Posted on 05/31/2012 8:57:15 AM PDT by MichCapCon
As teachers in the same school district, Craig and Laura Beach have a combined 47 years at Rockford Public Schools.
According to the teachers’ union contract, the two would make a combined $140,000 a year working in a city where the median household income is $57,422.
Craig is a high school teacher with 23 years of experience and his wife Laura has 24 years of experience and is an elementary school teacher, according to what Craig Beach recently posted in his op-ed on MLive.
If the teaching couple retired with 25 years of experience, their combined pensions would be about $52,000 a year. The Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System will provide health care coverage into retirement as early as age 46 if they qualify.
Yet, Craig Beach is unhappy with the “scorn” his profession is allegedly feeling from the Republican Party as well as the compensation of teachers. He wrote that he and his wife are committed that their children not become teachers.
“... My wife and I are adamant that this will never be the heritage of our own three children,” he wrote. "For the first time in my service to our future leaders, I have come to the realization that I would never want my children to enter the education profession. My father, mother, sister, wife and I all have advanced college degrees. In total, the five of us have approximately 36 years of college. My children will use their college degrees for a profession that is not the target of scorn of the Republican Party.
"Would you encourage your son or daughter to devote an advanced college degree to this profession?" he wrote.
Tina Dupont, who has a Rockford mailing address and is a member of the Tea Party of West Michigan, said teachers are paid well and if they "love teaching, pay and benefits should be a secondary worry."
"Teachers today make more money than most of the parents who drop off their kids. They get many days off for Christmas, spring break, summer, etc. Most days they can leave with the children when the final bell rings and actually beat them home since they don’t have to ride the bus," DuPont said. "They‘ve not been paying much for the health care or retirement. … The rest of us have been doing this for years and paying for theirs. So now when the tax payer who pays his salary and benefits can no longer afford to be so generous, he has the gall to whine about it. What Mr. Beach does not realize [that] they ... also get more generous benefits than any I’ve ever seen in my or my husband’s career."
Rockford teachers were offered a health insurance plan with the school district paying 100 percent of the premium. That was changed in the latest contract that was effective Sept. 1, 2011 and teachers currently pay 18 percent of their health care premium.
A teacher with 24 years of service and a master's degree working at Rockford Public Schools earns $71,832 a year. A teacher at Rockford with 23 years of service with a master’s degree would make $70,189, according to the union contract. If a teacher worked 25 years and retired from Rockford, the annual pension would be an estimated $26,320. By contrast, in 2008, the median pension for the private sector was $7,584, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Beach didn’t respond to a request sent to his school email address seeking comment.
and one of their pensions,
They still make more than I do.
I really can believe that such educated people (in theory) are still blaming just the republicans.
For the love, talk about overeducated stupid people.....
” What is there about teaching that would require a master’s degree? “
*******
What probably happens is the person can’t get a job in the private sector with their masters degree in some pseudo-science and so they are steered towards teaching. Schools should not be paying a premium for people with advanced degrees that are then used to teach introductory classes such as those offered in high school.
IF: education degree
THEN: no education
Get rid of the degree, and the unions that support it.
There is plenty of talent in both the STEM subjects and in the lib arts that would love to educate (in the true sense of the word) our children. One can cover the psychology of “education” with a couple of 10th grade courses. The rest of education is for folks who actually have something to teach.
“Would you encourage your son or daughter to devote an advanced college degree to this profession?”
An advanced degree in education? For pity’s sake *why*? An MS or PhD in education makes as much sense as issuing MS and PhD degrees in welding or plumbing.
That is not a knock on welding or plumbing — or even education. All three are examples of skilled trades where once the basics have been mastered, experience is the best teacher, not classroom work.
The Armed Forces turn out teachers (they call them instructors) with three months training. Why would anyone need more than three months to learn the techniques of teaching. (Yes, it can take 3-3/4 years to master a subject to be taught, such as science — but teaching techniques ain’t rocket science.)
My Wife just got laid off. Our Health Insurance Premium was $400 a month. Now under COBRA, we pay $1300 a month.
Not whining, it’s just the way it is in Obamaville. Maybe I should write an article and blame the Republicans. /s
LOL! Writing that one down, TM!
“My father, mother, sister, wife and I all have advanced college degrees. In total, the five of us have approximately 36 years of college.”
And their “advanced degrees” are probably those mickey mouse M.Eds and Ed.Ds. (paid for at taxpayer expense to qualify them for mandatory higher salaries).
My kids have had some really good teachers, but I’m getting tired of them complaining about how rough they have it with a decent salary, gold-plated healthcare and pension, and summers off.
Couldn’t you just paint a toilet blue, or take a canvas and leave it in the rain, then drive over it, then cover it with oats and let chickens crap all over it?
That’s what my old roommate did for his Art Degree?
That’s red neck art, I guess. I stank at drawing pictures. Never had the brain for it.
I could see masters and doctorates in welding, with exotic automated systems. And in plumbing, if someone ever invents a robotic plumber.
Speaking of which, other than handling behavior problems, sticking a robot in front of a class of kids would do at least as well as what we got today.
I think the pension rate is something like 75-80% here in CA for that length of service. Of course they whine about not getting Social Security but neglect to mention they aren’t “fortunate” enough to have to pay the 7-15% us private twerps pay. I believe their “contribution” to their retirement is something like 8% which is the same as my SSI.
an education degree is NOT a medical degree....and sadly, most times EDUCATION is their major, not math, not chemistry or biology or physics.....
Gulp...I know I’ll get some flak for this, but gotta say a few things about teachers:
1. They work for about 10 months in most states, and have MANDATORY summer workshops they must attend, and their salaries are usually paid over an annual basis. Their classrooms are expected to be cleaned out at end of year (after kids go home) and then ready at beginning of year (for all those Open House events), so they put in their time making that happen. I know, cuz I’ve helped my sister and my niece who are both teachers in Louisiana, and way back eons ago I taught in Mississippi.
2. Like any profession, there are good ones and then those who work the system, leach off the taxpayer, and give education a really bad name/smell.
3. Gotta point at the administration (at all levels in any school system) and say they are overpaid, overstaffed, not ideal for their roles. Very few have good “field” experience that makes them credible and a role model for the teachers they supervise. Sadly, a lot of em have their noses so far up the next upper level supervisor’s rectum that they sneeze brown when then upper level flatuates. Most of em need to be back in the classroom on a mandatory 1 day/week so they can practice what they preach. Usually their practices are so stupid that even new kindergarten students roll their eyes.
Yeah, I know they’re still stupid for being Democrats, and for supporting their unions (I got a lot of gripe about that) but God Bless the good ones who stick it out anyway and try to teach our kids. Not all of em are bad...but our overall American education system sucks when compared to other industrialized countries fer sure. I don’t know what the solution is, cuz it’s all like an onion: the more you cut it, the more you cry.
the best teachers....the NUNS....no kidding....very educated, disciplined, passionate,dedicated....
I disagree. I would think that attaining a degree in art requires some degree of talent.
POST OF THE DAY!!!
they've making themselves out to be some sort of superior saintly martyrs....like they work so "hard" and they work so "long" and they have all this "education"...(NOT!) ...truth is , they get paid better than people with actual science/math degrees, better benefits than almost all people except fellow govt workers, and retire early with fat pensions...
they never get their fingernails dirty...they don't have to lift heavy objects...they can never be fired...they actually get work time lessened so they can talk about their "work"....
sounds like a cushy job to me...( I don't actually believe that...I wouldn't want to nor could be a teacher...standing in front of a bunch of people..but jeepers, they get a pretty good package for that)
let me put it this way.....would they want to be the doctors or nurses taking care of that poor man in Florida with his face gone?....I didn't think so...
These so-called “educators” are the whiniest group I’ve ever met. What a bunch of spoiled, self-praising losers.
Yep. I’m finding that true of so many of the union types whose salaries/benefits/pensions are almost as Taxpayer-gold-plated as the criminal, corrupt pols we re-elect each year.
(As a small businessman whose Family Farm was destroyed by the EPA after 22yrs, I’ll be lucky to share a meal with my farm cats, let alone retire with that kind of money.)
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