Teachers Snow Days Off ?

[Guest Guest]

More gibberish from an organization trying to destroy the middle class. Keep dancing, puppet.

Just because you are paid an amount that puts you into the middle class does not mean you deserve it.

[Guest Guest]

Just because you are paid an amount that puts you into the middle class does not mean you deserve it.

I am? What am I paid?

[Guest Guest]

I am? What am I paid?

Have no idea. It was you that was talking about someone destroying the middle class and I just thought you were talking about you.You obviously aren't talking about all the middle class just the part you believe you belong to.

[Guest Guest]

Have no idea. It was you that was talking about someone destroying the middle class and I just thought you were talking about you.You obviously aren't talking about all the middle class just the part you believe you belong to.

You obviously are clueless.

[Guest Guest]

You obviously are clueless.

That's the way to get me over to your side. Very impressive.

[Guest Guest]

Well you can see how much are schools are costing now every year in increases. The state cuts in aid to Binghamton was just under 3 million dollars. To make up for that loss they are using almost 4 million dollars of the reserve funds and 1.33 million dollars in federal aid plus cutting 47 positions and a increase in local tax of 3.8%. So it appears that to make up for a cut of less than 3 million from the state they had to make cuts in staff and increase use of reserves by 5 million dollars plus increase property tax by just under 4%? Seems like the yearly increase in costs must be very high to have to have over 7 million dollars and a increase of almost 4% in taxes to make up for a loss of less than 3 million. Look to having huge increases in school property tax soon as after taking 4 million out of reserves there can't be much left.

[Guest Teacher Survivor]

Next Season on Survivor

 

Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show?

Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in an public school classroom for 1 school year. Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 20-25 students.

 

 

Each class will have a minimum of five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.H.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three students will be labeled with severe behavior problems.

 

 

Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance, with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create their materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also stand in their doorway between class changes to monitor the hallways.

 

 

In addition, they will complete fire drills, tornado drills, and

 drills for shooting attacks each month.

 

 

They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, and attend curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the SOLS tests. If they are sick or having a bad day they must not let it show.

 

 

Each day they must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment to motivate students at all times. If all students do not wish to cooperate, work, or learn, the teacher will be held responsible.

 

 

The business people will only have access to the public golf course on the weekends, but with their new salary, they will not be able to afford it. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to thirty minutes, which is not counted as part of their work day. The business people will be permitted to use a student restroom, as long as another survival candidate can supervise their class.

 

 

If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials before, or after, school. However, they cannot surpass their monthly limit of copies. The business people must continually advance their education, at their expense, and on their own time.

 

 

The winner of this Season of Survivor will be allowed to return to their job.

 

 

Pass this to your friends who think teaching is easy, and to the ones that know it is hard.

[Guest Guest]

Is this set up as a challenge or are most school rooms made up of 50 to 65% of their students with problem children? It's not really fair to make business people do things like have a plan the reaches out to 3 days in advance and making objectives. How would they know anything about taking attendance or writing referrals or going over work done?? See there is no comparison in the business world for things like going to meetings or tutoring people especially dealing with people that are non english speaking. A business person would be horrified if you told them that they only had a half hour lunch...well unless you explained they only had a 6 hour working day.

I do like the way that you threw in the public course only being available on weekends and not being able to afford it. I also like how you suggest the a business person has a vendor pay for their lunches and never has to advance their education at their own expense. This makes me think that teachers have no idea about what happens in the real world when these are the things you feel are something that would make it challenging to a survivor program.Of course being in business does have its advantages if you make it the first 3 years it's all you have to worry about after that you can't get fired and you just have to put in your 1200 hours a year and retire at 65% of your pay and you get your health care for life.

[Guest Guest]

Wow a business person would never make it through a program like that. No private golf course paid for? A half hour lunch, and having to buy it to boot? I mean what's the point of taking attendance?Everyone gets a check if they show up or not.Now planning for three days out they'd know about because that's all business plan their time out for too.

[Guest Guest]

So far this year all the districts that have reported what they probably will have to do to balance their budgets have reported staff layoffs and all have included some teaching positions. Most districts last year relied heavy on their reserve budgets and cutting staff other than teaching or not replacing positions that were retiring. Next up is JC. Last year they were the ones that had the highest school tax increase and whose budget vote failed on the first try and barely passed on the second. I believe they used about 1.8 million in reserves last year and still had to layoff plus have a large tax increase. Can't wait to see what they offer this year!

[Guest Guest]

Now Owego is cutting it's workforce by 6%. This includes 5 teaching positions. I still don't understand why. The piece in the paper did say that the retirement costs and health care cost were part of it and of course the extra 1500 a year in raises for every employee are part too. BUT 19 people are also retiring this year and they would be at the top of their pay level. It seems that would be a huge savings right there,even more than the cut of the 25. They still project a 2% rise in tax. Now they have cut many other things also but the total cuts listed only end up reducing the budget by 1.75%? Now if the state aid cut was 2.3% of the budget why,after the cuts,would they still need a 2% rise in taxes? It's good to see them taking action but it still seems a mystery to why the cuts didn't seem to work the way they should.

[DragonFan]

I am a teacher. I teach English to approximately 80 students in 5th through 8th grades. I work for a private school system, and have worked for public school systems in the past. Having worked in both systems, here is my take:

 

~Plenty of teachers in both systems do go in to work on snow days - even though they are not paid for it. Others, like me, stay home, and spend half of their "day off" rewriting lesson plans and schedules upon which the snow day wreaked havoc. I know it may sound unbelievable, but I actually HATE snow days - they always seem to come right when my plans are already stretched to the breaking point, due to special schedules, presenters, etc., which I then have to spend half the day re-working, so that my students get the content instruction their parents (or the taxpayers) have paid for.

 

~The tenure system needs to be either eliminated completely or reworked to allow for merit-based advancement. I agree that teachers should be expected to produce results in order to keep their jobs. One of the reasons I work for a private school is because the lack of a tenure system motivates me to stay on my toes and do the best job that I possibly can. However, when looking at a teacher's results, one must also account for the population of the classes they are teaching - a class full of students with behavioral problems, learning disorders, or who have ESL or ELL denotations is much more difficult to teach. Yes, the best teachers will be able to work miracles with these students, but the results will not necessarily be on the same level as the results of a teacher who is teaching, say, AP Chemistry or English. Either way, teachers who do not produce results, or who are not truly dedicated to their students (basically, BAD teachers) should not be protected by tenure.

 

~Yes, parents need to be involved in their children's education. Parental support is essential, as is teacher-parent communication. One of the most frustrating aspects of public-school teaching is that frequently, parents don't want to work with the teachers to further their child's progress - they figure that the child is the teacher's responsibility while they are at school, and they don't need to be involved. They believe that it is up to the teacher to instill such necessities as responsibility, accountability, manners, dedication, and determination. Another plus to working for a private school - 99% of parents are involved (sometimes overly so, but I'd rather they be overly-involved than not in the picture at all) and only a handful are convinced that their children are perfect angels.

 

~The time for unions controlling contract negotiations is past. The unions have gotten way too greedy and entitled in the past few years, and the sad thing is that it's mostly the union officials, not the members, who benefit from holding taxpayers hostage. If teachers weren't protected by the union, they would be more motivated to do what needs to be done in order to keep their jobs. Yes, the union is helpful in guaranteeing that teachers get health and retirement benefits, but if the teachers had to pay a larger percentage of those benefits, instead of the state (and, therefore, the taxpayers), they would be more motivated to contribute and save for their own futures. Social Security is going to be empty by the time most of us retire, so we're going to have to support ourselves in retirement anyway - may as well start now!

 

~There needs to be a salary cap, or at least a raise percentage cap, for public school teachers. Most private school teachers receive only a 1-3% pay increase each year. Yes, you may have been teaching for 40 years, but that doesn't entitle you to an $80k/year salary, even figuring in the professional development you are required to complete or the Master's degree and appropriate Teaching Certification you are required to have (and, yes, I have both, and am still paying off the student loans I had to take out in order to get them). If you want to be secure after you retire, save up the money yourself. Better yet, make it a project for your students that they have to plan out how much they need to save per year in order to be able to live comfortably when they retire - it'll teach them a sense of fiscal and financial responsibility, something which is quite lacking from today's youth, who are (mostly) under the impression that money grows on trees, there will be jobs available when they finish high school and/or college, or, failing that, Mommy and Daddy will pay for everything.

 

Having said all that - THANK GOD SPRING IS HERE AND I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT SNOW DAYS ANYMORE!!!

[Guest Guest]

Interesting post. Since you are still paying back loans, you must not have been teaching long.

 

How is paying all of your own retirement and medical an motivation to teach.

 

Is the fear of being fired the only thing that motivates you.

 

You think there should be a cap on teacher pay and you think they should pay their own retirement. May sound good now but wait another 20 years.

 

People talk about greedy unions. Exactly what do you mean, specifically? People are fired up about teachers not accepting salary freezes. For how long, one year, two or more. Would you allow them to make up the difference when things get better. What about people looking to retire, you might want to encourage them. Their retirement is based on the average of their last three years. Average pay, medical insurance and retirement is now greed. It used to be the American dream.

 

The main point is the idea of merit advancement/pay. Based on what? Do you really think test scores represent the totality of teacher effectiveness? If so, teacher made tests or standardized tests. In every subject, art, music. PE for every grade in every subject. If you do have a national or state test then you have then established a state or national curriculum. Do you want to give up local control in every subject. So in Sixth grade English every teacher would teach the same books. How about the costs of making and scoring all of those tests. The state is cutting back on its testing as it is.What's to stop the administration from letting you go after 25 years just to save money, I am sure that doesn't happen in private industry but it could. Is one of the criteria how much the principal likes you? You acknowledged the diversity of children and parents, I am sure that you have seen that the same teacher but a different year gets different results. What about those nasty snow days you hate, does a year like this one have an effect. How about class size figure in? New kids to the district? Sickness? How about materials? Do you get whatever you think you need to prepare the children or do you have to make do with what they give you.

 

The loss of tenure and merit advancement is going to create more problems than it can hope to solve.

[Guest Guest]

Now Owego is cutting it's workforce by 6%. This includes 5 teaching positions. I still don't understand why. The piece in the paper did say that the retirement costs and health care cost were part of it and of course the extra 1500 a year in raises for every employee are part too. BUT 19 people are also retiring this year and they would be at the top of their pay level. It seems that would be a huge savings right there,even more than the cut of the 25. They still project a 2% rise in tax. Now they have cut many other things also but the total cuts listed only end up reducing the budget by 1.75%? Now if the state aid cut was 2.3% of the budget why,after the cuts,would they still need a 2% rise in taxes? It's good to see them taking action but it still seems a mystery to why the cuts didn't seem to work the way they should.

Why do people never factor in other costs going up, like fuel or electricity? True, it may seem odd that the numbers do not match up, but there are still other big expenses paid besides salary. Hasn't you power bill or sewage bill gone up? So did your school district's.

[DragonFan]

Interesting post. Since you are still paying back loans, you must not have been teaching long. I have been teaching for five years.

 

How is paying all of your own retirement and medical an motivation to teach.I'm not saying it is a motivation to teach. I am saying that teachers need to take more responsibility for planning for their futures - it's the only way to ensure that you are prepared for retirement.

 

Is the fear of being fired the only thing that motivates you.No, it is not. I simply think that it may help wake some teachers out of the complacency that can set in once you get tenure.

 

You think there should be a cap on teacher pay and you think they should pay their own retirement. May sound good now but wait another 20 years. Yes, I do think there should be a cap on teacher pay, and that we should make larger contributions to our retirement. Again, it's the only way to ensure that we will have money once we retire - we certainly can't rely on Social Security.

 

People talk about greedy unions. Exactly what do you mean, specifically? People are fired up about teachers not accepting salary freezes. For how long, one year, two or more. Would you allow them to make up the difference when things get better. What about people looking to retire, you might want to encourage them. Their retirement is based on the average of their last three years. Average pay, medical insurance and retirement is now greed. It used to be the American dream. If you'll notice, I was targeting the union officials as being greedy, not the members. I also do not suggest a salary freeze, merely a reduction in the percentage per year our salaries are raised. Yes, encouraging teachers eligible for retirement to do so is another way of reducing costs. Considering that many teachers of retirement age make around 75-80k, that seems more than reasonable for them to retire on, especially if they have also contributed to a 401k or Roth IRA.

 

The main point is the idea of merit advancement/pay. Based on what? Do you really think test scores represent the totality of teacher effectiveness? If so, teacher made tests or standardized tests. In every subject, art, music. PE for every grade in every subject. If you do have a national or state test then you have then established a state or national curriculum. Do you want to give up local control in every subject. So in Sixth grade English every teacher would teach the same books. How about the costs of making and scoring all of those tests. The state is cutting back on its testing as it is.Of course I do not think test scores represent the totality of teacher effectiveness. I hate having to teach the test and think the amount of testing kids have to go through before they even reach high school is outrageous (state tests in both ELA and math every year from 3rd grade to 8th, among others). I think the state should cut more of the tests, because they aren't a true barometer of a child's abilities. State testing of ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies at the 4th and 8th grades should suffice.

 

What's to stop the administration from letting you go after 25 years just to save money, I am sure that doesn't happen in private industry but it could. It can and does happen in the private industry. Again, this is one thing that would go a long way towards motivating teachers to be less complacent and more effective at their jobs.

 

Is one of the criteria how much the principal likes you? No.

 

You acknowledged the diversity of children and parents, I am sure that you have seen that the same teacher but a different year gets different results. How about class size figure in? New kids to the district? A truly effective teacher should be able to achieve reasonably consistent results - I say reasonably consistent to account for the fact that different class makeups require different tactics. An effective teacher knows how to adjust lesson plans to appeal to a range of abilities and learning styles.

 

What about those nasty snow days you hate, does a year like this one have an effect. I'm not sure what you mean here. An effect on what?Sickness? Or here. If a kid is sick, they can make up the work, end of story.

 

How about materials? Do you get whatever you think you need to prepare the children or do you have to make do with what they give you.Schools should provide basic supplies (i.e., textbooks, computers, copier paper, grade books, etc.) or give each teacher a certain amount each year to purchase supplies. If the teachers want to purchase specialty items, they can do so and deduct on their taxes as an itemized expense(which many of us do already).

 

The loss of tenure and merit advancement is going to create more problems than it can hope to solve.Which is why I suggested the tenure system be adjusted to allow for merit-based achievement. It takes time to work the kinks out of any change in a long-standing policy.

[Guest Guest]

Why do people never factor in other costs going up, like fuel or electricity? True, it may seem odd that the numbers do not match up, but there are still other big expenses paid besides salary. Hasn't you power bill or sewage bill gone up? So did your school district's.

Yes I'm sure that electric and gas do form a part of the budget so when they go up it does have an effect.Those cost are some of the smaller ones to be considered. What I was more interested in was the loss of 820 thousand dollars from the state which would be about 2.6% of the total budget had to be made up for by the loss of 25 jobs even after 19 of the highest paid were retiring.The there was the hint that if the union gave up their scheduled 625,000 dollar raise some of the layoffs could be averted.The major point I was trying to make is even with the cuts and changes to programs made to save again they still need 2% more from the taxpayer.Wouldn't it be nice if the local taxpayer could say to their local school district hey I'm having a tough time this year so I'm cutting the amount that I gave to you last year by 5%??

[Guest Guest]

I agree that teachers should be expected to produce results in order to keep their jobs. One of the reasons I work for a private school is because the lack of a tenure system motivates me to stay on my toes and do the best job that I possibly can

 

This seems to say that not having tenure is a major part of your motivation.

 

Most current teachers are paying part of their retirement. They had better put aside some IRA money. Hard to say about Social Security. What is the point? Are you unhappy that teachers are not worrying enough about retirement. I would make them better teachers to worry more, or it would make them better to pay more? The only way to ensure teachers have enough money for retirement is to cap their pay and make them fund their own retirement. I don't get it.

 

So you think union officials get paid too much. I guess that is the problem of the membership, they vote on their dues. Why would you take away the right for collective bargaining to punish union leaders for getting paid too much. Actually local union officials have not worked hard enough at protecting local teachers, that's why we make less here than much of the rest of the state.

 

There are things you can't control that might effect student test scores. Weather, sickness, tragedy, etc, that's the point.

 

Ideally every teachers should be able to achieve with every class no matter what. Of course that depends on how you defend achieve. You said you know each kid is different, so how to you judge each kid with exactly the same criteria. Do we even want each kid leaving school to be alike. After five years you must see that some students and some classes react differently to the same quality of instruction.

 

So we don't use tests to evaluate teachers. Then what do we use, administrative evaluations. Your answer to making the principal like you was no. The point is that the people who are screaming for merit based advancement have no idea how difficult it will be to implement. And the governor wants it for next year.

[DragonFan]

I agree that teachers should be expected to produce results in order to keep their jobs. One of the reasons I work for a private school is because the lack of a tenure system motivates me to stay on my toes and do the best job that I possibly can

 

This seems to say that not having tenure is a major part of your motivation.It is not a major part, but it is a part. The biggest part of my motivation is that I want my students to succeed.

 

Most current teachers are paying part of their retirement. They had better put aside some IRA money. Hard to say about Social Security. What is the point? Are you unhappy that teachers are not worrying enough about retirement. I would make them better teachers to worry more, or it would make them better to pay more? The only way to ensure teachers have enough money for retirement is to cap their pay and make them fund their own retirement. I don't get it. My point is that teachers should not depend so heavily on their employers to contribute to their retirement, and I think that salaries should be capped. That's it. I don't think that 80k+ is a reasonable salary for a teacher OR an administrator, regardless of how long someone has been teaching.

 

So you think union officials get paid too much. I guess that is the problem of the membership, they vote on their dues. Why would you take away the right for collective bargaining to punish union leaders for getting paid too much. Actually local union officials have not worked hard enough at protecting local teachers, that's why we make less here than much of the rest of the state. As a whole, I think that the union system as it stands is no longer effective. I know that union officials don't work hard enough protecting teachers in this state, from personal experience - my union rep didn't do a thing when my contract was canceled for the flimsiest of reasons, and in spite of the fact that I produced results, because I didn't have tenure, and I know I'm not the only teacher this has happened to. When you have to keep applying for new jobs because you're always the low man on the totem pole (and, therefore, the first one to go), you can't get tenure, because you have to work for three years in the same school district to get it.

 

There are things you can't control that might effect student test scores. Weather, sickness, tragedy, etc, that's the point. A valid point, and another reason why state tests shouldn't be the only way we evaluate both students and teacher.

 

Ideally every teachers should be able to achieve with every class no matter what. Of course that depends on how you defend achieve. You said you know each kid is different, so how to you judge each kid with exactly the same criteria. Why don't you ask the state? That's exactly what they're doing with the fabulous state tests they put out every year. Tests written by people who have clearly lost touch with how to engage students in material, as the last ELA tests consisted of articles most kids find completely irrelevant to their lives (steamboats and fly fishing).

 

Do we even want each kid leaving school to be alike. After five years you must see that some students and some classes react differently to the same quality of instruction. Exactly. This is why we need a form of evaluation other than, or in addition to, the state tests.

 

So we don't use tests to evaluate teachers. Then what do we use, administrative evaluations. Your answer to making the principal like you was no. The point is that the people who are screaming for merit based advancement have no idea how difficult it will be to implement. And the governor wants it for next year.We shouldn't use solely students' scores on state standardized tests to evaluate teachers. Also included in the evaluation should be the students' ability to use the skills in real-life situations: can they write and address a coherent letter, business or otherwise? Do they know how to use a dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, database, etc. to do research and properly cite their sources? Can they use computer programs like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel? Do they know the difference between persuasive, narrative, informative, and creative literature? Can they do basic algebra and read graphs? Do they have a decent understanding of science and the environment, and how the government works? Since teachers have to follow a certain set of learning standards - and we have it drilled into us while we're learning pedagogy how to meet those standards - I'm just saying that the state test scores should not be the only method of evaluation - or, for that matter, a measure of how much state funding a school district gets - because there are other ways to test students' abilities, like lab practicals, or cross-curricular projects that ask students to write a research paper on a science topic, or to create a children's book about the American Revolution, or to perform a debate on current events issues. Also consider that, regardless of how a student performs on the state test in a particular subject, the score they receive doesn't effect whether they pass into the next higher grade - the score they receive on the teacher-made final exam does (excluding, of course, the Regents, AP, and IB exams in high school - students must pass both those exams and a teacher-made final in order to graduate).

[Guest Guest]

About fifteen or twenty years ago we were revamping education in NY.

 

We were going to have site based decision making were the people on the ground were going to map the reforms necessary to help their particular clients succeed.

 

We were going to use authentic assessment to test children in the real life skills that would be necessary when they graduate.

 

We were going to partner with business to help establish those skills, one of which was cooperative education. Students were going to learn to do projects as teams because that was how business operated.

 

Students would produce portfolios of work which would demonstrate the skills they attained.

 

What happened?

 

NCLB! If a skill can't be tested on a standardized test it is not important. At the end of certain ages, all students had to achieve certain standards as determined by the tests.

 

We are raising a generation of test takers. School is becoming a dreary successions of test prep classes. We are about to raise the stakes by making teaches's life dependent on what he can make your child do on a test.

 

Learning should be fun. School should be fun.

[DragonFan]

About fifteen or twenty years ago we were revamping education in NY.

 

We were going to have site based decision making were the people on the ground were going to map the reforms necessary to help their particular clients succeed.

 

We were going to use authentic assessment to test children in the real life skills that would be necessary when they graduate.

 

We were going to partner with business to help establish those skills, one of which was cooperative education. Students were going to learn to do projects as teams because that was how business operated.

 

Students would produce portfolios of work which would demonstrate the skills they attained.

 

What happened?

 

NCLB! If a skill can't be tested on a standardized test it is not important. At the end of certain ages, all students had to achieve certain standards as determined by the tests.

 

We are raising a generation of test takers. School is becoming a dreary successions of test prep classes. We are about to raise the stakes by making teacher's life dependent on what he can make your child do on a test.

 

Learning should be fun. School should be fun.

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Thank you!

[Guest Guest]

I am a teacher. I teach English to approximately 80 students in 5th through 8th grades. I work for a private school system, and have worked for public school systems in the past. Having worked in both systems, here is my take:

 

~Plenty of teachers in both systems do go in to work on snow days - even though they are not paid for it. Others, like me, stay home, and spend half of their "day off" rewriting lesson plans and schedules upon which the snow day wreaked havoc. I know it may sound unbelievable, but I actually HATE snow days - they always seem to come right when my plans are already stretched to the breaking point, due to special schedules, presenters, etc., which I then have to spend half the day re-working, so that my students get the content instruction their parents (or the taxpayers) have paid for.

 

~The tenure system needs to be either eliminated completely or reworked to allow for merit-based advancement. I agree that teachers should be expected to produce results in order to keep their jobs. One of the reasons I work for a private school is because the lack of a tenure system motivates me to stay on my toes and do the best job that I possibly can. However, when looking at a teacher's results, one must also account for the population of the classes they are teaching - a class full of students with behavioral problems, learning disorders, or who have ESL or ELL denotations is much more difficult to teach. Yes, the best teachers will be able to work miracles with these students, but the results will not necessarily be on the same level as the results of a teacher who is teaching, say, AP Chemistry or English. Either way, teachers who do not produce results, or who are not truly dedicated to their students (basically, BAD teachers) should not be protected by tenure.

 

~Yes, parents need to be involved in their children's education. Parental support is essential, as is teacher-parent communication. One of the most frustrating aspects of public-school teaching is that frequently, parents don't want to work with the teachers to further their child's progress - they figure that the child is the teacher's responsibility while they are at school, and they don't need to be involved. They believe that it is up to the teacher to instill such necessities as responsibility, accountability, manners, dedication, and determination. Another plus to working for a private school - 99% of parents are involved (sometimes overly so, but I'd rather they be overly-involved than not in the picture at all) and only a handful are convinced that their children are perfect angels.

 

~The time for unions controlling contract negotiations is past. The unions have gotten way too greedy and entitled in the past few years, and the sad thing is that it's mostly the union officials, not the members, who benefit from holding taxpayers hostage. If teachers weren't protected by the union, they would be more motivated to do what needs to be done in order to keep their jobs. Yes, the union is helpful in guaranteeing that teachers get health and retirement benefits, but if the teachers had to pay a larger percentage of those benefits, instead of the state (and, therefore, the taxpayers), they would be more motivated to contribute and save for their own futures. Social Security is going to be empty by the time most of us retire, so we're going to have to support ourselves in retirement anyway - may as well start now!

 

~There needs to be a salary cap, or at least a raise percentage cap, for public school teachers. Most private school teachers receive only a 1-3% pay increase each year. Yes, you may have been teaching for 40 years, but that doesn't entitle you to an $80k/year salary, even figuring in the professional development you are required to complete or the Master's degree and appropriate Teaching Certification you are required to have (and, yes, I have both, and am still paying off the student loans I had to take out in order to get them). If you want to be secure after you retire, save up the money yourself. Better yet, make it a project for your students that they have to plan out how much they need to save per year in order to be able to live comfortably when they retire - it'll teach them a sense of fiscal and financial responsibility, something which is quite lacking from today's youth, who are (mostly) under the impression that money grows on trees, there will be jobs available when they finish high school and/or college, or, failing that, Mommy and Daddy will pay for everything.

 

Having said all that - THANK GOD SPRING IS HERE AND I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT SNOW DAYS ANYMORE!!!

If we had more teachers like you, we would not be in this mess that we are in....thank you for all that you do!

[DragonFan]

If we had more teachers like you, we would not be in this mess that we are in....thank you for all that you do!

 

Thank you.

[Guest Guest]

Is she hot? That's all I want to know.

[DragonFan]

Is she hot? That's all I want to know.

 

That's a very odd non-sequiter...

[Guest Guest]

That's a very odd non-sequiter...

But it works for me. Are you hot? Medium? Mild? Single?