There is some serious thread derailing going on here. Lots of true believers on both sides.
WakeAndBake, I agree that teachers, in general, should be a more highly-paid profession in order to attract more and better talent. But, if we as a society are going to put teachers in the true upper tier of salaried government employees, we should also be able to hold them to higher standards, no? It's the Chicago teachers demanding more pay while simultaneously objecting to certain types of performance evaluation that bugs me.
Oh yes they do. They create this:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/11/news/economy/wealth-net-worth/index.html
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The wealth gap between the richest Americans and the typical family more than doubled over the past 50 years.
In 1962, the top 1% had 125 times the net worth of the median household. That shot up to 288 times by 2010, according to a new report by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Are you better off?
That trend is happening for two reasons: Not only are the rich getting richer, but the middle class is also getting poorer.
Most Americans below the upper echelon have suffered a decline in wealth in recent decades. The median household saw its net worth drop to $57,000 in 2010, down from $73,000 in 1983. It would have been $119,000 had wealth grown equally across households.
The top 1%, on the other hand, saw their average wealth grow to $16.4 million, up from $9.6 million in 1983. This is due in large part to the growing income inequality divide, as well as the sharp rise in value of stocks over the period.
Well feathered nests, that's EXACTLY what I was saying.
Are you one of those people who thinks you only need a 1st grade education to teach kindergarten?
I'm still waiting on someone to tell me why Chicago has some of the most shitastic public schools in the world despite paying their teachers more than any other urban district in the country.
And once I have the answer to that question I'd love to know why increasing the pay of the teachers is going to suddenly make them and the schools more effective in Chicago.
Public unions give a ton of lip service to providing the right "resources" for our children to learn. Apparently in Chicago (and presumably elsewhere) that's code for pay us more money, give us more benefits, don't hurt our pensions which no one has bothered to fund (not at all their fault, but a huge problem nonetheless), don't make us accountable for any results and don't make us work longer hours. Because those are the issues at the heart of this strike. They're pissed Emmanuel is seeking to reform the system. I've heard one report that speaks to class size as an issue. No one has raised facilities or other resources as central to this fight. So what is it exactly the union is fighting for? Are they looking for the "best and brightest" to come into the profession? Or are they looking to protect the most senior members of their profession regardless of outcomes? Are they really looking to provide "better" resources to the children or just the same staff with more shiny objects?
And you were no doubt compensated far in excess of what a teacher made. The job absolutely has its perks, but to denigrate the importance of early childhood education makes me thank God that you are not in any way, shape, or form associated with education policy.
So what's your point? It's all the teacher's union fault, amiright?
You can trot out teacher salaries in Chicago at 75k or whatever and dismiss financial resources out of hand, but that is lazy. The fact in Chicago is, if the school "fails" by the standards of...whatever...NCLB or scores or whatever - a new principal is brought in and turns over the whole faculty. Or, the school becomes a charter school without union teachers. So, if you are a union teacher in a school where the students are overwhelmingly living in poverty and perform worse than schools on the north shore or whatever, then you;re fucked. You get fired, or that school goes charter. It is a a union-busting scheme. I'm no expert on the standards by which a school is determined a 'failure,' but these methods of evaluation are one of the sticking points of the strike. You go bust your ass with limited resources and come up short of the evaluation, you get screwed - even if you are a good teacher but saddled with limited resources and impossible class-sizes, etc.
the larger point I was making that if the right emphasis is put on education funding-wise then we wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. sure, hindsight is 20/20 - but continuing to pound the anti-teacher, anti-public sector union drum is counter productive. Your and many conservative approaches to most everything is the carrot and stick. But these are kids, not widgets.
I'm not attempting to denigrate it. It takes skills that I don't have, and I would be terrible at it. Being the "brightest," however, is not required.
Moreover, it doesnt require the same amount of work as typical private sector jobs, and, thus, to encourage smart people to do the job, we don't need to pay them a salary commensurate with private sector wages. I would have thought this was relatively uncontroversial.
Of course not. But you don't need to be Albert Effing Einstein either. A reasonably intelligent person with a 4-year degree can handle it, so long as they have the passion for it.
Still waiting.
What is going to change for the students in Chicago's shitty schools if the existing teachers are just given "more"? More salary, more benefits, more job security and no accountability for results.
Please advise why that is good for Chicago's schools.
They already have the highest salaries in the country. The schools suck.
Why should they get more? As the argument goes, they should get more because it will make the schools do better? I don't buy it. Job security? OK, let's talk about accountability. Does any form of accountability make sense?
How have you reached these conclusions?
In a vacuum, if you had a kid, would you want him to be taught science by a brilliant scientist or by a pretty good science teacher?
Boo fucking hoo, Big Law. You are not the only lawyer on the board. You are not the only Big Law lawyer on the board. You are not the only lawyer who has billed 2200 or 2300 hours in a year on the board. But you appear to be the only one who doesn't have the slightest understanding of the teaching profession.
Junebug, do you think as a lawyer that you had more value that a 1st grade teacher?
Are those types of evaluations a truly higher standard?
And can somebody address my point about paying teachers more to teach more? I haven't seen anything to counter that these pay increases are more about paying teachers to teach longer school days and longer school years.
I understand it just fine. I have plenty of friends who are elementary/middle school teachers and college professors.
I'm not asking for your sympathy. I've been rewarded for my hard work. It was a choice I made and, most days, I would make it again. But don't try to tell me that teachers making $76k need more. The state DAs and public defenders where I live start at less than half of that and usually burn out within 3 years because of crushing caseloads of 300+ cases.
In a perfect world we'd all make a million dollars a year, teachers included. But in a system funded from the public fisc, we have to make choices. Teaching is obviously an important objective--one of the most--but to hear someone with that salary and perks whining that it isn't enough just sounds like typical union bullshit to me.
no kidding. two major things drove me away from the republican party and the "conservative" movement.
- religious right
- shitting on the teaching profession
it baffles me that you fuckheads think, for one second, that teaching kindergarten is somehow less important than practicing law or getting rich betting on derivatives.
The teachers I know basically fight each other to teach summer school, which has limited positions. I guarantee most teachers would love more time in the class.