Posted on 05/30/2012 8:23:33 AM PDT by MichCapCon
“You cannot argue that they are wrong”
Yes you can. But nevermind, we shall never agree until it’s tested. Let’s see abolish public education and see how much teachers would be making if customers paid them voluntarily. If it’s more than they’re getting now, then the whiners have a point.
“Have you ever known what teachers have to do OUTSIDE of the classroom (lesson plans, PTA meetings, supplementing school supplies supposedly provided by the State) or OUTSIDE the ‘barely nine months a year’ timeframe you talked about?”
Oh, please. Who’s being stupid now? As if teaching is the only profession where people work off-hours. And that’s not even to say they’re required to work off-hours. Some do, many don’t. This is especially true because you’re not always doing what it is that teachers mainly do—i.e. teach—when you’re “on the clock.” They give them prep periods during the day to do whatever they feel like, including preparing lesson plans, correcting tests, etc.
With summer vacation and all the myriad school year holidays, in services, snow days, and so on, it’s utterly laughable to pretend they work as often as people at normal jobs with comparable salaries. It’s not even close. Drop the pretence.
“To say nothing of fatal fries and mystery meat masquerading as ‘lunch.’”
“To say nothing of fatal fries and mystery meat masquerading as ‘lunch.’”
You get what you pay for.
“The real purpose of this is to argue for raising the starting salary, SO THAT the unions can raise ALL salaries in the pay scale by the same percentage”
Exactly. “For the children” is the oldest ploy in the book, and it may be the death of us.
Teaching, as a profession, has seriously degraded, most likely due to a few factors, unions being one of them. When I was in college in the 90s, the dumbest, least ambitious girls went for education certificates, which you must have in CA to teach. I knew one such girl, and she described the curriculum, which sounded like a whole lot of indoctrination and very little substance.
When I was in high school in the 1980s, most of the teachers were fat, sloppy, unprofessional hacks. One of the few teachers I had respect for was my Vietnamese French teacher, who showed up for work every day, on time, wearing a suit and tie. Most of the rest wore jeans and a ragged polo shirt or some such thing, as if they were hanging out at the coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon. And this was at what was considered one of the better schools in the area. There were a few teachers who quite obviously didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.
My experience in school, elementary through high school, is actually what convinced me to go into the Army rather than straight into college despite my high SAT scores. I went to college after. Don’t even get me started on the quality of the college professors...
“A first-year teacher at Rockford with a bachelor’s degree would have a starting salary of $37,184”
$37184/9=$4,131.55*12=$49,578.67
That is nearly 5% higher than the starting salary of many undergrads hired into manufacturing. Plus, I am being generous in crediting them with actually working 9 months, I suspect it is closer to 8...
“I also understand the other side, because I was married to it.”
Well, I come from a teaching family. Both my parents, my brother, my aunt and uncle, and one cousin all teach. I know what’s involved. There is no possible way their work outside of school hours makes up for three months’ vacation and all the holidays, half days, conference days, in-service days, and so on and so on. For anyone to suggest otherwise just makes me laugh. Imagine, if you work a normal job, getting summer off. I can’t even wrap my brain around it. I haven’t had a free summer since I was sixteen!
Face it, it’s a racket. If the only way to retain teachers despite the radically reduced working hours—assuming we don’t want school to go year-round, for whatever nostalgic reason—is to pay them as if they were working full time, whatever. Just tell them not to pretend they work as much as everyone else.
I know what you mean. My Father in law and Sister in law are both public employees. I just don’t see how it justifies it. Yeah, it might suck for someone close, but that doesn’t take away that it’s a bad idea. And it’s a bad idea that’s hurting our country.
The days per year that teachers actually work for a living 187: (12 days of staff development before the school year begins plus 175 instructional days)
The days during the school year that they take off every conceivable holiday PAID: 25
Add in the summer months spent off, and I certainly do not see where any teacher is overpaid or overworked.
In fact, they are receiving salaries and benefits that most people earn by working year round.
No sympathy in this corner for underpaid/overworked teachers.
I am assuming that you are speaking of "right to work" states. I guess I never thought about the impact on "public" unions, I always think of that in terms of private companies. So, in a "right to work" state, the state CAN fire an incompetent teacher after three warnings?
Here's a job posting from a North Texas school district. Duty days: 187 + 3 days in-service = 190 days. A teacher would earn $195 per day they spend on the job.
Except here in North Texas, this district starts first-year teachers at $47k
At a parent/teacher conference, I once had a teacher ask "What are you doing here? Your daughter is doing great." Really? Only parents of struggling students should be involved in the education of their children? I smiled and told her I knew my daughter was doing great, but that SHE, the teacher, wasn't doing so well, and I wanted to talk with her about that. Then, we had a little "let's discuss how you're going to improve the quality of teaching in your classroom" conversation. Fortunately, my daughter only had her for one period and an elective class, but I wanted her put on notice.
The teachers all say “They want the parents involved with their children’s education.”
What they are really saying is “We want you involved with your children because if your involved it makes our job easier, but please don’t get in our way of educating your child”
I’m sorry, but there is a LOT of ignorance on this thread - including yours.
Have you ever known what teachers have to do OUTSIDE of the classroom (lesson plans, PTA meetings, supplementing school supplies supposedly provided by the State) or OUTSIDE the “barely nine months a year” timeframe you talked about?”
There are six people in our family who are school teachers so I do not speak from ignorance. They are out of school an entire week for spring break, one week at Thanksgiving, ten days at Christmas, all of June, July and half of August. Basic lesson plans vary some from year to year but not a whole lot as they have always taught the same grade and courses. And yes many schools provide free or reduced breakfast and lunch to teachers and all staff as well as the students. Quality is another issue entire and not the point I was making.
Compare that to a middle management position individual that is paid less, works longer hours per day, often takes projects home to finish, has only two to three weeks of vacation a year, has no guaranteed raise or job certainty, and pays for all or a huge portion of their own health insurance.
While the daily environment may be different, teachers still have a financial leg up both in wages which continue to increase and in benefits - which must be included if you want to discuss compensation.
Starting salary of $37,184.
$3098.67 a month is what this teacher would be making.
Let's begin by taking 30% of that for taxes, union dues and such things.
That would be $2169.07 free and clear every month.
Now since this a starting teacher who is hip I am going to put him in a nice apartment right in the middle of the city at $699.00 a month. This would be a large one bed room with 860sqf. Washer/Dryer enclosed garage,wi-fi and utilities except electric and cable. Let's give him $50.00 for the electric and $100.00 for cable
This leaves $1320.07
Now our teacher wants a nice car so I gave him a brand new 2012 Mustang. No money down and a 72 month loan makes for a $468 car payment. Plus $75.00 for insurance and $120.00 for gas.
Now let's add in his student loan. $242.82 is the average so let's use that.
That leaves $414.25 a month for food, clothing and entertainment.
Sounds pretty good to me.
This might have been true once but not for the last 40 years. It is an old canard-—You could pay them a million a year and they still would complain. Now I am not saying teaching is easy—to do it right its one of the most difficult jobs out there—but you want to see good teachers who earn almost nothing—Check out the Catholic Schools—they teach there because they want to—not for the freebies and the union. I know I have been one of them.
You are right. I forgot they only work 9 months and get paid for a full year. Taking that into consideration, the $35,000 to $40,000 has them earning at a rate of $46,000 to $53,000 per year as a starting salary.
Then we have to throw in the retirement benefit (at least 80% of their salary when they retire and fully paid health benefits, whereas private sector has to contribute significantly to the cost of employer provided health plan.
In short, you are correct and I was overlooking a whole bunch of stuff.
I stand corrected!
My husband and I eat and live just fine on $25,000 a year. We don’t own our own house and we don’t eat out every day. We eat a lot of pasta and the like. One year we only made 18,000 (our first year) but we are happy with what we have!!
37,000 a year sounds like wealth to me!! I work in foodservice and hubby does church work. We will never be wealthy people. Of course a lot of churches pay pastors with families more than that(so you can feed your kids).
Does this person have children?
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