I will chime in J and say that the reason we have teachers in less academically demanding roles making as much as or more than those whose jobs require higher level skillsets to teach is simple: Because they can.

Because the unions, and not any real accountability as we find in the private sector, have controlled these decisions. Because school districts have not pushed back. Because taxpayers have trusted that when schools said they needed more money “for the kids,” we believed them. Because when there is no real accountability, there is never enough money. And realistic criteria such as pay scales adjusted for different skills needed for different levels, as we see in the private sector, become skewed and distorted.

This is because the looters come back again and again and always find ways to spend, and mostly on themselves, whatever they manage to get the taxpayers to pay. In this case, the unions have looted, demanding more and more for all members.

If you want to extend this to the school districts, I would simply say that the same logic applies. There will never be enough money to satisfy the district’s “needs.” They simply create new layers—that’s right--of administrators, etc.

Since the Ohio Graduation Test in the early 2000s, has Middletown City School District improved on the state report card? No. Has the district grown in workforce size? Yes. Year after year? Yes. Would this ever happen in a private company year after year? No. Would that company most likely be out of business? Yes.

What has changed recently to bring the house of cards down in district after district? Hard economic times, state cutbacks, and a growing reluctance by taxpayers to pay and pay and pay for more levies when so many people are losing jobs, losing homes, losing hope.

In Ohio, SB5 is another villain in the eyes of the unions. Their strategy is to give concessions to districts in order to win goodwill, then repeal SB5 in November and return to business as usual. That’s what the unions are teaching the rank and file.  Never doubt it.

One final issue: you have to separate the idea of teaching from “managing.” At all levels school kids are bringing into the classrooms the results of social and economic problems—behaviors, dysfunctions, etc., that often bring enormous emotional, psychological and, yes, spiritual “challenges” (euphemism) to the teachers. If “managing” has become a dominant criterion for pay, schools should just say it and stop the smoke screening.