Originally posted by indianajoe77
reply to post by DJM8507
One, I absolutely think Beck is an arse.
Two, I have plenty of friends who are teachers. And really, you do 12 months of work in 9 months? You all work 60 hour weeks? I find that hard to
believe based on my friends experiences and the fabulous Chicago School Board.
You don't get overtime? Guess what, most people don't. It's called salary. And if its a big deal to you, just strike like the teacher's union
always does when they don't get what they want. Fireman, Police and other public service unions can't, but you can hold a public service hostage, in
the name of "the children".
And realistically, I bet both of you can look around your workplace and find a number of your colegues who are inadequate at their job and don't
deserve the seniority based pay they get.
Yes, lots of good teachers don't earn enough, but that's because the union let's the bad teachers, stay employed.
Maybe that is a problem in Chicago with teachers only doing the bare minimums and being inadequate. I suppose the unions are also very powerful
there.
I am in Florida, and the Unions are incredibly weak, not to mention it is illegal for teachers to strike here. 90% of the teachers I have known put
in 60+ hours per week during the school year and work 10 to 15 hours per week during the summer and most vacations due to the all the Florida
standards and laws and the various requirements for educators here. The unions also do not protect inadequate teachers, although they work hard to
try to mentor and help them and if that fails then they pretty much go along with the firing.
What you said in regards to inadequate people can be applied to ANY line of work worldwide. As for overtime, most people do indeed receive overtime
IF they work over a set number of hours. At the very least, most salaried jobs I have known give comp-time or some other form of flex-time to
compensate for any overtime worked. Still other salaried positions shift a person to another salary scale if you consistently work more then a set
number of hours per week in order to compensate with a higher salary. This also occurs if your work infringes onto another shift with a higher pay.
But I am sure there are jobs out there that are salaried, that thoroughly abuse the employee and force them to work 60+ hours a week without any
additional compensation. Teachers are one of them.
Unions tend to help ensure teachers are paid fairly, as it has been shown time and time again in the past that if the unions let bureaucrats decide
how a school district or system is run without any input they tend to cram ridiculous amounts of children into tiny classrooms with 1 teacher, lower
pay, fire older teachers who have earned a higher salary, and drastically cut back on benefits while requiring more. It turns into a low-performing
education sweat-shop.
Unions help balance things out quite a bit and protect educators from what is commonly practiced in the private contracting industries, especially in
the defense sector where people are hired and fired based on contracts and budgets and so that the administrators can meet financial objectives in
order to receive lucrative bonuses without any considering given to the workers themselves. In the situation of public education, the ones that would
be hurt the most would be the children who would receive an incredibly low standard of education.
As for you you not liking Glenn Beck, that is one area we both have in common it seems. Although what you have said is pretty much Beck's platform
when it comes to teachers.
Public education does need some reform, as does nearly every other area of industry and government. But trying to work with politicians,
administrators, unions, employees, and those who just fear or hate any sort of change is what makes it nearly impossible. It is not one person, or
group, it is human mentality.