You are told wrong. Chicago teachers average 76 Gs per year. Not a high salary for a college graduate in general.
For your information many of the surrounding suburbs make about a third more. Not a princely sum, either, unless you are The Disaster.
Don’t fall for the Class War here.
Yeah, but Vitale offered a 16 percent raise over the next four years and the unions laughed. Its not class warfare to ask your friends and neighbors, “What did your raise look like this year?” Around here we’re just glad to have work. People with college degrees now help me at Home Depot. We haven’t seen raises in 4 years. And we can barely scrape together a week or two vacation time in a year. We certainly don’t get 3 summer months off, all weekends, bank holidays and spring break. Teaching can be a tough job. But it has significant pluses as well. People who teach know this going in. Complaining so loudly while the over taxed private sector struggles just comes across as repugnant.
$76K a year is huge for employees who work less than 200 days in a year, work less than an 8-hour day, get big fat old-fashioned defined benefit pensions and other outsized benefits, are no longer employees at will after a few years, and consistently score so far below the average college graduate on tests that are proxies for proficiency and intelligence.
Yoe’s comments are spot on. They’re paid 76K for 181 days of work. That’s $52/hr. Fire them all and start fresh.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/10389568-418/sick-pay-jackpot.html