We had to shake our heads on Monday as a smattering of Southeast Michigan schools closed due to a smattering of a couple of inches of snow.
Beyond the general guffawing about school districts generally reacting as if they’d never seen an April snowflake before, and the fact that thoroughfares ranging from country roads to highways were perfectly clear from dawn on, we put pencil to paper and calculated the cost of the lost educational services to the average family.
As The Center for Michigan just noted in our new report — “School Daze: Michigan’s Shrinking School Year” — Michigan school districts are not required to make up snow days. In fact, the average district cancels — and never makes up — a full week’s worth of school each year for reasons ranging from snow to bomb threats to high school sports playoffs. Yet educators still get paid for that lost time.
If you’re lucky enough to be part of a middle class working family in Michigan today, a reasonable estimate for what you pay in property and sales taxes for schools is about $5,000 per year.
So, on top of whatever you paid in extra day care, or suffered in lost wages Monday because the kids had to stay home because of a couple inches of snow, you also lost about $30 in taxes paid for educational services your kids will never receive.
13 Comments
Irresponsible article. The school systems make these decisions with the safety of children in mind. It is not helpful to paint these decisions as irresponsible. I am disappointed that the Center for Michigan would put this article on their web site.
I agree with Dennis. I will happily pay the $30 in taxes versus the cost of losing one child. The schools must think safety first and even though it sometimes seems that the “snow day” wasn’t warranted, try driving the school bus on a snowy day. You may change your mind.
I hope the Center for Michigan is not implying that its innovative solution to save Michigan money and encourage responsible use of tax dollars is to not pay teachers for snow days. I agree with Dennis, this is an irresponsible article and a poor example of innovation. While we certainly need to identify opportunities for reform, the school system needs more support, not less, and addressing the 5 snow days the average school district uses is mediocre reform at best.
I’m surprised to read a piece like this from the Center for Michigan, and especially penned by John Bebow. It makes sense to question the shrinking school year in Michigan. But it is inappropriate to question educators getting paid on snow days. Educators usually spend the night before (or weeks before) preparing for class. They’ve done the work even before they show up to walk their students through the day’s lesson.
Most educators I know spend snow days reading, preparing, and catching up.
This is an irresponsible article. Has John Bebow just now figured out that we have “snow days” here? What he doesn’t know is that schools actually schedule more class hours (and days) than required by law so that they have the flexibility to cancel school on snow days. I’m not sure where John is getting his data, but I have never seen a school year where there was a full 5 days worth of canceled school days. Let’s get realistic, missing 2-3 days per year out of 180 some odd school days is nothing to get angry about. Try thinking about how much time you spend chatting at the coffee room each day and tally that up. Pretty revealing huh?
I am certainly no appologist for public schools or the MEA, but this article is wrong in so many ways. This type of irresponsible “journalism” smacks of the slanted agenda-pushing garbage that sickens me. I expected better from this group.
As a rural parent, I appreciate the concern for the safety of the kids. If my memory serves me, it’s only two or three days off and then they must be made up. Seems to me the writer has a beef with teachers getting paid. Is this the type of negativity we need in these tough times? Is this more of that nonsense from the mackinaw center?
At 7 am the roads were Not clear and we had a manageable 5 to 6 inches of snow, some still on the ground today (Thursday). Fortunately, many districts have this week off and didn’t have to put a bus load of students on icy, snowy roads. Where does Mr. Bebow get his information? Facts might be important, like postings 4 and 5 above.
This is just another example of the huge h-on that some people have for the MEA, in my opinion. They will seize upon anything that can somehow be made to look like Michigan teachers getting a free snuffle at the public trough. Tiresome.
I notice that nobody complains very much about the fact that firefighters get their full wages and salaries even if they never fight a single fire during a given period of time. We do not regard this as paying for a service we don’t actually receive, do we? Are truck polishing and floor mopping wastes of taxpayer money? Mr. Bebow is invited to try out such an argument if he cares to.
In any case, anyone who knows a public school teacher knows that he or she is not lying on the sofa eating bon bons during a snow day or any other off-day during the school year. He or she is usually grateful for some free time to catch up on paperwork and lesson planning. We also know it does not follow that if the students aren’t at school, the teachers aren’t either. They are often required to come in on snow days for administrative work, committee meetings, department meetings, etc. I wonder if the parents of the middle class family Mr. Bebow refers to would actually trade their jobs for the supposedly cushy ones of a pair of Michigan teachers?
My husband has been a very dedicated teacher for 15 years and has NEVER received a week’s worth of “Paid” Snow days. On average, our district has two snow days per year. Most of these Snow days are so treacherous there is no way I’d allow my kids to even get on a school bus in those conditions. It is my understanding that a minimum number of snow days are built into the yearly contract. Has anyone contacted teachers to see how they spend this “Paid” day off? My husband routinely spends it doing school work, planning new projects, catching up on emails, and even risking an accident to get up to his classroom to do much needed work. I am insulted that you are attacking teachers for Snow Days! When does my husband get to collect on the 1000 of hours of overtime that he puts into his teaching profession each year? A couple snow days (AKA: Work days from home) hardly seem worth complaining about.
John
I am glad to see that we are in agreement regarding your comment, “Educators are the most important public servants in our society and the Center’s reporting on Michigan’s shrinking school year is not meant to imply otherwise. As we travel the state hosting Community Conversations, we’ve heard many citizens advocating we find ways to pay high-performing teachers more, not less.” I am married to one of the most dedicated, hard-working teachers in this state and do not appreciate petty attacks on his profession. It would behoove you to do a bit more research before making assumptions about schools overseas and the number of days/hours those students attend school. For example, my husband’s district is inundated with Korean students every year whose families move to the US for a single year to immerse their children in English and benefit from the innovative instructional techniques that are offered here. It may surprise you to learn that the average student in Seoul, South Korea may attend school 200 hundred days of the year, but are physically present for far less time than our students right here in Michigan. Let me clarify it for you in terms that you can understand:
Michigan students whose districts have reduced their calendar to the greatest degree may be sending the children to school for 164 days. Bear in mind this is NOT the norm, but I’ll use it to illustrate my point. If you eliminate the lunch hour/recess from the school day, students attend school for 6 hours per day for direct instruction. 164 days x 6 hours of instruction = 984 hours of instruction per year for our Michigan students. My husband’s district goes for an additional 10 days which equals another 60 hours of direct instruction totaling 1,044 hours.
The Korean students when they arrive are a bit surprised by the lengthy days in Michigan. The students coming from South Korea attend school 6 days a week, that’s true. However, with the exception of Wednesday, the students have class from 9:00 until 12:00 have lunch, clean up, and go home. On Wednesday, they are in school until 2:00. Omitting their lunch hour (except for Wednesday), this translates into 20 hours of instruction per week. If you average the number of hours per day 20 hours divided by 6 days = 3.33 hours per day. Now multiply 200 days x 3.33 hours of instruction per day = 666 hours per year. Surprised?!
Compare that to Michigan’s low end, our students are attending school 318 additional hours. Your data certainly doesn’t align with the first person information that my husband is receiving.
Let’s assume that the Korean students went to school for as many as 243 days, their total instruction time would still only yield 809 hours.
If you truly believe that Michigan’s teachers are “the most important public servants in our society” you should spend a little bit more time touting their innovation, creativity, and success, as that is how the world continues to perceive our educational system and that is why it is still such a desirable place to come, study, and contribute to the economic success of our planet. If you’d care to witness this innovation firsthand and truly be astounded by the level of commitment teachers devote to our Michigan youth, I urge you to contact my husband and visit his classroom. Who knows, it may change your life as it does all the students who enter it.
Jamie
I honestly don’t understand where all the venom in the replies to this article are coming from. The author never suggests that children should be driven to school when road conditions are dangerous, nor does he criticize teachers in any way. From my reading, he simply suggests that the snow day on April 6 was unnecessary – and was a further illustration of the shrinking school year – a topic that has been written about on this site for the past several weeks.
So where is all the anger coming from? It seems to me that those leaving comments decided that the article was somehow a criticism of teachers. I don’t see it that way, but what if it was? Why are teachers above criticism? Is there some unwritten rule that says the teaching profession is above scrutiny? That we can’t examine their pay and how they spend their time without being shouted down as being insensitive and irresponsible?
Granted, teaching is a noble profession, but it doesn’t make them untouchable saints. I had some pretty lousy teachers in High School – A history teacher who read the paper for half of the class period – An English teacher who was also the wrestling coach and would spend most days talking to the two or three athletes in class and rarely got around to actually teaching. Do I think they should have been paid for snow days? I don’t think they should have been paid at all.
I think everybody needs to calm down. This article is far from “irresponsible.” While I may not agree with every article on this website, I’m glad The Center is scrutinizing every aspect of our educational system and looking for ways to improve it.
I agree with Roger and would like to come to the defense of the author, John Bebow. This particular posting has drawn quite a few responses from visitors — 12. More than any other posting in a long time. Snow days in Michigan seems to be a pretty emotional topic for a lot of people.
Lighten up, people. He’s just wagging a $ figure; bringing a little numeracy to the discussion regarding the trend toward fewer school days described in the report. If you don’t like the report then speak up; don’t dispace your aggression by attacking John’s modest derivative from the report.
This seems to me to be a case in which many, maybe even most of us, know “individual” teachers who are great professionals. When these individuals are gathered together in “system”, however, the sum of the system is less than total of the individual parts and the system takes on a rather different characteristic than originally intended. A lot of systems exhibit that tendency; especially systems of people.
Let me close by saying what a nice job the Ann Arbor Public School Superintendent seems to be doing; some guy from Birmingham we hired about three years ago. Compared to his predecessor…on the issue of snow days…he’s getting it right. The kids don’t like him that much but the parents sure do…
For the first 10 respondents to this post: spend your time praying that we don’t get snow in May…