To the Editor:

Three members of the Princeton Public Schools Board of Education wrote a letter to Town Topics defending some of the Board’s statements relating to negotiations with the Princeton Regional Education Association. In the letter they mention corrections to a comparison that had been made at the July 22, 2014 Board meeting of average teacher salaries in Princeton to average teacher salaries of whole states. This comparison has given the false impression that Princeton teachers are the highest paid teachers in the country. Princeton’s average teacher’s salary is not even among the top 20 average salaries for school districts in New Jersey according to an article in the Point Pleasant Patch from November 8, 2013 based on NJ Department of Education data.

Because the Princeton community values education, the average salary of teachers in Princeton is indeed above the New Jersey average, though it is not nearly the highest in the state. The Board’s comparison of the average teacher salaries in Princeton to the averages of whole states is misleading. A proper comparison would be to individual districts that have high average teacher salaries in those states.

The Board claimed that Princeton’s teachers are the highest paid among neighboring districts by switching their data comparisons to highest and lowest salaries. When average salaries are compared, however, West Windsor/Plainsboro is 12th in the top 20 list mentioned above and Trenton is 16th. Even Princeton’s 2013-14 average salary reported by the Board as $78,351 is less than the 2011-12 top 20 average salaries, which ranged from $79,185 to $90,228.

The Board members also defended the settlement with district administrators that was higher than the 2 percent cap, because it makes less of an economic impact than would a similar settlement with the larger number of teachers. While stating the mathematically obvious, it should have also been obvious that many would see that settlement as a precedent for fair and equivalent treatment.

The three Board members also used the odd phrasing that “negotiations can no longer follow an antagonistic, ‘zero sum’ model.” What makes a zero sum model antagonistic? Teachers are currently living with a “negative sum” model.

Although I am a teacher in the district and a member of the Princeton Regional Education Association, the statements in this letter are mine alone and are not intended to represent the position of the PREA or any other teachers. Ten years before I became a teacher, my family moved to Princeton because of the high quality of the schools. Our two sons went through the district. I was a member of the Board of Education for one term in 1995-98. At that time, the Board practice was to avoid publicly airing the issues in ongoing negotiations.

Steven Carson

South Harrison Street