Texas School Teacher Pay
Statewide base pay for education staff members for the 2010-11 school year
Staff Average Base Pay
Teachers $48,639
Administrative Staff $75,778
Support Staff $56,996
Paraprofessional Staff $18,809
Average Total Personnel $40,666
Support Staff includes therapists, social workers, truant officers, librarians, nurses and other professional personnel.
Administrative Staff includes principals, assistant principals, superintendents, business officers, district program directors and other central office professionals.
Paraprofessionals include educational aides.
In 1990, teachers constituted 52% of total school workforce. That figure remains more or less same now: about 50%.
Source: Texas Education Agency; The Dallas Morning News.*****************************************************************************
Colin Powell Dies at the Age of 84
Former Secretary of State, first Black Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff and the son of Jamaican immigrants Colin Powell died on October 18, 2021 at the age of 84. He had died of complications from COVID-19 at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He had been fully vaccinated, but because of multiple myeloma, Powell was not fully immunized, and eventually, the breakthrough infection had cost his life. He became an American hero as the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Powell had been directly involved in leading the planning and execution of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He served President Bill Clinton as the chairman of the armed forces for the first 9 months of Clinton's tenure before retiring in 1993. He was brought back to the civil administration by President George W. Bush. As the secretary of state, he had often different world views from the then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, both were fervent supporters of the Iraq War. Powell eventually fell in line. Colin Powell's credibility took a significant hit after his infamous statement in February 2003 at the U.N. Security Council where he had stated that Iraq had possessed chemical, biological and, perhaps, nuclear weapons. No weapon of mass destruction was subsequently found in Iraq, a blot on Colin Powell's career.
Desmond Tutu
Anti-apartheid preacher and African icon Desmond Tutu on December 26, 2021 passed away at the age of 90. Desmond Tutu was renowned for preaching non-violence, but inspired South Africans to resist the apartheid rule of successive White-only governments. Desmond Tutu was born October 7, 1931 in a small gold-mining town in the Transvaal. His father was a teacher and mother was a laundress. Desmond Tutu often frustrated Black townships' people for his firm belief in non-violence and, sometimes, equating the violent Black resistance with the state-sponsored repression. Desmond Tutu won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. He became the head of the Anglican Church in South Africa in 1986, becoming the first Black preacher to lead church in South Africa. Desmond Tutu headed the post-apartheid-era Truth and Reconciliation Commission to study, learn and heal South Africa's centuries-old pain stemming from racial injustice and apartheid-induced sufferings. U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009 awarded Archbishop Desmond Tutu with the National Medal of Freedom.
Tutu's State Funeral Symbolizes Simplicity, Lack of Ostentation
Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu's state funeral was held on January 1, 2022 at St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town. His body was kept inside an inexpensive pine casket, honoring to his desire for shunning ostentation and lavishness. Eulogies and homilies were delivered by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, President Cyril Ramaphosa and Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba.
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PANDORA PAPERS
Hundreds Hiding Their Wealth, Research Concludes
Hundreds of politicians, leaders, heads of state and entrepreneurs hid their wealth in mansions, yachts, beachfront properties and other assets for the past quarter centuries, according to a research published on October 3, 2021. The research is the collaborative effort of some 600 journalists hailing from 117 countries and 150 media outlets. The report released on October 3, 2021 by International Consortium of Investigating Journalists, or ICIJ, includes explosive information on how leaders like former British Premier Tony Blair, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Czech Prime Minister Andres Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso and associates of Pak Prime Minister Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have gamed the system to hide their wealth. The billionaires identified by the report, known as Pandora Papers, include Turkish business magnet Erman Ilicak and American entrepreneur Robert Brockman, former CEO of Reynolds & Reynolds. The Pandora Papers are the follow-up of a similar investigative work, formally known as Panama Papers, undertaken by the same consortium in 2016, but much more expansive in scope and scale of corruption perpetrated by powerful figures of the world. Pandora Papers are the result of analysis from 3 terabytes of leaked data from 14 different service providers doing business in 38 different jurisdictions. The data date back to 1970s, but most of them are between 1996 and 2020. Compared to Pandora Papers, Panama Papers are obtained from 2.6 terabytes of leaked data from now-defunct law firm Mossack Fonseca.
Nation's Report Card Points Pandemic-era Learning Gap
The Dallas Morning News reported in a front-page article on June 21, 2023 that nation's students did significantly suffer in reading and math tests this academic year (2022-2023) compared to 2019-2020 academic year. The reading score in the National Assessment of Educational Progress test dropped 4 points, while Math score dropped a whopping 9 points. Different ethnic and racial groups suffered in varying degrees. Native American students' Math scores dropped on the average 20 points, Black students' scores dropped 13 points, Hispanic students averaged a drop of 10 points and White students' scores averaged a drop of 6 points. Asian students' drop in Math scores was not statistically significant.
In reading scores, Black students suffered 7 points and White students suffered 4 points, respectively, while the other groups' score drops were not significant. Female students' test scores in Math dropped 11 points, while it was a 7-point drop for male students. For reading, both male and female students suffered equally, i.e., about 4 points.
************** 2023 STRIKES BY HOLLYWOOD'S TWO MAJOR UNIONS **************
First Joint Strike in Six Decades by Hollywood's Two Major Unions
Hollywood's actors are going to join the strike that writers are already undertaking to demand better pay and treatment from the production companies and streaming service providers. On July 13, 2023, Screen Actors Guild-Americans Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced that actors would walk out at the midnight in protest against what the union's executive director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, called the Wall Street-like greed by Netflix, Disney and Amazon. SAG-AFTRA will join the Writers Guild of America (WGA) in an unprecedented joint work action by two major Hollywood unions that has happened last time in 1960 under the leadership of Ronald Reagan at the helms of affairs of actors' union. WGA is striking since May 2023. Meanwhile, Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP, said that the union had "regrettably" chosen a path of confrontation.
WGA, Studios Reach Tentative Deal
After the resumption of negotiation on September 20, 2023, everybody had a glimmer of hope as Disney CEO Bob Iger, Netflix' Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros' David Zaslav and NBCUniversal's Donna Langley personally got involved in the talks. As expected, there was a tentative agreement reached between Writers Guild of America and Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP, on September 24, 2023 after five days of continuous talks.
WGA Approves the Deal in a Lopsided Vote
Writers Guild of America on October 9, 2023 announced that its 8,525 members had cast votes and 99% of them voted in favor of the agreement reached on September 24, 2023. With the approval vote, there ends a storied strike by one of the most influential groups in Hollywood while actors' union is still continuing with their strike.
Actors, Studios Reach Agreement
On November 8, 2023, Screen Actors Guild-Americans Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the studios reached a tentative agreement. The actors' strike is expected to end at 12:01 AM on November 9, 2023. The Writers Guild of America's strike ended on September 26, 2023. The details of the deal are yet to be released.
************** 2023 STRIKES BY HOLLYWOOD'S TWO MAJOR UNIONS **************
