What teachers unions are really all about

[Guest Old goat]

He mint to do that

[Raoul]

Oh, the delicious irony...

my pleasure

[mav]

Until you get the parents of that 47% that lives on a "check" involved in the education of their children you can forget it. They are not the only issue either. Parents don't discipline their kids. parents don't expect anything from their kids.

Preaching to the choir.

And yes, I am for corporal punishment in schools. It is too bad that it would only stop at the kids. I know a few parents that need the beat out of them as well.

[Guest buttonhook]

Are you sick of highly paid teachers?

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....

That's $585 X 180= $105,300

per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special

education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an

hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's

something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary

(nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days

= $277.77/per day/30

students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.

[Guest Old goat]

With that kind of math, you should be in Washington

[Guest buttonhook]

well that is if I only worked 6 1/2 hoours a day. right now I'm with students at a hotel and will be all weedend (unpaid)

[Guest buttonhook]

if they dont watch it your not going to have any GOOD teacher left...and then all you bitching about the teachers unions will see just how bad it can be

[Guest Old goat]

if they dont watch it your not going to have any GOOD teacher left...and then all you bitching about the teachers unions will see just how bad it can be

or maybe some of the teachers (not the good ones) will see just how good they had it.

[Lumber_Jack]

Are you sick of highly paid teachers?

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....

That's $585 X 180= $105,300

per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special

education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an

hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's

something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary

(nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days

= $277.77/per day/30

students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.

Again, the message is lost, I appreciate teachers, I even support higher salaries for those deserving. Apprecition and compensation do not always go hand in hand.

[gregintenn]

I highly admire quality teachers. You can usually tell who they are by their view of the teacher's union. The good ones don't have a use for it. A top notch teacher should earn six figures. It's all the lazy ones that we can't get rid of due to tenure that I have a problem with.

[Steelharp]

buttonhook... make me feel a little better. Tell me your subjects are not English, grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

[Daniel]

I wish my wife made the average.

[mav]

buttonhook... make me feel a little better. Tell me your subjects are not English, grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

You are a very mean person.

[Raoul]

I wish my wife made the average.

+1

[Lumber_Jack]

I wish my wife made the average.

With fair market competitive wages she probably would, or more. But the union forcing salaries for underserving, underachieving employees is not helping your wife's case.

[Raoul]

With fair market competitive wages she probably would, or more. But the union forcing salaries for underserving, underachieving employees is not helping your wife's case.

If only it were that simple. Politics screws that up. School boards, administration, city councils and funding.

Education is a mess. How do you apply free market principles to something as political as education? Saying the free market will fix it is just too simplistic. No offense meant. I'm not sure that is a real honest answer.

[mikegideon]

If only it were that simple. Politics screws that up. School boards, administration, city councils and funding.

Education is a mess. How do you apply free market principles to something as political as education? Saying the free market will fix it is just too simplistic. No offense meant. I'm not sure that is a real honest answer.

Yep. I have a friend that's quitting at the end of the year. It's not the money... it's the political BS

[Steelharp]

You are a very mean person.

After 7 kids, it's easy.

[Lumber_Jack]

If only it were that simple. Politics screws that up. School boards, administration, city councils and funding.

Education is a mess. How do you apply free market principles to something as political as education? Saying the free market will fix it is just too simplistic. No offense meant. I'm not sure that is a real honest answer.

I don't disagree with you, but to say the union and pensions MUST stay, is not the answer either. My suggestion was to start changing the pension structure. Once there is no pension fund for union leaders and politicians to toy with, it will change the game.

[mav]

If only it were that simple. Politics screws that up. School boards, administration, city councils and funding.

Education is a mess. How do you apply free market principles to something as political as education? Saying the free market will fix it is just too simplistic. No offense meant. I'm not sure that is a real honest answer.

If you are looking for a really honest answer, then I would say that the only way it will be fixed is to allow the entire sructure/system to completely fail and rebuild it. I absolutely hate to be a doom and gloom guy, and I certainly don't want to lump myself in the tin foil hat club, but I don't see any other way for things (not just in education) to be fixed.

Our federal, state, and local governments are broke and a lot don't seem to take it seriously. I really hate to say this, and I certainly hope it never comes to fruition, but I don't think everyone will truly grasp the gravity of our financial burdens until the SHTF. I hope I am wrong.

[Raoul]

I don't disagree with you, but to say the union and pensions MUST stay, is not the answer either. My suggestion was to start changing the pension structure. Once there is no pension fund for union leaders and politicians to toy with, it will change the game.

We can hope. Invariably if you put one human in a superior position to another human you cause a problem. It seems hopless at times. But on the plus side i just paid three dollars and eight freaking cents a gallon for gas to help keep the saudis in power. Makes me feel good all over.

[Raoul]

If you are looking for a really honest answer, then I would say that the only way it will be fixed is to allow the entire sructure/system to completely fail and rebuild it. I absolutely hate to be a doom and gloom guy, and I certainly don't want to lump myself in the tin foil hat club, but I don't see any other way for things (not just in education) to be fixed.

Our federal, state, and local governments are broke and a lot don't seem to take it seriously. I really hate to say this, and I certainly hope it never comes to fruition, but I don't think everyone will truly grasp the gravity of our financial burdens until the SHTF. I hope I am wrong.

If it makes you feel any better I have the same thoughts. This teacher thing is nothing more than a distraction from the big picture.

[DRM]

if they dont watch it your not going to have any GOOD teacher left...and then all you bitching about the teachers unions will see just how bad it can be

See, now this is what I can't stand: Teachers and their supporters threatening the people who give them jobs.

I have no problem teaching my children. Were I able - I'd bring my kids home and teach them myself. I might not be as good as some teachers, but I am quite confident I could do as good a job as most of them, and a fair bit better than more many. Not only would I feel entirely comfortable teaching my own children, I have every intention of some day becoming a teacher myself.

From the outside looking in - 90% of the difficulties with today's "teaching" has to do with the SYSTEM itself. It seems that the system is designed to introduce hardships.

So maybe instead of threatening parents and other citizens who employ teachers, why not work together to fix the system?

[MacGyver]

This thread is making Alanis Morrisette's teeth hurt.

This isn't about teachers at all, reallly. It's about power, and who gets to wield it. The only way the teachers are affected is that the terrible ones are protected and the great ones leave discouraged. Every single day. I know. My wife is a special ed teacher with a Master's degree from Peabody who teaches in Williamson County. She's taking a break right now until our kids are in school, but at last check, I think she made a little less than $35k a year. She's a pawn in someone else's game, and unfortunately, everyone on the board is getting hurt - the students and the teachers.

In a fair system, my wife would get paid more. She would be paid on how the special needs students she works with close the gaps with their typical peers. If that was the case, we'd be a lot wealthier than we are. But, unfortunately it's not about what's fair. It's about who has the power and what they're going to do to protect it.

We all need to be appalled. Look at the news here in MNPS. You may have seen the story on Pearl Cohn last week. 3% of their students scored a 21 or above on the ACT. 3%. That is the minimum required score to qualify for the HOPE scholarship. Too bad it won't get you into UT or MTSU. We have allowed our schools to be overrun by a bully that doesn't care about our students - at all. They care about themselves.

Individual teachers care about students and make a difference in their lives. I can't count how many my wife has bought clothes for when they need them, or lunch when their parent wasn't there when they woke up. My wife cared for those kids because she has the heart of a teacher. But it doesn't matter. She can't win the war alone.

I know that I come to the table biased against the union. They sent my wife material from Planned Parenthood on the day we lost our first child. I don't see a thing good about them.

That said, I'll judge them as a small business owner on their own merits. If I performed a fraction as poorly as they have, I'd be out of business. I know it takes a village to raise a nut, but when only 3% of your students pass the minimum standard, and they still don't have the skills to make it in the world, you've failed. When only 6 out of 10 of your students in the system overall walks across a stage to graduate, that's 60%. You've failed. They need to be fired. Every last one of them. Let the good ones reapply, and get rid of the chaff. Reward them on their students achievements.

I don't know exactly how you replace the system we have, but there are some really smart people out there who are really interested in making it work.

We have to find a better way. How's a kid who makes a 21 on their ACT going to pay all his teachers' pensions when they retire.

[Lumber_Jack]

Well said^^^^^^^