Wisc. teachers retire over collective bargaining changes

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Hundreds of Wisconsin teachers have announced their intention to retire in June of this year, in much higher numbers than in normal years. Many of them cite Governor Scott Walker's proposed changes to public employees' collective bargaining rights as the reason.

Sorry if this has already been posted. While I don't necessarily agree with what Walker is doing It seems kinda messed up that the teachers would just retire instead of bitting the bullet for their students, their students stood by them and protested with them. Even though I'm a HS student and I like my teachers, you would never catch me standing outside in the cold protesting with them.

America hates its teachers some will argue no, but it sure looks that way. America hates its law enforcement, even on ATS their is a lot of hatred towards them. America hates free market capitalism, recent polls say: yes. America's middle class is almost nonexistent and no one seems to care. It looks like America will never return to the greatness it once was, the demoralization runs too deep.

Good. With the unemployment rate sky high, they should have no problem finding replacements.

Good
Some of these teachers were making like 50k plus benefits. Do you realize we are in dire financial times!

Teachers basically are just talkative librarians...most of them are liberal anyhow.
so, pay 50k a year to have some liberal yack about stuff kids can read about anyhow..sorry teach, but your salary is going to be hacked in half...like it or hit the road. two words, home school.

With the money theoretically saved, we can put that to good use by letting the job creators have a break finally. the economy depends on rich people having more disposable income so they can hire someone, or maybe buy a boat and let that industry increase.

unions are a communist socialist movement which is trying to destroy the free market!


(felt like a change for the hell of it)

Originally posted by Carseller4
Good. With the unemployment rate sky high, they should have no problem finding replacements.

'

Exactly...science teacher goes? well guess what Mr Smith the science teacher, Fred the dishwasher is looking for a job also...get to washing them history books.

What these soo called "educated" people don't understand is that you don't need knowledge to teach...just the ability to assign homework.

reply to post by Rockdisjoint


I would not say Americans hate, we just do not trust and rightfully so. Our law enforcement abuses its' powers.
I personally just had a ticket disappear. Very minor, I left my truck street for town street cleaning. Only a $30 ticket which I was ready to pay the next day. I knew the cop on duty(didn't know he worked here), He made the ticket disappear.
I have seen police arrested for DUI's, PFA violations reported in papers, these policemen always seem to get ARD or dismissed. It's not a hatred.

reply to post by Rockdisjoint


The teachers that are retiring are probably those teachers that are eligible for retirement. They don't want to take a chance on losing or having a cut to their pensions so they're cashing in now. I just think Walker forced them into a corner and they had to what was best for them. Something anyone in the same situation would do if they were in their shoes.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
What these soo called "educated" people don't understand is that you don't need knowledge to teach...just the ability to assign homework.

The passwords to a great coming American idiocracy. Enjoy...

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

Originally posted by SaturnFX
What these soo called "educated" people don't understand is that you don't need knowledge to teach...just the ability to assign homework.

The passwords to a great coming American idiocracy. Enjoy...

since when has education ever helped anyone?
Name one instance ever when someone educated ever did anything

Did jesus go to public school? nope...he was a carpenter..this is a christian nation, do the math
NO, Dont do the math...just pretend your doing math.


(When you see america crumbling, the entire foundation, and its done by the politicians, the corporations, and the brainwashed drones...the only thing you can do is have bitter sarcasm towards the entire scene.)

Teachers are talkative librarians, huh? As a librarian myself I would agree with you. Also as a librarian, allow me to introduce some facts to this debate.

1. Wisconsin teachers, on average, make a lot more than $50K. Several school districts in Wisconsin report that the AVERAGE compensation of a teacher in their districts, with benefits, exceeds $100K per year. This includes incredibly liberal fringe benefits that aren't exactly fringe any more, like full medical coverage for their entire families, disability, and a fairly good retirement.

2. Retirement. I took a look at the Wisconsin retirement system and, frankly, I'm, a little confused by what I read and do not want to make a fundamental mistake here, so I'm going to switch to Washington State, where I absolutely know a great deal about the retirement system. Most states have something very similar so your mileage may vary, but not by much. Here's the deal.

Public service employees, such as teachers, can retire with FULL benefits after 30 years of service, For a teacher who has made it a career, this means most teachers can retire at 52 years of age assuming they started at 22. The NEWER retirement systems make this a little more difficult and try to get people to age 65 before they can retire, so they can exert a penalty for retiring early. But 30 years tends to be a demarcation point for retirement. WA has a PERS1 (up to 1977) and a PERS2 (after 1977) where PERS1 is much more liberal. Details? Only if you beg!

How much do they get? In Washington you get 2% per year, i.e.: You get 2% of your final salary, averaged over 2 (PERS1) or 5 years (PERS2), for every year you work, so if you retire after 30 years, you get 60%. If you retire after 40 years you get 80% (in the newer PERS2 systems). If you are 55 and have 25 years service, you can retire (PERS1) Now, pay attention here:

Point One: When you retire you no longer pay into either your retirement system or FICA (social security). This means you no longer pay up to 15% of your salary into these systems WHICH MEANS your take-home pay can be 15% less and you won't feel a difference. So 100% of your take home while working is equal to 85% while you are retired.

Point Two: You still get social securiity (at age 62), so this means that if you are 62 and retire from the state you make more money retired than you did working. I didn't get to 30 years. I retired at 26 years at age 55. Now at age 62 I make as much retired as I did working. (P.S. I would have died if I had still needed to work. It was bad. Sorry.)

Now here's the kicker. All the state retirement systems have invested in the stock market. Well guess what? If the market does poorly, then so do the retirement funds. The Wisconsion retirement funds may be as much as $10 billion short of their obligations. THAT'S what Walker is trying to avoid. he doesn't want the pension funds to go belly up.

SO, what do we have here? A bunch of teachers who are eligible to retire and will do so knowing they can probably get by on 70% of their salaries until they qualify for social security. (Remember, they only need to get to 85%, so if they get 60% retired they're getting close, and with $75K salaries for experienced educators, it works. They'll be making $45K retired and only need to get to $63K.) Ironically, by doing so they will put added pressure on their retirement systems and push them toward insolvency that much faster. As Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said, "You can say it's a sacred trust of you want, but if there is no money there, you don't get it."

I don't want to pretend this stuff is simple. It can get very complex and states are different, but this is the basic idea here. Teachers and public employees have historically enjoyed a very good benefits package offset by what people still say is low pay. But the fact is, public employee pay is no longer "low," but the high benefits have not ceased. When the very best compensated jobs are in the public sector, I think we have a problem. Yes, I'm guilty and mea culpa to all of you hard working people out there. But I do know the system rather well and can answer ?s if you want.

i dont hate teachers

what i hate is they get 50k a year and get fat pensions and produce stupid people

50k a year when they dont work everyday of the year how much vacation time do they get now?

school lets out and thats another vacation.

i hate the fact that every single person in the state pays for a teachers salary and yet has no kids to send to school and they still have to pay.

i hate the fact that they are unionized the union comes first not the kids in school.

while most teachers feel that they are entitled to just compensation the fact is most teachers in this country do not earn that compensation.

meh i have no opinion of walker but when the state goes bankrupt and there is no one willing to sacrifice its their own faults when they do finally go bankrupt.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
the economy depends on rich people having more disposable income so they can hire someone,

Brilliant idea! Let the rich hire a teacher to tutor their children!

For families that can't afford to hire a teacher, too bad. Life's not fair. Obviously, if you had done what's right, you, too, would be rich.

Compulsory and free education should be abolished, since the teachers are sucking up all that money and American students are still dumb. Besides, while young people in the rest of the world value their education, American students value their freedom to do what they damn well please. Let them get their education on their own, that's personal responsibility.

Also, if America needs an educated workforce, it can just advertise around the globe. Why pay for Americans to be educated? I say end the educational entitlement now!

I say, Saturn, this does feel good to spew words!

Originally posted by desert
I say, Saturn, this does feel good to spew words!

Doesn't it.

Here I was like a sucker for soo long using intelligence in my post when I could simply vomit word salad and probably win all sorts of conserva-stars.

Time for the new me. Colbert, move over.

Love the idea about giving tax breaks for the wealthy so they can hire teachers. Somehow I imagine thats what the founding fathers intended anyhow.

reply to post by SaturnFX

With the money theoretically saved, we can put that to good use by letting the job creators have a break finally. the economy depends on rich people having more disposable income so they can hire someone, or maybe buy a boat and let that industry increase.

Still holding onto that idea of trickle down economics? Where have you been the last 10 years while the rich were getting tax cuts? They don't pay taxes and they don't purchase anymore products or capital equipment for their business. It's been proven that trickle down economics doesn't improve the economy. That's why during the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy the economy hit its lowest point since the depression.

Why do you think corporations send their production over seas and to Mexico? Why would they create anymore jobs here when their paying production workers $2.00 an hour? Corporations are in it to make the largest profits for their share holders. Maybe you want the average citizen here to make $1.00 an hour so corporations will start investing here at home.

Keep thinking on defending the corporate elite and putting down the poor and middle class. I always said the people who complain about workers who make a better livable wage will always attack them out of pure jealousy. Since when is 50K for people who have spent thousands of dollars for a college education, (most with master degrees) is a lot of money?

You can keep on spewing republican rhetoric, but chances are, If you don't make over 200,000 dollars a year, the policies you're voting for are against anything that benefits you. Don't you expect some benefits from government for all the taxes you pay into? The tea partiers are surely up in arms against medicare being cut.
Maybe it's because it's helping older Americans who are on a fixed income just trying to get the needed health care they deserve. I guarantee older republicans are benefiting from this program.

You want the government to cut education that is the back bone of any prospering and industrialized country? Why do you think we have so many foreigners coming here to get their college education in the United States?
You turn your back on education, you will find a country that will soon become a 3rd class economy.

The GOP, Tea Party and the democrats want cuts, but they ignore the fact that we are spending 6 times more on our military budget than China who is second to none. We have (2) wars that we are wasting billions of dollars a day on, and the GOP or the democratic party doesn't demand them to end. We continue to funnel billions on foreign aid while our countries economy is in dire straits. Yet you are concerned about average Americans making a livable wage? Shame on you.

It's people like you who continue to let the majority of this country be suppressed by the political, and corporate elite in this country. You complain about teacher benefits, what about our politicians that don't pay into their top rated health insurance, they don't pay into social security, they have extravagant pensions that make teacher pensions look minor for a job that shouldn't be a lifetime career, and they make a 180 thousand dollars a year for being incompetent and putting us in enormous debt. I don't hear you attacking them, yet you want to attack average people like you trying to make ends meet.

You can continue to suck all that B.S. crap that both parties spew, wake up and start fighting for yourself and your neighbors. If the U.S. economy crashes, do you think these politicians and corporate elite are going to care about you? They will still be paid and the corporate elite will be living off their Swiss bank accounts and laugh while you and the rest of us are just trying to survive. I won't even get into their underground bunkers where they'll be snug as a bug while the rest of us peons will parish if a catastrophic disaster ever happens.

reply to post by WeRpeons


I think they're just trolling, typing stuff just to read their post. Idk.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
(When you see america crumbling, the entire foundation, and its done by the politicians, the corporations, and the brainwashed drones...the only thing you can do is have bitter sarcasm towards the entire scene.)

reply to post by schuyler

Now here's the kicker. All the state retirement systems have invested in the stock market. Well guess what? If the market does poorly, then so do the retirement funds. The Wisconsion retirement funds may be as much as $10 billion short of their obligations. THAT'S what Walker is trying to avoid. he doesn't want the pension funds to go belly up.

Actually, here's the kicker.
The Wisconsin Retirement System (state employee pension funds) owns $5.5 million in Georgia Pacific (Koch Industries) corporate bonds.
National Review

I can't believe people keep saying OMG they get paid 50K as if 50K was some sort of fat cat salary. 50K is not exactly rolling in it. Teachers are more social workers now anyway. There are a lot of jobs that pay a lot more where you have to do a lot less work.

reply to post by mmmguinness


This is damn right.

$50k in 1999 was decent pay. Not in 2011 where the dollar is about half what it was 10 years ago.

Teachers, as a whole, sacrifice a lot to babysit our children while we are forced to work suck ass jobs for nothing.

Our young die at war (military, drugs, gangs, etc) and the bankers take our retirement and homes while our elderly are thrown away.

Where are we going to be in 20 years with no educated people?

Shortsightedness is killing us more than anything.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
Love the idea about giving tax breaks for the wealthy so they can hire teachers. Somehow I imagine thats what the founding fathers intended anyhow.

Well of course, if we didn't have to pay all these damn taxes, then maybe I could afford to hire my own teacher, and fireman, and police man, and maybe even private security.

I mean, who wants to pay for someone else's lazy kid to get an education, is what I'm talking about. We should ration education based on ability to pay, just like we do with fancy cars, video games, and health care in this country. Besides, poor kids don't need to be smart, since they all grow up to be lazy and unemployed anyway.

And in case you wanted to know, here an article from conservapedia on the "racket" that is teacher pay. Basically, the greedy union teachers go on strike in order to demand more pay, and the demo-kkkrats agree, so they go and steal it from the poor taxpayer that doesn't even use the school system or care about education in the first place (why should he pay for something he never uses!), and so the demo-kkkrats hand the big bag of money to the greedy teachers/union and the teachers in turn fund the demo-kkkrat to get re-elected again and the whole process starts over again. I should know because I was a teacher, and we were striking like every other week in order to get raises. I was getting $32,000 a year and a health plan that I paid $325 a month for! Wow-E I'm rich! and I only have to work 60 hours a week too!!! Take that Soros!

hmm Saturn...looks like you've gotten quite a few conserva-stars already! You're right, spewing vomit salad is so much funner than referencing pesky facts and posting intelligent well thought out comments based on verifiable evidence. It's a heck of a lot easier to just call people I disagree with a bunch of "evil-fascist-nazi-commie-gay apologists" and be done with it...I'm all for the bitter sarcasm

Originally posted by neo96
i hate the fact that every single person in the state pays for a teachers salary and yet has no kids to send to school and they still have to pay.

...and just who pays for their pensions and the roads and medicare and taxes and such? Maybe an educated wokforce that contributes to the tax base?

reply to post by SaturnFX


The job creators havent been getting enough of a break with the Bush/Obama tax cuts?