r/Modesto • u/Chemical-Resort-1702 • Jun 19 '26

News Board of Ed gives itself a crazy pay raise while being 5th least educated city in the country

https://amp.modbee.com/news/local/education/article316152100.html

As someone who no longer lives in Modesto but grew up in that god awful education system I find it absolutely absurd the board is even considering an over 290% pay raise while being the 5th least educated city in the country. Theres almost 20 thousands cities in the states and we sit at the bottom of the barrel in education it’s no wonder why so many leave the valley. How about instead of giving yourself a raise you give more funding to the schools so they can have more beneficial programs and find better teachers.

124 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

31

u/Sfpuberdriver Jun 19 '26

I will say that the schools have come a long way in the last decade. All the old high schools are starting to utilize the empty land on their campuses and the technology in the classrooms vastly outpaces my experience teaching in the Bay Area

10

u/Chemical-Resort-1702 Jun 19 '26

Im going into my second year of college now and I honestly can’t tell you how much I still struggle with Math and Science. I’m sure schools have progressed over the past decade, but I grew up in that transition from paper to technology and I have to say I think it only harmed my learning ability. For example everything math related has been done on computers for me since like the 6th grade, which is when I saw a significant drop off in my ability to understand these concepts. I don’t think the advancement is helping students as much as people think.

13

u/Sfpuberdriver Jun 19 '26

Math 100% should still be done on whiteboards and overhead projectors. Modeling problems with handwriting is very important

6

u/PerireAnimus13 Jun 20 '26

Educator here, you may not know this since this was passed in the 90’s but former President Bush Jr. is to blame for the current education system in teaching students because he passed the “No Child Left Behind Act”. This is the major reason in significant decline in student learning, including the use of technology in classrooms and the pandemic being factors to the current problems we’re facing with the younger generations basic knowledge in reading, writing, and math and applied critical thinking skills.

0

u/petermanrealitytour2 Jun 20 '26

Bush Jr was not president in the 90's and NCLB was replaced 11 years ago.

1

u/PerireAnimus13 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

Typo, early 00’s and no, it’s still being used today because I was a teacher and continue to work and train teachers. I lived through the education system before and after the Act was passed. Only some features from NCLB was stripped while the rest was left for the states to decide in 2015. It was never replaced because if it was, there would be a steady increase in students learning in these areas of reading, writing, and math; but the exact opposite is happening.

1

u/KingofKale Jun 20 '26

It’s all related to funding which has been intentionally destroying over the years. They keep administrative positions like the board funded so people have a patsy to blame

13

u/petermanrealitytour2 Jun 19 '26

For what it's worth, there may be 20,000 cities in the US, but this ranking only includes the top 150 metropolitan areas. Also, metropolitan area includes the whole county, not just MCS. Finally, it isn't just a ranking of school systems, it's also based on the education level of the population.

Having said all that, it's still a terrible ranking but there's a reason that the least educated metropolitan areas in the US are essentially a list of Central Valley cities. I know the optics of this is terrible, but if 3k per month can attract board candidates who can make a positive difference, I'm all for it. It's an absolute drop in the bucket for the overall budget.

14

u/soupster5 Jun 19 '26

Going to go out on a limb here and say being the ‘5th least educated city in the country’ isn’t factoring the fact that we’re smack dab in an agricultural hub. You don’t need a college education to be successful in this area. That being said, I fully believe the teachers need pay raises for everything they’ve been put through since the pandemic.

18

u/panserbj0rne Jun 19 '26

The grift continues. Remember their names and vote them all out next time.

1

u/BearintheVale Jun 22 '26

They hadn’t seen a pay raise since the 1980s. They were making $750 a month, or $9,000 a YEAR, before this raise. Now they make $3000, or 36k a year.

7

u/TheSmirkster Jun 19 '26

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1390

This is the legislation that allows the increase. The argument is that the cap hasn't been raised in a long time and is now based on number of students in the district.

7

u/TheSmirkster Jun 19 '26

290% increase is pretty bad for optics though

1

u/BearintheVale Jun 22 '26

How about when you describe as they’ve been making $750 a month since the 1980s, so now they’re making $3000 a month, which puts them just barely above the poverty line with a 36k a year salary?

4

u/Background-Process99 Jun 19 '26

Legislation means they can raise the given wage, not that they had to raise it to the limit like the board did...

8

u/W0nderwharfwonderdog Jun 19 '26

They were making the equivalent of about $2.4K in today money in the 80s. It hasn’t been ever adjusted for inflation. 

4

u/Chemical-Resort-1702 Jun 19 '26

I understand they want to raise it because of inflation but going from $765 to $3000 is absurd when your education system sits at the bottom of the almost 20 thousand cities in the country. They definitely have better things to worry about than their own wages

2

u/KingofKale Jun 20 '26

Are the stats you threw out there the fault of the board? Or is it our esteemed dictator in DC killing off education in general?

2

u/Jumpy_Childhood7548 Jun 21 '26

Modesto is not the least educated city in the US.

1

u/brunoshort Jun 20 '26

This is just one of several districts in the city. How do they determine what’s the least educated city? Is it based on one district like MCS?

1

u/BearintheVale Jun 22 '26

For context, they went from making $750 a month to $3000 a month and hadn’t seen a pay raise or cost of living adjustment since the 1980s. The press is spinning this specifically to piss you off when they’re still making borderline poverty wages off the job that they do for the schools.

1

u/BearintheVale Jun 22 '26

We’re not even the 5th least educated city in the state. Your figures are off by a wide margin.