[rwfromkansas]

I have seen the salary schedule here.

Just over 20,000 to start. Man that sure is raking in the dough.

Don't you realize that it takes decades to move up to the top salary position in teaching? This isn't like any other job where you can move up from low pay pretty quickly. And you can't move unless you want to get knocked all the way back down at another school.

You are stuck after some point once you have a family etc.

[CyberCowboy777]

I want to stop talking about the salaries - data is availible and we all know that is varies from state to state, district to district.

The System is what people are upset with. The salaries are only a flash point (Do you like paying good money for a crappy product?).

[CyberCowboy777]

What percentage of that national average salary is the "teachers" who have no class (In Portland, Oregon some huge number like 10% of "teachers" have no class and are not considered administrators)?

[babyface00]

Just over 20,000 to start. Man that sure is raking in the dough

Thats for what, 8 months of work? Do the math, that's the equivalent of 27k starting salary.

Name another career where you can make that kind of starting salary, with lavish benefits, near zero chance of being fired, fabulous retirement plan, all with a four-year degree. And, if you do nothing else but get higher degrees (which most professional people have to do without getting the summers off), you get automatic salary increases. Plus, and maybe this is inaccurate, but how much really changes from year-to-year in math, english, social studies, etc.? Most of the rest of us have to keep going back for training just to keep up with changes in technology. Teachers can get by with reiterating the same thing they taught last year (and I suspect quite a few of mine did).

I'm not saying teachers aren't worth it. What I am saying is that they should stop whining that they're overpaid, because they'd be making far less, over more hours per week, with less time off and a lousy retirement plan if they had to work in the private sector with their equivalent skills and education. When you factor in that they're paid based on taxes confiscated from the public, and particularly if you factor in the overall performance results of their 12 years of "teaching" ("do you want fries with that?"), their whining is even more dispicable.

If its so bad, find a job in the private sector. Certainly, stop standing in the way of reform (via the NEA) that would benefit children.