You do the same things when you talk about grammar (4.54:59pm, 8/3). The untrue thing you said is, ‘The end result is you are now, in a very shady and backwards way, accepting my initial point was correct….’(2.14:06pm, 25/2). I have not backed away from anything I have said about grammar and I am not accepting and have not accepted that what you initially said is correct. This is separate from whether what I said is right or wrong. I made two statements. The second, ‘The short answer to your question is that classics and grammar classes have decreased in schools since 1975’ (1.33:04pm, 25/2), is not a backing away from the first, ‘The English courses of any school I taught in had grammar in them’ (5.15:55pm, 6/2). Nor does the second statement indicate agreement with your initial statement that ‘They've eliminated classics, grammar, etc, from most schools’ (7.16:17pm, 4/3).

You say ‘You continue to defy the inflation calculator in a way that is frankly bizarre’ (4.55:48pm, 8/3). No, I use the inflation calculator correctly, whereas you leave out a whole year. You put in 1975 and 2010 when the period I first referred to was 1975 to 2011. It’s not about ‘ONE MONTH’, no matter how ‘slowly’ you put it; it’s about a whole year that you leave out.

I have not ‘regurgitated like a parrot’. I have used data that you have been unable to put a hole in. I have not ‘cherry picked the exact month’. You just can’t be that thick. Because I am making comparisons over a period of time, I use an exact period. Salaries have varied during each year at different times. To be consistent with average earnings and CPI figures, I have taken the salary as at the beginning of each year, not the one that may have been paid from May in one year and the one that may be have been paid from September in the next year. I have chosen January because it is the start of each year. Exactly one year later, it will be January of the following year.

What you do is leave out half the CPI increase in 1975 and half the CPI increase in 2010. I suggest you go and red the calculator carefully, including the part that tells you how many years your calculation actually covers. Most of us realise that there are 36 years between 1975 and 2011, not 35 years.

As I have already explained, the VSTA’s 1980 salary case did not rely on CPI increases. It also used changes in teacher pay relativities. It does not matter that you don’t think that is a good method, because the point I am making is about the union’s choice at the time, not what you think of it. Had the union wanted to ‘cherry pick’ on pay relativities, it would not have chosen 1975. It would have chosen 1963.

Ramble, ramble, ramble (ignore my more recent posts). *SIGH*
It’s tiring repeating stuff I’ve already covered (you’ll never catch up for one thing) so I’m going to limit my reply to stuff that is new or relevant.

1) You waste time quibbling with the definition of choice, but conveniently find time to ignore questions I ask you ten or more times which would render such quibbles moot; “DO YOU SUPPORT PARENTAL CHOICE OR NOT?”. This is not a difficult question to answer.
As far as the “choice” quibbling goes; if I hold a gun to your head and tell you to do what I say “or else” you still technically have a choice. You can fight back, you can die, etc. In practical terms though, you have no choice. When the department reserves you a place in your local region, then says “oh, but you can go to any (bad) school who has room” they are not providing you with a real choice, for the reasons already explained. A real choice would be permission to go to any school they liked, which could be greatly aided by school autonomy, which is your next point (why couldn’t you tell us which autonomy you do support right now? That would take a few sentences…)
2) Inflation is not indexed for employees on a per month basis when they enjoy indexation. When picking a different month in 1975 instead of the year as a whole yields a $7000 difference on a figure that small, you are cherry picking. It’s obviously dishonest for you to say a whole year has been left out, because you’re using a singular month from 2011 (January). There is no yearly inflation out for 2011, which is why I’ve rather sensibly used the whole calculation for 2010, rather than 1/12th of a calculation from 2011.

None of which changes the fact that the time period you have selected is extremely poor (ludicrous inflation), and that YOU HAVE SINCE SAID YOU DON’T ARGUE THERE HAS BEEN A REAL CUT! In which case it’d be nice if you explained why teacher’s should get a higher wage… I mean, they whole argument about cherry picking above was that your selection of figures was dishonest, because it suggested a cut, but in reality there hadn’t been one, and you’ve now CONCEDED THERE HASN’T BEEN A CUT, so this is a moot discussion.

You continually claim that “It does not matter that you don’t think that is a good method”, but it obviously does matter, because if you concede the wage of teacher’s hasn’t dropped in real terms, only dropped in relative terms, then you need to explain why relative salary is a good figure, or else why should teacher pay from [whatever period you use] matter? Why should it increase? If [varying period] doesn’t matter, then what was the point of you quoting all of those lame AEU studies? These are simple questions, I ask them a lot, but you never reply to them.

Riddler,

You say ‘MAWOTE is not a useful stat…’ (4.56:25pm, 8/3). So you keep saying, just as I keep saying why it is relevant, but that is not actually an untrue thing for you to say, so I do not need to correct you, though I do not agree with you.

You quote me, correctly this time, as saying “my argument has not been that ‘there actually has been a decrease in salary’” (3.08:19pm, 10/3).

Then you say, “So this whole time you’ve rambled, dodged, recited misleading and inaccurate calculation after calculation, rambled some more, and you don’t even think there has been a decrease in salary. You would have saved everyone a lot of time if you had just said this 100 posts earlier.”

The first part is untrue. I have not “rambled”, “dodged” or “recited misleading and inaccurate calculation after calculation”. I have put a case, with evidence and reasoning. I have done it in accordance with the priorities I set when it became apparent that you would get basic facts wrong and invent things about me. My calculations are accurate, despite your continual leaving a whole year out of your alternative calculation.

You act as though I have suddenly discovered that there has not been a decrease in salaries.

As I said a fortnight ago, “Apart from principals who reach the top salary level, teachers have, at best, had small increases in the purchasing power of their salaries over the last 36 years.” (2.51:15pm, 19/2)

My initial point was about teacher’s relative pay. As I said more than a month ago,
“Male average weekly ordinary time earnings were $1343.90 ($70,123 pa) in August of last year, according to the ABS. In 1975, after seven years, a teacher reached the top of the unpromoted scale and was paid 166.6 per cent of MAWOTE - $116,825 now.

“The new top level, which now takes ten years to reach, now pays $81,806 – a relative cut of $35,019 or 30 per cent. To put it another way, an eleventh-year-out teacher needs a 42.8 per cent salary increase to restore his or her salary’s relative value to that of an eighth-year-out teacher 33 years ago.” (5.15:55pm, 6/2)