Its a job?
A pretty good job for the vast majority.
Pays better than the average with good bennies.
That is if you are not a teacher in some kind of urban liberal hell hole.
Otherwise, you get three month of a year and the good month,too.
Frankly, I don’t rate public school teachers much above tour guides or someone who works in a recreational dept.
As with most government jobs, teachers almost cannot be fired, regardless of how terrible they are short of criminal conduct. However, many public school teachers do absolutely wonderful work, taking pride in teaching their students well. That varies tremendously by school district, but we have excellent, politically-neutral public schools in my area.
“Frankly, I don’t rate public school teachers much above tour guides or someone who works in a recreational dept.”
What a putz. They are like everyone else, some good and some bad. You’ve taken the easy way out. Complain but never do anything to demand that public education be allowed to put disruptive kids that the private and parochial schools dumped because they just didn’t fit in a special school. The parochial and private schools don’t take physically handicapped or those with learning disabilities or ones with even minor disruptive problems. Great Christians they are they just dump on the public schools so you can complain. I doubt it’s any different in your city. Give me a break it’s about money. Tuition dollars. The ones that are taking vouchers here are the ones under threat of closing by the Archdioceses and these are not quality schools. You also forget and what scares the H out of me is religious education getting those voucher dollars. We already have several Muslim schools indoctrinating kids in this city. If you want to see class stratification in this city the parochial schools outdo any of the private schools in a very class conscious city. Why do private and parochial schools always refuse to take the same tests the public schools take for evaluation. The teachers aren’t evaluated either. Funny they are always looking for public school teachers that have experience here. If you think most teachers get 3 months off your crazy and the ones that do don’t get paid for it. Are you po’d that you have to take care of your own kids sometime.