A modest proposal

Today was our last field trip of the year, and I have to say, unfortunately, I really did not enjoy it. My kids were little punctuation symbols, we had a nose bleeding incident that cut our time short, and my patience is just plain gone.

So, rather than go on bitching and moaning for 6 more paragraphs, I thought I'd at least ATTEMPT something humorous. And something occurred to me. I started thinking about athletes’ salaries. They are usually fixed when the contract is signed, but several years back, Ricky Williams -- running back out of the University of Texas -- made news by signing a very detailed agreement. He would effectively get paid by the carry, by the catch, by the touchdown, etc.

More recently, poor Ricky has made news for other things, but at the time, I thought the idea of his contract was pretty darn cool.

So let's apply it to teachers.

Sign us on at some base salary -- let's say $25,000. But we can increase our take-home by documenting events from the following list. Teachers would get paid for every occurrence of the event, not just one time.


Staff meeting .........................................................................................$200

Fire drill .................................................................................................$150

Being pulled out of class to
attend a meeting ..................................................................................$500

Receiving a new child any day
after the first day of class ....................................................................$1,000
-- if they don't speak English ..............................................................$2,500

Parent conference -- on the phone ...................................................$100
Parent conference -- in person ..........................................................$300
Parent conference – w/ irate or
irrational parent ..................................................................................$750

Administering a standardized test ...................................................$250 per child

Child talking back ...............................................................................$25

Child cussing at you ............................................................................$75

Child flipping you the bird .................................................................$50

Child giving you the RING finger
and then saying, "What?!?
It's not the middle finger!
I never flipped the bird at you!!” .....................................................$49.50

Child whining, "They're skipping!”.................................................. $25

Child disrespecting your clothes ......................................................$10

Child disrespecting your hair ............................................................$15

Child disrespecting your car .............................................................$20

Child disrespecting yo momma ........................................................$150

Child threatening to harm you .........................................................$500

Child throwing and hitting you with:
an eraser .............................................................................................$100
a crayon ...............................................................................................$200
a pencil/pen ........................................................................................$500
a book ..................................................................................................$1,200
the student next to them .................................................................$7,500

Child slapping you .............................................................................$2,000

Child punching you ............................................................................$5,000

Child kicking you ...............................................................................$4,000
-- in the nads .....................................................................................$15,000

I'm sure that there are many other things they could be added to this contract. But I think that many teachers would agree to something that followed this kind of format. Heck, if I got paid $25 every time one of my kids cried, "They're skipping!" I'd be able to retire to the Caymans from this year alone!

So kudos to Ricky Williams for leading the way in performance-based contracts. Here's hoping it doesn't lead all of us teachers to smoking joints…