Author: David Kristofferson

Interesting article in today’s San Mateo Daily Journal.

I am continuing to hold behind-the-scenes meetings with local officials on a similar initiative for the San Mateo / Foster City elementary and middle school district to prevent loss of teachers and ensure that we can get the best new teachers for our kids.  One such meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, 11/16.

No one likes to pay higher taxes, though I note that statewide school initiatives fared well in the recent election.  I think people realize that the cost-of-living issue is reaching crisis levels here.

I believe that we need a comprehensive solution involving compromises by all parties: school districts, teacher unions, and the public.  We have been pursuing band-aids for too long.

Stay tuned and please support my efforts by signing up for email alerts from this blog using the form on the sidebar at right or scroll to the bottom in the mobile version of this site.  You will only be alerted to new articles on this blog, not bombarded every time someone posts a comment (unless you actively choose to receive emails on a particular article when posting a comment of your own).

Thanks again for reading and for your support!  If you believe in what I am trying to do, please pass this along to your friends and have them follow this blog too!

Sincerely,

David Kristofferson

From Education Week today:

“According to a new poll, Oklahoma voters, by a wide margin, support a measure that would use a 1 percent sales tax increase to give the state’s teachers $5,000 raises.

According to a March 2015 study by the National Education Association, the state ranked 48th in terms of teacher pay during the 2013-14 school year. Since then, lawmakers in the other states that have hovered near the bottom of that ranking—Mississippi, South Dakota, and Idaho —have all passed bills to increase educators’ salaries. Whether Oklahoma teachers see raises will depend on the results of the November 8 ballot initiative on whether to institute the penny tax. ”

Earlier today on Diane Ravitch’s blog, she posted an alert that the State of Utah was going to base teacher pay on teaching evaluations, and that this would be a terrible idea.

Diane Ravitch is nationally known; she was initially in the Bush Administration, but later turned against the No Child Left Behind Act and has written extensively on its problems.  She also opposes the expansion of charter schools because they drain money away from public schools often in an unaccountable, possibly corrupt, fashion.  I agree with some, but not all, of her positions.

I may get my head handed to me on silver platter, but I submitted the following comment to the post.  The comment was in the moderation queue for a while but went live around 3 PM PDT.

Continue reading “Into the Shark Tank…”

Continue reading “Raising Local Teacher Salaries (part 2)”

Continue reading “Raising Local Teacher Salaries (part 1)”