Very well said. I agree 100%. Where would our children be without you wonderful teachers! You are getting them ready for their futures and deserve everything you are entitled to!

On first reading, all three of Mr. Martell's ideas seem reasonable. I believe, however, that there are legitimate reasons that Framingham residents don't know about as to why the union and the school committee have yet to come to an agreement. For example, someone on Frambors pointed out that maximum class size numbers are higher in teacher contracts in nearby towns than the Framingham teachers' union would like. So I, for one, am glad that the school committee is taking time to make sure that any new contract will be fair for both the teachers and the town. I don't think the school committee has to say no to everything that the teachers union is asking for, but the teachers union should not get everything that it's asking for either just because it is a teachers union.

Mr. Martell while I do appreciate the work that you do I am not in favor of any COLAs this year and for the near future until the economy can get out of the mess that its in. While I can appreciate the sacrifices that you think you have made - let me share with you some of the sacrifices those of us had to make in the private sector.

1. No raises (or reduced salaries) for the past few years, the teachers so far have as you have said had taken the hit for just 1 year so far.

2. Work hours greatly increased with no increase in pay. You want a defined work day. Well in the private sector the defined work day is when the work gets done, why should this be different for the teachers? The guy that's getting a call from home at 8 PM from his wife asking if he is going to make it home for dinner or tuck the kids in is going to have a tough time appreciating the need for you know at what exact minute can you officially go home for the day.

3. The teachers gave up 2 days pay. Again tell this to the guy who is working 70-80 hours a week but not being paid for it. Or the guy that finally goes on his vacation with his family and still has to deal with a number of work calls during it. Or the guy that couldn't go on vacation because the business had to make a last minute push to get something out and all vacations were cancelled.

4.Benefits - tell that to the guy paying 50% of his health with a $5,000 deductible.

This is not the time to be asking for stuff.

Derek -
If teaching sounds like such a great option to you, why don't you change careers? I'll tell you why - because it probably pays half of your private sector job that is requiring 70-80 hours / week. Who do you think is picking up the kids and making dinner in the homes of teachers?

M G - I'm not saying I want to be a teacher. And when you factor in benefits and dollars per hour worked in many cases you will not find the private sector job really any better.

The point I'm trying to make is that the private sector feeds the public sector. Without the private sector there would be no public sector. For the past few years now - the private sector has taken a real beating - whether it be wages, cost of benefits, elimination of benefits, lack of any job security, and long lasting unemployment. To a number of us the 'hits' the teachers have taken are miniscule compared to what the private sector has had to endure. The public sector asking for anything right now - comes across as biting the hand that feeds them.

Teachers are underpaid. If we want to reduce the achievement gap, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession.

Having a teacher from the 25 percent most effective group of teachers for four years in a row would be enough to eliminate the achievement gap.

Good teachers, even kindergarten teachers, increase their students’ earnings many years later. An excellent teacher raises each student’s lifetime earnings by $20,000. If there are 20 students in the class, that is an extra $400,000 generated, compared with a teacher who is merely average.

Moreover, part of compensation is public esteem. When people mock teachers as lazy, avaricious incompetents, they demean the profession and make it harder to attract the best and brightest. We should be elevating teachers, not throwing stones at them.

Consider three other countries renowned for their educational performance: Singapore, South Korea and Finland. In each country, teachers are drawn from the top third of their class, are hugely respected and are paid well. In South Korea and Singapore, teachers on average earn more than lawyers and engineers.

We’re not going to get better teachers unless we pay them more.

People who lambaste teachers as greedy are simply making it more difficult to attract the kind of above-average teachers our children deserve.

Perhaps salary increases should be based on merit so that we reward those teachers who are most effective.

As an aside, Framingham teachers do not bargain health insurance as part of their contract. Health insurance benefits are not included in the teachers contract and are negotiated with all town employees as a group. So having the teachers union claim that they agreed to cuts in health care is not the whole truth, since the teachers union had a single vote in that (and those negotiations were down outside the scope of the current FTA agreement) and that the health care changes were across the entire town employee base. Speaking of health care, let us not forget that in Framingham, the town pickups almost 90% of the cost of health insurance for teachers. Framingham pays one of the highest, if not the highest, percentage of health care costs in the Commonwealth. Talk to the CFO of Framingham and ask her what the single largest expense item, besides salary, is in Framingham.. It is health insurance and it is growing a very large rate.

Health care costs for the teachers are not even a line item in the school budget. All the funding for that comes from the Town's general fund. Every position added to the school budget, be in teacher, administrator, or support staff, causes not only an increase in the school budget but also in the town's budget. This practice must be changed so that a full accounting of school spending in Framingham can be provided.

It is also important to note that despite the writers claim that there was no COLA in the last contract, teachers still received salary increases of 5% and 8% midway through the year due to step and lane changes.

For those unfamilair with the terms, a step change occurs every year (for about the first ten years of a teacher's career - as they get more experience they move up a step in the ladder, hence the term "step".) The majority of these step increases are 5% and approximately 50% of the teachers in Framingham receive step increases each year.

Lane changes occur when a teacher achieves a new level of education . The teachers receive a 3% increase in their pay when they change lanes and may change lanes at any time in their career.

So, an open question to the teachers union (and representatives), how many teachers received a step increase and what was the average increase? Also, how many teachers changed lanes since the signing of the last contract and how much was the average increase?

Brad makes some excellent points. And its these games of words that continues to cause distrust of anything that comes out of the union's mouth. For the rest of us in the real world when our salary is increased - we say we got a raise. We don't care if its an A raise, B raise, or C raise - Its a raise! But somehow this is not true for teachers. True, not everybody gets a step/lane raise every year, but to blur the lines that since you didn't get a COLA means you didn't get anything seems somewhat deceptive to me. I think Brad asked some excellent questions that we all deserve to hear the answers for.

And for those who are interested, here is the current salary schedule:

There are 7 lanes and 13 steps in each lane.
Lane: Bachelors: 45,000 - 71,000
Masters: 48,000 - 77,000
master+15: 49,000 - 78,000
master+30: 51,000 - 80,000
master + 45: 53,000 - 82,000
master + 60: 54,000 - 84,000
doc: 56,000 - 85,000
amounts are rounded. first figure is the first step, the last figure the highest step. the + in the masters is based on the number of credits towards a doctorate and lanes can be moved as soon as they are confirmed.

these ranges do not include any supermax steps that are available in the contract once a certain number of years experience is attained.

I will leave it to the folks out there to determine if these salaries are overpaid, underpaid or just right.

There are also other income sources within the contract based on additional roles taken on by the individual.

Brad since you found the dollar values do you know for how many days they are 'contracted to' for this salary. We all know about the 180 days but I assume they have other obligation days as well? If we really want to talk about over/under/just-right paid - we need to be comparing apples to apples. We should be talking how much salary for how many required days of work.

Here it is from the contract that is posted on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which is a little dated (2011): "C. Teachers will be available for one additional day beginning in the 1998-99 school year for professional development activities. Teachers will be available for one more day beginning in the 1999-00 school year for professional development activities. Thus commencing in the 1999-00 school year, the work year will include 180 student contact days and two teacher professional development days."

I don't know if any additional days were negotiated last year.

In contrast, a person who worked 5 days for 52 weeks with the exception of 15 holidays would work 245 days. So teachers are obligated to work 3/4 of the days that the typical full-time worker would be required to work in a typical year.

Right Linda. Teachers just show up that first day of school and start teaching. I guess they have little Christmas elves that set up the classroom and prepare lessons. I'm not sure if you've had any involvement with teachers, but most I know put a lot more effort into it than you are giving them credit for. And again, if it's such a great, high paying job, why aren't there people lining up for it? Do you really think $54,000 in the Boston area for a teacher with masters plus 60 is a high salary?

M.G. Do you imagine that most full-time salaried employees in the private sector actually work a 5-day week on average? Do you know that zero teachers in the Masters + 60 lane actually make $54,000 per year? 89% of the teachers in the Master's + 60 lane are at the the maximum step, and about half of them earn longevity bonuses of $2,000 or more. That puts them at roughly $84 K or more.

M.G. I really do appreciate great teachers who put in the time and energy into their classes and bring them to life for their students. In fact, Mr. Miskin and Mr. Martell are examples of that type of teacher, and I have the deepest respect for them professionally. And yes, I know many teachers put in a great deal of prep time beyond their 6-7 hours at school and 180 days, especially dedicated teachers who are new, new to their grade, or/and those who have a real commitment to improving. Other teachers who have taught the same courses forever? Not so much. People in many other salaried professions do similar preparation though, it is just what they are preparing for is different. It really doesn't translate all this "extra time" that teachers put into their jobs that other professionals don't.

Regardless of COLA's which adjust the steps and lanes of the salary schedule, our teachers get a salary increases at a far higher frequency than most salaried employees. A salary increase is simply an increase in the amount of money you are paid and when a teacher moves up a step or across a lane, they get more money. Whether the amount they get is appropriate is debatable, but lets stop saying that teachers have worked without raises for the last couple of years and gave up their raise last year - all they gave up was an adjustment in the salary schedule. They still received step and lane increases, and some get increases just because of the longevity they have in the system. And lets also be clear that lane changes, those as teachers move closer to higher degrees - those degrees don't have to be in the area they are teaching. For example, a biology teacher at the HS could pursue at Masters in Art and move through the lanes as they get closer to their Masters Degree. An art teacher holding a bachelors can change lange by pursuing a masters in sports medicine. And simply holding a higher degree doesn't make you a better teacher and worthy of a higher salary. One of my best professors at college (and one of the best as voted by the students year after year) didn't even have a doctorate degree. He was a far better teacher than many with PhD in the same field. Teacher salary should be directly related to the performance of that teacher as it is in the working world.

"Teacher salary should be directly related to the performance of that teacher as it is in the working world."

Can I just point out that teachers (at least most of them) do work many of them quite hard, and therefore are part of the "working world?" Just saying...

What I mean was it should be based on attainment of goals and performance, as it is in the private sector. If you dont perform as expected, you dont get rewarded as expected. just because you have been at your job for 5 years doesnt mean you are entitled to a bigger increase than someone else, or just because you get a masters degree in art history and are a chemistry teacher doesnt mean you should get a raise. Salary increases should be based on how well you do your job, how your students/parents/peers evaluate you. Its hard to come up with some but I think a good principal can figure things out....

So what is there clearly defined work day? What hours do you propose? If it even an 8-hour day like the majority of Americans? And keep in mind 90% of teachers get the summer off. I don't count Christmas, Feb & April vacations as most americans get 3 weeks of vacation time too, but we are all working 8 if not 10 hours a day on salary with no OT and don't have 90% paid health care benefits.