Posted on 03/16/2011 5:56:11 AM PDT by MichCapCon
The Grand Rapids Press recently interviewed public school teachers who asserted that their profession is losing respect and they are treated like scapegoats.
Michigan Capitol Confidential looked at some of the comments made by the teachers and then examined what the typical compensation and benefits are for educators in their district with similar years of experience.
Caledonia Public Schools:
Quote to newspaper:
“It used to be that teachers were treated with respect,” said Pat Gillies, a physical education teacher and coach at Caledonia High School. “I've been doing this 15 years, and I've seen a lot of changes. I just don't think people treat the profession with the same amount of respect, and I have to think that comes from the home.”
Caledonia Public Schools pays 100 percent of the premium for teachers who choose the MESSA Choices II health care plan. Private-sector employees in Michigan that are covered by their employer’s health care plan contribute (on average) 20 percent of the cost of the plan.
A teacher with 15 years of experience in Caledonia and a bachelor’s degree would earn $63,620 per year. An assistant varsity football coach could earn up to $4,923 for the 4 ½ month season. The district would contribute about $13,700 to the teacher’s retirement account in the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System to cover their pension.
Allendale Public Schools:
Quote to newspaper:
"People say to me, 'What are you whining about? You get summers off.' They don't understand that we don't get paid during the summer unless we elect to stretch out those payments. We're actually unemployed in the summer." -- Tamika Henry, New Options Alternative School (Allendale Public Schools)
Allendale Public Schools pays 100 percent of the premium for teachers who select the MESSA Choices II health care plan. (The district does require an annual co-pay that is capped at $250 for individuals and $500 per family for medical expenses incurred.) A teacher with a bachelor’s degree with 10 years of teaching experience would earn $51,754. The district would contribute about $10,350 annually to the teacher’s retirement plan in MPSERS to cover their pension.
Teachers in Allendale are allowed to extend their pay to the summer months, still are covered by their health insurance during summer vacation and have a job waiting for them when they return in the fall.
Grandville Public Schools:
Quote to newspaper:
“Teaching is an awesome career, and I wouldn't trade what I've done for anything in the world,” said Grandville teacher Sandy Bajema, a 25-year veteran. “Now, would I encourage my kids to head into the field? I'd have to think about that.”
Grandville pays 100 percent of health care premiums for teachers who select the MESSA Choices II health care plan. A teacher with 25 years of experience and a bachelor’s degree would earn an annual salary of $66,260. A teacher with 25 years experience and a master’s degree would earn $74,463. The district would contribute about $13,252 to the teacher's retirement plan in MPSERS to cover their pension.
Teachers are no better or worse than the society that produces them. Our society as a whole is deficient, so our teachers will also be mostly deficient.
One important point that never seems to be mentioned in any coverage about Michigan teachers’ benefits is that MESSA, the insurance provider mentioned in that article, is a wholey-owned subsidiary of MEA, the Michigan teachers’ union.
It is a *very* expensive health insurance policy, that no other employer outside of teachers union targets would ever purchase. Even if the coverage is put up for bid, no other insurance carrier can match it because those other insurance carriers can not sell such an over-priced policy to any other employers. MESSA also has a history of never providing claims history details that a potential competing bidder would need in order to determine its financial exposure and thus what it would cost to cover a group of teachers.
The union is not only collecting dues from all its members, but also the profits from the insurance they have forced to be included in any union-approved contract.
“Those that can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those that can’t teach, administrate.”
after watching and hearing the teacher union mobs in Wisconsin, especially teaching those kids they dragged out of school to march and chant world socialist slogans, what’s not to respect?
SARC
I attended a high school parent/teacher night. My son’s English teacher distributed a handout with the wrong form of their/they’re/there (don’t remember which it should have been, this was a LONG time ago). I waited until the other parents had left and pointed it out. Her assistant said, oh, we were in a hurry and didn’t proofread. ?!?!?
Teachers are treated by some taxpayer with adulation. Those taxpayer generally want teachers to be given whatever the teachers demand.
More and more taxpayers are coming to the realization that they have been asked to spend way more each year than the inflation rate on education budget while the quality of the product worsens year after year. That growing group of taxpayers tends over time to see teachers unions as the thugs they are who are out to rob the taxpayers but are not decent enough to pull a standard weapon such as a knife or a gun to enforce their demands. Instead they use the first group of taxpayers a/k/a parents with children as the weapon while they hold the children as hostages.
I don’t remember the exact amount but the Mackinaw Center said that the MESSA insurance plan nets the union several hundred million dollars. This is just straight out theft and the Michigan government needs to address this soon.
Why should all homeschool teachers be lumped together and treated with respect and all public school teachers lumped together and treated with disrespect?
Not all homeschool teachers are good and not all public school teachers are bad.
People who make all-inclusive statements about teachers are not objective thinkers.
The unions - when you are part of a group that refuses to let the worst employees be treated any differently than the best employees, expect to be given the respect earned by the worst employees.
By world standards, American K-12 education is the most lavishly funded in the world. In return, we get a level of performance that ranges from mediocre to abysmal. And we also get a freightload of guff from teachers, school administrators, and union activists whenever reforms are sought to make public education more effective and less expensive.
Yes, indeed! :-)
Proverbs 31: 28
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
I started seeing misspelled communications coming from my children’s teachers back in the late 60s. I bit my tongue because I wanted my children to respect their teachers.
That has only gotten worse but the #1 reason society in general no longer respects teachers is because of the product they are turning out. Thoroughly indoctrinated in matters of the environment and all cultures are equal but barely literate or numerate.
Remember there are people like Bill Ayers in Universities who are educating future teachers. He emphasized social justice rather than academics.
My advice is to just say it right now! Why hold back any longer? It is way past time to challenge & confront the libturds & their warped socialist ideology.
Last weekend I accosted & verbally challenged a libturd in Menomonie WI holding a sign & petition to recall one of the WI repub senators who voted for Gov Walkers budget repair bill. We gotta challenge & confront the libturds in every setting.
Very true, I've seen it often. A guy I work with moved his daughter to another school because the staff "had it out for her". I knew all along the kid was rotten, and I was sooooo right.
Do teachers respect taxpayers?
As public servants do they act like servants?
Some of them have a very high opinion of themselves. One teacher actually wrote a letter to our local paper saying that “teachers make children human.” It takes a lot of hubris to write something like that.
Teachers think parents are stupid (I’ve heard that from somebody who teaches in the public schools), parents think teachers are incompetent. Lord knows what the kids think.
Not a happy situation for those who have some type of involvement with the public schools.
Who couldn’t be proud of teachers, especially after seeing them in action in Madison, Wisconsin..despite being “sick”.
“...I just don’t think people treat the profession with the same amount of respect, and I have to think that comes from the home.”
Teachers are NOT some rarefied breed of people. THEY came from the same ‘home’ that their students did.
Teachers themselves have forfeited their claim to respect.
They are overgrown children themselves, selfish and shallow with a crying need to be ‘one of the kids’, to be ‘buddies’ with the kids and to be ‘cool’. They dress, speak and conduct themselves in the most undignified way and yet retain the expectation of respect.
They are NOT respected because they basically relinquished their proper status as adults with authority.
Even in the military, the officers DO NOT become familiar with the privates. A proper detachment is maintained and is respected. Ask yourself why that is.
A military organization which no longer recognizes or answers to authority has lost its tactical integrity. It cannot function at any level. It is no longer an organization, but has become a mob.
The current idiocy which has transformed the classroom into a social experiment has reduced students to the level of a mob and teachers to the status of well paid clowns….who the students will ALWAYS challenge and ridicule with impunity.
“teachers make children human.”
Sick! And you know what they mean by this...
Those children AREN’T human until they are “properly socialized”, and therefore it is no loss if they are killed because they aren’t part of society until then.
Evolutionary/Marxist worldview on display.
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