I'm not knocking teachers. In fact, I was one for several years before our kids came along.

Some teachers work hard, some are lazy. Some are good, some are tenured and everybody wishes they could get rid of them.

Like any other vocation, it's a mixed bag.

They have three months off in the summer, and two weeks off at Christmas. It's not a 12-month job.

Again - I'm not at all knocking teachers. Some of the nicest, greatest people I know are teachers.

I am just perplexed as to why we have a perception that it's the *hardest* job in the world. Nursing is probably tough. Farming? Those are some long hours accompanied by lots of risk and fear that hail will take your your income for the year entirely. Truckers are on the road and away from their families for days on end. Small business owners have to worry about covering the bills, trying to find a strategy that will let them survive in this economy. Our city work crews have done more than their fair share this year when we've had crazy awful snow that never seemed to end.

Many, many jobs are tough and thankless.

So why is there a mindset that teachers, as a group, should never have to face a setback in their income, etc? Why do we worry less about all the other workers?

Because they hold our children's and our futures in their hands. That's the only thing I can think of. If it's not the most important paid job then it should be. However teachers should be accountable for their job performance just as the rest of us are.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

If it's the most important job, then why do we have a system that locks teachers into certain employment whether or not they are effective at that job?

I would like to know the same thing. Unions started out with good intentions and have morphed into protection for incompetent employees. It's my belief that either you can do the job well or you can't. However there are many situations of people doing their job well only to be terminated so that lower wage employees can replace them. That's probably how this started- to protect teachers from that as well as other employer abuses.
With teachers there are all kinds of things to factor in. For example what neighborhood do you teach in? Are there behavior issues that prevent anything from being learned? And there are regulations put into place i.e. No Child Left Behind that were (I hope) well intended but have caused less teaching to take place. Teachers teach so that their students will pass the tests because if they don't the school loses federal money. They should be teaching valuable skills instead of catering to a test designed by politicians.
I don't have the answers but I know when something smells rotten.
Bottom line if someone is not doing their job they should be let go.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

I personally would not say they have the hardest job in the world. I know many people who do subscribe to this, tho. True, it can be trying at times, but, I agree with WOW...some of them need to GO and should not be protected thru tenure.

Teaching can be a thankless job, that's for sure. I think to keep good teachers, we need to pay them better and give better benefits.

I also agree with Anna about the teaching to take a test. It is so true.

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

aia, our teachers have Cadillac insurance policies... and there is no teachers union in our state. They also have excellent retirement benefits.

And while teaching is a very important job, I don't know that it is *the* most important job in the world. I think parenting (though not a job-job) is something that can make or break how effective any teacher can be. Bad parenting is almost impossible to overcome, and our schools have failed miserably at trying to stand in for parents. That's not the fault of the schools - it's just a reality that if a parent doesn't instill basic values of respect, resourcefulness, and responsibility before a child enters school, the school has been set up to fight a losing battle, and all the expensive programs in the world won't do a whole lot to change that.

I understand that there is much more to what is going on in Wisconsin than just a budget issue. The Gov. recognizes that for many years, the party that the unions support was in power, and when the unions would bargain for better bennies, because the union was the biggest financial backer of those state lawmakers, the lawmakers made sure the unions were taken care of. The current Gov is not of that party and wants to shut down the system that allowed the state to be locked into so many commitments to benefits - commitments to retirement pay and insurance that caused a crazy budget mess. The union has agreed to have teachers start covering costs (like retirement and putting some $ towards insurance premiums) that have previously been fully funded by the government, and that's good, IMHO... but the governor is holding out for legislation that will prevent non-union teachers from being forced to pay $1K/annually to the unions for bargaining on their behalf. The union is against this because if teachers can choose whether or not to pay, they know they will probably lose members. And of course, there is also the fact that if they don't have all those dues coming in, they can't be the biggest political contributor to the Democrat Party in the state... and of course the Republican governor would like that.

The Dems are saying it's all about the Republican governor trying to kill that big contribution into the Dem coffers.

The Repubs are saying it's not fair for people who do not want to be union members to have to pay union dues, anyway, simply because they end up benefiting from the bargaining that sets their salaries and bennies.

It's all very complicated... but when I step back and try to look at it all with unbiased eyes... I do think it can be done a different way, and that it is unfortunate that those teachers don't seem to think they'll be treated fairly if the union doesn't protect them. I see our teachers here in my state being treated very, very well financially... and all without the benefit of a union. They do have a group of teachers who negotiates with the board each year regarding salaries and bennies, but it's all done at the local level. There are insurance plans offered to educators through BCBS, and each district chooses which one they want to offer their teachers, and those decisions are made between the board and the teacher reps in each school district.

It works. It's not always easy, but it works. I guess that's why I think that the idea that without a union standing up for them that all teachers would be homeless and without health care is an overstatement.

I think we have indeed had this conversation before. The community I live in the teachers are underpaid. They are in the union, but they have a percentage taken out of their checks to go toward retirement, they also pay for part of their health insurance (which from all I have heard, is NOT very good insurance). Just like in any profession some do a great job, others do not. My dh has worked for a major company for over 20 years, the local plant he works at is not Union, but many other plants run by this company are unionized It is almost impossible to fire anyone. It is no different then the difficulty faced with weeding out bad teachers. I have very mixed feeling in regards to Unions. They serve a purpose, but over the years have changed the way they *run*.

tammy, that's very interesting. If the union is supposed to be standing up for the teachers in your area, why do they have it so bad... know what I mean? If what the union leaders say is *true* - that they are the one thing standing between the financial life and death of teachers - why are your unionized teachers hurting?

Something is fishy.

I know at one time they served a purpose. The Triangle Factory fire back in the 1920's was a real watershed event in which many poor, non-English-speaking immigrant girls died because their working conditions were not only bad, but the building was in violation of codes and nobody was enforcing them. Back then, the unions that formed resulted in some changes that made things safer and better.

But they have morphed in ways that are not healthy, particularly where the government employee unions are concerned. They have taxpayers over a barrel, and our state and local budgets can't support the promises that have been made at the bargaining table.

The same is true for social security at the national level, which I realize is not a union issue....

Teachers seem to be considered "sacred" and "untouchable". My sister-in-law started community college toward her degree in education. I could not believe all the hoopla she came up with in a family discussion as to how SHE would only have 2 weeks off a year LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. She had all kinds of excuses how she wouldn't have holidays off, the 2 weeks at Christmas didn't count, don't even talk to her about fall or spring break and ALL the things she would be doing working over the summer. I think it's a mindset. It's hard for anyone to regress and have to give up and the teachers are many when banded together to support each other.

A teacher's job really isn't any harder than many others. As a matter of fact, there are many jobs demanding more in time, patience, skill, responsibility, etc the list could go on.

dl

Exactly.

Particularly in your first year or two of teaching, you do put in a lot of extra hours in the evenings... but that is true of lots of jobs. Our teachers often get stipends to take classes in the summer, and once they have their masters they get a significant bump in pay, regardless of whether their students are learning more from them.

But once teachers have the curriculum down, their summers and breaks are definitely R&R time.

Our teachers have para-professionals (who are not very well paid) that do most all of their grading.

And again - I'm not anti-teacher. I just don't think it is a career that merits so much hooplah about rights, how difficult it is in comparison to other jobs, etc.

I can only speak from my point of view, but I think teaching is a very stressful job. I am not saying it is the *most* stressful job there is, but for what you get paid.....I sometimes understand why there is such a lack of teachers in our area. It is true that teachers get a bump in pay with a masters degree, but this is true of many fields, not just education. The more education, the more the pay. As for para professionals, in our schools they work as Ed Techs in speical ed, or subs. None are doing any grading of papers. I sometimes feel that our teachers are not appreciated...by students, parents or the community in general. I think spending several days a week at our local High School has really helped to open my eyes as to just what a difficult job it can be!

This may not be the best time for me to answer this. I am a teacher with a master's degree. My current teaching assignment is as a library media specialist. I have two buildings that I am assigned. I got to work at 7am this morning and left work at 6:30pm. I had an extremely challenging day dealing with behavior issues. The server crashed last week that holds the circulation program. I dealt with computer issues, corrupted data, dealt with first grade students name calling, I broke up a fight between middle school boys, dealt with profanity, tutored 1st through 4th grade students after school who are on different levels at the same time. I am almost always up at my "new" building 5 -6 hours on Saturdays, because I don't have enough time during the school day to repair the books. Only special ed teachers have aides in their classrooms here. In one class period, I have 35 students to deal with at a time.
Benefits -- health insurance stinks, co-pay for an office visit is $50. We get one personal day a year, if we take more than that the pay for the sub comes out of our paycheck.
We report back to work to work for the regular school year usually August 3rd or 4th and go until Memorial Day. Summer school starts the first Monday in June and runs the month of June. Now by my calculations, that means that I only have July off, but I am expected to work two enrollment days and get two libraries ready for the first day of school. In our didstrict, even when you have tenure, the district can let you go, but they have to have documentation that you are not doing your job.
Pay --- Last August when I was filling out the free and reduced lunch form for my son, if made just $50 dollars a month less, he would have qualifed for reduced lunches. That was an eye opener for how poorly we are paid.

Now, do I love my job ---- Yes I do. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I'm not sure it's the "hardest" job in the world but I do feel as far as paid jobs outside the home go it's certainly one of the most important. For lack of a better phrase (excuse the corn) they are shaping the minds of the future leaders of the is country. The children of today will decide what happens to us when we're older. I would love for them to be able to have common sense as well as the ability to assess a situation and decide what is the most effective path to take. I know children should learn this at home but the sad truth is many parents do not possess these skills themselves so they are incapable of teaching their children.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

and nurses take care of the mental and physical health of our children, police officer protect our children, military provides for the safety and freedom of our children.....



Teachers do not put in any more special "work" into their job than any of several other professions. I know police officers who come in early, work long hours, volunteer lots of time to community programs. My best friend is an RN who work exceptionally long hours, and sometimes has to watch her patients not get any better and eventually die a slow painful death. And military? Well, we all know what kind of sacrifices they end up giving.

Unions, like the ACLU, had a time and a place. A person's work should stand on it's own merit. There are far too many other checks and balances in place now for "the union" to bully their way through those checks and balances.

I work in the private sector--my exact counterpoint in the state govt. sector makes 10-15 thousand more a year than me. They get all national holidays off (they get the whole election day off to vote!). And they actually do less work than I do! And their jobs are protected by the union...after 6 months, it takes an act of God to terminate a state employee.

"The Union" is an antiquated idea and notion.

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

Very well said, Marilyn: I totally agree.

While teaching "can" be a truly noble profession, it is NOT always. I am 64 and have been around a long time and can tell you that the teaching profession is NOT what is used to be I know young and old teachers who are jaded beyond words and who ADMIT that they HATE their jobs, but they "have it so good that they have no intention of quitting". That's sad. I know 30-year old teachers who are making $80,000 a year for a 9-month work year. And they do have the cadillac insurance plans that cover boob jobs and nose jobs and every kind of cosmetic surgery imaginable.

The bottom line is that the teaching profession does not garner the respect it did previously. And I don't know if that respect can ever be regained -- which is really unfair to the many, many good teachers who do care about our children.

Wow... I know serveral teachers who have been teaching for over 30 years, who are only making about $50,000, and have huge co-pays, and their coverage is limited (no boob jobs for them). What area is this teacher located? Our teachers also do not get three months off in the summer, school gets out the third week in June, and they are back at school the third week in August, so about 8 weeks. Many also are required to take summer courses. I guess it goes to show that it depends on what area you live in. As far as nobility, very few professions today are what I would consider *noble*. There are indeed teachers that probably should not be teaching, the same can be said for Doctors, lawyers and many other professions. Don't even get me started on polititians, and sadly...we elect them!

I agree that unions did serve a purpose at one time. My dad was a union Ironworker for most of his life. When he became ill, and had to retire early, I have to admit that the Union was wonderful. Then after his death, when my mother became ill, the Union was there once again. Its a long story, but lets just say that they went above and beyond what was required. Of course, I have seen many changes in the past 20 years. I know that what I saw back then, would never happen today. As for the union backing our local teachers, I honesty think part of the reason for low pay is more the town I live in. Not so much that the union isn't backing the teachers. I think it is very scary the direction our country is headed, regarding Social Security..and many other issues.

I feel that teachers' jobs are in many ways more important to our children as they have their attention for many hours a day for many months a year. I, for one, wouldn't want my children being taught by someone who was underpaid, unhappy, and possibly bitter about their situations.

Again that is not to say that I think ALL teachers are wonderful nor do I believe that they should be be a "protected class".

Children may come into contact with the police, with doctors, nurses, etc or they may not. Their teacher influences them consciously and subconsciously for years to come.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

I don't know what a protected class is. Is that a term being used with all this taxation mess running across the country?

In my state, teachers have a state and local "associations". The local associations participate in collective bargaining on behalf of their teachers and the state associations are pretty much lobbyists for teachers with the state lawmakers. That is no more or less than other public employees.

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Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.

E. Roosevelt

I think that GOOD teaching IS one of the hardest jobs.

In our area, jobs in teaching are the lowest paying jobs that require the highest amount of education (must have their MA within 5 years after start of teaching career). There are few other professions that pay less than teaching which require an MA degree.

The demands of teaching (around here, anyway) are at an all-time high: teachers are expected to help all children to reach benchmarks and goal for the year, despite having less resources (due to yearly budget cuts - seven years straight in my area), more kids per class, more standards to meet, and less options for implementing behavior management programs.

I found something that I read a few years back - it's pretty interesting when you think about NCLB, and how we attempt to assess good teaching practice (with little to no success). Read on:


*************************************
Absolutely the Best Dentists
by John Taylor, Superintendent of Schools,
Lancaster School District, South Carolina

My dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don't forget checkups. He uses the latest techniques based on research. He never hurts me, and I've got all my teeth, so when I ran into him the other day, I was eager to see if he'd heard about the new state program. I knew he'd think it was great.

"Did you hear about the new state program to measure the effectiveness of dentists with their young patients?" I asked.

"No - how will they do that?"

"It's quite simple," I said. "They will just count the number of cavities each patient has at ages 10, 14, and 18 and average them to determine a dentist's rating. Dentists will be rated as excellent, good, average, below average, and unsatisfactory. That way, parents will know which are the best dentists. It will also encourage the less effective dentists to get better," I said. "Poor dentists who don't improve could lose their license to practice."

"That's terrible," he said.

"What? Don't you think we should try to improve children's dental health in the state?"

"I sure do," he said, "but that's not a fair way to determine who is practicing good dentistry."

"Why not?" I asked. "It makes perfect sense to me."

"Don't you see that dentists don't all work with the same clientele? That so much depends on things we can't control? For example," he said, "I work in a rural area with a high percentage of patients from deprived homes, while some of my colleagues work in upper middle class neighborhoods. Many of the parents I work with don't bring their children to see me until there is some kind of problem, and I don't get to do much preventive work."

"Also," he said, "many of the parents I serve let their kids eat too much candy from an early age, unlike more educated parents who understand the relationship between sugar and tooth decay. To top it all off," he added, "so many of my clients have well water which is untreated and has no fluoride in it. Do you have any idea how much difference early use of fluoride can make?"

"It sounds like you're making excuses," I said. I couldn't believe my dentist would be so defensive. He does a great job.

"I am not," he said. "My best parents are as good as anyone's, my work is as good as anyone's, but my average cavity count is going to be higher than a lot of other dentists because I choose to work where I am needed most. So in a system like this, I will end up being rated average, below average, or worse. My more educated patients who see these ratings may believe this so-called rating actually is a measure of my ability and proficiency as a dentist. They may leave me, and I'll be left with only the most needy patients. And my cavity average score will get even worse. On top of that, how will I attract good dental hygienists and other excellent dentists to my practice if it is labeled below average?"

"I think you are overreacting," I said. "'Complaining, excuse making, and stonewalling won't improve dental health.' I am quoting from a leading member of the DOC," I noted.

"What's the DOC?" he asked.

"It's the Dental Oversight Committee," I said. "A group made up mostly of lay persons to make sure dentistry in this state gets improved."

"Spare me," he said. "I don't believe this. Reasonable people won't buy it," he said hopefully.

The program sounded reasonable to me, so I asked, "How else would you measure good dentistry?"

"Come watch me work," he said. "Observe my processes."

"That's too complicated and time consuming," I said. "Cavities are the bottom line. It's an absolute measure."

"That's what I'm afraid my patients and prospective patients will think. This can't be happening," he said despairingly.

"Now, now," I said. "Don't despair. The state will help you some."

"How?" he asked.

"If you're rated poorly, they'll send a dentist who is rated excellent to help straighten you out," I said brightly.

"You mean," he said, "they'll send a dentist with a wealthy clientele to show me how to work on severe juvenile dental problems with which I have probably had more experience? Big help."

"There you go again," I said. "You aren't acting professionally at all."

"You don't get it," he said. "Doing this would be like grading schools and teachers on an average score on a test of children's progress without regard to influences outside the school, the home, the community served, and stuff like that. Why should they do something so unfair to dentists? No one would ever think of doing that to schools, would they?"

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"The errors of faith are better than the best thoughts of unbelief." - Thomas Russell

Oklahoma is one of the worst paying states as far as teachers go. Many of the teachers do not have their summers free because they work second jobs during that time to make ends meet. Several of them work second jobs during the school year also. I know one teacher that is an EMT on the weekends, another that works at the Gas Mart on the weekends, another one that waitresses at Buffalo Wildwings, teachers run the after school program for extra money, and in the summer they teach summer school or work the summer enrichment programs, teach driver's ed, some of the coaches have softball camps and basketball camps.

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visit my homepage http://penny.mycoupons.com/

This is interesting to me, given that the Wisconsin education issue is one of the biggest stories right now.

Wisconsin Teaching Salaries | How Much Do Wisconsin Teachers Make?

After reading the teachers wages for Wisconsin, I was curious to the overall average here in Maine. What I found while doing some research, was the average Starting pay is $26,333 and the average pay is $40,737. We rank 37th in teachers Salaries. These figures are a few years old. I would say that is about what the pay is in our area. I do know that Southern Maine teachers salaries are much more than Central and Northern Maine.

Many options have been voiced about teachers. Salaries, benefits and time off vary from state to state, from private school to church schools to public schools.

I am a teacher in a Catholic school. I am state certified. Not every teacher has an aide. We have one aide for 6 teachers (3-5 grades) who can only work 20 hours a week. I come in at 6:30 every day and leave between 3:30/4:00 pm unless I have a meeting which could go until 5:00 pm. Our lunch time is 45 minutes but 2 days a week I have lunch duty which means I have 20 minutes to eat. Most night, I correct papers for a least an hour. On the weekends, I spend 3 hours on lesson plans and then a least 3 hours on correcting papers. During the summer most teachers in June are cleaning their rooms and doing paperwork for several days to a week after the students leave. We come in a week before the students for meetings and most teachers are a week before that to get their rooms ready. Add in programs and classes taken in the summer and during the year. So during the school year we work more than a 40 hour week. I enjoy what I do and have been during for close to 30 years. I pay for 1/2 of my health insurance. So here is some more info that people can use.

read, I taught in a private school as well. We had no health care options or retirement plans or anything. It was a very small school (I had 14 students in a combined 6-8 classroom, and there were about 80 students total, Pre-K through 8th ), and we were the janitors, the playground supervisors, and pretty much everything else. I made beans. Literally! When another teacher had the pre-lunch recess, I was on duty warming everyone's lunches! lol We didn't have a hot lunch program, but kids could bring things that needed microwaved and we'd heat them up for them.

Our students went on to do very, very, very well. They were not from wealthy families by any stretch of the imagination, but they were from families who cared about the education their children were getting, about their behavior, etc.

We did have several families who were difficult to work with - ironically, they were the ones who were there on scholarship. The board never wanted to turn any child away, so anyone who declared financial need got scholarshipped in (which just meant they went free and resulted in no new income for the school, which meant the possibility of a raise for teachers never went up!). The irony was that sometimes families who were moving to town and checked us out and declared the need for hefty scholarships also ended up buying homes nicer than our other families when they moved to town. The family living in the trailer park scraped together their son's $100 / month tuition, while the family in a nicer neighborhood sent their four kids free. That always kind of bothered me... but I was not on the board, so...! The parents who were sacrificing for their kids to be there seemed to always have the highest expectations for their kids.

We had one 'founding family' at the school who pretty much just contributed enough money at the end of the month to make sure that the school could make payroll. They were the only family with 'money', and it was their money that kept our doors open. I'd say it was definitely 'trickle down' at work.

One reality that I don't know what to do with is the fact that schools have assumed roles that don't really have anything to do with education, and those programs are very, very expensive, and we probably run those programs at the expense of salaries for classroom teachers. How much do we spend on gasoline to get ball teams to and from other towns in huge busses multiple times per week? How much do we spend on coaches? Gymnasiums? I realize there is value in team sports, but there are so many non-school athletic offerings that my gut tells me that there would be sports even if schools did not provide them, and the parents would foot the bill if it was important to their family.

Music definitely has academic implications, but we seem to offer so many things - from show choirs to jazz band to orchestra to marching band and other similar activities - that each come with a cost. I love those things... but when did they become part of the necessary and expected 'school package'? If we didn't have those things, could we afford to pay classroom teachers more?

There are life lessons to be learned when one works with a group of other people to achieve a goal. Athletics, music programs... those things can be really good teaching tools. But are they *necessary* programs? Did people not learn those skills somehow 120 years ago before school districts assumed the role of giving youth lots of taxpayer-funded activities? Somehow, people like George Washington and Laura Ingalls Wilder seemed to find their way through life without all the 'programs' we seem to think are necessities. Do homeschooled kids survive into adulthood just fine without having had all those team activity options at their disposal?

The more we offer, the more it is going to cost the taxpayers, and the less money that is available to pay teachers.... and dare I say it... the less focus there is on being studious. How much time do schools spend doing a lot of rah-rah pep rallies for the Quiz Bowl team?

My kids participate in a lot of school activities (they aren't athletically inclined, but they are in lots of other things), and I like that we have them... but sometimes I think the schools have lost a lot of focus when it comes to academics. The teachers who are trying to teach core subjects often seem lost in the shuffle of the hooplah over the *activities* the schools provide.

By the way, I read somewhere that the teachers in Wisconsin have not had a pay raise in 5 years.

I went 2 years on without a raise in pay. This year I got a 2 % raise.

How have private sector salaries been holding up? They may not have had raises... but if there wasn't money to give raises... and if people in the private sector haven't seen an increase in their income either... while it's unfortunate, it just may be par for the course right now.

I can understand them being disappointed and frustrated... but sadly, sometimes in life you don't get raises for several years in a row when the economy sucks. It's not *just* teachers feeling the pinch... which is why I started this thread. EVERY sector is feeling it right now in most states, so why should government workers be angry at 'the system' for not giving them colas, etc., when nobody else is guaranteed them?

ETA: According to census data from a couple of years ago, the median household income in Wisconsin is around $52K. That would mean a single-earner family with an average-paid teacher is at the median. A dual income family where both parents are teachers receives twice the income the average family in WI gets... and they have not had to contribute towards their own retirement or much - if any - of their own health care premiums until now.

And I really do want to stress that it's not that I don't think teachers are worth a decent income. It's that when every other vocation seems to be letting people go because there simply isn't the business to support as many workers, etc., I don't understand why this one particular employment sector seems to feel that they are untouchable - particularly when their income seems pretty substantial for their geographic area. I realize that in some areas teachers are grossly underpaid... but it does not seem to be true for Wisconsin.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/55000.html

I don't know if this holds true for Wisconsin, but in most states and in Oklahoma except for this year and next year, there is a limit as to how many students can be placed in a classroom. As long as there are children, then districts can not lay off teachers. If the student population goes down, then you will see the number of teachers go down. With NCLB, districts are held accountable for what students learn and you can't have a class of 50 students and expect them to be able to learn.

1. I wonder what the weekly hours worked would be if you averaged the hours out over a 12 month time period.
2. Sure teaching can be stressful but so are tons of other jobs. You also choose to become a teacher. No one is forcing you. And, after having attended school yourself for many years, you certainly know what you are getting into.
3. Doctors and nurses also deal with children everyday and they can be making life-saving decisions. Police, firefighters, paramedics, etc... have high job stress. Is a factory worker trying to support his family any less stressed than a teacher? And the factory worker is not getting the summer off, spring break, etc...
4. I have two grown children so I've dealt with schools. I'm rather tired of the attitude about how much they deserve and need to be protected, etc... Of course we need good teachers and they should be paid accordingly but I don't see why they need so many perks.
5. I've worked for the county for over 30 years. I'm part-time but full-timers at 30 years in our office would make around $36,000, pay into retirement, pay a percentage if they want family insurance and get 5 weeks vacation. The median income for this city for a family is $57,568 and $34,977 per person. And we are unionized.

Maybe, I am being dense here, but exactly how are we being protected. I can be let go after a due process hearing it is documented that I am not doing my job. There has not been a raise in my district for two years, in fact this year a benefit was cut. The state provided insurance stinks -- last year the co-pay for an office visit was $50 for educators. Thankfully, this year that did go down to $30. The government constantly borrows from the account that pays the retirement benefits.

No Child Left Behind does impact what is taught and because of it there are mandates for class size. Is it actually the parents who keep having children who determine how many teachers are employed.