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January 7, 2009

After looking up salaries, a teacher ponders the implications

by Philissa Cramer, at 9:30 am

Second-grade reading teacher Miss Brave has been looking up her colleagues’ salaries on SeeThroughNY, but she isn’t happy about it. She writes:

On the one hand, this makes me deeply uncomfortable. I do not want anyone visiting it, putting in my name, and finding out how much I earn. (In fact, if you read this blog and you happen to know me personally: please don’t!) But on the other hand…I totally spent the evening finding out that my principal earns a substantial 6-figure salary that is more than twice what I earn.

Of course, the Department of Education salary schedule is already public knowledge, so if you know how many years someone’s been in the system, you can take a reasonable ballpark guess as to what they earn. But to have it all warehoused in a database? Dangerous, very dangerous!

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  • http://missmalarkey.blogspot.com miss malarkey

    To be honest, I don’t see how the public knowing specifically what *I* make, or what my colleagues make, serves any greater good. As Ms. Brave points out, it’s not hard to find the salary schedule. I think that there are definite problems with taxpayer dollars and waste, but I just don’t see how this database does anything to correct that. Are they implying that my salary is a waste of taxpayer money? I also looked up my brother’s salary (I know, bad sister) who works for another state agency, and he makes almost as much as I do despite having less education and a job that is much more stress free. Maybe I should see if they are hiring. ;)

  • http://www.bronxteach.com ruben

    I personally don’t see much point to having access to teachers’ salaries, but I also don’t see any problem with it. Like both previous comments point out, it’s already possible to find this information with a basic knowledge of the salary steps. The whole idea is to promote transparency, not for teachers (although I did look up a couple of the do-nothing veterans at my school just to relish in the unfairness of it all), but more so for the higher-ups working for Bloomberg and Klein. It’s important that those at the upper ranks of the DOE are held accountable for their salaries, and it would have been unreasonable to selectively post some DOE employees salary information and not others.

  • Clive Crisp

    The public knowing serves the good of transparency. What’s interesting is you don’t have a problem with looking up your Principal’s and brother’s salaries, then commenting on their salaries in a negative light, but you don’t want your salary published.

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