Public School Teacher Salaries on...

9/7/2007 Jerry M. says:

I say both - yeah, it's interesting to find the answer the the questions that people never ask in our society - how much money do you make? It's a little voyeristic. But a little scary because I'd hate for anyone to know how much I make and have no control over it. (I'm not a public school teacher, btw).

9/7/2007 Kristen "Too many shoes to count" H. says:

I tried it with all the teacher's names I know and didn't get anything for them.  Did anyone actually get this thing to pull up an individual's salary?

9/7/2007 Rachel "The Click Chick" J. says:

Crap.   It's crap---I just looked up every HS, and Jr High teacher that I KNOW is still teaching.  NONE of them are there, AND when I saw a familiar last name (The first name was the wrong gender) I clicked it.  Apparently that teacher had 280 years of experience.  

I call bullshit.

9/7/2007 Rachel "The Click Chick" J. says:

The name search is also crap Kristen.  You have to do a general district search, then click on the district.

9/7/2007 Alexis S. says:

Yeah, I found my bosses wife's salary!

9/7/2007 Sylvia N. says:

I didn't have any of the problems that Rachel J. has listed.  Weird.  My gf (who is a CPSD teacher) and I looked her up last night and she said it was pretty much accurate to the penny.

9/7/2007 Jason L. says:

Also on that site is a link to an article called "Schools Spend All They Can Get, Study Shows". Well, no shit. This is how school systems' budgets work - if you don't spend all the money you've been allotted for the year, you can't justify asking for more the next time around.

9/7/2007 Phil "Up in them gut" S. says:

This is typically information given at the district's home page - it public information.

9/7/2007 Kim "\m/ \m/" J. says:

My teacher friends are all on there - except for the ones who just started teaching in 2006.

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9/7/2007 Mike T. says:

Jason, that is the problem with public ANYTHING for that matter. No business would run successfully if they wasted surplus money on shit they didn't need just because they were under budget. Our public school system sucks because this attitude that they will spend all they have on useless shit just so that they can ask for more.

I understand that there will be the complaints that there are schools that are underfunded and to be honest with you, there are plenty of schools that don't have shit and their students get by. Case in point, the Washington D.C. school district has the largest budget out of any school district in the country. And surprise, surprise it also has the LOWEST test scores. Funny, looks like just throwing money at the problem doesn't work. You have to love our politicians, heads of unions and over all mindless supporters of ideas and solutions that are proven not to work.

Got to love Albert Einstein: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

that quote says it all.

9/7/2007 Brandon "I hate the homeless..ness problem" H. says:

Yikes.. 15 years of teaching and they only get up to 70k? Heidi, is that public, or private?

9/7/2007 Sylvia N. says:

Actualy, Einstein said it like this:  'Vee caannot solve provlems by ewsing zee same kind of sinking vee yoost ven ve created zem'.

9/7/2007 Carrie "Mrs. Cake Ball" S. says:

My mom was the union head of her teacher's union for two years and their pay increases were hard fought. She spent two summers on the phone constantly with people securing the best coverage and raises for them.

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9/7/2007 Carrie "Mrs. Cake Ball" S. says:

Heidi, if I remember seeing my mom's payscale thing correctly, the more education and continuing education that you have, it puts you on a higher part of the payscale. It's like you get jumped up a tier.

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9/7/2007 brennan s. says:

Danielle r said, "the guy that runs the organization is part of the religious reich,"

Yea.  Let's make sure we get a Nazi meme in there.  That'll discredit the source.

If you are paid with taxpayer money, then the taxpayers have every right to know how much you are paid.  If you don't want the public to know, get a job in the private sector where this information is protected by law.  The public has a right to know where every penny of their money is spent.

And Danielle, you obviously lack knowledge on the Third Reich if you think Tom Roeser is goosestepping to the neo-nazi tunes.

9/7/2007 Phil "Up in them gut" S. says:

Yes, private schools are where it's at . . . if you don't mind pretending that evolution isn't a legitimate possibility.

9/7/2007 Ann "tiguerita" e. says:

I think that teachers get an unfair bad rap and get blamed for their students lack of "adequate" performance. Learning starts at home, not when kids hit mandatory schooling and if their parent(s) haven't or don't know how to teach their child how to learn, there's only so much ANY teacher can do. Thus, you have low test scores in low income areas- politicians think that the solution is throwing money at the District, rather than things like Early Intervention and mandatory and accessible Head Start (not to mention funding it well)- so by the time kids are in the District, of course their test scores don't compete! They can't compete. And note that it wasn't until the past 10-15 years that ALL schools were test-based, so currently "poorly-performing schools" were always so, but no one bothered to look and now they're getting a lot of crap.

*stepping off soapbox*

9/7/2007 Mike T. says:

Phil not all private schools are religious or Christian for that matter.

Great point Brennan. When on the public dime, we get to know what's up.

9/7/2007 Ann "tiguerita" e. says:

Oh but Mike and Brennan, if only the same principle applied and the government employees, all the way to the top (mayor, gov, and pres) faced the same scrutiny!!!

9/7/2007 brennan s. says:

This database is good, but it should be available through government websites.  One of the critical components of holding our government accountable is to be able to track every single penny they spend.  Our government should be able to account for and explain every penny they spend.  Disclosing where these pennies go is step number 1.

750 billion dollars is spent every year in the United States on education.  We have the right to now where, how, and why that money is spent.  This amount is almost as much as all of Europe spends on education combined.

9/7/2007 brennan s. says:

Ann e: My views on public disclosure of spending do not stop with teachers.  Every person that collects a pension or a salary that is drawn from the coffers of the taxpayers should be disclosed for public scrutiny.  What the public does with that data is up to them, but when you accept taxpayer money you are accountable to the taxpayers.

9/7/2007 Mike T. says:

And our schools are an utter disaster Brennan.

And yes Ann, if you don't like it go work in the private sector. No one ever forces someone to get a job on the public's dime, there are many choices out there for people.

9/7/2007 Scott J. says:

found all my old teachers and some family members

9/7/2007 Miguel "the Coach" R. says:

Steve - and all -

http://Thechampion.com has been around for a long time.  Sleesy salesmen like myself use sites like this to prospect for new clients.  There are so many sites out there that people use to find out so much about you, like your hobbies, the magazines you subsribe to, where you spend your money, what your tax returns are, the amount of time you spend on the phone..... the list is rediculous.  

Your life is on the net, and someone out there has done a little profiling on you.....

So, is Big Brother good?

9/7/2007 tzikeh "they say of the acropolis, where the parthenon is" r. says:

Personally I think all salaries should be made public -- much easier to prove sexual/racial discrimination when you have two people with the same job title and same responsibilities in the same company with the same number of years put in and the woman / black person / whatever is making quite a bit less.  Transparency is the key to equality.

And I have never had a problem with "what do you make" questions, or "how much did your condo cost you" questions - again, "my monetary worth" is mostly kept secret because we're so used to conflating monetary worth with worth as a person; goodness knows there are endless examples of how that's just not the case.  But then I guess I'm an anomaly; I don't care who knows my age, my weight, what I make, etc. - because I don't feel societally-induced shame about these kinds of facts.

Man, I've taken a look at the last few posts I've made in talk and I'm really coming off as a "FIGHT THE POWER" kind of person.  I'm actually pretty laid-back - if you hung out with me you'd probably be like "Er, is this really the tzikeh I know from Yelp?"  I just dislike all of the pressure towards a variety of norming trends that goes on in our American society.

9/7/2007 Mike "Howler Monkey" O. says:

Wow! My son's preschool teacher makes almost as much as my wife & myself combined! I should have gone into teaching and cashed in at Maine District 207. There's a few $100K's in the group too.

9/7/2007 Dane K. says:

ALL salaries???
it's none of my co-workers business how much i make...  

public teachers are different than private.  they're taxpayer funded (not to mention public jobs are generally directly attributable to years of experience and senority than performance, etc).. and they've always been publicly available. they publish them in newspapers even for that matter.

in the private sector, pay does not necessarily equal years of experience but rather is much more tied to performance ... my co-worker can be a lazy schmuck and have the same experience but make less because he performs less.

finding out how much someone paid for their condo is pretty easy for anyone to do as well... sale price is a publicly recorded transaction (available on http://chicagotribune.com even).. though that won't tell you if they got any credits at closing.

9/7/2007 Astronomer Joe "Yelp's Mustachioed Ubiquitous Bachelor" G. says:

My first fiancee made $120.000 in the CPS... and never let me forget it.

Pauper Joe

9/7/2007 brennan s. says:

Big Brother is traditionally viewed as the government.  However, private enterprise is much more intrusive as they really have no constraints on gathering data and building a profile of you.  Political parties utilize this data in what they call microtargeting.

9/7/2007 brennan s. says:

After crunching the CTA data, I realized I should have been a train operator for the 10 year minimum to hit pension.

9/7/2007 Dane K. says:

you get pension in 10 years on CTA??? that's crazy!  other city workers have a much longer min and/or age combination requirement

9/7/2007 brennan s. says:

Dane: It's not the full pension.  It's a limited pension.  23K per year on average is a very nice limited pension.

9/7/2007 Erin "The Roar is Restored!" B. says:

All teachers are public servants, and it doesn't matter where you teach (public of private), your salary is public knowledge.  

Jason--if I school district doesn't spend ALL the money that they are allotted in a school year, that money is then returned back to the state for whatever they need.  So basically if we don't spend it, it's gone.  We've bought many FM systems for kids this way.

9/7/2007 Sarah "I can too have it all!" B. says:

Mike: "Wow! My son's preschool teacher makes almost as much as my wife & myself combined! I should have gone into teaching and cashed in at Maine District 207."

sounds good in theory and in some situations it could be.  

but can any of you (non-teachers) honestly imagine spending anywhere from 6 to 8 hours a day with children who come from various backgrounds and disciplines, in a classroom often overflowing with too many kids, AND try to get them all to be on the same page at the same time?  add to that lesson plans, an administration that may or may not give a damn, many parents who either are too involved or not involved enough, desire or necessity for continued education and potentially one or more children with things like Autism, ADD, poor nutrition, etc.  It only gets worse if you are a middle school or high school teacher b/c the kids then become overwhelmed by hormones and other societal, familial, etc pressures.
I am glad some teachers are being paid a decent amount--although many of them probably put in a lot more hours that go un-compensated.

I'd just like to see the tax dollars spread a little more evenly across schools.

9/7/2007 Kathy R. says:

I remember in 2003 - the year I worked in that district - Palatine Dist. 15 superintendant John G. Conyers was the top-paid superintendant in Illinois.  His compensation: $353,351.   After that, there was a move to put a cap on retirement benefits for teachers.  Conyers was very disliked around the district by teachers worried about their retirement.

http://findarticles.co...

9/7/2007 brennan s. says:

Teachers are heroes.  But like any profession where one pledges sacrifice to the benefit of the community, it comes with ceilings, lots of them.

We really have no idea what the profession of teaching is actually worth in terms of dollars.  Multiple commissions organized by current and past Presidents and Governors often come to the conclusion that merit based pay and pay increases are necessary to ultimately gauge the real value of educators.

9/7/2007 Sarah "I can too have it all!" B. says:

administrators are often WAY overpaid.  much like some CEOs....