It might be interesting to also include information about salaries for each system (median, mean, high and low?) I would wager that Montgomery County, with the highest number of workdays, is also at or near the top in teacher salaries.

People are bickering about 20 minutes or so a day? By all means, add that much to my day if it means people will stop inferring that I work less than those teachers in other counties
As for the amount of days, however, I would LOVE to have at least two more days added on to the beginning of the school year. We generally have 3 days to get our classrooms ready, as well as attend any professional developments set up by our administration or off site PD by subject area. It would be very stressful if I didn't go in earlier in the week to get it all together. Getting paid for those days would be awesome.

Steph brings up a very valid point - hidden in the abstract details about minutes worked is the fact that the majority of teachers in BCPSS are working WAY over what is required in the contract...and probably getting paid less to do it. If we were to do a study comparing actual number of minutes a teacher in BCPSS spends working with a teacher in a county where those extra minutes are required and compensated, I would be willing to bet you would find the BCPSS educator working as much, if not more.

Stop trying..it doesn't work...You can't compare the city work of a teacher to our county teachers-there are so many variables and circumstances that county teacher could not imagine dealing with that are part of the job for BCPSS.It upset me to to hear any comparing salaries, time worked, time off, lak of materials,supplies,old-falling apart buildings, children's situations/life styles-it is like apples and cherries! If you have work in the city schools you can work anywhere (great life-survival training).

I teach in Baltimore County and have friends teaching in the city. I think people overlook the fact that there are county schools that DO have some of the same problems city schools have. Just because I teach in the county does not mean my job is easier. We have been without paper for copies on and off for weeks (the longest period of time without paper was 2 weeks), we are lucky to even have a copier working. Our students are increasingly involved in gang related activity and a high number of students claim county addresses, but come from the city. I am lucky to have class sets of books that I can share amongst my 5 classes and provide most of my own materials for student use. I have 2 planning periods/day, one of which is used as a duty period and I chaperone after school activities (because it is required). My school day extends far beyond the required time; I arrive at 630 and leave at 430, only to grade and plan at home. I agree that the city has its own problems that the county does not have to deal with, or must deal with on a smaller scale, but just because I am a county teacher does not guarantee an easy job. You cannot compare school districts because there is not consistency among schools in any given county. They can range from a school that consistently makes AYP and produces high rates of college bound students to schools struggling to make AYP and is lucky to have a handful of students go to college. I do absolutely love my job despite the problems and the frustrations; I seems to me that people need to take a closer look at what teachers do beyond what we make and how many hours we work.

Apples and Cherries, for sure. And there are pockets of problems (poverty) all over the place. But they are concentrated in the city.

Yes, I'm using my boring Saturday afternoon to write on the Sun blog... In any case, I think if you talked to teachers at Kennedy HS in Montgomery County you'd be very surprised. City problems are very much not limited to the city. The problems are in fact concentrated in the city, but I don't think it's all that unfair to make generalizations across high schools in the state.

Theresa - you completely contradict yourself. At the beginning you say that there are similar problems in different counties; by the end you say you can't compare school districts. I tend to lean towards the first part of your argument and shy from the contradictory part. Let's extend the logic further for your thought that you can't compare school districts. Then isn't it impossible to compare schools within a district because it's different neighborhoods? Then isn't it impossible to compare teachers of different subjects in the same school because it's different content? Then isn't it impossible to compare teachers of the same content because they have different students? If all this were true we might as well give up on student achievement or accountability because we'll only be able to rely on qualitative data. I don't think that's true.

I embrace the need for differentiation, but I'm not convinced that every teacher/school/district/state is completely different. I think there are similarities that run across all levels. Thus, I think it's worthwhile to find what works for similarly situated areas and replicate it as efficiently as possible. Collaboration and best-practices techniques are proven to work; and I believe we should embrace it here.

Also, I KNOW completely that teachers do more than what is on a contract. I probably spent over 2,000 dollars a year (and I know that's close because I tried to report it on taxes...) on supplies and activities for my high schoolers. That's unreasonable, and it should not ever be part of the job. However, we're engaging in a discussion about the CONTRACT. As far as negotiations go, the activities that you're talking about are immaterial. We're just comparing the contracts. No one is insinuating otherwise. By framing the argument around the four corners of the page of the contract, city teachers have less bargaining power. Ultimately, what they do outside of the contract doesn't matter in comparison (it might morally, but not legally). I just wish that Marietta English would examine the contract, student achievement, and her arguments for the BTU in a more structured and critical way.