Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Of Teachers and Salaries

Nathan Mayberg reports in today's Register-Star that the Hudson City School District has finally reached an agreement with the Hudson Teachers' Association: "Hudson school board approves contract with teacher's union." It seems that only those teachers already receiving the highest salaries--the "most experienced teachers and department heads"--will receive an increase in pay. The rest will see no change in salary through 2014.

On the topic of salaries for HCSD teachers and administrators, Lynn Sloneker on her blog Unmuffled reports on the latest data available at SeeThroughNY: "SeeThroughNY releases 2012 school earnings." In Columbia and Greene counties, the Hudson City School District has the distinction of having the largest payroll, totaling $17.8 million, and the greatest number of employees who were paid $85,000 or more in 2012.

Tangentially related to all of this, Gossips recently discovered, listed in the Hudson City Directory for 1905, the names and addresses of all the principals and teachers in the Hudson schools of the time: the high school, the Fourth Street School, the Sixth Street School, and the Allen Street School. Not surprisingly, every one of them lived in Hudson, and many of them shared the same address. For example, Florence Cragin Allen, who taught Latin at the high school, Florence M. Andrews, who taught science at the high school, Margaret T. Daley, who taught fourth grade at the Sixth Street School, and Miss C. A. McFerron all lived at 610 Gifford Place (now Columbia Street). Mary H. Cohoon, who taught fourth grade at the Fourth Street School, Anna B. Larabee, who taught third grade at the Fourth Street School, and Agnes M. Smith. who taught fifth grade at the Allen Street School, lived at 12 North Fifth Street. The Misses Pultz--Jennie and Mary--who taught seventh grade and third grade respectively at the Sixth Street School, lived at 458 Partition Street. It was a different time.

4 comments:

  1. In the early 1900's the teachers were probably all required to be single and lead very chaste lives. I suspect they lived together, maybe in boarding houses, because it was unseemly for a single woman to be out on her own!

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  2. Nice! Those who are paid the most get more. Those paid the least get nothing.

    Good system, especially given the superb results of the Hudson schools!

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  3. Why are these high salaries acceptable by the community? Is it because we are getting the best education possible at the highest compensation rate for our children? If these salaries were based on merit, it would be understandable. But the reality is that it's mediocre teaching resulting in children who will remain trapped in the system, and we will never know the extent of their probably inspiring potential and intelligence. We are paying so-called educators to intentionally keep lights buried under a bushel...which is the status quo in Clown Town. Where is the community indignation and outrage?

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  4. Start a school voucher system! This is the product of monopoly schools dominated by the monopoly union. Their compensation is utterly unaffected by results. They are behaving exactly as one expects monopolists to behave.

    Wasn't the most successful education program in Ametican history, the GI Bill after WW2, a voucher system? Until the schools have competition, Hudson -- and I mean all of Hudson, not just the more presentable parts of Warren Street and Allen Street -- is screwed.

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