Monterey Bay Forum

DrCameronJackson@gmail.com

Why might the teachers in the Mountain View – Aptos High School district be paid the most in California?

Might it have anything to do with private Stanford University which is located in the heart of Palo Alto, California? Berkeley has CAL but apparently the teachers in Berkeley, California are not as good as those in the Palo Alto-Aptos District since Berkeley, California teachers make less money.

Palo Alto, California is OLD money… not like Berkeley. Mountain View, California is filled with Asians from all over the world. They are attracted to the Silicon Valley and the computer industry in that area.

The Aptos – Mountain View are the best — so they say — and hence are paid the highest wages. What say you?

Just thinking about the teachers that have been on strike in Wisconsin. The teachers in Wisconsin are the highest paid int that region of the U.S. Yet, only 1 in 3 8th grade students in Wisconsin can read proficiently Which means that two out of three (two-thirds) of students in Wisconsin cannot read proficiently — even though they have the highest paid teachers. And Wisconsin teachers/ public sector employees spent 2 weeks of protesting that they be asked to contribute to their health care and retirement.

As a tax payer, what percent of health benefits do Mountain View – Aptos High School teachers pay? And what do they have to pay into their retirement fund? The first day that Jerry Brown was on the job as governor in California he replaced 6-7 persons on the board that permits charter schools. Charter schools in California are competition for the public school system.

Obviously Gov. Brown wants to gut charter schools which means kill competition for the public schools. It appears that Gov. Brown wants the California teacher unions to keep on dong what they have been doing — turning out mediocre students at a high price to the tax payer.

On the other hand, some high schools in California graduate a lot of smart, able to compete anywhere students. Is it because of the public school teachers or is it because of the home life and general environment wherein these high school students live?

Do students in the Palo Alto – Mountain View excel because they have the highest paid California public school teachers? Doubtful. My guess is that nature (genetics) and nurture (family environment) account for more than 75 to 80 percent of why the Palo Alto – Mountain View students excel. New from the Voice, Express

“According to data released by the state Department of Education this month and compiled by the Sacramento Bee, teachers in the Mountain View-Los Altos High School District are the highest paid in the state.“We have the best teachers in the state and they deserve to be paid well,” said Superintendent Barry Groves.

The Bee’s report, which examined districts with more than 100 teachers, said MVLA pays an average of $95,365 a year, with the lowest earning $61,184 and the highest $115,616.“We value our beginning teachers,” Groves said in regards to the starting salary, adding that they are an “investment.”

He said one reason for the high pay scale is that the district attracts and retains experienced teachers.

According to 2008-09 data from Ed Data, a collaborative Web site that analyzes data provided by the state, MVLA teachers averaged 11.2 years of teaching experience and 9.3 years with the district. Twenty-three of the district’s 193 teachers, or about 12 percent, were first or second year teachers.

But when compared to county and state figures, it appears that in terms of teacher experience and longevity with a district, MVLA is only comparable, rather than noticeably higher.

Joe White, associate superintendent of business, said another factor is the cost of living in the area.

“When you put a blanket across the state or various parts of Northern California it makes it look like, ‘Wow there’s a huge difference,’” White said. “But there’s a huge cost of living here.” He added that many employees, including himself, commute from other areas to work in the district.
For Superintendent Groves, the chief issue was teacher quality.

“I believe that MVLA has a cadre of professional, highly qualified teachers in every academic discipline,” Groves wrote in an e-mail. “As we have high standards for achieving tenure in our district, we believe that our teaching staff is second to none. Our students and their families profit by this incredible group of professionals.”

According to the state data, teachers in the Mountain View Whisman School District make an average of $61,147 annually. The lowest pay offered in that district is $44,609, while the highest is $82,315.

In the Los Altos School District, teachers earn between $44,832 and $86,924, with an average salary of $73,569.
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Comments
Posted by Ted, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 3, 2010 at 6:45 pm

The side-by-side comparisons are misleading. You compare the HS district against the elementary districts, suggesting there is some correlation.

MVWSD are among the lowest paid teachers while their administrators are among the higher paid! Compare their salaries to other local elementary salaries.

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Posted by Jess, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 3, 2010 at 7:15 pm

and on top of Ted’s comment…. Los Altos School Disitrict (K-8) is amoung the LOWEST paid in Santa Clara County!

They have one been in the top 10 elementary school districts in the entire state yet they are one of the lowest paying in the county! Doesn’t make sense. Poor teachers (literally)

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Posted by Scot Lee, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 10:32 am

I live in Mt. View but teach High School in San Jose. Based on averages (I’m an eleven year teacher) MVLA High School District teachers are making in excess of 25K more a year than teachers in Eastside Union High School District. I hope we all keep that in mind before pushing another parcel tax for schools down home owners throats/.

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Posted by Neighbor, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 2:31 pm

@Ted – I’m confused. Which is the high school district and which is the elementary school district? (and why are they different?)

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Posted by Anonymous, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 2:43 pm

As a teacher in the Mountain View High School district I must say that the level of professionlism in the district is very high. MVHS is ranked among the top 3% of schools in the entire country and we have a very hard working, dedicated staff. Many teachers are at work before 7am and do not leave until well after 4pm. We come in on the weekends, work on lessons at night, and collaborate during the summer. Compared to many other professionals in other industries we make less money and have to deal with more scrutiny. I am thankful that my salary allows me to live and help to support my family in this community and I only wish that hard working teachers in other districts could be paid what they deserve for committing their lives to such a challenging profession.

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Posted by parent, a resident of the Waverly Park neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 2:50 pm

In response to Jess – “Los Altos School Disitrict (K-8) is amoung the LOWEST paid in Santa Clara County!”

According to the story, LASD’s average is $73,569. The low is $44,832 and the high is $86,924. Whereas, MVWSD’s average is $61,147. The low is $77,609, and the high is $82,315. The number clearly shows LASD’s pay is higher than the MVWSD by over $4,000 on the high end. Let’s stick to the facts.

One of the reason the pay is lower in wealthy districts such as LASD, and Cupertino is because the school demographic is made up of more educated families; thereby, allowing teachers to focus on teaching and not on non-educational related issues. Bottom line is that their work load is less than other districts.

LASD has several parcel taxes which the money goes to providing student related programs.

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Posted by jane, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 2:53 pm

Teachers by and large are so dedicated and hard-working — I am thankful that there is a district that can pay them close to what they are worth!

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Posted by KD, a resident of the Waverly Park neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 3:26 pm

Salary is only a portion of a teacher’s compensation.

A 65 year old male teacher in California, earning $100,000 a year retires after 30 years service with a (taxpayer guaranteed) pension of $75,000 a year.

Web Link

What is that worth?

Well, at current rates, it costs $1,000,000 to purchase a $75,000 life annuity with survivor benefits (assume he has a 60 year old wife).

Web Link

It would take $1,400,000 (before tax) to build up a $1,000,000 401k nest egg. Over 30 years that’s $46,000 a year (ignoring the impact of present valuing, etc)

Think about it.

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Posted by Bob, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 3:58 pm

Anonymous:

Wow you guys work from before 7 to after 4!. Isn’t that just a standard 8 hour day? And you collaborate in the summer (when you’re not working!). …hardly matches the work load of professionals in other fields.

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Posted by CHW, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 4:01 pm

Besides good pension, teachers do not work 12 months a year. They get the summer off.

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Posted by Ann, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 8:21 pm

Dear Anonymous – your account of working from 7am to past 4pm, and even during the summer – undermines the veracity of any claim you have tried to put forth about going an extra mile.

The truth is that most folks work 8-hour days, through the summer, and make less than MVLAHS teachers.

I agree with Scot Lee: I am not at all inclined to support another parcel tax.

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Posted by huh?, a resident of the Blossom Valley neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 10:50 pm

parent-

the salaries are all over the map and if anything, it looks like the MORE educated the parents, the higher the salary… look at the ‘bachelors + 60′ salary for what appears to be the closest to apples-to-apples comparison. I highly doubt teachers in the Palo Alto ($82k), Menlo City ($82k), Hillsborough ($86k) and Las Lomitas ($101k) districts have a more difficult caseload than San Jose ($71k), San Francisco ($64k), Ravenswood City ($62k), South San Francisco ($62k) and Oakland ($54k) districts. It is unbelievable that Oakland pays half the salary of Las Lomitas for what appears to be the same level of education. I would offer that compared to similar communities up and down the peninsula, the Los Altos Elementary district underpays by quite a bit.

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Posted by huh?, a resident of the Blossom Valley neighborhood, on Feb 4, 2010 at 10:55 pm

I do not doubt for a moment that teachers work long hours (my sister-in-law is a teacher and brings her work home almost every night and often on weekends). I’ll withhold judgement on future parcel taxes until I read the language of the proposal.

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Posted by Anonymous, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 5, 2010 at 7:25 am

In response to the number of hours I wrote before 7-4, I would like to clarify a few things: I said before 7am and well after 4pm. Many days I leave work at 5pm or later, I have only one or two free lunch times a week where I can get some work done, but most of the time I am helping students. This makes for a 9+ hour day almost every single day with no breaks. In addition, I also stated that “we come in on the weekends, work on lessons at night, and collaborate during the summer.” I can’t remember a single weekend during the school year or the summer that I didn’t do lesson planning, grading, collaboration, or some other form of professional growth. Most weekends, I work on Saturday AND Sunday. Most evenings, after dinner, I am lesson planning and grading. Also, many of my colleagues have a second job in the summer or teach summer school to make ends meet… and most of them still can’t afford a house in Mountain View.

Please be respectful of how hard teachers work and don’t think that we just collect a paycheck and lay about in the summertime.

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Posted by Castro Mom, a resident of the Castro City neighborhood, on Feb 6, 2010 at 5:21 pm

I love the teachers at my daughter’s school! They work hard, the principal is available to talk with, even if only for a moment, as she is usually so busy. We have a faculty and staff who seem to do their best to put the students first. These people earn every penny they get!! As for the summers off, I don’t think so!! I know many who work other jobs, and teach summer school–although even that perk for our students has pretty much gone by the wayside. Anyone who thinks a teacher in the MVWSD sits idly by in the summer, is out of touch!!

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Posted by I’m a mom, a resident of the Cuesta Park neighborhood, on Feb 7, 2010 at 9:12 am

Teachers work amazingly hard. Don’t let anyone fool you! They take their work home nightly and worry about their students daily. On the weekends, they are in their classrooms on the weekend. Sitting around in the summer? Most of the teachers need to take classes and workshops and plan for the coming year. Their class sizes are getting bigger and parents are getting much more demanding. Classes are full of children with special needs (thank you no child left behind) and teachers are struggling to teach to the wide range of students who are entering elementary school. The Mountain View and Los Altos School District teachers should be compensated equally to the high school teachers. The elementary school’s are the building blocks for those successful students down the road. It is too bad the Superintendents and School Boards of both those district’s don’t value their teachers like the MVLA high school district. It’s a shame!

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Posted by DCS, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 7, 2010 at 9:20 am

Anonymous:

I worked 15 hour days/weekends/summers in a technical profession and still did not receive this type of compensation. Your compensation is extremely good. Be thanful for what you have.

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Posted by InTheKnow, a resident of the Blossom Valley neighborhood, on Feb 7, 2010 at 3:50 pm

Teachers’ summers are WITHOUT PAY, as are vacations! Teachers may opt to draw their salaries over 10 or 12 months, giving the impression that we are paid during the summer, but we are not. We do not have three months off during the summer; that it a common misconception. We are unpaid when we continue to work in our classrooms at year’s end, and we are unpaid for the days, often weeks, we come in to set up our rooms to make them a pleasing place in which to be. We plan as grade level partners and as individuals. As an elementary school teacher, I typically put in a 60 – 80 hour work week. I spend hundreds of dollars of my own money every year on classroom supplies, materials, and books for my students. Fortunately, I love teaching. But the disparity between the pay between elementary and high school is not right. Nor is our salary adequate.

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Posted by another teacher, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 8, 2010 at 5:17 pm

About the misconceptions I hear everyday regarding teacher’s retirement pensions,…. a large portion of my monthly salary is sent to STRS, and it is not matched by the school district. It’s similar to buying an annuity, and the payout is determined in part by the option I choose (less money in order to provide monthly income to a spouse if I pass on first.) Otherwise my survivor receives a very small final sum. If I outlive the average person, it’s a good deal, but if I die younger, it’s not. That’s the way insurance works. If teachers have good pensions, it’s because they are required to save not because the public is gifting them undeserved largess.

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Posted by Evan, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 9, 2010 at 6:28 am

another teacher:

that’s why you should “spike your salary” right before retiring like past supe and assist supe did in MVWSD! Roll in everything you can (cost of health insurance, travel expences, ect into your final high three).

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Posted by D. Morton, a resident of the Shoreline West neighborhood, on Feb 9, 2010 at 2:11 pm

I am a father of a first grade teacher in Butte county and I can tell you it is one of the hardest and mentally demanding jobs one can have. Parents expect the teacher not only to teach their children, but to do the things that they as parents should be doing at home, such as discipline, respect for peers and elders, accountabiliy, etc. Teachers also put in extra hours nightly and on weekends preparing lessons and grading papers, etc. Yet even with this, the rewards of being a teacher are enormous, for they are the teachers and mentors of the next generation.

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Posted by Parent at MVHS, a resident of the Waverly Park neighborhood, on Feb 12, 2010 at 5:29 pm

Neighbor asked: “Which is the high school district and which is the elementary school district? (and why are they different?)” School districts in California are not set up like in other places. Where I grew up, each city/town had its own school district; sometimes small towns were combined into one district. Here, the districts were each created separately, at different times over the last century and a half, and the districts overlap. Sometimes you have Unified districts (like Palo Alto, where all the schools in K-12 are one district) but more often you have separate elementary districts and high school districts. For ours, Mountain View Whisman School District(MVWSD) (encompassing most of Mountain View and a handful of Palo Alto addresses) and Los Altos School District (LASD)(encompassing most of Los Altos, part of Mountain View, and a bit of Palo Alto) both feed into the Mountain View Los Altos High School District. Half of the kids in each high school are from MVWSD, half from LASD. Separate district, separate funding, separate administration. This is just “how it is” in California.

Now, about parcel taxes. The High School District has never assesed a parcel tas. Both elementary districts have them, and property owners who live within the respective district’s boundaries pay the parcel tax accordingly, to either LASD or MVWSD. Parcel tax revenues can be used for teacher’s salaries and other programs.

The High School district is placing a BOND measure on the ballot. Bond measures cannot pay for salaries, they pay for facilities improvements. A short way to remember this is Parcel taxes=People, Bonds=Buildings.

From what I can tell, in general teachers’ salaries are commensurate with how much money a school district has. I agree with the earlier poster who demonstrated that the communities with higher-educated parents have higher-paid teachers. More property tax revenue could account for some of this (higher education=higher income=nicer homes and high test scores=higher property values in the district=more property tax revenue), if the districts are basic aid (if you don’t know what “basic aid” is, Google California Education Funding, then prepare to read a lot and still be confused!), but also because parents in those districts are able to support educational foundations and parcel taxes, providing supplemental funding to districts and freeing up funding for salaries.

Mountain View Los Altos High School District is a Basic Aid district, and is relatively well-funded compared to many California School Districts. They are not rolling in dough, and are experiencing cutbacks due to the funding crisis, but to a lesser degree than many other districts. Hence, they have been able to pay their teachers more. I think they are fortunate that they have been able to compensate the teachers so well, at least so far. I will say that I think they have excellent teachers. And, High School Teachers all need specialized teaching credentials rather than general credentials. You do want your Calculus or Physics AP teachers to really know their stuff. So these are people who could probably make more money in industry, but their calling is teaching. I don’t have a problem with how much they are paid. I’m glad we have high caliber instructors preparing our kids for top-notch colleges.

Those who complain that teachers have cushy jobs must not have any friends or family who are teachers. Lots of fun to go on a vacation weekend with one and watch them spend hours correcting homework. Teachers work a lot more hours outside of the school day and calendar.

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Posted by former teacher, a resident of another community, on Nov 11, 2010 at 7:44 am

I have been both a high school teacher and a tech professional.

Which pays more? Tech, by a long shot! Which is more demanding?

Engineering for me requires long hours and often missed vacations, but there was always an ebb and flow to the work, both long term and short term. If I’m not feeling well, or just having a slow morning, it is usually manageable. I spend long hours in the cube, but at least for me, when I go home I leave work at work.

Teaching is brutal in comparison. Teachers are ALWAYS “on”. Not feeling great, or just having a hard time getting going in the morning? Too bad. There are students expecting a creative, energetic, and sharp person to lead their class. And when I went home at the end of the day? Plenty of work came with me. Feeling like you need to miss a day due to illness or family matters? Better think twice, because catching up is really, really tough.

Summer? Nearly every summer I had was spent working an average of 10 to 20 hours a week. I frequently attended week long all day seminars without pay, and was usually overhauling or creating lesson plans throughout. I often was prepping for a new to me course for the next school year. I laughed at the comments containing “3 months off for summer”. It’s not nearly “off”, and mine were much closer to two.

I know there are engineers and other professionals who are “on” throughout the day. I’m just sharing my own experience.

Side thought? Superintendant Groves needs to give more thought to whether his teachers are indeed second to none. Most of them are quite good, but he is still paying top dollar to a significant percentage of clunkers.

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Some schools do a terrible job of educating their children. In failing schools in California parents of children in failing schools could exercise “parent trigger”. Parent trigger allowed parents to replace the public school system with a charter school.

Now the powers that protect the adults that run the public schools seek to crush parent trigger.

“Parent trigger” school reform was undermined by Governor Jerry Brown on his first day of office, He replaced seven reform members of the state board of education with UNION ALLIES including a lobbyist for the California Teachers Association. The new board plans to re-write the rules that govern the parent trigger law.

Assemblywoman Julia Brownley and state schools chief Tom Torlakson, both voted against parent trigger last year, plan to amend the law. Expect them to work for appeal of the parent trigger law.

When parents in Compton, CA exercised the parent trigger law the teachers urged parents to rescind their petitions Then, when that did not work, the district required parents to bring official photo identification knowing that some are illegal immigrants. A judge issued a temporary restraining order stopping the verification plan. In response the school administrations declared all petitions disqualified based on technicalities — some petitions were not stapled and some legal code numbers were mistyped.

Think Obama might speak up for the children in Compton, CA? Doubtful. Remember what happened to the charter schools in Washington D.C. — that Obama refused funding to continue even though they were successful? There’s a case where a black President does not step up to continue a success story for poor, black urban students. Why might that be? Obama supports the teacher unions because he and the Democrat Party get money from their dues. Money which pays for his re-election.

The struggle by the public sector unions in Wisconsin part and parcel to what the public schools and unions are doing in California. The public sector unions want to keep control.

What can the public do? Connect with organizations that work for responsible change. For example, one organization to join is Ask Heritage. Join and work for responsible government.

Go to www.askheritage.org and take their latest quiz. It is fun and you will learn important information. For example, did you know that 1 in 5 persons in the U.S. is entirely dependent on the rest of us? Our system is creating dependency and that is not healthy.