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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. "
That doesnt mean those roles arent still highly useful and valuable. Yes, its mission creep, but mission creep isnt always a bad thing if there's legitimate value to it.
The tank was invented to overcome WW1 trenches and fields of barbed wire. Well, thats not an issue on the modern battlefield, do we get rid of all the tanks now? No, they evolved to serve other purposes and are still powerful and useful battlefield units in a world without intricate trench systems and fields of barbed wire.
Is there room for reevaluating some aspects of NATO? Sure. Could NATO use restructuring? Absolutely. Should the big European powers be pulling more of their weight? You betcha. Is NATO a worthless relic? Hardly.
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.
aye, turnover with new teachers is absolutely insane. I can probably list a dozen people I know who thought thats what they wanted to do and quit after a year or two because of the crappy pay and awful hours.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/02/15 19:53:46
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
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.
You're mis-perceiving. I am stating simple economics, not a value judgement. To increase salaries two things cna be done: increase demand or decrease supply. Decreasing supply is done via limiting supply organically (monopolistic requirements via unions) or via physically limiting supply. If you want to increase wages for teachers you have to decrease the supply of them. If enough teachers move on, then wages will increase.
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.
Then there are perceived benefits outside of the compensation package. Thats where people like myself cause problems. I'd love to teach as an adjunct at the local Jr. college or high school (our high school has college adjuncts teaching the AP and for college credit classes). But agreed, I'd never work as a regular public school teacher. The conditions suck and I'd get fired within a week for belting one of the mouth breathers for not paying attention.
Yes, its mission creep, but mission creep isnt always a bad thing if there's legitimate value to it.
If NATO stayed where it was, maybe. By pushing out it is threatening Russia. Effectively your mission creep is destabilizing Eastern Europe and could get us all killed.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/02/15 20:00:56
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
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. "
That doesnt mean those roles arent still highly useful and valuable. Yes, its mission creep, but mission creep isnt always a bad thing if there's legitimate value to it.
The tank was invented to overcome WW1 trenches and fields of barbed wire. Well, thats not an issue on the modern battlefield, do we get rid of all the tanks now? No, they evolved to serve other purposes and are still powerful and useful battlefield units in a world without intricate trench systems and fields of barbed wire.
Is there room for reevaluating some aspects of NATO? Sure. Could NATO use restructuring? Absolutely. Should the big European powers be pulling more of their weight? You betcha. Is NATO a worthless relic? Hardly.
It feels a bit like if after WWII we went "The army was just to defeat the Axis, we should just get rid of it while we aren't at war." Which is basically what we did after WWI.
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
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.
You're mis-perceiving. I am stating simple economics, not a value judgement. To increase salaries two things cna be done: increase demand or decrease supply. Decreasing supply is done via limiting supply organically (monopolistic requirements via unions) or via physically limiting supply. If you want to increase wages for teachers you have to decrease the supply of them. If enough teachers move on, then wages will increase.
That is just flat out plain wrong. Teachers wages are not low because there are too many. If there were too many teachers then all of your class sizes would be small, is that the case?
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Actually, there is a tallent excess. You can caculate the labor pool by marking how many applicants there are for positions actross the country. Depending on region, teaching positions have 4-7 times as many applicants as other jobs in the area. (ABC news)
Okay, I will agree that teachers do NOT get 3 months off in the summer. They also don't work full time. Shall we ballpark it and say they work an equivelent of 46 weeks per year?
So, the average person works 52 weeks per year, minus 2 weeks vacation. Teachers around here work 46 weeks per year and (around here anyway) have 20 sick/personal days per year. That's 7 weeks more time off per year than the average person.
So...although teachers only make $57,000 per year, if they worked the extra 7 weeks (like everyone else) that's more like $70,000.
For me, I work evey day but Tuesday, 5AM to 2. Plus a coupel hours at night a couple times per month, so yeah, I know what it's like to work long, hard hours.
Yes, its mission creep, but mission creep isnt always a bad thing if there's legitimate value to it.
If NATO stayed where it was, maybe. By pushing out it is threatening Russia. Effectively your mission creep is destabilizing Eastern Europe and could get us all killed.
No. Armed insurrection supported by Russia has destabilised one eastern european country.
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
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.
You're mis-perceiving. I am stating simple economics, not a value judgement. To increase salaries two things cna be done: increase demand or decrease supply. Decreasing supply is done via limiting supply organically (monopolistic requirements via unions) or via physically limiting supply. If you want to increase wages for teachers you have to decrease the supply of them. If enough teachers move on, then wages will increase.
That is just flat out plain wrong. Teachers wages are not low because there are too many. If there were too many teachers then all of your class sizes would be small, is that the case?
Yes, its mission creep, but mission creep isnt always a bad thing if there's legitimate value to it.
If NATO stayed where it was, maybe. By pushing out it is threatening Russia. Effectively your mission creep is destabilizing Eastern Europe and could get us all killed.
No. Armed insurrection supported by Russia has destabilised one eastern european country.
Ukraine yes, after the West supported a western leaning coup against the Russian leaning leader.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/15 20:03:16
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
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.
Now I get the whole women's rights/pro Roe V. Wade/fund planned parenthood angle those liberal teachers are always harping about. It's a supply and demand thing. Wait. Wouldn't increading the demand (more kids needing an education) be counter to this whole idea? Those silly liberals, never thinking things through.
I am tempted to weigh in on the whole teacher hours vs. salary debate going on right now, but other teachers here have summed it up pretty well. I'll just say, I'm an English/film studies instructor in South Dakota, so I can see where they are coming from. Look up SD teacher salaries and you can see, that we really aren't into life for the money or the "summer breaks" (what is that-is that a joke or something? Most of us here teach summer classes). With my summer classes and the normal two semester stipend, I pull in a grand total of $42,000. I have a doctorate. I teach English in SD. I don't care. I care that you folks know how to communicate with the written language, and I like it. I also paint toy soldiers because I like it. It doesn't make economic sense, I don't care. We are a weird bunch who do what we do. We are also somewhat delusional with the idea that it might get the respect it deserves. We don't care. We do it because we care about what happens after us.
@Frazz: why don't we quit and go somewhere else?, see above. Why don't you quit playing with toys? I will teach if they pay me even less. It is what I do, who I am. I would just like a little respect every now and then. I know you have it, don't make it look otherwise.
@Prestor Jon: you have no idea what you are talking about. That is all the response you deserve on the matter and that is all you will get. My desire to educate ends at willful ignorance.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/15 20:28:53
News: Source very close to Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder tells me he expects Puzder to withdraw. "He's very tired of the abuse."
— Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) February 15, 2017
Now I get the whole women's rights/pro Roe V. Wade/fund planned parenthood angle those liberal teachers are always harping about. It's a supply and demand thing. Wait. Wouldn't increading the demand (more kids needing an education) be counter to this whole idea? Those silly liberals, never thinking things through.
***I literally have no clue what you're talking about.
@Frazz: why don't we quit and go somewhere else?, see above. ****because I needed to pay to protect the family against multiple lawsuits and save for college for the kids so that the kids would never have to do the gak I've had to do. All other considerations including personal needs and wants (and my caring about anything or anyone else as more than a potential threat to that concern) are secondary to that interest. That is now changing and I find myself...adrift.
Why don't you quit playing with toys? ***I'm not payed to do so nor am I complaining about the salary.
I will teach if they pay me even less. It is what I do, who I am. I would just like a little respect every now and then. I know you have it, don't make it look otherwise. ***No one respects what I do. Again you're mispercieving. All I am doing is explaining how salaries can be increased, or alternatively if someone is not happy they should avail themselves of all opportunities to improve that, including finding better employment. Life's too short for a crappy job, all other considerations being equal. Between ourselves, you like to teach so will take a smaller salary. I needed stability and cash for family. We effectively both change similar things for non-direct job conditions. I think people are making me out to be a bad guy. I'm actually a proponent of organized representation to help with the supply/balance thing, including at the university level.
News: Source very close to Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder tells me he expects Puzder to withdraw. "He's very tired of the abuse."
— Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) February 15, 2017
Who's next in line?
Please oh please let start with "T"...
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/02/15 20:45:40
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
News: Source very close to Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder tells me he expects Puzder to withdraw. "He's very tired of the abuse."
— Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) February 15, 2017
Who's next in line?
For Labor Sec? Probably someone else who doesn't like the idea of a Labor Sec. position or Dept. , judging from a historical pov. Imagine the worst person in the world to fulfill those duties, Trump will find them. He is excellent at that. His ability is huge.
News: Source very close to Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder tells me he expects Puzder to withdraw. "He's very tired of the abuse."
— Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) February 15, 2017
News: Source very close to Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder tells me he expects Puzder to withdraw. "He's very tired of the abuse."
— Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) February 15, 2017
Who's next in line?
For Labor Sec? Probably someone else who doesn't like the idea of a Labor Sec. position or Dept. , judging from a historical pov. Imagine the worst person in the world to fulfill those duties, Trump will find them. He is excellent at that. His ability is huge.
If NATO stayed where it was, maybe. By pushing out it is threatening Russia. Effectively your mission creep is destabilizing Eastern Europe and could get us all killed.
Nobody "pushed" anything, those nations sought out NATO membership and were not unanimously insantly welcomed in either, and time has thus far proven their decision to join as wise as they arent suffering the issues of Georgia or Ukraine because they have the backing of NATO and are integrating into the EU. Russia is primarily acting to an interal audience and has been walking a tightrope of sorts. They have valid concerns in some respects, but the bulk of the drama is for internal reasons.
Ukraine yes, after the West supported a western leaning coup against the Russian leaning leader.
Hrm, this was a guy who had been thrown out of office before, was by all accounts insanely corrupt, imprisoned political adversaries, and was fled the nation after his own people came after him and his guards began to desert following a Russian bribe to collapse an EU trade treaty. The Ukrainians threw him out for a second time, there's zero evidence it was anything like a CIA-Iran coup thing.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/15 20:58:20
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
News: Source very close to Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder tells me he expects Puzder to withdraw. "He's very tired of the abuse."
— Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) February 15, 2017
Who's next in line?
Please oh please let start with "T"...
Tina Fey?
No, she doesn't have "the look". Tia Carare? No she looks like a foreigner. Tim Jones? Yeah, that sounds about "American" enough. "Um Mr. President, her name is Tia carare" "Ok, Tim Jones it is!" "Um, Mr. President, you just made up that person." "Ok, then how about that car there, his name is Tim Jones!" Alternate facts, alternate human. It's not an important position anyway, to follow along with other posters opinions of cabinet officials from earlier.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Co'tor Shas wrote: There's an old banker that might fot the bill, Ebenezer Scrooge.
Nope, too foreign. Would he be willing to change his name to Tim Jones? Then maybe.
"Mark Mix? Nope sounds like a rapper. Although I do like him on Cavuto, Mark Jones it is"
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/02/15 21:09:23
President Donald Trump offered the job of national security advisor to retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward on Monday night, and was a bit surprised when Harward responded by saying he needed a couple of days to think it over.
If, as expected, Harward accepts the job today, he is likely to bring in his own team, from deputy on down, with a focus on national security types with some experience under their belts.
I think he would look especially to people he knows from his time working for the George W. Bush NSC from 2003 to 2005. No more Fox News talking heads. Instead, I think he would try to take a Scowcroftian approach to trying to run the interagency policy formulation process — deliberate, rigorous, careful. Just how that will fit with the style of the Twitterer-in-Chief, I don’t know.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see J.D. Crouch and David Trachtenberg appear at the White House gate in the next few days, with Crouch the leading candidate to be Harward’s deputy. Perhaps also Juan Zarate and Mike Singh.
Harward is, like the ousted Michael Flynn, a retired military flag officer. But I think he would be very different from Flynn.
Most importantly, he is not an ideologue, as Flynn seemed to have become in the last few years. Harward thinks of himself as a national security professional — and indeed once served on the NSC staff, during the Bush Administration. Before that, early in the Afghan war, he headed the Special Operations task force in Kandahar.
Harward also would work well with Defense Secretary James Mattis. When Mattis was chief of Central Command, Harward was his deputy. Mattis trusted him enough to put him in charge of planning for war with Iran. Mattis has urged Harward to take the NSA job.
If Harward becomes NSA, Mattis would emerge from the Flynn mess in a uniquely powerful position: He would have two of his former deputies at the table in some meetings. The other one is John Kelly, now secretary for Homeland Security, who was his number two when Mattis commanded a Marine division early in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
While Bannon is still involved I have no confidence.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
President Donald Trump offered the job of national security advisor to retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward on Monday night, and was a bit surprised when Harward responded by saying he needed a couple of days to think it over.
If, as expected, Harward accepts the job today, he is likely to bring in his own team, from deputy on down, with a focus on national security types with some experience under their belts.
I think he would look especially to people he knows from his time working for the George W. Bush NSC from 2003 to 2005. No more Fox News talking heads. Instead, I think he would try to take a Scowcroftian approach to trying to run the interagency policy formulation process — deliberate, rigorous, careful. Just how that will fit with the style of the Twitterer-in-Chief, I don’t know.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see J.D. Crouch and David Trachtenberg appear at the White House gate in the next few days, with Crouch the leading candidate to be Harward’s deputy. Perhaps also Juan Zarate and Mike Singh.
Harward is, like the ousted Michael Flynn, a retired military flag officer. But I think he would be very different from Flynn.
Most importantly, he is not an ideologue, as Flynn seemed to have become in the last few years. Harward thinks of himself as a national security professional — and indeed once served on the NSC staff, during the Bush Administration. Before that, early in the Afghan war, he headed the Special Operations task force in Kandahar.
Harward also would work well with Defense Secretary James Mattis. When Mattis was chief of Central Command, Harward was his deputy. Mattis trusted him enough to put him in charge of planning for war with Iran. Mattis has urged Harward to take the NSA job.
If Harward becomes NSA, Mattis would emerge from the Flynn mess in a uniquely powerful position: He would have two of his former deputies at the table in some meetings. The other one is John Kelly, now secretary for Homeland Security, who was his number two when Mattis commanded a Marine division early in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In Mattis we trust.
It's great that solid people are finally being moved in and the frothing mouths are being pushed out a bit. The only concern I would have is tha having a highly interconnected bunch of former military personnel who are all apparently close associates of each other can be worrisome in some lights as well, but I'll take these picks over Trumps previous efforts thus far, even if I'm not a fan of a bunch of W's policies some of these guys had hands in.
Frazzled wrote:While Bannon is still involved I have no confidence.
Yeah that one is still real concerning.
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
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.
The point of my sarcasm is that people don't want to work two jobs. If teachers 'have enough time to work two jobs' its not that their teaching job is so great with all its time off; its that teachers are underpaid so much they feel they have to.
I am tempted to weigh in on the whole teacher hours vs. salary debate going on right now, but other teachers here have summed it up pretty well. I'll just say, I'm an English/film studies instructor in South Dakota, so I can see where they are coming from. Look up SD teacher salaries and you can see, that we really aren't into life for the money or the "summer breaks" (what is that-is that a joke or something? Most of us here teach summer classes). With my summer classes and the normal two semester stipend, I pull in a grand total of $42,000. I have a doctorate. I teach English in SD. I don't care. I care that you folks know how to communicate with the written language, and I like it. I also paint toy soldiers because I like it. It doesn't make economic sense, I don't care. We are a weird bunch who do what we do. We are also somewhat delusional with the idea that it might get the respect it deserves. We don't care. We do it because we care about what happens after us.
@Frazz: why don't we quit and go somewhere else?, see above. Why don't you quit playing with toys? I will teach if they pay me even less. It is what I do, who I am. I would just like a little respect every now and then. I know you have it, don't make it look otherwise.
@Prestor Jon: you have no idea what you are talking about. That is all the response you deserve on the matter and that is all you will get. My desire to educate ends at willful ignorance.
To further this, for 3 years my mom worked as a teacher in Loudon Country, aka one f the most wealthy and affluent counties in the United States. She worked 80 hours a week for 2/3s of the year, 30-40 for the other third* and she makes $52k which is a lot for a teacher and she only makes that much because she has a masters and a PHD. Never mind that even if she got a summer off, it hardly makes up for the insane workload and stress levels of how much work she had to do during the school year. We're actually looking at a potential education crisis in the next twenty years because the supply of teachers is shrinking because the job just plain sucks and the reward is basically what personal fulfillment you find doing it.
*This she had to do; teacher seminars to maintain her certification, classes to keep up with education requirements, school functions, and summer classes. This is no summer break for teachers in a lot of places anymore. Despite school districts hiring and spending increasingly insane amounts of money of administrators and support personnel more and more responsibility for the day to day functions of public education is being shoveled onto the desks of teachers whose salaries are not keeping pace with inflation even remotely.
But hey, I hear if she takes a second job her life will improve exponentially. Seriously. Did no one think that through before saying it?
Then...quit and do something else. I don't mean that negatively. If you want salaries you have to reduce supply.
What supply? Teachers are a fairly static thing. It's not a "growth industry" in a business sense. Teachers are either needed or they aren't, and the reality is that their pay has almost nothing to do with the supply of capable individuals but the supply of qualified individuals. People bitch about gakky teachers, of which there are many, and then they tell teachers to "go get a better job if you want more money." People who can get a better job for more money already have one because being a teacher sure as hell isn't worth the time, stress, or commitments for it's financial value. Improving teacher pay is about getting better teachers and rewarded those already committed, it has nothing to do with the supply of able bodies we can tie to a pole in front of the chalk board.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/02/15 22:28:10
But hey, I hear if she takes a second job her life will improve exponentially. Seriously. Did no one think that through before saying it?
Who are you typing that too, because I never espoused teachers getting second jobs. Frankly if you have to get a second job to make ends meet you need to find another job and pronto where your skills are properly recompensed.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
But hey, I hear if she takes a second job her life will improve exponentially. Seriously. Did no one think that through before saying it?
Who are you typing that too, because I never espoused teachers getting second jobs. Frankly if you have to get a second job to make ends meet you need to find another job and pronto where your skills are properly recompensed.
You should not ever be a financial planner for someone else. Second, essentially you are requiring more education for people to be qualified for another job. Thanks. I'll take that as a bit of respect. Thanks again. Now pay them. Or not. You can't just wave your wand and make it so though.
Frazzled wrote: Who are you typing that too, because I never espoused teachers getting second jobs.
It's a general statement of amazement that such an idea was ever put forward. It completely misses the point.
Frankly if you have to get a second job to make ends meet you need to find another job and pronto where your skills are properly recompensed.
And the point is that that is already happening. It might work for people dissatisfied with gakky work conditions, but it's a crisis for education that we prioritize filling the ranks with anyone and everyone we can find over a retention strategy. Good teachers are not rare. There's just fewer and fewer willing to put up with the BS of being a teacher today and this occurs in both the private and public sectors of K-12 education. Anyone can man a class room, but that shouldn't be the base standard by which we should be accounting for teacher pay. Teacher attrition keeps getting worse, and while ex-Teachers might find themselves better jobs telling them "to go get a better job" isn't going to improve the problem we're seeing in education institutions. We're treating teachers like turn-over employees, and the education system is suffering for it.
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But hey, I hear if she takes a second job her life will improve exponentially. Seriously. Did no one think that through before saying it?
Who are you typing that too, because I never espoused teachers getting second jobs. Frankly if you have to get a second job to make ends meet you need to find another job and pronto where your skills are properly recompensed.
You should not ever be a financial planner for someone else. Second, essentially you are requiring more education for people to be qualified for another job. Thanks. I'll take that as a bit of respect. Thanks again. Now pay them. Or not. You can't just wave your wand and make it so though.
My younger brother quit teaching as of last school year, and was able to find employment with a much better salary with little to no effort. And he was an English & Lit teacher. So if a degree in the proper use of articles can get you better employment anywhere else, there's no need for someone to retrain unless they are chasing one specific job.
And I honestly think that a raise wouldn't have kept him, he wanted his evenings back more than anything. The increase in pay he has now is just icing on the cake.
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.
I am tempted to weigh in on the whole teacher hours vs. salary debate going on right now, but other teachers here have summed it up pretty well. I'll just say, I'm an English/film studies instructor in South Dakota, so I can see where they are coming from. Look up SD teacher salaries and you can see, that we really aren't into life for the money or the "summer breaks" (what is that-is that a joke or something? Most of us here teach summer classes). With my summer classes and the normal two semester stipend, I pull in a grand total of $42,000. I have a doctorate. I teach English in SD. I don't care. I care that you folks know how to communicate with the written language, and I like it. I also paint toy soldiers because I like it. It doesn't make economic sense, I don't care. We are a weird bunch who do what we do. We are also somewhat delusional with the idea that it might get the respect it deserves. We don't care. We do it because we care about what happens after us.
@Frazz: why don't we quit and go somewhere else?, see above. Why don't you quit playing with toys? I will teach if they pay me even less. It is what I do, who I am. I would just like a little respect every now and then. I know you have it, don't make it look otherwise.
@Prestor Jon: you have no idea what you are talking about. That is all the response you deserve on the matter and that is all you will get. My desire to educate ends at willful ignorance.
Gordon,
I respect what you have to say. As someone that is geographically close to me I think we might understand each other's Midwestern culture a bit. I would like to clarify that I am not coming down on all teachers. There are definitely many, like you, that are devoted to teaching. There are still others that likely get dumped-on on a daily basis (these are likely special ed teachers, those working the worst neighborhoods,and those with less than 5 years experience). Having known a few people in those positions (and one that started by working in Special ed on an Indian reservation) I would say it is rather emotionally draining. That being said, for every example of class like you, there is the teacher that has retired while actively working (those that just go through the motions until they get their pension in a couple years), those that chose the wrong profession and can't or won't find something else, or those that want to teach but just can't cut it. A majority of teachers I feel fall somewhere in the middle.
The two largest problems I have with teachers are the larger unions that are run like the Mafia, and the way Hollywood has stereotyped teachers as some kind of downtrodden martyr sect. Let's make no qualms about it, many of the larger unions do little more than promote mediocrity while actively fighting to keep bad or even abusive teachers employed. Short of outright killing a student it's nearly impossible to fire a teacher in some places, and that's really not an exaggeration. A teacher that ADMITTED molesting 12 year-old students in New York legally could not be fired for 2 years because of how the union backed him. At any given point the city of New York has literally hundreds of teachers on the payroll that they'd love to fire, but can't fire, yet they are too big of a legal liability to actually have around children. So they are forced to pay them to do nothing. Why does the union back these people?
Unions also demand money under the guise of "teachers deserve better". Many of the larger unions for larger cities see a very large percentage of that raise go to "administrative costs" of the union itself. I would be significantly less skeptical of any increase in teachers' pay if there was a caveat that it was only for wages, and that there would be no increase in union dues.
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, 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.
. Except teachers. At the risk of going off-topic, I think you'd have a rude awakening if you were a teacher- you'd hate your job. With the degree my wife has, she could go into the medical/drug profession and make about 15k more a year, easy. She chooses to make less to impact kids lives, and hey, somehow get's called a demonic robber baron for it. She has a Master's Degree and makes less than 40k a year.
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"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."
. Except teachers. At the risk of going off-topic, I think you'd have a rude awakening if you were a teacher- you'd hate your job. With the degree my wife has, she could go into the medical/drug profession and make about 15k more a year, easy. She chooses to make less to impact kids lives, and hey, somehow get's called a demonic robber baron for it. She has a Master's Degree and makes less than 40k a year.
The whole "then find a better job" argument is quite baffling in my opinion. Sure, it makes sense from an individual/economic optimisation point of view but it rather bad when seen from a "whole country" point of view. Why would you accept good and motivated teachers to slowly burn out and leave the profession and be left with only the bad ones (and the ones who have financial stability from outside sources or inhuman levels of optimism about the job)? They are, after all, educating and moulding the next generation. That's like wanting a tragedy of the commons situation to happen.
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