While teachers in Utica, the second-largest school district in Michigan, continue to battle with the administration over a new union contract, a news site reports that the district has the highest-paid teaching staff in the state, with an average salary of more than $80,000.
Michigan Capitol Confidential found that the Utica Community Schools average teacher salary is $82,065 and the highest-paid teacher earns $109,364. Those are figures for 2018-19 from the Macomb Intermediate School District and the Michigan Department of Education.
The Utica Education Association (UEA) union says the 1,400 teachers have given concessions over the past 10 years and it’s time for the district to pay up. The union contract expired last June and a vote in January on a proposed new agreement went down in flames, with teachers voting to reject it by nearly a 9-1 margin. The district’s offer was compared to a minnow.
Particularly harmful were the freezes on “step increases” that grant an annual move up in the teachers’ 28-step pay scale, which has cost individual teachers tens of thousands of dollars combined, according to the UEA. The union says the highest-paid ranking for Utica is “misleading” because the district has the most veteran teachers in the state.
School Superintendent Christine Johns claims that a modest contract is needed to maintain financial stability and to prepare for a projected 5-year substantial decrease in enrollment, though the UCS student count has remained fairly stable for more than a decade, much like the largest school districts in the surrounding area of Macomb County.
The neighboring Warren Consolidated school district had the state’s second-highest average teacher salaries last year at $81,204.
While the average salary in some rural districts stands at $50,000 or less, all of the state’s top ten districts for teacher compensation are located in the Detroit tri-county area.
Michigan Capitol Confidential, which is affiliated with the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, has for years written reports that challenge the narrative that teachers are underpaid, that many have to work two jobs, or that they sacrifice by paying out of their pocket for classroom supplies.
Photo: UEA Facebook page
The Utica Board and the teachers are engaged in theatre to scare residents into approving more money for the schools. On March 10 the Macomb Intermediate School District is asking for 1.9 millage (66% increase) which they intend to distribute to the individual districts for operations. This will result in an increase of 21% for Utica. They don’t deserve it. As far as I’m concerned, if the teachers want more money, then they should be prepared to work more hours: the 180 day school year is a failure. In Utica only 57% of 4th graders are proficient or advance proficient in English (Reading).
An employee for the state, with the educational equivalent of a Masters in their field, works a 219 day year after you subtract sick days, holidays, vacation days, and personal time. That is even more generous then you will fine in the Corporate world. And, that same employee makes about $70K at the top step. According to the Michigan Dashboard, the median pay in Michigan after 5 years for people with a Masters degree is $69300.
Teacher get paid to much in Michigan and work to little. People no longer can afford millages for a system that is so broken
maybe if the government didn’t manage teachers salary’s and we give vouchers to students to use at private institutions such as a charter school, we could see more effective use of that money. there is so much wasteful spending in public education that its insane.
I don’t care about “effectiveness” complaints about charter schools, when Detroit public schools allow people to graduate from high-school and DON’T even know how to READ, that PROVES our government and public education has failed them.
a business that operates on a limited income and has to deal with what they get has to make smarter decisions than a system of public education as they can always ask for more money from the county or pull from teachers pensions (because the government can do that, a BUSINESS CANNOT). A charter school has to maintain its reputation for the quality of the education or else parents WOULDN’T apply for their kid to go there and they would go under. with a public school failing your kids, outside of suing the government there is nothing you can do and many parents in Detroit who have had the public school system fail them cannot even FATHOM having enough money to hold the government responsible for failing their kids.
you can still have MEAP’s as well as other state and federal standardized tests to assure that these schools are doing well. Public education system has been failing our kids. IQ’s are dropping all across the country, our education rank has been dropping since the formation of the department of education. the rest of the western world is out-pacing us for the most part and our quality of education is just utter garbage.