Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
RON MATUSNext month, Pinellas County voters will answer an age-old question that affects teachers everywhere.
ST. PETERSBURG - Seven hours after beginning work, Michele Johnson careens toward her first and only break of the day. She fishes a cold Pepsi from the bottom of a vending machine. She almost stops.
But before the Northeast High School English teacher rewards herself with a sip, she accelerates again - this time to the bookkeeper's office to turn in money from a senior class fundraiser.
"There's never enough time," she says.
By 2 p.m. on a recent Monday, Johnson, 36, has taught three straight 86-minute classes, plowed into a stack of essays and chatted with visiting graduates. She skipped breakfast and lunch. She did not take a bathroom break.
In spare moments, she checked records to see if one of her students needs to re-take the FCAT, corralled an administrator to ask about senior class privileges and phoned a motivational group she wants involved in freshmen orientation. She even began the process of booking Jethro the Pig for the school's kiss-a-pig contest.
At 3:25 p.m., Johnson will head for the exit, but her life will orbit work for several more hours.
"This is the reality," she says.
So is this: After 14 years, Johnson's base salary is $35,800.
She wants a raise.
It is a common assumption: Teachers are underpaid.
In Pinellas, they average $41,000 a year, which is more than their peers in Pasco and Hillsborough counties.
On Nov. 2, Pinellas voters will decide whether that's good enough.
Two years ago, Pinellas teachers ranked ninth among Florida's 67 counties in average salary, according to the most recent state figures available. But look at median salary - the line at which half the teachers make more and half make less - and Pinellas teachers make about $36,000, dropping them to 21st.
There are other angles to consider.
Pinellas teachers get more than $12,000 annually in benefits, putting them in the top 10 in Florida in total compensation. And their contract only requires them to work 10 months a year.
Still, their salaries are $8,000 below the national average, and since competition for new teachers is nationwide, comparing Pinellas compensation to other Florida districts is like "comparing ourselves to the tallest pygmy," said Jade Moore, executive director of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association.
Weighing teacher worth also depends on subjective factors, including what constitutes decent pay.
Some of Pinellas' 8,200 teachers work like Michele Johnson. Some don't.
But if Pinellas voters approve the Nov. 2 referendum raising property taxes, they will all get more money.
Supporters say there are good reasons to give teachers a raise:
* Their ranks are thinning: In Pinellas, a mass of veteran teachers will retire in the next few years while young teachers are leaving the profession in droves.
* Teaching has become harder: Even as state support for public schools shrinks, the pressure to improve test scores is ratcheting up.
* Good teachers have options: Other districts offer better compensation, as do many private sector jobs.
On average, the $28-million generated annually by the tax increase will translate into $2,500 more per teacher per year, for the next four years. Given other available money, the bump up could be as much as $3,200, the district says.
That's enough to make Pinellas more competitive and boost morale, Moore says.
The alternative is "people who are," he pauses, "okay."
Does anyone want teachers who are "okay?"
Johnson's passion is British literature. She's crazy for Shakespeare. At the University of South Florida, she got a bachelor's degree in secondary English education so she could keep reading the books she craves.
But then a funny thing happened: She fell in love with her job.
"I like sharing with (students) the things I think are important," says Johnson, whose mile-a-minute speech reflects an internal motor that never stops revving. "Especially when they get it. Or they say they love it. Or they say, "I didn't like it before but I do now.' "
Johnson says she doesn't track her hours, but they are clearly beyond the 37.5 required by her contract.
She checks in before 7:05 a.m., when first period begins, and leaves at 3:25 p.m., an hour and a half past the last bell. That's 42 hours. Tack on the work she brings home about three times a week - usually a couple of hours worth each time - and the weekly tab grows to 48 hours.
For extra pay, Johnson teaches three-hour night classes twice a week and proctors four-hour SAT and ACT exams eight or nine Saturdays a year. Like many teachers, she earns small amounts of supplemental pay for added responsibilities.
She serves as senior class adviser, a $500 position, and coordinator for freshman seminar, which is unpaid.
Total income: About $42,000 a year.
Johnson's husband, Roman Johnson, teaches physical education at Northeast High, coaches baseball and football and routinely works 10- to 11-hour days. With supplemental pay for coaching, his annual salary comes to about $37,000.
"This is supposed to be a profession," Michele Johnson says.
The Johnsons and their three sons - 4, 3 and 18 months - share a two-bedroom house in St. Petersburg's Crescent Heights neighborhood. They have a mortgage, double car payments and $1,180 a month in day care bills.
Last summer, they took out a $2,000 loan to keep afloat until the school year started.
On an annual basis, teachers in the Tampa Bay area earn slightly less than police, firemen and registered nurses, and a little more than social workers, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But comparing teacher pay to other professions can be tricky.
On one hand, teachers don't work a full year; the Pinellas contract is for 198 days.
On the other, many work beyond their contracted hours.
Northeast High math teacher Julie Nelson, a 14-year veteran, says she used to stay so late grading and planning she would order take-out with the night maintenance crew. Until five years ago, she waitressed at Red Lobster three nights a week.
"I wanted to put money down on a house," she says.
When the federal numbers are broken down, teachers around Tampa Bay earn an average of $25.52 per hour - not as much as computer systems analysts ($28.94) but more than registered nurses ($23.58), accountants ($22.17) and police ($19.87). The average for all workers: $15.94.
Throw in good health and retirement benefits and "teachers don't do too badly," says Richard Vedder, an Ohio University economist whose work is often cited by political conservatives.
Other researchers come to different conclusions.
Last summer, the pro-union Economic Policy Institute reported teachers, on average, earn $116 less per week than workers in 16 comparable professions, including architecture, journalism and computer programming. Since 1996, wages for teachers have grown 0.8 percent, while wages for other workers jumped 12 percent.
The institute says federal data is misleading because it fails to account for teachers' unique work schedules, including many non-contracted work hours.
In a recent national survey, Florida teachers reported working 50.3 hours per week.
Johnson knows what she's up against: The Internet. Cell phones. Hormones.
She must somehow convince students moved by rapper 50 Cent and pop tart Britney Spears that the pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are fascinating, too.
In front of class, she puts a medieval tunic and wig on one student and has her ride a broomstick with a horse's head on it. She piles books into the student's arms.
Say hello to the Oxford Cleric.
If the dirt-poor cleric was alive today, she'd be camped out at Barnes & Noble and living on Ramen noodles, Johnson says.
The class giggles.
Teaching isn't always fun, Johnson says. All kinds of frustrations play out in today's classrooms. Some days, energy fizzles, even if she won't allow herself to show it.
If you seek to inspire, Johnson says, "You have to be up all the time."
Teacher turnover is epidemic. Nearly half of all new teachers quit within five years, says Richard M. Ingersoll, a University of Pennsylvania education professor.
Pay is a factor.
"People who go into teaching don't check off pay as one of their motives," Ingersoll says. "On the other hand, they get mortgages like everyone else."
In Pinellas, beginning pay is on par with the national average: About $31,000.
But the district's salary schedule - which adjusts pay based on experience and educational background - offers only tiny increases until teachers near their 20th year in service. Raises have been modest, averaging 3.6 percent over the past decade.
"This is where we lose 'em," says Moore, the union head.
Statewide, some 20,000 new teachers are needed every year to pace enrollment growth, meet class size requirements and replace the retiring. But because Florida education colleges are not graduating enough to fill the void, Pinellas and other districts recruit coast to coast.
Even with free sunshine and no state income tax, they say say they're competing on crutches.
In the most recent American Federation of Teachers salary survey, Florida ranked 29th, more than $10,000 behind states in the top 10 and $15,000 behind the leader, California.
Georgia ranked 16th.
Nobody is sure whether the referendum raises will be enough.
"Salary is not the determining factor if teachers are satisfied in a lot of other areas," said Kim Swartzel, senior human resources specialist for recruiting in Pinellas. But "salary can be the straw that broke the camel's back."
According to exit interview data compiled by the state Department of Education, 7.9 percent of Pinellas teachers, or 534, left in 2003, a third due to retirement. The state rate was 5.7 percent.
Nearby Manatee and Sarasota counties bucked the trend, with 1.1 and 2.5 percent rates, respectively.
Both offer top 5 compensation packages.
Technically, there are other ways Pinellas teachers can earn more money.
Under Gov. Jeb Bush's accountability program, schools that maintain A grades or improve a letter grade based on FCAT scores are rewarded with checks that can be divvied up into bonuses ranging from a few hundred dollars to $1,000 per teacher. This year, 68 of 132 Pinellas schools are getting the money.
But because teachers in a given school rise or fall together, excellent teachers in struggling schools can be overlooked. After a string of C's, Johnson's Northeast High dropped to a D this year.
No bonus for her.
National board certification is another route. Teachers who successfully undergo the yearlong process are paid $4,000 more a year by the state. But certification is so grueling, only 214 teachers in Pinellas have been awarded.
Johnson said she'll try for certification eventually. But for now, she's moving toward a master's degree, which will boost her pay $1,150 a year - after she spends $6,000 on tuition and slogs through night classes twice a week.
Another possibility: performance pay.
Supporters of the concept suggest school districts have enough money for decent raises if they would just distribute it differently. Like workers in the private sector, they say, better teachers should make better money.
Good teachers are underpaid, says Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "But the bad ones are probably way overpaid."
In Florida, the state has been pushing performance pay programs closely tied to FCAT scores. Teachers have opposed it, saying it is an unfair way to judge their abilities and a tactic to divide and conquer unions.
In response to a state mandate, Pinellas crafted a program so rigorous only a few teachers applied, and only two got the 5 percent raise it offered.
Johnson has not applied.
When Johnson leaves at 3:25 p.m., her Pepsi is half full, her day half over.
She picks up the kids from day care, then juggles coloring books and toy saxophones while slicing cucumbers into a salad. Not long after Roman gets home, she kisses everyone goodbye and steers the minivan back to Northeast for night school.
She'll get home for good about 9:30 p.m.
At the kitchen table, she will eat supper and grade a stack of papers as thick as two St. Petersburg phone books.
Monday won't end until Tuesday morning.
Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Ron Matus can be reached at 727 893-8873 or matus@sptimes.com
COMPARING TEACHER PAYA federal survey of hourly wages last year in the Tampa Bay area shows teachers are paid relatively well compared to other professions. Some analysts say the comparisons are misleading because they do not fully account for teachers' unusual work schedules.
Executives, administrators, managers: $41.13
College professors: $38.38*
Civil engineer: $35.18
Computer systems analyst: $28.94
Editor/reporter: $28.01
Teacher (K-12): $25.52*
Registered nurse: $23.58
White collar, excluding sales: $22.40
Accountant/auditor: $22.17
Social worker: $18.05
Police: $19.87
Automotive mechanic: $18.08
Licensed practical nurse: $16.50
Firefighter: $16.19
* Reflects summer break as not working
Source: Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics
Pinellas schools referendum: The basics
On Nov. 2, Pinellas voters will be asked to approve a property tax increase that would generate millions of dollars for teacher raises. This is how it would work:
* Property taxes would go up 50 cents for every $1,000 of taxable value. For a home assessed at $150,000, with a $25,000 homestead exemption, the tax would cost an additional $62.50 a year.
* The tax would last four years, generating $26-million the first year and $30-million by the last.
* Eighty percent of the money would be used to raise teacher salaries. The rest would go to preserve art, music and reading programs and to buy more textbooks and computers.