Tough Break For Aspiring Teachers

April 19, 2010 7:31 PM

In 2007, Macleans reported that the oversupply of education graduates was contributing to the teaching job shortage in Ontario. What has been to rectify the situation? Not much, according to new reports that "Retired teachers working in 10 [Ontario] school boards [...] collected $108.3-million in the 2008-09 school year from taxpayers on top of their government-subsidized pensions, taking advantage of a system rife with loopholes that leaves new teachers scrambling for crumbs."

From the article:

The investigation revealed widespread overspending, with boards favouring retirees over new teachers for supply assignments at a higher pay scale that, in some cases, doubled the cost to the taxpayer. One retiree working in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board worked a total of 106 days in 2008-09, earning an estimated $47,000 on top of what is already one of the most generous pensions in the country.

Other provinces, such as Prince Edward Island, have reined in such largesse by stopping pension payments when a teacher takes a long-term supply assignment. But in Ontario, even as Premier Dalton McGuinty has been lambasting postsecondary institutions for loose spending, the policing system to make sure retirees aren’t milking the education budget relies on an honour system.

posted by gursky (33 comments total)

I have heard this a lot from people in the US who were attracted to a teaching career - the entrenchment of seniority rather than the oversupply.
posted by anigbrowl at 8:00 PM on April 19, 2010

My niece graduated from teacher's college a year ago, and her class was told they could expect that it would take them five years to get a permanent contract. Five years. Wow. When my mother started teaching school — at 17! — she did so after taking a summer school teacher's course that only lasted a few months. It was the late fifties and the Ontario school boards were desperate to fill teaching positions because of all the baby boomers and more women staying at home with their kids. (Mum did take the full year teacher's college course a few years later, and got a B.A. via night school when she was in her forties.) It does seem to be all about the demographics, and, of course, the current reigning pedagogical philosophy..
posted by orange swan at 8:01 PM on April 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

The pension is not solely a government present. It's something teachers pour money into, and that the government contributes to largely out of self interest given the fact that the fund is one of the most powerful economic actors in Canada. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Teachers'_Pension_Plan. And as Wikipedia shows you teachers have been paying quite a bit to keep the fund stable.

Teachers earn their pensions. When they work on top of that, they earn money for working. Scandal! They get chosen because they're more qualified! Oh no! Let's forget that, well, Ontarians just aren't churning out babies and that Tory-era policies drove kids out of high school in large enough numbers to constitute a major educational crisis. But Macleans liked those guys, so ignore that!

But the worst thing of all is that they have the retirement compensation you deserve, but can't have because you don't belong to a union. Macleans and the Globe largely exist to redirect your unease at this fact to working people like teachers, instead of the social dynamics that pay Conrad Black's wife to moralize monthly in the pages of the former.
posted by mobunited at 8:03 PM on April 19, 2010 [44 favorites]

Marry me, mobunited.
posted by regicide is good for you at 8:07 PM on April 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Heh. I got an Education degree in BC in 1999, and left the country because few school boards in BC (at least in places where I actually wanted to live) were hiring teachers.

The thing that got me was that all through teacher training school, the administrative staff and the department heads were always saying "You're just in time! The boomers* are retiring! Soon there will be a teacher shortage, and you're perfectly postioned!"

So, I went back overseas for another 5 years (man, those five years flew past), and when I returned to BC in 2004, the Ed minister of the day (Christy Clarke) decided to increase classroom sizes. So, not only were boomers* not retiring, the increased class sizes meant there were few openings for teachers.

So, I did something else with my life to make ends meet. I stilled dreamed of creating the perfect social studies unit with primary sources.

By about 2007 (nearly a decade after I got my Ed degree), teachers were indeed retiring, and it was quite possible, even in Victoria, for someone fresh out of UVic to get a temporary teaching contract.

I would love to go back to teaching, but there is just no way to support a family in a union environment where you have to start at the bottom of the pay scale, no matter what your experience is. It took me 3 years in the private sector after returning Canada to earn a salary that would take me ten years of accumulated seniority to qualify for. In my fourth year, I was making more money than the top salary pay grade for BC teachers.

And the system seems largely broken. The Vancouver school board has basically been taken over by government. The school boards in BC are all run largely by fat-cat apparatchik administrators who drive BMWs while students have to make due with moldy classroom carpeting and antiquated textbooks.

I don't blame Ontario boomer teachers from double-dipping. In a unionized environment based on seniority rather than competence and quality, it's all about entitlement, and taking whatever you can get your hands on.

*Not BOOMER-IST; or anti-union, for that matter.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:08 PM on April 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

Teachers earn their pensions. When they work on top of that, they earn money for working.

Yeah, these folks have actually contributed to pension plans that are well-run. My mom as a matter of fact works as a teaching assistant while also collecting a pension. The extra bit of money has made her more relaxed than she's been in a long time.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:09 PM on April 19, 2010

Macleans and the Globe largely exist to redirect your unease at this fact to working people like teachers

Yes, that's right, if you agree with anything Maclean's or the Globe and Mail says, it is because they are redirecting our unease.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:13 PM on April 19, 2010

Ayup, I'm one of the fucked-over, too. OTOH, once I got over the bummer of getting shafted, and re-directed my energies, things turned out to be way, way better.

Teaching is work, man, and it pays shit wages. By comparison, the work I've had by benefit of a general post-secondary education and general communication and education skills that are pretty much required of anyone aspiring to teach, has been work that paid better, had sane working hours, and had clearly defined work expectations that didn't involve becomes a volunteer slave to people's pet projects.

My resentment is more toward the lies told during my post-secondary schooling. We were fed a line of bullshit. The departments don't want to lose students, or they might suffer cutbacks. So screw the students.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:25 PM on April 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

If you didn't get mobunited's point, KokuRyu, it's for the best that you're not teaching social studies.
posted by klanawa at 8:26 PM on April 19, 2010

What a mean-spirited thing to say.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:45 PM on April 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

If you are a young freshly-certified teacher, you shouldn't expect to be able to work in your immediate area. There is plenty of need for teachers in areas outside of Toronto - in fact, the government will pay you extra to teach in a low-population area, or in the north. I'm going back to school to get my education certificate and I would much rather move away for a few years than fight for crumbs. As of 2009 I'm pretty sure all provinces recognize teaching certificates obtained anywhere in Canada, so labour mobility is no longer an excuse.

Teaching is work, man, and it pays shit wages.

In Canada, teachers are paid about double what they make in America, so this isn't quite true. After ten years of teaching in BC you will have an 85k salary, which isn't exactly going to buy you a house in Vancouver but it is way above the average. When you factor in the pension it is a pretty nice gig, if you can handle the unique work environment. Well, with the exception of Quebec, which does pay shit wages.
posted by mek at 8:58 PM on April 19, 2010

Is it really $85k after ten years? I thought with a BEd you max out at about $70k.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:00 PM on April 19, 2010

You're right, my apologies.

I work in technology. The more unpaid hours we put in, the more my coworkers resent union members, when the freedom and fairness we're losing are exactly the things unions once provided. It's a shame that you had to diminish mobunited's excellent point by deliberately missing it.

I should note that the company I'm with now is excellent but the previous one was dreadful.
posted by klanawa at 9:00 PM on April 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

There is somewhat of a catch-22 with regards to the hiring of retired teachers.
Not all young people can afford to sit by the phone and wait for a call, so they end up taking other jobs.
Retired teachers are more likely to be available at a moments notice when a principal needs somebody, and therefore they pick up the temporary contracts.

I think the teachers college thing should be stopped. Clearly the faculties are viewing the teachers colleges as cash cows - they are one year programs with very minimal demand on resources. Students in these programs typically have low expectations or their schools (generally it's more of a "show me the hoop and I'll jump through it" situation).

five fresh fish, I wouldn't call the wages "shit" although I guess that's a matter of perspective. My take home was just a shade under $50k last year, and I am still not at the top of the pay scale (I'm at level 5 of 10).
posted by davey_darling at 9:06 PM on April 19, 2010

What was moribund's point?

Anyway, I have provided services to tech employers (aka the "tech sector") for the past five years, and I specialize in HR and compensation. During the years 2005-2008, highly skilled tech workers did very well because of a talent shortage and a booming economy. If you want to work in a unionized environment, go work for HP-EDS or Shared Services.

I don't agree that unions are going to protect the freedom and fairness of workers, at least in the province of British Columbia. Increased international competition in the pulp and paper industry, as well as the implosion of the American housing market and the resulting job losses has been responsible for the decline of freedom and fairness, not union busting.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:13 PM on April 19, 2010

As an American teacher, I make about $72,000/year after 8 years, which seems ok to me. This is in Southern California; teachers in some other states make much less.
posted by Huck500 at 9:32 PM on April 19, 2010

Increased international competition in the pulp and paper industry from other countries with lower labor costs IS union busting.
the implosion of the American housing market and the resulting job losses has been responsible for the decline of freedom and fairness, so economic downturn means less "freedom and fairness"? In a world where "freedom and fairness" are privileges passed down to the workers from all-powerful employers, when they can do so without harming the Bottom Line too much, maybe. Is that the world we are now living in? (Rhetorical question, of course it is.)
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:05 PM on April 19, 2010

Is it really $85k after ten years? I thought with a BEd you max out at about $70k.

As of this year it's $82k after ten years (in BC) if you have gone back to get your Masters degree. With just the BEd, you max out around $74k.
posted by sadtomato at 10:12 PM on April 19, 2010

Increased international competition in the pulp and paper industry from other countries with lower labor costs IS union busting.

The mills in BC don't sell in BC, they compete and sell on the global market. If there is no longer a market for pulp (technological change and the collapse of the newspaper industry is also to blame), you can call that union-busting, you call that market economics. The nominally Canadian companies that employ these workers (Canfor, Atibi, etc) are hurting, too.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:28 PM on April 19, 2010

you can't call that union-busting
posted by KokuRyu at 10:29 PM on April 19, 2010

I wonder why the Maples can't be happy in their shade?
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:32 PM on April 19, 2010

... and when I returned to BC in 2004, the Ed minister of the day (Christy Clarke) decided to increase classroom sizes.

Sort of amazing to this American that the education minister has that kind of power in Canada. That kind of decision would be done at the city level here and I'm sure that everyone would scream about socialism if the US secretary of education tried to enforce a rule like that.
posted by octothorpe at 4:06 AM on April 20, 2010

Octothorpe: the Canadian constitution gives the provinces control of education. Christy Clark was in the provincial legislature as an MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly), and was not connected to the federal government at all. She's not equivalent to a Secretary; in fact, because education falls under provincial auspices, there isn't even a cabinet minister [federal level] assigned to education.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 5:02 AM on April 20, 2010

octothorpe, each province in Canada controls education policy and funding. Education (like most things) is a provincial matter, not a national one. So the equivalent would be a state minister setting a new policy, not the US Secretary of Education. And no one screams about socialism here, we actually know what it means.
posted by Hildegarde at 5:04 AM on April 20, 2010 [3 favorites]

Gosh, look how well we understand the national/provincial divide here in Canadia!
posted by Hildegarde at 5:06 AM on April 20, 2010

What everyone has failed to notice is that a supply teacher costs the same regardless of experience. Its ~$200 a day no matter if you are a seasoned pro or totally green. If costs are equal, who would you rather have teaching your kid?
posted by maxpower at 6:35 AM on April 20, 2010

Other provinces, such as Prince Edward Island, have reined in such largesse by stopping pension payments when a teacher takes a long-term supply assignment.

It has, but it's also failed to open up jobs due to the fact that the school-age population is shrinking quickly. There's a big structural problem where the baby boomers' kids are all deciding that education is the answer to 'I don't know what to do after graduation" and flooding the market while the jobs are shrinking up.

Teacher's college here is one to two years (depending on where you go in the Atlantic provinces); while I sympathize to some extent with the plight of young teachers, I can't really muster up a great deal of sympathy for people who don't look at a job market before applying for post-graduate studies. I mean, I want to do my law degree and go out and practice constitutional law, but I know that a much better plan is to bide my time, work in the public sector in something relevant and watch the job market improve.

We've got this notion that if we have a passion for a job that there should be a job available. Graduate departments in the humanities are full of people on that same course to nowhere.
posted by Hiker at 7:11 AM on April 20, 2010

KokuRyu, the reasons for the forestry collapse - which began in the 90s - are many, including the Liberals having scrapped the rule that logs must be processed near the TFL they were harvested from (goodbye Youbou), the rapacious over-exploitation of the 70s and 80s, and (biggest of all) mechanization. At one time it took two men all day to cut down a tree, now it takes one man all day to harvest a couple of acres using a feller-buncher. It's easy to say that all these efficiencies make the industry more competitive, but the practical effect is that a publicly-owned resource is being liquidated at no benefit to the people who live in the midst of it. The purpose of the changes to the industry is to stay profitable by extracting the largest number of logs and employing the fewest number of people. The government's purpose in all of this is, first, to execute an ideological perogative and, second, to reward their friends and donors. Remember that they simply gave away tens of thousands of hectares of public (forested, productive) land to the logging company's real-estate branch for purposes other than forestry. No strings attached. A literal theft from the people.

But that's completely beside the point. Even as it declined, the industry provided its workers with good salaries and safe (to the extent possible in the most dangerous industry in the province) conditions. If the union had never come about, it would have been third-world conditions all the way up to the end. It would have been a meat grinder.

Things in that industry are changing now in ways that I'm not entirely up to speed on, but the achievements of the union carry a lot of inertia. It takes a long time to strip away things like eight-hour work days and lunch breaks but it eventually happens, as it has in most other industries.

Take technology, for example. I've worked 16 hour days for weeks on end, because programmers in California (like most places) are specifically excluded from the union-won rules that prevent such mistreatment of workers. And those exclusions exist not because techies are smart, or like to be in a cave all day and never see the sun, but because the businesses that employ them (and holdsway in the legislature) want to be able to have middle-class salaries on the books, but pay per hour what is effectively closer to minimum wage. There's only one Google and many EAs.
posted by klanawa at 9:07 AM on April 20, 2010 [2 favorites]

maxpower: What everyone has failed to notice is that a supply teacher costs the same regardless of experience. Its ~$200 a day no matter if you are a seasoned pro or totally green. If costs are equal, who would you rather have teaching your kid?

This is not completely correct. For a long term supply contract (longer than 10 days) the teacher is paid based on their grid placement as determined by education and years of experience (most retired teachers would be maxed out on the grid). Based on my school board grid, a retired teacher on an LTO would get around $460 per day. A brand new teacher with no work experience would be making around $250/day for the same contract.
posted by davey_darling at 9:49 AM on April 20, 2010

What everyone has failed to notice is that a supply teacher costs the same regardless of experience. Its ~$200 a day no matter if you are a seasoned pro or totally green.

Not the least true in BC. In BC, you're on the grid from the get-go. As a sub, it'll take a lot longer to climb up the scale, of course.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:05 AM on April 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

the practical effect is that a publicly-owned resource is being liquidated at no benefit to the people who live in the midst of it

One of my GRAR inciters. We collectively own those trees, but our representatives are damn near giving them away for free. Ditto the tar sands. Ditto all of our resources. Dumbfuckistan.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:08 AM on April 20, 2010

1,000 teachers' education university spots to be cut in Ontario.
posted by acro at 10:13 AM on April 20, 2010

As for forestry workers and mechanization - it's a fact. You can't stop it. True (and as I have remarked in other MF threads), Gordon Campbell is probably the worst premier we've had since Vander Zalm, and I can tell you from professional experience that he does not give a shit about anything outside of 604, and his ec dev policies are worse than half-baked, the restructuring in the forest industry is a global trend. And how long do Canadians have to be people who dig shit out of the ground based on a commodities boom? Hardly sustainable.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:27 PM on April 20, 2010