Parents’re also the ones who have to put up with asinine liberal administrators, teachers who can’t spell as well as a 3rd grader, curriculum that is anything but academic, and oftentimes homework and projects that do nothing to advance academic education. Let’s not even start on the lack of gifted education in elementary schools, or the unwillingness of administrators to skip kids ahead to take advantage of their gifts.
Let’s recognize the problems on all sides and realize that there ARE a lot of parents out there who push their kids to do well academically. If the school isn’t there to support it, there’s little you can do after a full school day and an hour or two of homework. The kids are exhausted and so are you.
And please - abysmal salaries for teachers ? That canard has been debunked so many times I’m surprised it’s still around in circles other than union strongholds. Read this: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3438676.html
The only real answer is school choice: homeschool or a carefully selected private school without having to simultaneously support the local government indoctrination center.
Wow... that link has so many holes in it I’m not sure where to start...
Generous pensions that require no contributions?!?! Teachers in Ohio pay 10% of their salary to their pension plan - no ifs, ands, or buts.
For that, if they work a full career, they can get a pension that pays out 66% of the average of their last three years’ salaries.
What does that mean?
If you go by the 5% rule and withdraw 5% of the funds each year (and don’t adjust for inflation) during retirement, that means that if you get annual 3% raises, the state’s annual contribution as a % of your salary to your pension is defined by:
cont=-68.795*x^3+41.613*x^2-8.3046*x+0.4795
where x is the annual return on invested funds.
If the market returns an 8% annual return, that means the teacher’s pension has the equivalent cost to the state of 4.6% of their annual income. If the market returns 9%, the state’s cost is 1.9%. If the market returns more than about 9.8%, the state makes a profit off the teacher’s contributions to their own pensions.
I don’t know where you come from, but I consider that a horrid deal.
(and no, I am NOT a teacher)
Some of the research showing how "well paid" teachers are has been contested, and not always by those supporting unions. You might try reading this, for example.