The Oakland Press recently published a
story about substandard teachers’ pay that was written by a school teacher and
featured two teachers who each earn more than $80,000 a year complaining that
educators were forced to secure second jobs to “make ends meet.”
According to the Midland-based Mackinac
Center, Julia Satterthwaite, who works at the Rochester Community Schools
district and is a summer intern for the Oakland Press, reported
on financially struggling Oakland County teachers by almost exclusively quoting
her colleagues in the Rochester schools.
compiled by the center through the Freedom of Information Act, Mackinac’s Tom
Gantert revealed the quoted teachers’ salaries and pointed out misinformation
they had given Satterthwaite, the article’s author/teacher. The teachers cited
in the newspaper story work under labor contracts negotiated by affiliates of the Michigan
Education Association.
“The article featured one of the author’s
colleagues, Karen Malsbury, who has been teaching for 14 years. Malsbury was
quoted as saying, ‘There is little or no room for professional growth, little
opportunity to increase your personal income, no step increases, no bonuses, no
inflation pay rises, rising health care costs and more requirements to take
college level classes to get up-to-date endorsements.’
“Except, that’s not accurate. Rochester
Community Schools teachers did experience a freeze in their automatic,
seniority-based “step-increase” raises in 2013-14, but the raises continued in
2014-15, with additional step increases scheduled in each of the remaining four
years of the current contract.
“While the story didn’t mention how much
the teachers who were featured get paid, these figures are a matter of public
record. Malsbury was paid $87,349 in 2014-15. Satterthwaite herself collected
$65,987 from the school district. Under the district’s MEA union contract these
compensation levels were for 184.5 work days.”
teacher Erin Slomka, 33, of Lake Orion, said she had to take on a second job selling
skin care products. The online version of the July 15 Oakland Press story offered a link
to Slomka’s company and the products she sells.
“It’s
necessary for me because I lived this year with a reduced paycheck due to
taking unpaid leave as part of my maternity after having a C-section,” Slomka told
the OP.
“I have been
living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes not having any money left after I paid
all the bills. Not having any money for two weeks because all of my earnings
were basically spoken for on the day I was paid has been paralyzing for me.”
rate of pay for 2014-15 was $61,741, according to the Mackinac Center’s
research of her MEA contract.
true that many young public school teachers near the bottom of the pay scale
earn a modest salary, Gantert reported that many educators downplay – or even
distort – the value of the “step increases” in their contract that boost pay
annually, beyond any raises negotiated by the teachers’ union.
For example, a
Hudsonville teacher quoted in the OP story said financially struggling teachers
in her district had suffered through several freezes in step increases over the
past five years.
But the
information received through FOIA by the Mackinac Center shows that the teacher, Lori Humphrey, was paid $80,472 in
2014-15 and her comments were not accurate.
According to the Hudsonville district’s MEA
union contract,
Humphrey didn’t have to endure pay freezes. The three-year contract specified
183 work days, and also included step raises for each year. An example provided
in the contract’s text spells out how step increases work, so that eligible
teachers will get a 7.7 percent salary increase in the 2016-17 school year.
