$100,000+ Salaries for School Teachers?

here is my first point. teaching is an honorable profession, the thing is, i do not think people who become certain professions should be motivated by money. professions like doctors, teachers, firemen, police, politicians etc should be motivated by their desire to help people/society. granted they should be compensated fairly 56, 000 + pension and benefits is a very respectable salary. i know teachers work very hard and put in a ton of hours, but at the same time they also have lots of time off. summers, holidays, spring break etc etc.

my second point has to do with collective bargaining. i am in a union for a fortune 500 (top 100) company that consistently makes $ billions in profit. i have no problem justifying raises coming our way and the collective bargaining of my union to get us more benefits. the way i look at it we should profit if our company profits. the problem with collective bargaining in the teachers case is that the state is not making profit they are not doing well, the united states is not doing well yet the people who are working for tax payer money want more.people need to wake up and realize if your company or state or country is not doing well you cant keep asking for more money and benefits because pretty soon you will bankrupt the hand that feeds you and then there will be no job for you to complain about.

reply to post by intelinside451


Hear hear,

I have lived and worked in Oregon for 22 years now and we home school are children which always test higher than public school children by at least two grades.

But my point is in all the time as a General Contractor my biggest jobs were for school teachers they have money.

We pay about $500.00 per child a year for the material and my wife teaches them while she runs our shipping company. At a cost of $1,000.00 a year my children are better educated then most public high school kids.

In Oregon the public pays a tab of about $10,000.00 per child and they do not get even education to all the children and most do not get good education....... Plus the things they have cut out that they should have like home economics, shop class and such are much more important to the child in the future than the waste on sports stadiums and such 30 children a year benefit from a high cost stadium that is waste less than 1% will ever make it to a point of making money.

Public school is not about learning it is about training, there is a political agenda and that is all they care about.

send your children to a public indoctrination center, so you do not have to deal with them for 6 hours a day.

Hitler said it best , “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”

www.freerepublic.com...

Ok, never in my 36 years of working in 3 states, as anyone ever even ATTEMPTED to count benefits with my salary. Its just asinine to say teachers make over 100,000 in salary.

By that argument, if I make 15 an hour, but with my benefits, I make 35? Why am I so broke??

The only time I have ever heard someone count benefits with salary was high level manager positions, and they also have a few more perks (excecutive washroom, company car etc).

I would love for someone to explain to me how can these teachers pay their rent or bills with a benefit?

Now, with people itching to blame someone (ironicly, not the person who caused this crisis) and being brainwashed by the likes of Faux news, all of a sudden benefits counts AS salary. Remarkable.

I would to see any of you all get job advertised as a $35 an hour job, only to find out in their first check they only make $15. When you go to you manager, they say "oh, your salary includes your benefits". I would walk out.

What would you do? WWATPD?

Just had to add, this is crazy we are even discussing this in America. If you don't want to have RIGHTS where you work, move to China.

Don't have to worry about them adding benefits to your salary there.


And I would love to see someone that has never taught, teach High School in an inner city school.

They should be paid TRIPLE those Wisconsin teachers get paid. Raise the damn taxes man, you get what you pay for. Getting rid of the RIGHT to Collectivley Bargain is doom for us all. Myabe this is what the Mayans were talking about.

We should be talking about Unionizing china.

reply to post by conspiracy nut


The reason the states and nation aren't doing well is because your company is.

Unless you're working for a rare company, every Fortune 500 company I'm aware of is shirking its civic responsibilities by refusing to hire Americans, manipulates its cash flow to avoid taxes, demands special tax breaks, and returns nothing to the nation for what it takes. Those bonusses you enjoy are taxpayer money if you work for a top 100.

At least you acknowledge that your profession isn't honorable.

But it is a lot of fun, exciting, right? So why isn't that sufficient compensation for you along with, say $55K per year or so? Plus the warm and fuzzies from helping make the world go 'round, of course.

reply to post by mikellmikell

I have 2 realitives that went into teaching about 6 years ago in Michigan. They are both making over $65k a year and whining about having to put in 7 hour days. They would be part time employees in any other business.

Never mind getting the summer off and the rest of the vacation days.

I am in my sixties and never had more than two weeks paid vacation. I also spent up to 36hrs in the plant babysitting a new process that just wouldn't work, getting called in at all hours of the night and weekends because a process went bad. I had to do the testing and then tell the foreman how to fix the mess.

Unfortunately after the teachers were through with them I had to hire the results of their work. GRRRRRrrrrr. Spoiled rotten bad mouthed brats who intentionally break equipment when they do not get their way was the least of it. How about falsifying data for aircraft engine parts that resulted in three airline crashes?

I have NOTHING good to say about the results of the USA education system.

reply to post by sharintexas

Secretaries have it just as bad...and we don't get paid much at all. No we don't have a 4 year degree but a lot of us have a 2 year degree...still don't make a third if not less than a teacher. We do a lot of work for little pay.

And get treated like second class citizens. I have run into several secretaries who actually did their bosses job for them while the guy did absolutely nothing. Luckily that is now changing somewhat.

reply to post by apacheman


my job may not be traditionally as honorable as a teacher or a doctor but i have to say any decent working man is honorable. i agree the mega corporations are evil, mine is evil as well, i'm sure they are in cahoots w the government. luckily i have a union to back me up. my point is i do not always think unions are 100% correct and in this case i think they are wrong. its like a little kid demanding his $50 a week allowance after his dad loses his job.

reply to post by conspiracy nut

....people need to wake up and realize if your company or state or country is not doing well you cant keep asking for more money and benefits because pretty soon you will bankrupt the hand that feeds you and then there will be no job for you to complain about.

Well said.

I wish more people would figure out that simple fact. You only lose your job if you try to extract wages from a state, nation or company that is going through hard times.

I have a tough time with this....yeah teachers have it tough..parents don't have the same well mannered kids of 20 years ago...buttt...I look at it like, this...

How many profesions are there out there thta pay that well for minimal education....

Not to mention the hours per year/salary teachers work 1440-1500 hours a year while the rest of us normal workers run on the 2080 hours per year for the, after a bit of simple math figure out teachers hourly pay....yikes!

i also want to point out that the protesters in the middle east are probably puking at the fact that americans are protesting 56, 000k salaries + pension and benefits. that is pretty good money and stability for these harsh economic times and i am proud of the fact our teachers are paid so well, i just dont know how much more they could want considering the budget crisis our country is in. i mean come on take one for the team guys so we can work this out and get ourselves out of this economic mess!

reply to post by crimvelvet


Thanks Crimvelvet for that....yes, I have had to do work for a person who makes about$1000 a week..

reply to post by conspiracy nut


Exactly how does reducing their pay help?

However much is saved, you must reduce by some amount due to the fact that that amount is deducted not just from teacher salaries, but also from the local economy. And the amount deducted is a circulating amount, so the losses will ripple through the local shops and eateries, multiplying several times. How does that help things?

Anyway, this isn't about the money...it's about bargaining rights!

reply to post by crimvelvet


I feel you, I've had my share of 7 days a week/14-17 houts a day. I still work the occasional 16 hour day, and average 12 now.

Paying teachers LESS will not reform the Public school system. Expecting more from less is unreasonable I'm afraid.

The system IS broken, but less pay for teachers is not the answer. How about less pay for the ADMINISTRATORS of public school policy, and the politicians that are RESPONSIBLE for governing the applicable laws and regulation.

Lets get real about holding the people responsible for this mess are held ACCOUNTABLE!

reply to post by Doc Holiday

I have a tough time with this....yeah teachers have it tough..parents don't have the same well mannered kids of 20 years ago.....

No one ever bothers to mention WHY the kids today are such bad mannered brats. I do children's entertainment (mainly birthdays) and I MUCH rather do an immigrant family than an American family especially a black family. No that is not racist that is being scared out of my wits by some of the near catastrophes I had to deal with caused by undisciplined ill mannered children.

Have you ever been out in a public place and noticed a child acting out of control and the parent did nothing? Do you ever wonder why? Well I think that I just might have come up with the answer: parents are afraid to discipline their children. Some states in our country right now are so strict....

I have seen parents that let their kids run them right down into the ground because they cannot swat their child on the butt when needed without being in fear of being reported and possibly losing their child or children all together.... www.associatedcontent.com...

AGAIN the government is to blame and so are the do-gooder Socialists.

As usual the Government's Propaganda tool, the mass media, stampeded the American people in the direction they wished, government control of our children.

The trumped up child abuse cases: Read thease travisties of justice... If you have the stomach.
THE "LITTLE RASCALS" RITUAL ABUSE CASE

Fells Acres Case: How Could the Amiraults Have Been Convicted By Such Shoddy Evidence?

reply to post by ErEhWoN


So you don't count pension, health benefits, absorbent time off and other bonuses into your salary? However, you fail to recognize the private sector and what is taken out of their pay each check. 401k, health insurance, life insurance, dental, vision, possibly not even paid time off "contractors". So then when you say someone in the private sector makes $55,000 a year, you forget that much of it is spent on those same items that you don't even count as your "salary".

I like how you compare yourself to a mid-level executive. Way to stay in touch with the real world over there...

reply to post by ErEhWoN


On the opposite, if you break up the union, lower the pay, increase competition, you'll see those teachers straighten out really fast.

Here's an idea, let's start contracting out teaching jobs. Then we'll see how competitive they get!

Welcome to reality, it sucks and it's a bumpy ride!

this is the "news organization" that came upon the information for the school salaries
maciverinstitute.com...
this a "free market" organization

this is the poll service this "maciverinstitute" used to poll all of 500 people that want the state government to cut spending, rather than raise taxes.
www.sourcewatch.org...
a blatantly right wing poll service

maybe, just maybe, the OP should use more nuetral sources for his arguement.

reply to post by apacheman


you have got a point there. at the present time with the states budgets as screwed as they are i almost feel all state and federal employees should take a pay cut across the board until the economy gets better. throwing money at the problem will temporarily appease the teachers but in the long run its gonna make the bubble worse.

reply to post by intelinside451

So you don't count pension, health benefits, absorbent time off and other bonuses into your salary?

Actually , I think I am unique in that I DO add these to my salary, helps me keep sane. But every employer, co-worker, freind or family member that I have had contact with for the past 36 YEARS, don't count benefits with their salary. Am I just weird? Unique?

I like how you compare yourself to a mid-level executive.

I never compared anyone to a mid-level executive. I was relating the fact that in my lifetime, the ONLY time I ever heard benefits be included with salary was in the case of HIGH level excecutives. Not regular peons like me.

I would never compare myself with an excecutive, and am offended at the very thought of this idea.

Please re-read and re-post haste!

So then when you say someone in the private sector makes $55,000 a year, you forget that much of it is spent on those same items that you don't even count as your "salary".

Its the same in the public sector. Those benefits are deducted from your paycheck, its not ADDED to your salary. This has never been done in HISTORY in the US (at least my history!)

If i was Faux news, I wouldn't put the disclaimer there.

reply to post by jimmyx


I like how you bash the source and try to attempt to say it's a "right-wing conspiracy company providing dis-information".

Why don't you do a little research on the actual information? You know there's no point, it's 100% correct. They showed film from the actual school board budget meeting! LOL Where are you trying to go with this?

You're just spinning your wheels here.