Why the WI teacher union complaints don't add up... It's in the math.

It seems that every time I travel to my homestead of Buffalo to visit my parents, I must invariably come armed for a debate on current politics and/or labor unions because the conversation inevitably turns down that road. My parents are vigorously pro-union and that is fine if that is what you believe in. Since I have moved out, I have done my own homework and have come to my own conclusions on unions (which are a little less favorable).

It is important to note that though I may have problems with unions, I do not have problems with the individuals who are in them. My parents both work very hard and are very good at what they do. I admire that. I however cannot admire some of the things that labor unions as a whole stand for and advocate.

During my last trip home I performed a thought experiment that I found very provocative. The scenario involves the case of teachers unions that urge cuts to administrator’s salaries as a means of closing budget gaps. Sounds good right? It’s similar to Gov. Cuomo’s recent proposal to cap superintendent salaries (which I actually agree with).

Well, let’s analyze this idea. Just to be fair, I am going to apply this analysis to the Brighton Central School district of which I currently reside in and I will use real numbers where ever possible (referencing and describing assumptions where possible). I am doing this to demonstrate my argument not with political rhetoric but with simple mathematics… a language in which it is far more difficult to lie because we all know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Right?

The Brighton Central School district (as of 2010-11) with a budget of $62 million, teaches 3,512 students in 1 high school (gr. 9-12), 1 middle school (gr. 6-8), 1 grade school (gr. 3-5) and 1 elementary school (gr. K-2). The Brighton District has a reputation for being one of the better schools around the Greater Rochester Region (feel free to look at the stats on the school yourself).

Now let’s say Brighton is facing a budget crisis (which they may very well be… I am not sure if they are) and they need to make some cuts. There are 356 professional staff (which I assume means teachers) making a median salary of $59,871. For simplicity, let’s round that to $60,000 and not include additional compensation like bonuses, retirement, health and vacation benefits. (For additional info on average teacher salaries and benefits in various states.)

Let’s count one superintendent, one assistant superintendent (2 total) and one principal and assistant principal for each of four schools (8 total for the district) for a total of 10 administrators. The average salary for a superintendent in NY is $163,000. Let’s just round that up to $170,000 for simplicity and to capture some of the bonuses and added benefits. And assume both chief and assistant super’s make the same salary. Let’s assume our 8 principals (assistant and chief) make $100,000, which is rounded up slightly from the $93,000 figure I found (again, to incorporate bonuses, benefits, etc). I believe these are all fair assumptions. Feel free to point out where they are not.

Now here’s where it gets a little nasty: the district says “We need to cut teacher compensation by 5% to close our budget gap.” The Teacher Union says, “Screw you! Cut the compensation of those rich S.O.B. administrators instead! They are making all the money.” This inevitably leads to name calling, strikes, picket lines, yelling protests and potentially 15 state Senators hiding from their jobs across state lines in say... Illinois. But we’re smarter than that, so let’s put all that aside and look at the numbers, shall we?

On average, a 5% teacher pay cut looks like this:

Each teacher would loose (on average) $3,000 in pay per year while it would save the district just over a million dollars a year, or about 1.7% of the overall district budget. But teachers are middle class working folk, the administrators are rich snobs and make nearly double what the teachers make! Sock those S.O.B’s!

Here’s what a cut to their salary looks like. And we’re going to wring those rich bastards really good… with a 10% pay cut!

Awesome! We slapped those rich administrators with deep cuts of ten and seventeen thousand dollars saving the district a total of… a measly $114,000 a year (or 0.2% of the budget)!

Taking a closer look at the numbers shows that you would have to completely eliminate the salaries of the 10 administrators all together in order to have the same effect as cutting teacher pay a modest 5%..

Why is this? Well, teacher compensation accounts for a far greater percentage of the budget than administrator compensation.Take home message: In a business hierarchy, the people at the bottom are much more of a budgetary expense than the people at the top because there are far more of them. This same analysis could potentially apply to any corporation or business.

I am not advocating that we excessively cut teacher pay. It is a difficult and important job and if you cut it too much, no one will want to be a teacher. Same goes for working as a school administrator. I think in reality, cuts at all levels are going to have to be realized in order to close budget gaps.

There you have it. I probably pissed off a lot of people by pointing this out… but please let me know how the numbers are lying to us.

By the way, I would like to thank my math teachers for teaching me how to think this way. :-)

"Private Life" has gone dark again.

Private Life in a Glass House Blog has gone dark again, but it is never too late to turn the lights back on. For close to three and a half years I have been posting here on and off and I am again returning from a rather long three month hiatus. It is kind of hard to figure out precisely what to write about and what my blog should focus on even though there is a lot going on in my life and my mind is always working a mile a minute. I am always commenting on some recent news story, my recent efforts at running and some personal events in my life but the posts seem to follow the random path of an ADD inflicted Blogger with zero attention span.

One idea that I came across was to use blogging as a means to be more productive at work (#4 on the list). My personal favorite from this list is "#2 - Bring your dog." That sounds pretty awesome... but I think the bosses might frown upon having a dog wandering around the offices and it may be a safety risk.

My bosses would be a bit disappointed if I were to spend time on the clock writing to my personal blog, it may help to try it out at home on my own time a bit. This idea has added accountability to my training and races, so it's worth a shot. To sum up some of the more recent activities going on in my life.

1. On the job I am focusing on performing and documenting calibration checks for a fleet of 10 instruments located throughout the building. Pretty good considering that just about 2 to 3 years ago, I didn't even know how to operate these particular instruments.
2. Wedding plans... invitations, bachelor party, order of events, ceremony music. All that stuff has been occupying Emily and my time.
3. Training for the Flower City Half Marathon. I will be running my first race next weekend. A 5 mile St. Patric's day run.

More details to follow.

Yay for “tax cuts” or “tax status quo”

Big news this week. Hell must have frozen over because there was finally something that both congressional Democrats and Republicans could agree to, a bill extending the tax cuts put into place by former President Bush. The very same ones he vowed to repeal on the campaign trail (don’t have a link for that one yet). The bill also included maintaining the tax rates for those evil evil top 1% of earners. I know… how dare they work hard to be successful and not share with the rest of us lazy people who don’t want to work hard, right?

I’m not going to advocate the need for increasing taxes in these difficult economic times. I think that would probably make things a lot worse. People would have a lot less money to spend and the economy would probably start to slow down again. However this bill simply does not make ANY sense. First off, the bill that was just signed is not a tax cut. No one’s taxes are going down, they are just staying at the rates established by President Bush. It should be more appropriately named the “Tax Status Quo Bill”. The main reason why I have difficulty with this bill is because of the 13 month extension of unemployment benefits. Again, being in a position where you are on unemployment must be very difficult and (like tax increases) I am not advocating an elimination of extensions of benefits. It too would probably make things worse. But these two things coupled together simply makes no sense to me!

It costs money for the government to pay people who are temporarily out of work. The government gets its money from taxation. So we are going to continue to pay more of our money to people who are out of work but not increase the revenue stream that we are using to pay them? WTF? In what universe does this add up? This is like me quitting my job on Monday morning then going out to buy a 50 inch plasma screen television that afternoon. I would be bankrupt by Friday with that kind of logic.

The only way I can see this working is if the unchanged tax rates spur further economic growth thus prompting more tax revenue to be taken in by the government via Art Laffer’s supply side economic theory (nerd alert, nerd alert… I apologize). Don’t look now, but if this works, you “tax and spend democrats” have just endorsed supply side economics and turned your backs on your “soak the rich” ways. You may have some explainin’ to do!

I however remain skeptical as President Bush’s tax rates have not really spurred much growth over the past couple of years and they have left my paycheck and wallet feeling kind of light.

2010 Racing Recap!

You are probably wondering why I have not posted in a long while. Since my last post, we have seen the November elections come and go and have watched a few ludicrous arguments over tax cuts unemployment benefits and Lame duck Congressional sessions. One would think that this loud mouthed blogger would have something to say about all of that. Honestly, I have been too busy and lazy to do so. In due time… it will come.

Anyway, I last week I ran a 5k Road race, the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis. This race capped off my 2010 racing year (much to the chagrin of Chris – my fellow running partner who is training for the Boston Marathon).

2010 was a big racing year for me, so let’s recap:

Before putting foot to pavement, I laid out a schedule that began in April and concluded in December. The schedule alternated longer races and shorter 5k races about every 3-4 weeks. This approach allowed me to be constantly motivated to train for something new, but not get burned out in the process.

I started in May with the Brighton Fun and Fit 5k with a time of 24:29. For Brad and I, this was the first race we had done in quite some time. It was a crucial first step in returning to racing. This was a relatively new race so the field of runners was small. As a result, I took home a prize for the top finisher in my age group. I had never received a prize for running before. My time was nothing impressive, but it was a great way to get motivated to keep running throughout the year! Later in May, I ran in the Lilac Festival 10k crossing with a time of 51:18 (ran race with Chris… much further ahead of me). I love this race and have enjoyed running it before. My time was not good compared to previous years (where I ran closer to 48 minutes. However, I did get my race number autographed by Dick Beardsley! (Another first). Also notable to mention… Chris and I cheered on Brad and Emily as they ran in the 5k race prior to the 10k. Good job Emily!

June started off with another one of my favorite races… the J.P. Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge 3.5 mile. This marked the 4th time that I have ran this race. I ALWAYS push my self in this race. The crowd is huge and it’s familiar terrain as I ran the RIT campus loop at least a couple times every week while in grad school. I crossed with a net time of 25:53. There are some gaps in my training records for previous time I have ran this race, but my time this year was substantially off from my 2008 time (about a minute). I’ll come back ant hit that race hard in 2011. In order to really push my self, I ran another race just 2 days later. The Nazareth College Sprint for Scholarships 5k. I ran with Brad and used it more as a recovery run, but pushed my legs in the second half of the race. Time: 24:06, faster than the first 5k of the year by about 20 seconds! As if that was not enough, I ran in the Festival on the Green 5k with a time of 23:40, another PR for the year. Finally, my times are dropping!

Now comes July with my first significant mountain to face. The Utica Boilermaker 15k. My first time running in a field of 14,000 runners and first time running 15k distance. A brave step into new territory leading to a net time of 1:22:31. A rather slow pace due to the difficulty of dealing with a crowd of runners that size. Now I know what to expect… I will be back in 2011 to top that time!

In the weeks following the Boilermaker I developed an injury that forced me to switch to biking for a couple of weeks. That was not going to stop me though. I kept active, eased back into running and healed things up. I had to keep running because August had a very important race, the Peter James Cannon Memorial 5k. This was to benefit the scholarship fund set up following Peter’s tragic death in a car accident during February. On one of the hottest evenings of the summer, I ran a 23:04, a PR for the year… by 37 seconds. Impressive.

September, now comes the big one. I have had my eyes and focus on this race all year: The Rochester Half Marathon. 13.1 miles looping from Downtown Rochester, through Brighton, the canal trail, U of R, Corn Hill and finishing at Frontier Field. My Mount Rainier. Uncharted racing territory. Ran 12 miles with the encouragement of Chris (thanks again Chris). Crossed the line in 1:48:42 for my first ever half marathon!

Surprisingly, I recovered pretty quickly. I did not race in October, but focused on increasing the distances of my individual training runs. However in November, a new challenge faced me. The Mendon Trail Runs 20k (12.4 miles). When making my race schedule, I decided to include this race as a part of my training. A 10k loop through the relentless hilly, root covered dirt trails of Mendon Ponds park. Finish the loop… and run it again. After two days of cold rain and the first snowfall of the year starting 15 minutes before the race start, Chris and I tackled this beast. It took us 2:00:28 to complete. The longest sustained effort I have ever had for a race. My first experience with a trail race was painful. I was glad it was over, but I was glad I did it.

Finally, to finish out off. December had one final 5k race, the Jingle Bell 5k Run for Arthritis. The plan: run it as a time trial, push what ever else you have out of your legs. I did just that with a time of 22:02! That’s the fastest 5k I have on record for me! About 2.5 minutes faster than where I was in April. What a great way to finish the year.

• 9 Races
• 60 total miles raced
• 8 hours, 26 minutes and 13 seconds
• 8:26 overall race pace
  

Now I break from running until February 2011, through I may do some other exercises that won’t pound on my legs so much. Next year is the big one… the Rochester Marathon. September 18, 2011. Time to climb Everest.

Day 2 of my recovery

If you have followed my twitter and facebook updates you already have noted that I achieved my goal of running my first half marathon. Given that it was my first race at this distance, I could not be more thrilled with my performance.

Sunday morning was rather chilly, cloudy and in the upper 50's. The race began (at 7:45AM) with Chris, Brad and my self running about the first 4 miles in a pack. The fact that we were very chatty and animated during that time helped put my mind at ease. I kind of forgot that I was embarking on a 13.1 mile journey! My pacing was fantastic despite it being my first half marathon race. In the first 5 miles, I was between 8:20 and 8:30 pace. In the remaining miles, I dropped to a pace between 8:00 and 8:15. With every mile split I was pleasantly surprised each time I looked at my watch! I even managed to hit near 8:05 for miles 12 and 13.

When all was said and done:

• I crossed the finish line with a time of 1 hour, 48 minutes and 42 seconds, an overall pace of 8 minutes 18 seconds per mile. This was enough to earn me my Silver Medal Goal. I placed 323 out of 1838 half marathon finishers and 37 out of 110 in my age group (Male 25-29).
• Chris ran nearly the entire half marathon with me (12 miles) before breaking away and finishing ahead of me. This was after he ran about 8 or 9 miles before the race. He had to get in about 23 miles of training for his first marathon scheduled for October.
• Brad crossed the line with a time near 2 hours and 7 minutes... this was only after running through some significant pain in the last 5 miles. He believes he somehow sprained his foot. The medics were quick to elevate and ice his foot shortly after his finish. He's back home in New Hampshire reporting a swollen and sore foot... but hopes to return to training once swelling drops down.
• And of course... Kiel, the runner in our group with prior marathon experience ran the full marathon and crossed the line in a time of 3 hours and 24 minutes.
  

Two days later I can report that I am sore EVERYWHERE on my body... not just legs, but arms, back, abs and hips. It is all muscle soreness as far as I can tell. The type that will eventually go away allowing me to (hopefully soon) run some more.

There you have it. I have summited my Mount Rainier.
Cheers to that!