The following is a recompilation of postings by 'Stephanie F.', a writer from New York State. Her comments were originally posted onto the private message boards at DennisMillerRadio.com and are being republished with permission.
There was a time when teachers might have been paradigms of self-sacrifice. Underpaid, underfed--look at Mr. Chips--they were often bachelors and "spinsters" because they couldn't afford to raise a family on their dreary pay, and their loyalty to their "boys and girls" was akin to a parent to a child. (Even the monstrous Jean Brodie loved her charges.)
This is a part of folklore these days, and though it might have been true at one time, it's no longer the case. Today, I see teachers as sacred cows who are milking the system, and are untouchable and protected by favorable media bias. (How many TV shows and movies still portray teachers as floundering economically, just a step above poor church mice!)
In reality, the benefits of teaching far outweigh anything that might be considered difficult or challenging. Each teacher's workday is shorter than most other occupations--plus there is a lunch break and class breaks that fit into the abbreviated schedule. The entire summer is off, as well as every weekend, national holiday, and Jewish holiday (if it's New York or New Jersey based). Additionally, there are spring breaks and winter breaks to coincide with Easter and Christmas (or whatever Wiccan ritual might also occur at that point).
No one is saying that teachers don't have affection for their students, or work during their employment hours, but the notion of self-sacrifice and a hard-scrabble existence is bygone.
Teachers get paid a huge amount for their hours worked (even taking into consideration paper grading or class prep)--and then there are the benefits down the road: pensions and health care for life. Currently, community banks offer discounts on mortgages for teachers, and many stores run "teacher appreciation" discounts and sales. If a teacher races through his or her annual salary and is devoid of pay during the summer, then figure out a better savings plan. Or get a summer job. The compensation for the 9 months worked is so much higher than the average family's 12-month salary. How can a teacher be devoid of cash come June and July? Not good arithmetic and division.
The notion of a teacher (or any other unionized public employee) being a public servant is long gone. There still is public servitude: but it's us--the public--who are in service to these union workers.
All the women I know who are currently in education are married, have kids of their own (who they send to private school, by the way), and love their jobs because they get to spend so much time with their own children: all the holidays, all summer, early work days, free weekends.
I don't have that luxury. I am self-employed and only earn a penny when I put forth labor. If I don't work, I don't get paid. I imagine I shall have to work until I am 70 years old or older to afford any kind of measly, restricted retirement.
In the meantime, teachers can wave farewell to their classes at 50 years old--if they want--after 25 years and have comfortable, relaxing, cash-at-the-ready retirements. They can live 35 or 40 or more years on public funds without teaching.
Good-bye, Mr. Chips. And good-bye to the myth of the impoverished but rich-in-soul educator. They are now among the best cared for in our society: paid heftily while working, still rewarded upon retirement. And no one can say a word against them.
But then again, it's all about the kids . . .
If someone who is in show biz, or a famous successful writer, or a surgeon at the top of his field, or an entrepreneur wants to spend his or her retirement years sailing the ocean blue, sky-diving, climbing mountains, and just being a hedonist, I well understand it. I envy it and wish it could be me. I guess I feel that if a person is wealthy, that individual should have his golden years really be golden! Why else accumulate all that cash!
However, when people on the public payroll retire--and have that same leisurely lifestyle--it irks me. I don't begrudge a self-made person from living the high life, a jet-setting life, an existence that would make Robin Leach blush. Public workers should not have so much cash from their pensions that they are able to kick back and relax for 30, 40, or 50 years.
I know an elderly person, who is 80 years old, and boasts about his retirement: He proudly talks about how he was 25 years in his public sector job. Now, mind you, 25 years is a long time, but not for a working career. He got his job at 27 and was retired at 52. He's been collecting a pension for 28 years, longer than he worked. He's in great health and can live for another 10 or 15 years easily.
Every year he takes a cruise, a car vacation, and a flight vacation--after all, he has to fill up 365 days a year. He is living the dream--no worries about how to pay his bills or pay for medicine or doctor treatments.
Does he deserve it? Was his job any more difficult or demanding than mine or anyone else's who isn't a star? It shouldn't be that everyone in the middle class and lower middle class have to work until we're senior citizens so that public sector people can retire and enjoy themselves after 20 or 25 years.
Who in private industry retires after 25 years? How many 46-year-old or 50-year-old retirees do you see in private jobs? We are all going to have to slog on and on, so others can have their futures insured and ensured.
Things are going to have to change. A retired public ______ (fill in the blank with the occupation) shouldn't live like a celebrity in his post-work years.
In New York City, as of 2010, the average teacher's pension was $52,270 a year. It goes up every year with cost of living adjustments.
More than 1,500 NYC educators in 2010 drew pensions that were over $100,000 per year. (Again, pensions go up every year for adjustments.)
On the East Coast (NY, NJ, CT), this is how teachers retire. They make a higher than average salary while working, and then retire to make more than their still-laboring private-employed neighbors. The public retirees on the East Coast don't have to tap into their savings. They are paid for the rest of their lives as though they are still gainfully employed.
This is why there is such anger about all of the public pensions--not just for teachers. It is impossible to have some people in a tier where they can retire in middle age and then be carefree. Others have to work and worry and fight every month to keep up with spiraling taxes that--ta da--fund the pension system!
She forgot Kwanzaa in her list of holidays.
Rasicts!
Quote: The notion of a teacher (or any other unionized public employee) being a public servant is long gone. There still is public servitude: but it's us--the public--who are in service to these union workers.unquote.
This is a very despicable fact.
We have become a new feudal system. The public are the serfs and the state is the Master. A blind, slobbering, imbecilic master. A master that decides what you shall give, in extortion fees, and what you will be allowed to keep and allowed to own.
Government is nothing but a gun at your head, a parasitic entity that delivers a portion of what they claim and costs many times what they say.
Whatever they touch, turns into shyte. It's the opposite of the Midas touch. It's a diseased hand that infects anything in it's proximity and wake.
Watch "Waiting for Superman". nuff said.
I fully agree; this is the legacy of the unions, in this case, of the public service unions.
What the unions have done, is to move in as a parasite on the workers. Their original income is from the pay cheques of the workers; they have built this up as enormous capital investments. The Teachers Pension Funds are among the largest capital funds in the world, and they are involved in many capital investments.
Odd, since the ideology behind unions and teaching is almost totally socialist and rejects capital gains, rejects private investment and wants to instead, according to Obama, 'spread the wealth'. Heh.
With this focus on money, the unions have then transformed every public service in which they are involved into a focus only on getting more and more money from the taxpayer. That's their only agenda. It is not to further benefit society, for their greed actually harms society.
Public service jobs include salaries and annual increases two to three times that of the private sector. The scope of benefits and pensions, most of which are not funded by those salaries but are extra and paid fully by the taxpayer, are unknown in the private sector. Then, to retain their income, Unions ensure that all jobs are 'for life'. No matter how incompetent, how much they violate rules and ethics, public servants are rarely fired.
The focus is removed from public service, and the unions focus only on greed - getting more money.
Within the teaching sector, this translates into incompetent teachers being hired and retained, because - since there is no accountability and no rewards for merit - the 'normal standard of teaching' becomes reduced to the LCD, lowest common denominator.
The unions reject proper evaluations of the success of the teaching actions - the student evaluations of how much I like my teacher are irrelevant - but the unions won't permit real evaluations of 'did the student learn anything'. That's because the unions would be forced to fire incompetent teachers. They won't do this.
It's a mess, and more and more parents, if they can afford it, are leaving the public sector for private schools. BUT, this leaves the public schools dealing only with the poor - and acting instead as day care centres, acting as parents, providing 'free' breakfasts and lunches, while the parents are either working or are indifferent to the children.
All of this mess is due to: the unions.
Teachers used to be in the top 3 most respected professions, right up there with doctors and police/fire/ambulance. That changed when they were allowed to unionize. It has now been taken over by the radical elements who see their student charges as merely bargaining chips to be used and mistreated as they see fit to ensure that the weakwilled educrats will cave in to every demand.
I'd suggest this article and all of the above comments become mandatory reading for all unionized teachers and union leaders. A certain plus might come about if a few of 'em had a heart attack while reading. But, that might be too much to hope for.
Absolutely true and just as true when 'teacher' is replaced with 'cop'. What really bothers me isn't the over pay is the coddling of failures and general lack of meritocracy.
As an Alberta teacher, I would absolutely attest to the truth of this article. We are paid higher than average wages (considerably so in my province), have extremely good job security, benefits, and holidays. We also whine and pretend like we're hard done-by and justify our outrageous demands by pointing to the high-paid people in the oil-industry who actually take some risks and produce some wealth to contribute to the system. We do our part, although we think we do more than we actually do, and we pretend like we have difficult working conditions, when the worst we usually have is a few ornery kids in one of our classes.
I have had this debate with teacher friends of mine. The self-righteousness and justification for what goes on was astounding. A friend of mine is married to a teacher. He originally was an economist and then went back and got an Ed degree. The debate with them was always me against his wife on this stuff, and my friend would occasionally weight in going against his wife as much as would be considered advisable. He would say that they were very well paid for what they do, which I figured was based on his working in another industry.
We went through the math one day, factoring in the workday and some ridiculous number of "after work" hours per day for marking and such (like 4 or something). After all the standard time off and summers and all that, it worked out to approximately 1600 hours per year. I stated that I have never worked less than 2000 hours in a year in my life, many years approaching 2500.
Factor in the pensions and all that, and I can see why respect for this position is low.
My long ago "spinster" kindergarten teacher was a really sly nasty bitch.
She gave me an excellent grounding in what life is really all about and what to watch out for.
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I should clarify:
"I can see why respect for this position is low."
My respect for the position is high, but my respect for the demands of some in the position is low.
I'm starting to think 'martyr complex' is a pre-req for being hired as a teacher.
Education used to have very average pay. The upside was you got to work inside and it was clean. The minimum qualification when I was a youngster was 2 years post-secondary and many of my teachers had 1 year training and a few had Grade 12. And anyone who went to university knows that education students were borderline retarded.
A very strong union has cut their workload in half and doubled or tripled their real income in the last 50 years. School boards are run by people stupider than the teachers. They have no backbone to confront the teachers. In another 50 years , will teachers be earning $200-300,000 and be teaching 9 students. If the past is any predictor - sure.
The unions did the same thing in the health-care system. They made nursing a four year program, the created LPNs to do all the work they used to do and tripled their real wages.
Time for vouchers in education and health care. There needs to be some competition.
I remember the Mike Harris years in Ontario when I would drive by the "protesting" teachers during their illegal walkout. Regardless of their cause, I was amazed how people could feel so comfortable, financially and otherwise, that they would do this. They had no clue that just making this gesture was a luxury beyond the means of most people.
And then I went to teachers college, taught for a few years and have just been supplying in recent years. This morning I got an email message organizing a protest outside MPP's office. They compared their struggle to parents and grandparents who had fought for their rights. I assume they're comparing their little labour tiff to fighting in a world war.
You will never meet a nicer group of people to work with, but sweet jesus, they are so entitled it hurts. And no, I won't be attending the protest.
Dad taught in Saskatchewan in the late thirties to mid-fifties. His early jobs earned him around $700 a year (if he could collect) and he was boarded out among the local families where he was also expected to do chores. Such conditions spurred the formation of the Sask. Teachers' Federation.
Now teachers are paid well and enjoy benefits that are not available to many sectors of society. Schools have oozed out beyond their mandates to provide services that are more properly the purview of parents and other institutions. Every group who has access to the public purse goes through this process of bloat.
The article seems to suggest that teachers should prove their dedication by accepting poor wages and benefits. Society does not respect that. Teachers would be reviled whether they were well paid or not. They have become the whipping boy for all sorts of society's ills--many of which are beyond their ability to address.
I agree with many of the posters who comment on the sad state of education. But education is not just teachers. And for those who extol the merits of the spinsters and poor bachelors who used to go into the field just for the love of children--well, there were lots of sadists, incompetents, child-diddlers in those days too.
The comments above could perhaps be best summarized as "Teaching is a very difficult job to do well, but it is a very easy job to do poorly." In a long career of observing teachers, I've seen plenty of both.
In teaching, as in other parts of the economy, unionization in and of itself is not the fundamental problem; it seems rather to be the almost symbiotic relationship between union leaders and school administrators (themselves often former union officials) to maintain a system that operates to their mutual benefit at the expense of those they are called to serve.
Well, maybe it's true for teachers and senior public servants but one should be careful how wide a brush one tars with. I work in the public sector. Have for 36 years. I'm 61 and won't be retiring any time soon. I can't afford to live on my pension as of yet. When I do, my pension, which I will have paid into for a total of 35 years along with my wife's income, will hopefully allow us to be comfortable but we won't be taking three vacations a year either, I tell you that. Be lucky to get away to Duluth for the weekend. Like in anything else, some do better than others. No one was born a public servant. Most just applied for a job one day because they needed one. Lucky? Maybe. Some of us actually have skills, you know. Some of us actually work every day. I'm not looking for sympathy but, on the other hand, don't judge all of us by the teachers.
I will agree, however, that public sector unions suck. Especially the highly paid executives, thereof and their goofy brand of socialism. I'm hoping Conservative MP Pierre Poilièvre gets rid of the Rand formula. Let unions work for their dues and stop funneling cash to the NDP and overpaying useless executives and staff.
The teacher's union and health care unions are the leading entities that consider the taxpayers pocket as their own. A provincial government operating in deficit means nothing.
Even tho my sister and daughter in law are teachers I have no respect for any union or its membership that endorsed the re-instatement of convicted pedphile Noyes in BC. Over 200 victims.
Wasn't the scene yesterday of all the millionaire hockey players standing on podium, standing in solidarity for their union, a classic. They are taking about 70% of hockey revenue and consider themselves hard done by. What is even more absurd is the average Canadian who hate millionaires standing by these guys in solidarity as well. Ironic, no?
For those teachers who think the average parent is supporting their strikes. In actuality they are missing the daycare not the teaching.
I put a lot of this down to the media. There are so many narratives about teachers who are wonderful, selfless, inspiring, street gangs into basketball teams, blah...
Here's Obama from his infamous "you didn't build that" speech (Fauxcahontas Warren should sue him for plagiarism): "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life."
I had a handful of cr@p teachers, several okay or even really nice ones and I can think of two who I really, really liked. None changed my life. Parents count, not teachers.
Pension Dog of the Day: Saskatchewan Teachers Federation
....The shortfall in the plan has blossomed to over $4 billion from the original shortfall in 1979. Currently the plan has $900 million in it, pays out $ 300 million a year and will run out in about 3 years. At that time it will be come a pay-as-you go plan which will be the responsibility of the taxpayers of Saskatchewan ...
fairpensionsforall.net/2011/08/02/pension-dog-of-the-day/
Ontario teachers party – Is it over?
fairpensionsforall.net/2012/08/23/ontario-teachers-party-is-it-over/
All of this mess is due to: the unions. ET
Unions are part of the problem, not the whole.
The other half is the local monopoly known as the school district or board. They waste money like their is no tomorrow, and more importantly, force the teachers to teach the subjects according to the rules; for instance, placing calculators in the math classroom was an imposition from above, and, as far as I know, not a product of teacher or union pressure.
Likewise relaxing standards, such as every 3rd grader must have command/instant recall of the 9 x 9 multiplication table, was imposed from above. Ditto with the teaching of operations with fractions, which is a complete joke now that produces students with absolutely no ability in fractions.
Until the voter gets the money out of the hands of government - the school boards - and into the hands of parents as vouchers, reforms such as eliminating unions will fail to improve the schools.
The public would be shocked to find out how much of the bloated school budgets go to building new schools in order to sell new housing developments, and the endless amounts of waste in acquisition of calculators, textbooks, useless classes, computers, athletic facilities, consultants of all kinds, television studios, useless employees in the central office, and cars, cell phones, and travel expenses to conferences for them, recycling initiatives, etc., etc., etc.
Never put anything into the hands of a civil bureaucracy you don't want destroyed.
Yeah, yeah, but none of you voted in your last school board election.
Teachers get blame that should fall on parents.
If the kids were performing as is hoped, then the salaries would be justified...but they're not. And the problem is crap parents.
small c conservative - thanks, you make really excellent points.
By the way, apparently the Chicago teachers strike is settled. They get 16% (!!!) pay increase over 4 years (that's 4% per year, which is double, triple any private sector)..and, in addition, a 2% cost of living increase each year. So, it's actually 24% increase.
Oh, and teacher evaluations, which the teachers didn't want...the type of evaluation not about 'how much I love my teacher' but 'what has the child actually learned'..well, that's been fobbed off to a committee. Heh.
The taxpayers have been shafted yet again and the union wins.
I am so glad my posts have been so well received! Thank you for sharing these. You see, I've spent my whole life in the private sector, and in many different fields. Some have paid better than others--some were more challenging and others were less inspiring-- but in all of them I always tried to do my best. In all of these different positions--in theater, in publishing, in private schools, in marketing--I always knew that my pay would increase if I did a good job that was recognized, or could increase if the company was turning a profit. And that's the crux: personal ability meshing with the company's profitability means more money coming your way. It's a simple matter of a valued employee getting more money, or even a competent employee getting more money because the business is flourishing.
When a company is sputtering--no matter how well you work or how much you care--pay raises are scarce. People have to accept small raises or none at all. Just having and keeping a job is the reward. All of this is true in the private sector world.
Public sector does not function this way. There was a time when the initial pay was so little that the rewards were reaped at the end: a pension was compensation for a career that was never adequately reimbursed during the worker's lifetime.
Now the public unions have created a paradise for their members where they are rewarded while working, after working, and everyplace in between (disability, family leave, medical leave, sabbaticals). The whole setup is a topsy-turvy one that has to collapse. The people on the bottom who are supporting the union lifestyle through taxes and their own delayed retirement cannot keep this up. It's a mathematical reality that the number of retirees and public employees combined will soon outnumber the working, tax-paying citizens who are floating the whole establishment.
Think of it as a pyramid scheme: but the Pharaoh pyramid scheme. The masses are toiling; the union members are exploiting; the private citizens are clamoring for a Moses. Someone has to come to the forefront and explain that a state's budget can't be tapped to support people who are no longer contributing. A workforce in the private realm can't be shackled to paying public retirees and future retirees. If things don't turn around, I fear the state's solution will be for us to hand over our entire paychecks and then wait for an allowance that's deemed "livable" and "fair" to be handed back to us. The party's over, and the host state has to recognize it and roust out the unions.
I don't care for Maggie "the Sad Turtle" Gyylleennhhaall, but this movie looks like it might be worth a look: Link.
It never fails that when discussing teacher's salaries and lifestyle that one hears the most fanciful load of manure. "teachers only work a few hours a day, and all that "extra" work they do at home is a farce" or that old faithful "teachers can retire by 48" or my personal favorite "the worst a teacher has to deal with is a few talkative kids". It is surprising that anyone is dumb enough to believe any of this ridiculous nonsense.
It seems to me that every year the myths about how much teachers receive become more and more grandiose. Unfortunately because of these urban legends I get asked frequently "why do you drive that p of s car, aren't you a teacher?" or "why can't you come over and watch the game tonight? Oh, ya right you have 4 hours of work to do at home tonight! Don't you just turn the page on that giant magic yearly teaching book?"
Unfortunately these are not the worst myths that get flung at teachers. The absolute lowest is when I get told that as the son of an illiterate immigrant farmer who's only memory of school was the frequent scolding from his teacher that he was too lazy to learn to read, that I could not possibly have chosen to teach in order to make a difference, or to change lives, or to help build a stronger faith in my students. Instead I get told that I teach because I am lazy and entitled, and that if I don't agree to teach for almost nothing and have to work for board from local families, that I have a "martyr complex".
Even worse are the horrible messages about teachers hopefully having heart attacks after reading this post! You know I always believed that all the hate was on the left, but it seems we have some here as well.
Darn it Mamba (6:37 pm). I thought the movie was about a turtle.
'Well I hate to burst your bubble but what a self-pitying exercise in class envy. You made your choices. Suck it up and deal with it."
What a twisted response to people who are working in private industry, making their own way. How strange--I infer that you're saying, "Private workers, shut up and bend over. Reach deeper into your pockets and pay more. You have no right to complain. You want to keep more of your own money, rather than having it sucked away by taxes that fund an unquenchable union monster. Well, that can't happen. Shut up and deal with it."
Am I correct in what you're saying? The non-public arena needs to stop lamenting the fact that their lives are compromised and diminished, and just meekly feed the beast.
The most offensive thing about your comment is that you deem people who are tired of funding the gravy train to be examples of self=pitying, class-envying duds.
Class envy is the currency of the union movement--where every member is portrayed as the salt of the earth who is just scraping by. In America, public union workers average $64,000 per year, compared to $52K in the private sphere.
This is not something that should be dealt with by keeping quiet and shelling out more; this should be denounced and destroyed.
Teachers should never have been looked upon as "selfless heroes" or a "paradigm of sacrifice". They have a job to do, and like everyone else, they expect to get paid for it in return.
Although there are surely a few duds in the profession, I strongly believe that the big problems in the schools with regard to students' learning or the lack thereof have little to do with bad teachers but rather stem from the bureaucracy that can make up a curriculum and impose it on a captive audience, because the system is supported through the coercive activity of taxation. This curriculum includes the repulsive "political correctness" that is replacing proper discussion of race and other human characteristics.
The real need is for a voucher system so that schools can be competitive and parents can withdraw their kids from a school that imposes a foul brand of "political correctness" -- which they have every right to do.
There is a school in Toronto called The Student School which apparently has an extreme left-wing curriculum that teaches kids to protest against Israel and all the usual garbage from the left. Presumably their parents approve of it, so I would hesitate to argue that it should be shut down, but all other parents should have the same freedom of choice. That includes the right to pull kids from classes featuring discussion of topics the parents would like to teach their kids themselves, as some Christian parents are currently attempting to do in a test case. One need not agree with the parents in either case to support their right to make their own choices.
And of course the unions bring the usual ridiculous militancy that infests the teaching profession these days. The solution is to make all union membership voluntary, by scrapping the Rand Formula among other things, and to dispense with that fiction called the "bargaining unit".
Teachers are now co-parents, & disciples of Marx now. That shill for the LGBT crowd, grooming your children. But thats not knew. It was less known when I went to school , just how many progressive pedo's where already ensconced in the system.
The fellow who invented, or took over Education from the Churchs. A Man named Dewey, was a Fabian socialist. Look it up.
Phil, you're not making it on your own when your salaries and lifetime benefits are provided by fellow citizens who do not avail themselves of your skills.
There are many people who have never gone to public school, do not send their children to public school, and yet they are paying the salaries and lifetime benefits for public educators.
Every dime and dollar that a teacher or public educator makes is taken--forcefully taxed--from their neighbors and fellow town residents.
A teacher should be presented with an either/or situation. EITHER she gets her well-paid salary while she works, and then provides for her own retirement through investing or saving--OR she gets paid on parity with private school teachers and then gets her reward in the back end with a pension. It can't be both. It's not sustainable.
The notion of a whole world working under the auspices of a union--one modeled on the grasping, nonproducing, protecting incompetents public union--is a scary and childish thought. Private industry would collapse. More people would be laid off. Taxes would dry up. And the teachers would continue to demand more pay, more benefits, and less accountability.
People in private industry should be paid more--if they do above ordinary work and help to create profits. Their salaries accelerate along with their company's success.
Teachers continue to get more and more, as their products--the students--continue to learn less and know less.
"Teachers continue to get more and more, as their products--the students--continue to learn less and know less." Stephanie F.
I would suggest that you ponder this comment from nv53: "I strongly believe that the big problems in the schools with regard to students' learning or the lack thereof have little to do with bad teachers but rather stem from the bureaucracy that can make up a curriculum and impose it on a captive audience, because the system is supported through the coercive activity of taxation."
Case in point: The new math curriculum imposed recently in Saskatchewan has received criticism--much of it from the teachers who say that it is not effective and that it sets up the students for even more failure and ignorance in the future. Other than the activist teachers who always seem to volunteer for curriculum committees (because it's an avenue to flog their own notions) most teachers know that this curriculum is inadequate and express their views. However, they will teach that curriculum whether they like it or not, or they will not have a job.
If you think that rebel teachers survive even with they're right (or perhaps especially when they're right) you might want to refer to the case of Lyndon Dorval who will probably lose his job because he bucked the no-zero policy. Adminstrators will tolerate incompetence but they can't stand to lose face.
There are many reasons why kids are illiterate and innumerate. Some of them are because of inadequate teaching. But a lot of it is because of inadequate learning. Kids don't work hard enough and their parents don't insist that they work hard enough--and the schools don't have sufficient resolve to demand hard work. So, to get around this lack, the tinkerers in education invest in lies--dumbed down curricula and misleading evaluation schemes. Again on the subject of math, teacher training at the U of S, had most of the math component taken out of their elementary program--not because it was thought unnecessary, but because the students (repeat: the students said it was too hard. And the Dean caved in saying that there were other things that were more important--like kids not having enough to eat.
Teaching is difficult, partly because there are difficult students. (If you think the worst problems teachers face is kids who talk out of turn you're deluded.) But also because the system-wide discipline policies interfere with any efforts teachers make to deal with those difficult students. You can't punish for plagiarism, not turning in work, for treating the teacher with disrespect. The teacher is forced to become an entertainer and a diplomat in order to try to keep the class going. Instead of hiring a teacher, they should hire a party clown.
There are things taught in schools now, partly in response to every whining interest group who demands their own program, which don't belong. So much of it is aimed at social engineering. Those attracted to the administrative and curriculum echelons of education are there because they have a vision. Often those are precisely the ones you don't want involved in these decisions. They have that lefty bias--the one that will re-make the world into their version of Utopia. No-one is satisfied with simply focusing on teaching math and reading. That's boring and no-one makes a reputation, or goes out on the consultancy trail with such a modest goal. You need flash and drama. Something shiny.
I agree that the unions have become another layer of oppression and interference. Now, as someone else pointed out, that the benefits and salaries are good, what else is their to agitate for? It's another bureaucracy which works to sustain itself at the expense of those they are hired to serve.
Someone else (I'm sorry, I should go back and look up those "else's") asked the question: how many of you even vote for your school board? How many of you attend the meetings or at least, read the minutes, or follow anything they do. It was the Board that agreed to and imposed the no-zero policy in Edmonton (and many other places). Do the parents agree? Or are they just apathetic? Will they stick up for the guy who put his career on the line to say: this doesn't work?
On the subject of pay and benefits, yes, these days, I agree that teachers to have a privileged position compared with some other sectors of society. But if those perks and benefits are so attractive, there is little to prevent anyone from qualifying and competing for one of those jobs. Many teachers I know, and some of the better ones too, changed career in their 30's even their 40's and took up teaching. The students benefited by learning from someone who'd actually had another successful career, and the other teachers benefited from meeting colleagues who were able to call BS on the silly policies that are always circulating in the wind.
Previous comment there/their. I do know the difference.
Getting careless.
Government teachers. Private school teachers have much lower salaries, and perks
Government teachers. Private school teachers have much lower salaries, and perks."
So? Is that an observation or a value judgement?
"Also, I just don't buy your right wing strawman/boogyman caricature of unions."--Phil
In the United States, unions pretend to be the spokespeople for workers who wouldn't have a voice or a chance without their interference. They act as if we're still in the world of the Triangle Fire tragedy or industrial revolution workplace inequities. At that period of callous disregard for life and limb, unions served a purpose. Of course, these were private unions. Not organized bands of people who bargain with temporarily elected officials in exchange for votes and bribes--all done in back rooms, against the taxpayers.
Unions paint non-union fields as self-interested, self-aggrandizing capitalist pigs. It's all about the almighty buck and pursuit of profit.
However, the recent Chicago strike shows how self-interested public unions can be. There was no regard how the strike affected the students, the parents, and the businesses that employed the parents.
"Selfless" is the word that is so often used to describe public union workers--they are often said to be answering "callings," "doing God's work," "following vocations."
Recent work stoppages, demands for more benefits, shouts for increased pay--and all of this while the economy slumps around them--are the very definition of "self-interest" and "pursuit of profit."
And by the way, i wouldn't buy a stawman/boogyman, either, unless it was made in America--preferably in a non-union shop, though!
phil @ 1:14 a.m.: "All your stats prove is that the private sector is woefully underpaid."
The only way to properly determine the wage for any job is to let the free market decide. That is because in a free market, people make voluntary decisions about the value of goods and services, about what to trade for, and with whom. If private school teachers make a lot less than public sector, then it's almost certain that the latter are overpaid. It is not the case that we can all make $1 million in salary every year. There are not nearly enough goods and services being produced to accommodate that.
phil @ 11:56 a.m.: "if you work full time, you should make a decent living. That ain't gonna happen under the good graces of Walmart."
No one is forced to work for Walmart. If they don't like the salary there, find a job somewhere else.
Wages rise in proportion to the amount of capital investment per worker. The main things that eat away at capital and which lower wages are taxes and regulations. Regulators produce nothing but get paid a lot. This is the very definition of "parasite". Big Government is the real enemy of the middle class and of productive workers everywhere, and the real reason that some may have trouble making a "decent living". Under socialism, almost no one makes a "decent living" except the parasitical elite that seized power.
phil @ 11:56 a.m.: "Teachers and public schools are a part of the social and physical public infrastructure necessary in modern society. Public schools are a part of that infrastructure where all taxpayers pay for the system, not for what they individually get out of the system. Even those without children contribute, and so it should be."
It is not the least bit necessary that this infrastructure be public. It is an injustice that a taxpayer who gets nothing out of the system should have to contribute to it.
phil @ 1:14 a.m.: "People working in the public sector are also making their own way"
There is a fair point here. Not everyone who works in the public sector is unproductive. No one would consider a private school teacher unproductive, therefore a public school teacher is also productive. But public sector unionization is even worse than in the private sector at pushing wages above their free market level. If something is a productive business or activity, it should be privatized so that consumers may have choices instead of "take what you get and be glad to get it" under socialism. And labour legislation that prevents workers from choosing whether or not to join a union should be repealed.
But many public sector jobs are not productive, such as regulators and redistributors of wealth. These should be eliminated, some immediately, some eventually.
phil @ 1:44 p.m.: "I would say every taxpayer does get something...a better society."
A society in which everyone is liable to being ripped off to pay for services he cannot use is not an example of either a moral or a workable society. The potential beneficiaries of such a scheme love it, of course.
You have made repeated comments about "freeloading prairie farmers". I agree that these subsidies would fall into the same category as school taxes on the childless. You would be more believable if you could provide specific examples, or pointers to further information, rather than the usual sweeping and unfocused generalizations.
Also: It is an economic fact that real wages rise in proportion to capital invested per worker. Denying its truth won't make it false.
Finally, Haiti does not remotely resemble a free market.
The biggest issues with unions at all levels are their distortion of the labour market place, and the scope creep that saw them go from dealing strictly with concerns about working conditions (workplace safety issues, hours of work, compensation) to becoming defacto arms of one political party in particular.
I will confess to being a public servant, so I see the stupidity from the inside while being powerless to stymie the abuses. I resent the fact that some of my dues are going to the Canadian Labour Congress, and that the decision was taken without notification or consultation with the 'membership'. The contortions of lawyers to find equivalencies between a mailroom clerk and a draftsman to demonstrate pay inequity by classifying jobs by the statistical predominace of gender within those classifications to serve as justification for a cash grab in the name of pay equity still fills me with disgust. That factors beyond my control such as my gender or 'ethnicity' are taken into consideration as a 'asset qualification' for a position angers me.
As a taxpayer, I agree that there are positions within the government are paid far more than the level of responsibility or skill should dictate. What gets lost in this outrage is that its only the low skill positions that fall within this category. If you start looking at higher skill positions and compare them to their equivalents in the private sector, a different picture emerges. In my own area (IT), I would have to say that my compensaton is comparable to jobs with equivalent experience and responsibility in the privat sector. Unlike my private sector counterparts, I cannot get performance bonuses for outstanding work, and it can be challenging to get opportunities to move up if you're located outside of Ottawa. I understand that I'm trading that for a modicum of job security, although that too is on the decline as I know several people within government IT who have been affected by job cuts. Like the private sector, we are asked to do more with less, but unlike the private sector, we are constantly scrutinized both internally and externally.
When dealing with tax dollars, that scrutiny is important. There is a fine line between accountability and paralysis, and over the years I feel that it has long been crossed, to the point where people have become so risk averse that creative solutions to issues are never broached for fear of failure and the subsequent public pillorying that inevitably follows. There has to be a better way.
phil @ 12:49 p.m.: "Taxes for the collective needs of society and taxes to buy the votes of a narrow special interest are two different things."
You'll note though that one particular special interest (namely, the politicians and their hangers-on) always manage to take their cut even when providing for the various "needs of society" that taxes pay for.
The proper function of government is to protect individual rights, that is, to provide the retaliatory use of force. Everything else can and shouuld be done by private interests. The problem is how to get there from where we are now.
phil @ 1:00 p.m.:
If you think that Walmart is somehow exempt from the laws of economics, you're mistaken.
Finally, there is no connection between "public education minimal" and "illiteracy rampant". It is sometimes pointed out that literacy rates were higher in North America before public education came along.
If it weren't for people trying to make "maximum profits with minimal expenditure", we'd still be living in caves, wearing loincloths, and hunting wild boar for dinner every night.