Don’t know where you live, but there aren’t any wealthy teachers running around here, except the ones who left a good career to teach. In fact, I see mechs here better off than teachers, unless the teacher has a spouse with a good job.
I don’t recall referring to teachers or mechanics as wealthy, so I don’t know what precipitated the tenor of your response.
Nonetheless, I live in Virginia. Last I knew, teachers here can retire when they make some magical combination of age and years of experience equaling 50 or 55. I’ve not been involved with our public schools in ten years, so don’t remember the exact details.
So, if a newly minted, teaching certified, college grad starts working as a teacher here right out of college, when s/he hits the Big 5-O (or thereabouts), s/he can retire at roughly 94% of his/her salary for the last three years of his/her teaching career.
Starting salary in my county, 194 workdays contract, BA only, is $44,4K; a teacher today with 22 years experience is making (base) $79.2.
http://www.fcps.edu/DHR/salary/scalepdfs/fy12/FY%202012%20194-day%20teacher.pdf
IMO, a 55 year old retiring at @ $75K/year is doing OK. No Bill Gates, but certainly OK.
I don’t know, or have any way of knowing, what the retirement packages are for mechanics hereabouts. However, I suspect they are not quite so generous.
“Don’t know where you live, but there aren’t any wealthy teachers running around here, except the ones who left a good career to teach. “
I thought teachers weren’t in it for the money but for the chilllll-drunnn.
Teachers should be paid what it takes to fill the positions, not some mystical amount determined by the govt.
Mechanics get paid more because most people don’t want to be mechanics and are willing to pay to have someone else do the dirty work.