Yet another Jim Mangan diatribe graced the Opinion page of Friday’s Daily Times. This time he’s attacking District 108 for paying their teachers too much.
First off … Mangan’s criticism is blatantly hypocritical. District 303, whose board he sits on, pays their employees nearly the same as 108. Why does 108 deserve criticism, but 303 does not? Why does Jim Mangan hate District 108 so much?
Secondly, Mangan compares the average salary of a District 108 teacher ($50,643) to the average salary of a resident of Pekin ($36,486). What sacrilege that public employees are paid more than those who pay them!
On a visceral level, that statement probably has some appeal to Manganites around Pekin. But then if you actually use your brain and think about it …
All teachers are required to have AT LEAST a four-year college degree. Almost exactly half (49.9%) of District 108 teachers have Master’s level training and above. In addition, District 108 teachers have an average of 15.3 years of teaching experience. These numbers are based on the 2006 Illinois District Report Card. The report card also lists the 2006 average teacher salary for District 108 as $47,730 … not $50,643.
The American Federation of Teachers 2004-2005 teacher salary survey estimates an average salary of $47,602 nationally. District 108’s pay scale is well in line with that average, and they are below the average Illinois teacher salary of $56,494 for the same period (or $56,685 based on the 2006 report card). I think we’re getting quite a bargain for the level of training and experience we have in District 108.
What does Mangan expect District 108 to do … pay their teachers at a level far below the national and state averages? How would the district recruit and retain quality teachers if that was the case?
Again, Jim Mangan proves that he doesn’t care one bit about quality education for our children. He just wants to save a few bucks on his property tax bill.
1 response so far ↓
1
tom
// Mar 31, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I’ll bet Mr Mangan never voted “Yes” for any of the contracts that were negotiated with 303. His track record is one of many “no” votes on issues that pass by wide margines. i’m sure that contracts are no different. So I guess we coulds assume that he didn’t flunk business 101 since he voted against everything.
The problem with all of this is that people read his garbage and many take it as gospel. those that do would not even consider that he is currently on a school board and has conveniently left it out of the criticism. This man will stop at nothing, when it comes to this issue. Just when you think things are dying down, he shows up on the editorial page. He gets worse with every word he puts on paper. he is comparing apples to oranges when it comes to average salaries within Pekin. Educated people should be able to see this. Let’s just hope that the editorial page gets flooded with responses to his latest garbage.
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