential employer may tell you that he has heard that most North Carolina workers make less than the national average because we are a low cost-of-living- state, private sector workers making 87% of the national average and teachers making 85% of the national average.” You imply that low teacher salaries are justifiable because of low cost-of-living expenses; however, that logic does not hold water unless you can prove that the cost of living has frozen in North Carolina. It would help to study the relationship of consumer indexes and teacher salaries for NC and the surrounding states. Furthermore, if you want to attract more industry and business to North Carolina, you need to convince companies that their employees’ families will have a good education system and a quality of life based on their productivity and company success instead of the state’s cost of living.
5. “The teachers union has convinced parents that teachers are grossly undercompensated based on a flawed teachers union survey of teacher pay. “ Where is a teacher union in North Carolina? Are you referring to NCAE? That’s not a union; that’s an association. If you want to see how a teachers’ union works, go to Chicago and New York City. Now, those are unions.
Whether you are in Denver, NC, or Denver, CO, you need to understand investing in teacher pay is not to quench some thirst for greed. It is needed to keep the best and most experienced teachers here in North Carolina, teaching our students because those students are the biggest investment we have. Many of them go on to be successful private sector employers. Your website devotes a great deal of space explaining the importance you place on family-centered values. I think the vast majority of NC families believe their children – who are the future of this state – are valuable enough to make teacher pay attractive to the best educators, regardless of the cost of living.
And last, whether you intended it or not, the tone in your response to Ms. Wiles came across as condescending and patronizing. It was not a tone or attitude you would want to witness in a classroom, and it certainly is not an attitude North Carolinians want to witness in their legislators.
Sincerely,
Stuart A. Egan, MAEd., Ed. S., NBCT
West Forsyth High School English Teacher
10-month employee, 12-month educator
We need to stop referring to summer vacation and call it what it is: summer seasonal layoff. “Vacation” implies that teachers are paid, and they are *not*.
Stuart very well written and said…this message applies to Texas as well…the state leadership wants one wants a Cadillac system on a Yugo budget….it will never work.
My daughters thought about becoming teachers. I quickly dissuaded them. It is sad, because teaching is a noble profession. But this country no longer values teaching and education – if it ever did. I don’t want them going through the current environment.
The Republican party is revealing itself to be the anti-education party. Whether denying science and reason or adopting an condescending, somewhat sexist view of teachers; that will only hasten the GOP plunge into obsolescence.
Stop attacking the GOP. We already know most of them are extremists and opportunists. But please don’t defent the democrats who have – most of them facilitated this reform movement just as much, starting with Obama and Joe Biden.
PLEASE!
Labels mean nothing.
Rotten is as rotten does . . . . .
You are absolutely right that both parties have a share of the blame. Neither has done much for education for decades now. The reality is that the Republican party pretty much has made this attitude towards education a plank in their platform. There is uniformity among all GOP candidates on this stance when it comes to education. It is not a few rotten legislators at this point. It is systemic of the expectation the GOP places on candidates who run under their banner. The way facts are twisted (“vacation” instead of “seasonal employment” — “greed” instead of “fair compensation for advanced degrees”) is just politics as usual at this point. The children of NC shouldn’t be used as pawns in political games, whether is is on issues of education, poverty, social services or child abuse and neglect. Bash each other as adults all you want, but leave kids (and by extension the teachers who spend 7 hours a day with them) out of it.
“It is obvious that you were blessed to have great teachers in your life to enable you to achieve all that you talk about on your website….”
Wrong. Republicans like Curtis think they did it all by themselves.
Great letter. I doubt if I could show this level of courtesy and restraint. I any case, the letter sent me to a website seeking information on the pay for legislators in North Carolina. NC is one of 11 states that does not have a fixed term of days or weeks for being in session. Legislators get a monthly allowance of $559 for expenses and $104 a day for being in session. I estimated a work-year of 113 days as typical, based on the average of $13,951 as the average payment in NC. I did not find out how many staff are hired to work for or on behalf of each legislator or other perks. Even so, I found a lot of great information on pending and recent state action on legislation, including education. It is available here: http://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/legislator-data.aspx
Also, Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools have been among the districts of choice for grand experiments in pay-for-performance, with the drumbeat for VAM and SLOs the methods of choice to force teachers to engage in direct instruction and teach-to-the test. SLO refers to “student learning objectivies”–a version of mangement-by-objectives, Peter Drucker, mid-1950s.
BURN!
I am a parent that used to live in Winston Salem and moved because the school system was declining. Maybe, I should say became worst since we moved there. I am sorry for the kids and teachers that are still there. I consider myself lucky that I was able to move and had no family there. I know how bad the school system has been damaged and that 5,000 children in that county are home schooled. I do hope NC is able to turn things around for themselves. I am glad I made the right decision. My child is thriving where we are now. Good luck to you all!!!
Well said Mr Egan! This is exactly what is needed to make change happen.
Share with teachers you know everywhere – they need a boost!
Mr. Egan’s letter to state Senator Curtis is fantastic! There is one clarification I’d like to offer. Dr. Curtis is an optometrist and not a medical doctor; therefore, he went to an optometry school, not a medical school (as mentioned in the letter).
As someone who holds an earned doctorate myself, I find it rather pretentious and pathetic that he throws his “Dr.” title around outside of the professional practice for which it applies (his Facebook, under his re-election photo, etc.).
The only thing Ms. Wiles wanted was for politicians like Sen. Curtis to leave her alone instead of being so patronizing toward her and her colleagues with regard to how much they “respect” teachers when he clearly does not.
Is he an ALEC member?
If so, I would write:
Dear Senator Curtis:
I know it’s hard when you have decided to join a gang and you are no longer able to think for yourself. I took classes on gangs presented by the Kansas City Missouri Police Department when I was a public school teacher there so we would know what to look for in our students when they too were under that kind of pressure to put the gang above their own values and principles. I know it’s hard to face your buddies at the meetings you go to, where they give you the legislation that they want you to bring back to your state and implement because the companies that give them donations want it that way, but it’s OK to let go and move on and think about others. It’s OK to actually think. More importantly, it’s OK to actually feel. And while we all may have to “take one for the team” in these hard economic times, it’s still possible to be nice. And to put yourself in the shoes of others and be compassionate.
“Love one another,” Jesus said. Remember?
Love,
Joanna
Music Teacher
Brilliant! 🙂
Huzzah!
Thank you, Stuart. Accurate and on point. NCAE members have no collective bargaining rights and cannot strike. NCAE is a professional organization just as the AMA (American Medical Association).
GREAT RESPONSES!!!!
I love the response and could not have expressed my own sentiments better!
Excellent response. I had a conversation with a teacher from another state and she is experiencing similar frustrations where she is. (I blogged about it here: http://aileengoeson.com/?p=2690) We really must begin to show our teachers the respect they earn day after day. Thanks for this great post.
Here are some facts about teaching in NC from a retiring teacher of 25 years.
2 months PAID vacation, right. We are paid for 10 months of employment.
“You expect a defined contribution retirement plan that will guarantee you about $35,000 per year for life “
The average public pension in North Carolina is $22,000 per year.
From ( http://www.nctreasurer.com/ret/Active%20Employees/PensionFactSheet.pdf)
“Your employer will need to put about $16,000 per year into your retirement plan each year combined with your $2,000 contribution.”
How the System is Funded
* TSERS Source of Funds for year ending 12/31/2009
• Employees contribute 6% of their paychecks each pay period.
• Employer/General Assembly has contributed an average of just over 3%
for the past 7 years.
• Investment returns make up the remainder
From ( http://www.nctreasurer.com/ret/Active%20Employees/PensionFactSheet.pdf)
By the way, 6% of my salary is more than $2000! The average teacher salary is around $46,000. That would be a $2760 contribution.
From
Click to access 3-25-13-QUICK-FACTS-Teacher-Salaries.pdf
“Teachers making 85% of the national average”.
We are among the lowest paid teachers in the country (46th). We were dead last if you factor in a 15.7% average salary decline in the decade from 2001-02 through 2011-12.
From
Click to access 3-25-13-QUICK-FACTS-Teacher-Salaries.pdf
There are 22 states that have a lower cost of living than NC
http://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/index.stm
Based on the cost of living, we should be paid somewhere in the middle of the range, just what we are asking for.
Melissa Walker, MA, NBCT
So proud of my friend, Stuart Egan. It takes courage to speak out these days.
Great response from Mr. Egan. I don’t think I could have remained as civil. Senator Curtis was patronizing and ill-informed. I think citizens of North Carolina need to do a better job of electing officials. Senator Curtis is an embarrassment.
Absolutely brilliant Mr. Egan! You stated your case,and that of every teacher in NC,very well. I would remind Senator Curtis that teaching is the mother of all professions. I know for a fact that he had some very good teachers as he and I went through the same school system. He owes much of his success in life to those people.
I left teaching (in NC and the profession) last year because of the lack of salary increases and minimal hope for change in the future. With that said, being a former Mathematics teacher, I have an issue with a certain argument that teachers tend to use.
You can’t say you are 10 month employee’s but then state that your ANNUAL salary is too low. If you work for 10 months then you should be paid for that 10 months worth of work.
If you want to compare your 10 month salary with another profession’s 12 month salary you need to multiply your salary by 6/5 or 1.2 So, if you are paid $40,000 for 10 months of work, that’s comparable to someone making $48,000 for 12 months of work.
If you are 10 month employees, it is not the employer’s responsibility to pay you for the other 2 months.
Ummm… well… How do you propose that the teacher get that extra (net) $8,000 in that two-month job, and (at the same time) fulfill the needed ‘professional improvement’ activities?
But, perhaps you are more likely saying that teachers should NOT call themselves “10 month employees” and, in that case, I think you are absolutely correct. Back in my day, a teacher could actually get a ‘summer job’ to supplement his or her income. I, for example, had a regular gig as a swimming pool manager. But now that teachers work a full ten months (instead of nine), this has become almost impossible. In fact, if challenged by someone claiming that teachers ‘only work 10 months’, they should fight back by asking what job they think is available at the same pay with the employer understanding that you will quit at the end of two months.
I know Britain is now falling down the rabbit hole, however I liked their traditional school year… Teachers were ‘year round’ employees, with three months in the classroom and then a month off, during which most lead groups of students on special projects (enrichment exercises). This way, the kids forget less during ‘vacation’, and it’s clear that teachers are 12-monthers.
Gee Scott, I’m actually relieved you left the profession. Although your math skills seem to be adequate, your logic and reasoning skills absolutely suck. The only ones using the ANNUAL salary argument are the politicians. Every response from educators I have seen compare teacher’s salaries to other teacher’s salaries, not 12 month employees. You impose a provision on the argument that has no merit, just like a politician would. If you make $40,000 in a year, that is what you make. Period. No one from the IRS asks if it took you 2 months, 10 months or the entire 12 months to make it. Hourly employees make an HOURLY rate. Salaried employees make an ANNUAL rate. Teachers just happen to only earn a salary for 10 months. There is no reason whatsoever to compare a 10 month to 12 month salary, any more than to compare the amount a doctor makes for heart surgery to a plumber fixing a toilet. They both earn their pay. Of course it’s not the SAME pay.
Who makes $40,000? I am a teacher and have seven years of experience, but still paid as a beginning teacher. Divide my salary if you want by ten, it still doesn’t make a difference. If we are dividing by ten months then we should divide the total number of hours we work and see what the pay comes to! I have done the math and we (beginning teachers) are paid $12.92 an hour. Do you realize we are required to attend weekly meetings? Do you know we are only paid to work from 7:45 to 3:45 but also have before and after school supervision assignments (unpaid) so students are safe at all times?
You destroyed him. I’m so tired of these legislators and their arrogant attitudes and disdain for teachers and other state workers…thanks!
Thank you for speaking up for us and writing the perfect response. I hope the public sees this and realizes the truth of the matter.
Amen and amen! It is time for Mr Curtis, Mr McCrory, and Mr Tillis to kiss their political careers goodbye. It is unfortunate, but their treatment of teachers and public education is unforgivable . Especially considering their attitudes toward educators! Mr Curtis’ attitude toward teachers is embarrassing and uncalled for! He benefited from his education! 8 weeks vacation! How about all the unpaid overtime teachers work! My wife is a teacher, and just to do what she feels like is required of her she works most days 2 to 4 hours past the time she can go home! Many if her summer days are spent on workshops, getting her room and lessons prepared ahead of time! If figured on an hourly wage would be making below minimum wage! I know a young teacher, whose wife is also a teacher who had to work in a convenience store until late at night and in weekends after the birth of his child just to make ends meet! Please Dr. Curtis go back to the private sector! I got a feeling your going back whether you want to or not!
Sadly this man is my representative. I went to high school with his daughter. Even Republican teachers in my area are infuriated about this. Unfortunately no one is even running against him due to our incredibly gerrymandered district.
I think this is very good idea to teach a lesson or two to some clueless politicians who don’t have to endure the hardship of academic workplace culture, let alone be on this mortal coil long enough, for any denouement.
Thanks Mr. Egan. Senator Curtis, you should be ashamed as well as the “other 40 idiots” who agreed with you. My daughter is the last class of NC Teaching Fellows and will graduate from Elon University next year. I pray Senator Curtis has a grandchild in the public school system and that my daughter is his/her teacher. Wouldn’t that be funny? Ms. Wiles you are to be applauded for your email. Let’s hope the idiots are voted out of office and those who value education in North Carolina will truly take a stand for teachers.
Thank you for taking the time to write this right on target response to such a condescending reply to this teacher. Is there a venue to get it published for a wider national audience, I wonder? I think this sums up the opinions and lack of knowlege of many of our elected officials. The general public needs to have their eyes opened. They are voting these people into office who are in turn hurting their children.
As a teacher in the Winston Salem/Forsyth County Schools, and as adjunct faculty at Wake Forest University, I had the privilege of working with Mr. Egan in Wake Forest University’s Master Teacher Fellows Program. Mr Egan is uncommonly bright and passionate. He has been since his days as a student teacher, working on his MAEd. He’s the kind of teacher you’d want your kids to spend their days with. I find it inspiring that he’s written articulately to express his ire at yet another cheap shot at educators from a North Carolina legislator, as well as pathetic that he felt compelled to. I taught for thirty-one years, and my career in the classroom, my hours with the kids, the academic freedom I was accorded by principals, support from parents, and even my toe-to-toe punch-ups with school system administrators were among the very greatest gifts in my life. They were matched in degree only by the frustration I felt at the rank abuse of the profession by politicians. Rather than understand the sacred trust of public education and its utterly essential role in a participatory democracy, and the need to support and nurture the object of that trust, far too many politicians see public education as a convenient whipping boy, a defenseless mark, come election time. In the vast bog of election rhetoric, no one was ever elected having spoken articulately about what a marvelous enterprise public education is. Rather, much evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, the default rhetorical position is that public education is “broken,” and “I’m just the guy to tighten the screws and hold those perpetually vacationing freeloaders accountable. If elected I’ll apply some simplistic entirely irrelevant business model to public education, and hold everyone accountable to standards formulated by politicians and bureaucrats, convenient to populist political stances.” I’d been teaching only a few of years when “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform” was published, thirty-one years ago. And politicians have been making appallingly ill-informed political hay of it, and its premises ever since. I’m afraid public education is on the verge of succumbing to the beat down.
When I came home from Chapel Hill during my freshman year and told my mother ( a now retired teacher) that I wanted to go into the field of education, my dear mother sat down in the floor and cried. I loved my job and my students for 16 years. Now I am a just a front line soldier on battlefield. When my body drops, the generals will just put another body in my place.
Please, Mr. Stuart Egan…….let us know if you receive a response from Dr Curtis in regards to your letter to him. I’d love to hear his comments to your factual and heartfelt letter. Maybe he’ll share it with the 40 lawmakers he spoke about in his response to the teacher. I believe you may have given them the “clue” they need.
I’m sorry that it took me this long to see this. Coming from a family full of teachers (though I’m not) he is absolutely right. Growing up here I can remember plenty of my teachers working multiple jobs just to get by which after spending all that time going to school so they could get a career just seems wrong. As for as North Carolina being a low cost of living state, maybe it is, but Forsyth County/Kernersville doesn’t seem to be part of that. Which is sad when you think about it, growing up in a town you won’t be able to afford to live in when you grow up. I mainly on read this because Mr. Egan was a favorite teacher of mine in 97/98. I’ve wondered about him through out the years, glad to see he is still around.