Cougarfan87 wrote:
Wow, it sounds like some people have a pretty low opinion of teachers. I would disagree, but I am biased. My father was a teacher, my uncle was a teacher, my wife was a teacher before we got married, and her parents are both teachers. When people point out that teachers are overcompensated because they get three months off, they speak out of ignorance. Let me explain. My Dad, when he was teaching, could choose to get his full salary for nine months or get his nine month salary divided up into twelve months. Teachers do not get paid for those three months off until they have been working for many years. It took my Dad, a teacher for 30 years, a long time to get paid for the summers. I remember him waiting tables during the summers to earn more money. At my wife's school in Lehi, most of the male teachers had to work at night and during the summers laying carpet, working as electricians, or other jobs just to make ends meet. And after nine months of teaching, you really do need three months off to come back fresh and ready to teach again the next year. I volunteered at my wife's school for six months while I was waiting to start law school--you would have to pay me eight figures to work as a teacher--and then I would retire after one year.
My feelings are that most teachers are underpaid. Find me another profession where you get a four year degree and start out working for $24,000 a year. Yes it does go up, but not enough. I made more in my second year as a government attorney than my Dad did after 30 years of teaching and he taught in California where the wages were much better. I made almost as much as he did in my first year. What I do isn't nearly as important as what he was doing as a teacher.
The ones who go into teaching for the wrong reasons don't usually last because you get almost no appreciation from the students, mostly grief from the parents, and very little pay starting out. There is no greater call than teaching, and yet society certainly doesn't seem to pay it much importance.
If I were king for a day, teachers would start out at $50K a year. See who would be attracted into the profession then, knowing they could actually support a family on their salary. My brother in law wanted to be a teacher but passed it up because he felt he could not support a family on it. He would have been a great teacher and role model for the youth.
My son had a great teacher last year that had really high standards and assigned oodles of homework. We saw him progress so much under her watch. And what did most of the parents do? Complain that she assigned too much homework. She was truly an underappreciated teacher, but we let her know how much we appreciated all she did.
Oh, and teachers do not just work at school. They work hours at home each night, for which they are not compensated. My wife figured out that for all of the hours she worked, compared to what she was getting paid, she probably made less than minimum wage. So please, show teachers a little appreciation. They sacrifice an awful lot hoping to influence the rising generation for good.
I absolutely agree with almost everything that you posted. Understand that what you posted is the highest arc of the pendulum, because of your experience. (Your family both immediate and extended family are teachers, and that gives you a very positive view of teaching. Meaning - that you view teaching in the best of lights.)
We are getting a little off-topic of the OP. To bring it back:
The problem is that you have the over-achievers (quite possibly your father, and wife, and others like them) and the under-achievers in the same group. And rather than turn themselves against each other they are turned against other city and state employees (policmen/firemen/gov't officials/city officials/and anyone that takes home pay coming out of taxpayer dollars) as getting paid more to do "less" important work. Ironically, the most important, and job that receives the least "benefits" and has the most actual hardship of ALL of these jobs (policework) is never mentioned as deserving of anything the others cry for.
There is no rallying cry for policeman to get more a year. When policeman need to get laid off, people don't create facebook pages to rally behind, and get on the news etc etc etc. Policeman are the most important function of any city, state, and territory. Plain and simple. So you have to grade papers at night? You're not getting shot at on a weekly basis...
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY THIS IS? Because there is a teacher's union. There is a bureaucratic organization whose leaders get paid according to how many members there are. The unions fight to keep everyone the same, because then everyone is happy. Or everyone is unhappy, together. Which gives the union something to "do" and that gives people a reason to have a union in the first place. Unions exist to survive, and they do that by leaching off the population they pretend to help. Do you know why there is public opinion that teachers just "coast" through life and their jobs? Because a lot of them do. Why isn't there the same public opinion for policemen/firemen/doctors/city accountants/etc etc. BECAUSE THEY FIRE MOST (if not all) THE PEOPLE THAT ARE GIVING THAT PERCEPTION. Teaching is the most polar opposite occupation in the world. You will find some of the hardest working, under appreciated people in the world. You will also find some of the laziest, coasting, scum of the earth in the working middle class (any teacher will tell you this). Why? Because a Union allows it's members to feast on each other. It needs numbers, so it does what it needs to do to get the greatest number of people in its ranks. It cuts the 10% of the bottom off, and the other 10% at the top of the teaching ranks are smart enough to figure out what it is doing. But the other 80% all up and down the spectrum are allowed to leach off each other, and be leached upon.
You want to fix teaching? Take power out of the unions, and the bureaucracies that "govern" teachers. Set it up like a business, those that contribute do well, and those that don't - starve. Treat each teacher as a salesman. Does it add to, or subtract from the company? If it adds, then keep it and incentivize it. If it subtracts - let it go.
Cut off the dead weight, teachers. Stop unionizing. Ostracize the leachers, and get them fired if possible. As to the original point of the post, eliminating teacher tenure is one way of limiting union powers, and union memberships. And I am all for it.
