<ol>
<li>Unionized public school teachers in affluent towns who complain about salaries realized that their health benefits; pensions; job security; and days worked per year are vastly superior to the vast majority of equally educated people in other professions, especially if they have tenure.</li>
</ol>
<p>Not sure I agree with this- I know many teachers working in affluent towns the vast majority of the residents in those towns could not live on a teachers salary. It is the middle class towns where I see the brunt of anger about what teachers make.</p>
<p>Ok, so now we’re back to something related to my original question. So is it that the general/middle class public believes that teachers make too much?</p>
<p>I’ve never heard anyone say anywhere that “teachers make too much.” However, where I live, teachers are not underpaid. We’ve worked very hard to make it that way for various reasons. 1. Most of us have multiple degrees and value education and teachers highly. 2. It is good for our property values (how we argue it with the older residents or residents w/o children.) </p>
<p>You originally asked where was the love for the teachers? In our community it is all over the place. If that isn’t the case in other communities? I don’t know what to say. But I still have yet to hear anyone say they are “overpaid.”</p>
<p>Tom is correct that, in many affluent towns, someone with only a teacher’s salary would have difficulty buying a house and paying the high taxes (which in most towns fund the schools). However, there are not many jobs which have only 180 or so work days which allow people to buy such houses. In most of those towns, two teachers together could afford a house and many teachers in those towns are spouses of town residents who are the primary earner.</p>
<p>I also believe Tom is right that the recession has fueled a lot of anger over salaries, from CEOs to ballplayers. I have not heard of any directed at teachers, in middle or upper class towns, except when a teacher claims salaries are too low, such as their union head makes statements during contract bargaining.</p>
<p>Tom, I have seen untenured teachers hired in public schools with nothing more than a reference and an interview. Sometimes they had worked in other countries, but that doesn’t tell a school what they are getting.</p>
<p>Can you think of anyone with a more important job to give that money to? I can only think of handful and they are also probably in that a 5% you mentioned.</p>
<p>Let’s be honest importance and skill of work has been completely stripped from the “how much you’re suppose to earn” equation.</p>
<p>Farmers, teachers, skilled workers of all kinds make how much? Not enough. Now compare to Pop stars (Soulja boy and Hanna Montanna), and sports athletes, who contribute nothing of any worth of society and make not 6 figures, but often 7.</p>
<p>We’re living in a world that doesn’t make sense any more. Someone needs to fix it.</p>
<p>Teaching is a profession that anyone can choose to major in (if they want to do the job). If folks would like to do this job and feel there is a significant advantage in doing so, I would urge you to become certified as a teacher. In many states, there are alternative ways to become certified. Sometimes this can be done is as little as one summer. In other cases, it can take longer. BUT really the door is open to all who wish to pursue this as a career. I welcome any of you to join me as a public school educator.</p>
<p>Also, reflecting on my own posts 40 and 131, also Marite’s posts and those whose DH is a teacher, think about how nonsensical this classroom model is, transposed to the business world, where people get performance bonuses regularly. It is not a model designed in the least for productivity. Can you imagine a business trying to manage efficiently, given these inherently conflicting goals and conditions? They would change the goals, the conditions, or both, rather than risk the work product and therefore the survival of the company.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, in my State, education is way too influenced by public opinion (I do not mean parents per se – indeed, parents have rebelled and, as in other States, formed charter schools). I mean political opinion, carried from misguided legislators & Boards and superintendents reflecting some perceived public values that are essentially at odds with the goals of academic excellence. (Parents who participate in charter schooling may indeed be interested in performance, but many other parents are far more interested in “social” grade promotion, in protecting their children’s feelings, averting consequences, and filing lawsuits. It is this group to which the Powers That Be pander and for which they create policies around discipline, around class groupings, and much else.)</p>
<p>Join us in the real world. Public school teachers are paid with tax dollars, paid by taxpayers. In my town, at least, those taxpayers include police, firefighters, emergency room nurses, and so on, who do not make six-figure salaries.</p>
<p>Last year a school tax increase (that is, property tax levy increase) was defeated for the first time in many years. The vote was overwhelmingly against, not even close. </p>
<p>Police officers starting at 32K per year are not going to vote for six-figure salaries for teachers.</p>
<p>Oh I believe all the groups you mentioned deserve much more pay.</p>
<p>And please don’t use the tired “This is the real world” argument. It just makes you seem annoying. I am sure all our revolutionaries who changed history for the better were told “join us in the real world”. It’s such a ******** idea.</p>
<p>And yet criminal business men and bankers who rob and rape the world make more than the people who educate us, protect us, and heal us. Yep it’s the way it is. Doesn’t make it any less ridiculous though.</p>
<p>“Farmers, teachers, skilled workers of all kinds make how much? Not enough. Now compare to Pop stars (Soulja boy and Hanna Montanna), and sports athletes, who contribute nothing of any worth of society and make not 6 figures, but often 7.”
I am appalled by how much athletes and entertainers make, but that is determined by the free market—no one makes taxpayers or anyone else pay those salaries. They are paid by their employers and by people who buy their products. Those of us who object simply do not buy Soulja Boy records and lose nothing when he is overpaid. </p>
<p>Who do you suggest determine that teachers be paid more and how much? And why farmers, but not ER nurses? Or soldiers in Afghanistan? If teachers should earn over $100,000 based on their significant contributions, how many millions should cancer researchers earn? And where is this money going to come from?</p>
<p>Frankly, who are any of us–including you and me–to decide that what non-public employees should be paid? You say pop stars do not contribute anything to society–I dislike Hannah Montana, but millions of people think Hannah contributes to their happiness. Why should you or I get a vote, but not them? Why are the best athletes not among your view of “skilled workers”–show me someone with more skill and a harder worker than Michael Phelps.<br>
I believe teachers should be well paid, and that is why I moved to a town where I have to pay high taxes so our teachers can be paid at the top of the market. But I believe a free market and the democratic process, and not my personal views, should be how salaries are determined.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, the free market is not always right or desirable. Even if the tax payers aren’t paying for these athletes and entertainers with tax dollars, it’s still the same people. And why do they sell so many things? Viral underhanded marketing. Same with athletes. They are simply in markets that are easily exploited. That’s it. They don’t contribute anything meaningful to society in the sense a doctor or teacher does. Sure they have skill. But I could learn how to be the best paddle baller in the world, surely an impressive skill. Now where’s my mill? A person’s pay should be DIRECTLY CORRELATED with the value they add to society.</p>
<p>Honestly too many people tout free markets and democracy too highly. A free market is only free until the rich and powerful monopolize it. A democracy is simply four wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for lunch that’s it.</p>
<p>And you’re talking about tax payers footing bills? If the US wasn’t so busy ****ing around and killing people in other countries, you’d have enough money to give every teacher and policeman a 7 figure salary!</p>
<p>Edit: I love how having an unpopular opinion on message boards is considered ■■■■■■■■.</p>
Ignore the ■■■■■. Yabe. :)</p>