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 Kanluwen wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

cuda1179 wrote:
While I do support teachers, the ability to get what you want every time is a bit.... much

When you're as underpaid and overworked as every teacher I've ever known.... no, it isn't.

 cuda1179 wrote:
. If the education budget isn't allocating enough resources to attract and retain quality teachers then the govt can adjust the budget and raise taxes if necessary, that's their job. It is not in the teachers' purview to dictate to the state how education funds will be budgeted or what tax rates will be.

For starters, that second quote you attributed to me, I never stated that. That was someone else. I'm going to go ahead and assume that you made an honest mistake with the quotations, it happens.

As for teachers being underpaid and overworked.....
Now, I'm not saying that there aren't some teachers that are underpaid or overworked, but that is true of any profession. About the worst thing you can say abou the teaching profession is that the hours they do get are very unevenly distributed throughout the year, making for times when they could get burned-out.

The wage they earn for the hours they work is quite fare. According to ABC news the wage per hour worked for teachers is MORE than that for Chemists, Archatechs, Pharmisists, city planners, Firemen, or Police officers. Yes, I know teachers work more hours than what they are contracted to work. Much like any other salary based employee this isn't exactly abnormal. Others do it too. Just as a comparrisson, my yearly income basically matches that of the average teacher, yet I work 20% more hours, and I have fewer benefits.

Chemists, architects, pharmacists, city planners, firemen, or police aren't often forced to pay out of pocket for stocking their offices.

I think the best plan for getting teachers more money is to work them more hours, spread more thoughout the year. Have school 12 months per year. Teachers will then have a year-long job (like everyone else). Class sizes could be smaller then, reducing stress for teachers and improving education for the students. Raising the number of hours teachers work per year by 20% with a 10% increase in pay would be something people could live with.

Do you really think that most teachers aren't already working year long?

Public schools have 180 school days, that's 36 weeks of school. Factor in some extra days for the lead up and wind down of the school year and you have 38 weeks of work. That leaves 14 weeks off during the year. That's a lot more time off than your typical 50 weeks with 2 weeks paid vacation jobs. Teachers get 3 months off most jobs get 2-3 weeks off. It doesn't make any sense to compare teacher salaries to the salaries of people who work significantly more hours for the year.

If school rooms don't have the materials they need then that is a problem for the school board and state ed dept and state legislature to solve, they set the tax rates and budgets. Teachers can spend money on their classrooms if they choose to but they're certainly not required to and they get to claim those expenditures as deductions on their income taxes. We spend hundreds of dollars a year on school supplies for our kids and we don't get a tax deduction for it. Every single year regardless of grade level parents are required to buy supplies for their children and the classroom without negotiation or explanation, just a list of what to buy. Our parents did it for their children, we do it for our children. If teachers can work within their budgets and the contributions from the dozens of students in their classes and choose to spend their own money on supplies that's on them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

For starters, that second quote you attributed to me, I never stated that. That was someone else. I'm going to go ahead and assume that you made an honest mistake with the quotations, it happens.

As for teachers being underpaid and overworked.....
Now, I'm not saying that there aren't some teachers that are underpaid or overworked, but that is true of any profession. About the worst thing you can say abou the teaching profession is that the hours they do get are very unevenly distributed throughout the year, making for times when they could get burned-out.

The wage they earn for the hours they work is quite fare. According to ABC news the wage per hour worked for teachers is MORE than that for Chemists, Architects, Pharmisists, city planners, Firemen, or Police officers. Yes, I know teachers work more hours than what they are contracted to work. Much like any other salary based employee this isn't exactly abnormal. Others do it too. Just as a comparrisson, my yearly income basically matches that of the average teacher, yet I work 20% more hours, and I have fewer benefits.

I think the best plan for getting teachers more money is to work them more hours, spread more thoughout the year. Have school 12 months per year. Teachers will then have a year-long job (like everyone else). Class sizes could be smaller then, reducing stress for teachers and improving education for the students. Raising the number of hours teachers work per year by 20% with a 10% increase in pay would be something people could live with.

Indeed that quote block issue was my fault... but hey, wall of text, quote code looks all the same to me


What you're saying may be true in Iowa, but is definitely untrue in other parts of the country. For instance, teachers in my home state of Washington are paid roughly the same as they are there in Iowa. There is a state set bottom line pay scale. Most districts offer bonuses that increase teacher salary some, with some districts, like those around Microsoft-land being very well paid indeed. However, the cost of living for much of this state means that those teachers who don't work in those privileged districts are living/working at subsistence rates.

As Kan pointed out, the majority of teachers provide, out of pocket, a significant chunk of the school supplies in their classrooms. Now, for elementary teachers this is obviously an issue, because crayons, pencils, markers, etc. aren't cheap when you're looking at 20+ snotlings running around, but those costs aren't really any less for middle and high school teachers, especially with the recent push in humanities for more "project based" learning.

Now, I have a former BIL who was a prison guard, and he had to buy his own utility belt. I don't know if that is also the case for real cops (LEO lvl 2+ in Nevada), but lets stick with something even more basic... How many cops would continue to be cops if they were forced to buy 1000 rounds of ammo every year, or every 6 months? How many would be OK with spending their own money putting fuel in their patrol cars? How many would be OK with buying hay and oats for their horses (where applicable)?

We should be supporting our teachers as a society, but instead, a huge chunk has decided to attack and vilify them at pretty much every opportunity.

The cops that I know and see at our club range have to pay for all their practice ammo and instructional classes out of pocket. The state pays for the minimal training and testing required and that's it. If you want to be a good shot and have good marksmanship with your duty weapon you need t spend a lot of your own time and money to achieve it.

Prestor Jon wrote:


Public schools have 180 school days, that's 36 weeks of school. Factor in some extra days for the lead up and wind down of the school year and you have 38 weeks of work. That leaves 14 weeks off during the year. That's a lot more time off than your typical 50 weeks with 2 weeks paid vacation jobs. Teachers get 3 months off most jobs get 2-3 weeks off. It doesn't make any sense to compare teacher salaries to the salaries of people who work significantly more hours for the year.

You have no idea what you're talking about if you think that teachers are not working during school holidays.

Prestor Jon wrote:

Public schools have 180 school days, that's 36 weeks of school. Factor in some extra days for the lead up and wind down of the school year and you have 38 weeks of work. That leaves 14 weeks off during the year. That's a lot more time off than your typical 50 weeks with 2 weeks paid vacation jobs. Teachers get 3 months off most jobs get 2-3 weeks off. It doesn't make any sense to compare teacher salaries to the salaries of people who work significantly more hours for the year.

Except they arent getting all that time off. They're preparing lesson plans, attending curriculum meetings, receiving training, managing school events, attending classes themselves, teaching summer school, etc.

And thats on top of having to grade papers and prepare class materials and attend parent teacher meetings and other such things outside of class hours during the school year.

That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

 Vaktathi wrote:

That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

All true.

I never taught K-12 (hats off to those folks!), but I did teach at the college level and even though I only "worked" 4 lecture hours a week, I spent at least 2 hours a day preparing for each lecture, and 4-8 hours on weekends preparing assignments, grading, and researching for upcoming lectures. You could double that weekend time around midterms, finals, or when any major assignments were due and required grading.

There is a lot of work done "off the clock" that seems to be conveniently forgotten when people think you "only" work while in the classroom.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

Public schools have 180 school days, that's 36 weeks of school. Factor in some extra days for the lead up and wind down of the school year and you have 38 weeks of work. That leaves 14 weeks off during the year. That's a lot more time off than your typical 50 weeks with 2 weeks paid vacation jobs. Teachers get 3 months off most jobs get 2-3 weeks off. It doesn't make any sense to compare teacher salaries to the salaries of people who work significantly more hours for the year.

Except they arent getting all that time off. They're preparing lesson plans, attending curriculum meetings, receiving training, managing school events, attending classes themselves, teaching summer school, etc.

And thats on top of having to grade papers and prepare class materials and attend parent teacher meetings and other such things outside of class hours during the school year.

That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

That's no different than everybody else that works in a salaried position and has to make time to get everything done outside of the standard 40 hour work week. I had several teachers at the schools I attended for K-12 who worked summer jobs and every coach at my HS was a teacher that was able to coach, and get paid for it, on top of teaching. I have relatives who are able to teach K-12 and work second jobs. Teachers aren't working 40 hour weeks during spring break, winter break and summer vacation putting together lesson plans.


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 Vaktathi wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
It's a perverse incentive to allow public sector unions to directly negotiate for pay/benefits against the state...

Wait, I thought you were a conservative? How can you be against private citizens negotiating contract terms to sell their labor for whatever price they can get on the market? Are you now against free markets and in favor of state-controlled business?

Why do you think the govt is a for profit business? The purpose of labor unions is to collectively bargain for employees who are vital to the generation of company profits and make sure they get an equitable share of those profits. There is no profit generated by the govt so from where does the inequity of the employees arise?

Hrm, not quite. The purpose of a labor union is to flatten out the imbalance in bargaining power between large employers and individuals employees such that both capital and labor are negotiating on even footing (in addition to setting professional standards and other such things). The idea that the employer must be for-profit isn't fundamental to the concept of a labor union, it's simply a common circumstance.

That still doesn't address the lack of inequity in the public sector. How is the govt bargaining in bad faith or in an unjust manner when the legislative bodies budget the education funds and set wage and benefits for public education employees?

same way any employer can, just because its done through a legislatue doesnt mean its fair, just, or an appropriate allocation of resources.

State and local govts have finite resources and are empowered by the people to apportion those limited resources in a responsible manner.

private corporations have limited resources with management empowered by boards of directors representing shareholders to apportion resources in a responsible manner. Similar situation.

Residents pay taxes to fund essential govt services, once you involve public employee labor unions, those essential services are now held hostage by union negotiations which strips the power away from the govt and the people they represent.

There are definitely issues with public sector unions, and there are abuses. However, labor unions are a subset of the people being represented, and have a right to conduct negotions with their employer like any other employer-employee relationship. They are not military personnel who give up these rights. As I noted in an earlier post, reconciling these things are in some ways fundamentally contradictory and finding a middle ground is difficult, but at its core the idea that a union can only represent workers in a for profit industry is false.

A fiduciary responsibility to shareholders isn't similar to the power to levy taxes at all. If I own stock in GM and the UAW bargains for a new labor agreement that raises salaries GM doesn't make me as a shareholder give them more money to pay for it. If the teachers union bargains for higher salaries the resulting higher labor cost has to be paid by the taxpayers and that results in either higher taxes or funding taken away from other govt services. Private corporations have revenue streams that exist outside of shareholders, the state only derives revenue from taxpayers so increases in state spending require increases in taxes. States can't print money or borrow money and most states are required to have a balanced budget so there's no way to increase revenue without increasing taxes. Public employees shouldn't be allowed to collectively bargain because the result is public employees holding essential govt services hostage and forcing tax increases by bypassing the proper democratic governmental process for doing so. If we need the govt to provide us with essential services that individuals couldn't otherwise provide for themselves it makes no sense to then make those essential services vulnerable to shutdowns at anytime that unionized public employees want to strike to get better contracts.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

All true.

I never taught K-12 (hats off to those folks!), but I did teach at the college level and even though I only "worked" 4 lecture hours a week, I spent at least 2 hours a day preparing for each lecture, and 4-8 hours on weekends preparing assignments, grading, and researching for upcoming lectures. You could double that weekend time around midterms, finals, or when any major assignments were due and required grading.

There is a lot of work done "off the clock" that seems to be conveniently forgotten when people think you "only" work while in the classroom.

When I was teaching math, I spent all evening grading papers, writing tests and preparing worksheets. Weekends I spent on lesson plans and meeting with my mentor and filling out paperwork. Every hour I was awake, I was working. And the classroom conditions were terrible, with 35-40 kids in a class, as many as half of them ESL or on IEP's. I spent more time on classroom management than teaching, and these kids needed the teaching. Most of them couldn't add fractions or balance equations. I had Calculus students who couldn't add fractions. I tried to get them up to speed while reteaching last year's material while preparing them for the standardized test of the month. I was tutoring kids during lunch and after school, calling parents who never got back to me, and generally burning myself out, for pay that was a joke.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

Public schools have 180 school days, that's 36 weeks of school. Factor in some extra days for the lead up and wind down of the school year and you have 38 weeks of work. That leaves 14 weeks off during the year. That's a lot more time off than your typical 50 weeks with 2 weeks paid vacation jobs. Teachers get 3 months off most jobs get 2-3 weeks off. It doesn't make any sense to compare teacher salaries to the salaries of people who work significantly more hours for the year.

Except they arent getting all that time off. They're preparing lesson plans, attending curriculum meetings, receiving training, managing school events, attending classes themselves, teaching summer school, etc.

And thats on top of having to grade papers and prepare class materials and attend parent teacher meetings and other such things outside of class hours during the school year.

That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

That's no different than everybody else that works in a salaried position and has to make time to get everything done outside of the standard 40 hour work week. I had several teachers at the schools I attended for K-12 who worked summer jobs and every coach at my HS was a teacher that was able to coach, and get paid for it, on top of teaching. I have relatives who are able to teach K-12 and work second jobs. Teachers aren't working 40 hour weeks during spring break, winter break and summer vacation putting together lesson plans.

I'm not saying theyre working 40 hours a week all of those weeks, but they arent getting 14 weeks off either, and many weeks during the schoolyear they are working 60 or 80 hour weeks as well. The idea that they get 14 weeks of vacation a year, for most trachers, is simply not true. They may have several weeks of fewer hours and a couple extra truly free weeks, but I dont know any that have 14 weeks of actual free vacation time.

That said, aside from teaching summer school, I have never known a teacher to have a summer side job that wasnt school related. Coaching is a part of school activities and often these teachers have lighter class loads or less departmental responsibility (often a sore spot with other teachers, but thats another topic).

Yoi also have to consider that many teachers have Master's degrees, or higher. You aren't just paying random people off the street to do this gak. It usually means a teaching degree on top of another degree.

Europe must boost defense spending......

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/15/mattis-nato-members-must-boost-defense-spending-or-us-will-moderate-its-commitment.html

TLDR;

So w/ the exception of the UK, Estonia, Poland, Greece, and Turkey all the other NATO countries either need to come up with a plan on how they are going to increase their defense spending to the 2.0 GDP mark stipulated by the treaty or US will drawdown it's defense commitment to NATO accordingly.

My take;

The majority of Europe/Canada basically have to acknowledge that there is a need for the defense spending by virtue of increasing it, or basically declare the defense spending, and by insinuation NATO, is not needed allowing the US either to reposition or reduce its military/defense spending accordingly.

It seems to be a, "put up or shut up" challenge to Europe and Canada. I am not sure how their respective leadership are going to be able to reconcile the demands of increasing defense spending vs. current outlays and revenues. i.e. raise taxes or cut spending in other areas such as welfare, enviroment, etc.

Personally, I am supportive of this position and would love to see Europe and Canada concede that they are not willing to increase their defense spending to the required level, thus giving the US the pretense to pull out as I am personally skeptical of the continued need for NATO, much less the need for a sizeable US military presence in Europe and would love to see the US reduce military spending accordingly, or at worse reposition towards the Pacific.

If that was to come to pass, what would Russia's excuse be for its military posture and actions in Ukraine and the like?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

All true.

I never taught K-12 (hats off to those folks!), but I did teach at the college level and even though I only "worked" 4 lecture hours a week, I spent at least 2 hours a day preparing for each lecture, and 4-8 hours on weekends preparing assignments, grading, and researching for upcoming lectures. You could double that weekend time around midterms, finals, or when any major assignments were due and required grading.

There is a lot of work done "off the clock" that seems to be conveniently forgotten when people think you "only" work while in the classroom.

When I was teaching math, I spent all evening grading papers, writing tests and preparing worksheets. Weekends I spent on lesson plans and meeting with my mentor and filling out paperwork. Every hour I was awake, I was working. And the classroom conditions were terrible, with 35-40 kids in a class, as many as half of them ESL or on IEP's. I spent more time on classroom management than teaching, and these kids needed the teaching. Most of them couldn't add fractions or balance equations. I had Calculus students who couldn't add fractions. I tried to get them up to speed while reteaching last year's material while preparing them for the standardized test of the month. I was tutoring kids during lunch and after school, calling parents who never got back to me, and generally burning myself out, for pay that was a joke.

Don't forget that you were also (probably) treated by other people like a useless low life with no skills because you were a teacher.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

All true.

I never taught K-12 (hats off to those folks!), but I did teach at the college level and even though I only "worked" 4 lecture hours a week, I spent at least 2 hours a day preparing for each lecture, and 4-8 hours on weekends preparing assignments, grading, and researching for upcoming lectures. You could double that weekend time around midterms, finals, or when any major assignments were due and required grading.

There is a lot of work done "off the clock" that seems to be conveniently forgotten when people think you "only" work while in the classroom.

When I was teaching math, I spent all evening grading papers, writing tests and preparing worksheets. Weekends I spent on lesson plans and meeting with my mentor and filling out paperwork. Every hour I was awake, I was working. And the classroom conditions were terrible, with 35-40 kids in a class, as many as half of them ESL or on IEP's. I spent more time on classroom management than teaching, and these kids needed the teaching. Most of them couldn't add fractions or balance equations. I had Calculus students who couldn't add fractions. I tried to get them up to speed while reteaching last year's material while preparing them for the standardized test of the month. I was tutoring kids during lunch and after school, calling parents who never got back to me, and generally burning myself out, for pay that was a joke.

Sounds like a miserable experience and I understand why you burned out.

I was teaching at night to supplement my income, but the hours involved began disrupting my home life with my wife for pay that was equivalent or less than what I could get working a cash register at Del Taco. So I quit.

My classroom experience was pretty positive, though. Many of my students were remedial and needed to be taught the basics of writing that they didn't get in high school, but there were not any behavioral issues that I had to deal with. Ultimately it was the lack of support from the department combined with the awful pay and demanding hours that just made the job unsustainable.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:


That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

That's no different than everybody else that works in a salaried position and has to make time to get everything done outside of the standard 40 hour work week. I had several teachers at the schools I attended for K-12 who worked summer jobs and every coach at my HS was a teacher that was able to coach, and get paid for it, on top of teaching. I have relatives who are able to teach K-12 and work second jobs. Teachers aren't working 40 hour weeks during spring break, winter break and summer vacation putting together lesson plans.

Resident public school teacher chiming in here...

First: I realize these arguments are generally pointless and very few people on either side ever change their minds about this topic.

Second: I'm a reading remediation/English Language Development teacher at a small (420ish students) middle school. Here was my day yesterday:
-arrive at school by 6:45 to meet with other MTSS (Mutli-Tiered Student Support) team members to discuss a new student behavior sheet that we'll use to guide problem-solving conversations and track data to identify discipline trends;
-home room, 8th grade reading, and 7th grade reading from 7:40-10:45;
-planning period (lesson plan, grade, respond to staff emails, call/email parents, cram in a little lunch) from 10:45-12:00;
-"lunch" (actually meet with students to re-teach material they have been struggling with) 12:00-12:30;
-6th grade reading from 12:30-1:50;
-ELD from 2:00-2:35
-coach 8th grade girls basketball from 2:45-5:00
-work with individual players from 5:00-5:30
-"family stuff" (get 8 year old from swimming, make dinner, get 13 year old from swimming, review homework with 16 year old and 8 year old, get groceries for tomorrow, tuck 8 year old in) from 6:15-9:30
-grade work/enter grades from 9:30-10:30
-watch (recorded) MSU basketball beat OSU from 10:30-11:30
-update our school-wide reading data and create school-wide reward certificates for students based on how much independent reading they have done from 11:30-1:30 (will do this one again tonight)
-sleep from 2:00-6:00
-repeat

So, that's a pretty full day - but also pretty typical from October (when boys basketball starts) to March (when girls basketball ends) - I usually only have the school-wide reading data to contend with a couple times a month, and sometimes I don't have any grading to bring home, but generally speaking I'm in teacher-mode for somewhere between 12-15 hours a day. And the idea that we get "3 months" off in the summer is pretty outdated - we generally finish the year at the end of May and have district PD obligations (handful of hours per week) until mid-June, then start up with pre-school-year work the first week of August. In the six/seven weeks between I'm also expected to squeeze in regular college courses to maintain my certification (while also taking care of my kids and helping my wife by doing some work on her farm). So we get "summer break" but it's hardly the twelve weeks of leisure time you obviously think it is. Maybe teachers had that much time to have regular "summer work" before the late 90's when I started out, but it's not been my experience.

Now, working those hours for the pay I get is not the end of the world - I signed up for this, after all, and as a lefty I'm comfortable getting some of my compensation in weird things like "purpose" and "relationships". And for transparency's sake, I make just north of $50K per year (not including benefits, but I do end up paying about $1K/month for coverage for my family) and that's with 15 years in this district and having a master's degree (plus various other credits) - maybe I'm crazy, but for that level of experience and education and considering the hours put in I think you and your kids are getting a hell of a deal. So it gets a little tiring listening to people complain about the tyranny of teacher's unions (we have a pretty healthy relationship with our board/district/community, but we haven't gotten our negotiated 1% pay raises for three years now so we're hardly "getting whatever we want") and how easy teacher's have it. Plus, if we are responsible for the education of YOUR children and OUR ENTIRE NATION'S intellectual future I'd think people wouldn't mind investing in talent (N.B. I know everyone thinks they can just walk into a class and be teacher, which partially affects that attitude, but it's just not true - talent/training matter).

Anyway, that's my lunch hour for the day - hope that helps some of you see things in a new way. Cheers!

NATO serves lots of other purposes besides just curbing Soviet aggression. It provides a framework for highly economically and culturally integrated nations to coordinate general military and political policies and react to common threats of any kind, standardize on common practices and specifications, share resources, etc. Also, it helps provide some backbone and stability (along with the UN, EU, and some other things) to a peaceful europe among nations that otherwise slaughtered each other by the tens of millions at various points in the last hundred years, and has worked well at curbing Russian..."shennanigans" into certain areas (e.g. does anyone think the Baltic nations would not be experiencing the type of unrest Ukraine and Georgia have suffered if they were not in NATO?). It also gives the US a bigger say in many actions and policies than it might otherwise have.

NATO serves many useful roles. There is room for the Europeans to step up and do more of their part, but NATO is just as much in the interests of the US as it is for the nations of Europe.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

Public schools have 180 school days, that's 36 weeks of school. Factor in some extra days for the lead up and wind down of the school year and you have 38 weeks of work. That leaves 14 weeks off during the year. That's a lot more time off than your typical 50 weeks with 2 weeks paid vacation jobs. Teachers get 3 months off most jobs get 2-3 weeks off. It doesn't make any sense to compare teacher salaries to the salaries of people who work significantly more hours for the year.

Except they arent getting all that time off. They're preparing lesson plans, attending curriculum meetings, receiving training, managing school events, attending classes themselves, teaching summer school, etc.

And thats on top of having to grade papers and prepare class materials and attend parent teacher meetings and other such things outside of class hours during the school year.

That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

That's no different than everybody else that works in a salaried position and has to make time to get everything done outside of the standard 40 hour work week. I had several teachers at the schools I attended for K-12 who worked summer jobs and every coach at my HS was a teacher that was able to coach, and get paid for it, on top of teaching. I have relatives who are able to teach K-12 and work second jobs. Teachers aren't working 40 hour weeks during spring break, winter break and summer vacation putting together lesson plans.

I'm not saying theyre working 40 hours a week all of those weeks, but they arent getting 14 weeks off either, and many weeks during the schoolyear they are working 60 or 80 hour weeks as well. The idea that they get 14 weeks of vacation a year, for most trachers, is simply not true. They may have several weeks of fewer hours and a couple extra truly free weeks, but I dont know any that have 14 weeks of actual free vacation time.

That said, aside from teaching summer school, I have never known a teacher to have a summer side job that wasnt school related. Coaching is a part of school activities and often these teachers have lighter class loads or less departmental responsibility (often a sore spot with other teachers, but thats another topic).

I had a HS social studies teacher that worked as a tour guide at Ellis Island every summer. My SIL is a special ed teacher and works part time at Lowes every summer and during the school year. Teacher's don't work 50 weeks a year and teaching doesn't guarantee that they will be too busy to work additional jobs when school is not in session if they choose to do so or not work. It's not the same as a typical private sector job and shouldn't be compared to one.

 cuda1179 wrote:



The wage they earn for the hours they work is quite fare. According to ABC news the wage per hour worked for teachers is MORE than that for Chemists, Architects, Pharmisists, city planners, Firemen, or Police officers. Yes, I know teachers work more hours than what they are contracted to work. Much like any other salary based employee this isn't exactly abnormal. Others do it too. Just as a comparrisson, my yearly income basically matches that of the average teacher, yet I work 20% more hours, and I have fewer benefits.

Let's look at those 'equivalent' salaries. All numbers are coming from bls.gov.
pharmacist average salary- 121,500 per year.
Architect average salary- 76,100 per year.
chemist average salary- 72,610 per year.
city planner average salary- 68,220 per year.
fireman average salary- 46,870 per year.
police officer average salary- 60,270 per year.

Teachers- 57, 600 per year.

Even assuming that 10% bump you're talking about, teachers would barely make more than police officers. This is a simplified view though- because police officers and firemen are not required to have college degrees, only high school diplomas. Whereas a pharmacists has a doctorate, and should absolutely make way more than a teacher.

Teacher benefits are overstated, and a relic of what they once were. Today, teachers are contract employees. In most cases, this is a yearly contract. What this means is that even if I do an incredible job with my students, I do not know if I will have a job in August right now. I don't need to be fired, I just get non-renewed. Generally, I won't know until May. There is no longer a pension plan available for any teacher in Florida- there was one when I started. Assuming that the state fulfills just each step increase in our salary (unlikely) I won't break that average until I've been teaching 16 years.
Our salaries are low for what we do, and more importantly what the best of us can do. Education majors are generalists, who specialize in teaching- but many of the best instructors hold degrees in their fields. And if the chemistry teacher can walk out the door, and make twice as much for filling prescriptions as a pharmacist, you won't retain that very well qualified individual.

To put things in perspective, I'll add another career for you to consider- what do corporations pay the people they employ to educate their workers?
A Training and development Manager makes an average of 102,640.

That's what your average corporation thinks a teacher ought to make if they're working for them.

 Easy E wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

That's not all time off, it's just time not in front of students. There's a difference. A lot of that "time off" is "work from home" or "get everything done when all the students are gone" time.

All true.

I never taught K-12 (hats off to those folks!), but I did teach at the college level and even though I only "worked" 4 lecture hours a week, I spent at least 2 hours a day preparing for each lecture, and 4-8 hours on weekends preparing assignments, grading, and researching for upcoming lectures. You could double that weekend time around midterms, finals, or when any major assignments were due and required grading.

There is a lot of work done "off the clock" that seems to be conveniently forgotten when people think you "only" work while in the classroom.

When I was teaching math, I spent all evening grading papers, writing tests and preparing worksheets. Weekends I spent on lesson plans and meeting with my mentor and filling out paperwork. Every hour I was awake, I was working. And the classroom conditions were terrible, with 35-40 kids in a class, as many as half of them ESL or on IEP's. I spent more time on classroom management than teaching, and these kids needed the teaching. Most of them couldn't add fractions or balance equations. I had Calculus students who couldn't add fractions. I tried to get them up to speed while reteaching last year's material while preparing them for the standardized test of the month. I was tutoring kids during lunch and after school, calling parents who never got back to me, and generally burning myself out, for pay that was a joke.

Don't forget that you were also (probably) treated by other people like a useless low life with no skills because you were a teacher.

That is true. Even more so when I was a substitute teacher. I got more respect from my SIL and her crowd when I worked in a bookstore.

The T and D Manager generally doesn't teach anything.

That is what corporate trainers do.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yoi also have to consider that many teachers have Master's degrees, or higher. You aren't just paying random people off the street to do this gak. It usually means a teaching degree on top of another degree.

I would say statistically nil have higher than graduate degrees. If they have PhD's they would be professors, or couldn't get a job doing such and would likely be in business (STEM or business-I have no concept of humanities PhD's).

From the teachers the kids had, the good ones (high school) had an undergraduate in a STEM class or double major with a STEM degree. The bad ones just had a BA of Education.

Now in a previous life I have a finance' with a kid in HISD (Houston ISD). They had teaching degrees and had problems with basic gak like spelling and basic math.

EDIT: from my time in Cali the public schools in the budding metropolis of Pomona of Chino... well I don't think they actually taught anything, just locked them in with armed guards.

Prestor Jon wrote:



Teacher's don't work 50 weeks a year

I didnt say they did, I said they dont get 14 weeks off a year, often work insane hours during the school year and that they spend most of those 14 weeks time doing school related stuff.

and teaching doesn't guarantee that they will be too busy to work additional jobs when school is not in session if they choose to do so or not work.

It generally does for anything but the most casual, flexible, and part time of jobs. Working as a tour guide one the weekends or picking up a couple shifts at Lowe's is something I could do too. Hell I could pick up an extra 20 hours at something like that if I just didnt care about free time to do other stuff, and thats working 40-50 hour weeks in my private sector corporate job, but that doesnt mean I have any more time than anyone else. Relative to all the teachers I know personally, I definitely have more free time than they do, its just spread over evenings and weekends instead of big blocks.

It's not the same as a typical private sector job and shouldn't be compared to one.

Except there are private sector schools on the same schedule. And they get paid even worse as they can force teachers to take those jobs if no public school jobs are available and turnover is sky high. And some districts are on year round schedules that don't afford a large summer break or the like.

I love the argument that teachers have so much free time they get to work second jobs! What a privilege! Many of us work only one job, merely dreaming of the ideal, the vision that we could work two!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/top-senate-republicans-urge-white-house-to-withdraw-puzder-nomination/index.html

Tough first month for Trump.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yoi also have to consider that many teachers have Master's degrees, or higher. You aren't just paying random people off the street to do this gak. It usually means a teaching degree on top of another degree.

I would say statistically nil have higher than graduate degrees. If they have PhD's they would be professors, or couldn't get a job doing such and would likely be in business (STEM or business-I have no concept of humanities PhD's).

From the teachers the kids had, the good ones (high school) had an undergraduate in a STEM class or double major with a STEM degree. The bad ones just had a BA of Education.

Now in a previous life I have a finance' with a kid in HISD (Houston ISD). They had teaching degrees and had problems with basic gak like spelling and basic math.

My art teacher in high school had a doctorate, so did one of the math teachers.

Keep in mind, we are comparing NY public education with TX public education.

I have two teachers in my family, one in the private and one in the public system. Even up here in lefty la-la land, I can assure you, they do not get 14 weeks vacation a year. 12-15 hour days while school is in session is normal. It was difficult for my brother and his new teacher wife to find two weeks for their honeymoon in July.

Personally, I am supportive of this position and would love to see Europe and Canada concede that they are not willing to increase their defense spending to the required level, thus giving the US the pretense to pull out as I am personally skeptical of the continued need for NATO, much less the need for a sizeable US military presence in Europe and would love to see the US reduce military spending accordingly, or at worse reposition towards the Pacific.

Here here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
NATO serves lots of other purposes besides just curbing Soviet aggression. It provides a framework for highly economically and culturally integrated nations to coordinate general military and political policies and react to common threats of any kind, standardize on common practices and specifications, share resources, etc. Also, it helps provide some backbone and stability (along with the UN, EU, and some other things) to a peaceful europe among nations that otherwise slaughtered each other by the tens of millions at various points in the last hundred years, and has worked well at curbing Russian..."shennanigans" into certain areas (e.g. does anyone think the Baltic nations would not be experiencing the type of unrest Ukraine and Georgia have suffered if they were not in NATO?). It also gives the US a bigger say in many actions and policies than it might otherwise have.

NATO serves many useful roles. There is room for the Europeans to step up and do more of their part, but NATO is just as much in the interests of the US as it is for the nations of Europe.

None of what you said was its original purpose. Its mission creep that forces US deficit spending. In the word of the immortal Budha: "feth that we're done. "

 infinite_array wrote:
And that, ultimately, were dropped the second Clinton stopped being a threat?

Dropped when? She didn't stop being a threat until Nov 9th. After that there really wasn't any point in continuing with it.

Not justifying anything, just saying...

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I love the argument that teachers have so much free time they get to work second jobs! What a privilege! Many of us work only one job, merely dreaming of the ideal, the vision that we could work two!

Then...quit and do something else. I don't mean that negatively. If you want salaries you have to reduce supply.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
NATO serves lots of other purposes besides just curbing Soviet aggression. It provides a framework for highly economically and culturally integrated nations to coordinate general military and political policies and react to common threats of any kind, standardize on common practices and specifications, share resources, etc. Also, it helps provide some backbone and stability (along with the UN, EU, and some other things) to a peaceful europe among nations that otherwise slaughtered each other by the tens of millions at various points in the last hundred years, and has worked well at curbing Russian..."shennanigans" into certain areas (e.g. does anyone think the Baltic nations would not be experiencing the type of unrest Ukraine and Georgia have suffered if they were not in NATO?). It also gives the US a bigger say in many actions and policies than it might otherwise have.

NATO serves many useful roles. There is room for the Europeans to step up and do more of their part, but NATO is just as much in the interests of the US as it is for the nations of Europe.

None of what you said was its original purpose. Its mission creep that forces US deficit spending. In the word of the immortal Budha: "feth that we're done. "

Lol.

The US's military spending has nothing to do with NATO. Arguably it would be even higher without the knowlege that we have most of the 1st world to back us up.

Seriously look at it.


This is because we want it, not because we need it to protect our allies.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yoi also have to consider that many teachers have Master's degrees, or higher. You aren't just paying random people off the street to do this gak. It usually means a teaching degree on top of another degree.

I would say statistically nil have higher than graduate degrees. If they have PhD's they would be professors, or couldn't get a job doing such and would likely be in business (STEM or business-I have no concept of humanities PhD's).

From the teachers the kids had, the good ones (high school) had an undergraduate in a STEM class or double major with a STEM degree. The bad ones just had a BA of Education.

Now in a previous life I have a finance' with a kid in HISD (Houston ISD). They had teaching degrees and had problems with basic gak like spelling and basic math.

My art teacher in high school had a doctorate, so did one of the math teachers.

Keep in mind, we are comparing NY public education with TX public education.

I have a kid interviewing for Stanford and another accepted to U of Illinois Comp Sci PhD. I'll take a Texas education over a NY public education any day of the week pal.
Why on earth would a PhD work in a K-12?

 Frazzled wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I love the argument that teachers have so much free time they get to work second jobs! What a privilege! Many of us work only one job, merely dreaming of the ideal, the vision that we could work two!

Then...quit and do something else.

Yeah, this is the kind of attitude towards teachers that will really give our country a bright future.


Hint: half of them do quit in the first 5 years. There is a serious talent drain on the front line of education.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yoi also have to consider that many teachers have Master's degrees, or higher. You aren't just paying random people off the street to do this gak. It usually means a teaching degree on top of another degree.

I would say statistically nil have higher than graduate degrees. If they have PhD's they would be professors, or couldn't get a job doing such and would likely be in business (STEM or business-I have no concept of humanities PhD's).

From the teachers the kids had, the good ones (high school) had an undergraduate in a STEM class or double major with a STEM degree. The bad ones just had a BA of Education.

Now in a previous life I have a finance' with a kid in HISD (Houston ISD). They had teaching degrees and had problems with basic gak like spelling and basic math.

My art teacher in high school had a doctorate, so did one of the math teachers.

Keep in mind, we are comparing NY public education with TX public education.

I have a kid interviewing for Stanford and another accepted to U of Illinois Comp Sci PhD. I'll take a Texas education over a NY public education any day of the week pal.
Why on earth would a PhD work in a K-12?

That wasn't a dig Frazz. This was talking about standards, which I can only assume NY has higher ones, because it;s NY and they like unnecessarily high standard here.

( If I did want to dig at TX public education I'd just say that they are ranked 43 on education quality second to last on spending per pupil, and dead last % of students who speak fluent english )


As to why someone with a PhD would teach K-12, because some people actually want to teach, but also want to learn more. Most people you see who go into teaching also enjoy learning as much as teaching. At least form my experience.