liberalogic
Member
nukeman said:I bolded this part of your reply. I have to say for the education that teachers have and the time that they are actually in class with students is more than fair compensation.
Look at it this way the average school teacher works 180 days a year and has on average 6-6.5 hours of contact time with students that equals out to 1080 hours a year of work the average full time worker in the US is 2080 hours a year. So they are working half the time as a full time employee.
The average starting salary for a teacher in Indiana is $25,000 that is 25.00 dollars an hour for a bachelors degree(not to bad). Lets not forget that they also do not pay into their retirement and also have very good health insurance. They also recieve vacation, Sick, and other beneffits these total about $0.35 cents on every dollar spent in salary so actually their annual starting pay is closer to 34,000 for the first year.
The average teacher in Indiana recieves in excess of 45,000 dollars a year plus beneffits, plus free retirement. How many of us can say the same.
You can argue with me till your blue in the face about teachers staying late and doing work at home and I for one will tell you I just dont buy it. I know for a fact that within 15 minutes of my children getting on the school bus for home the parking lot at the school in empty and there is no one around to answer a phone..
So what I am saying is that for the time that teachers work and the beneffits they recieve they are properly compensated. Most other people can not say the same yet we dont go around saying poor us give us more money and we can fix all your problems. If teachers wnat more money kick the damn union out and take back the money you give them!!!!!
I'm right behind you in eliminating the union. But for what a teacher should be (even though we are often shortchanged), a higher salary is necessary. Yes, they do have the summer off, but the amount of work that they should be bringing home to grade combined with the time that they should be spending to offer extra help basically compensates for this. Not to mention, as Kathianne said, they should be spending some time over the summer preparing for the following year.
Besides all of that, though, you underestimate the value of teaching in society. It's one of the most important jobs in the world and it literally constitutes the foundation of our country. If we don't learn, if we don't become more aware of the world around us, how are we supposed to contribute to society? How are we supposed to preserve our own extistence?
Since teaching is such an important profession, how are we supposed to ensure that we are hiring qualified individuals to carry out the intent of education? In most cases (excluding the few who simply have a passion for teaching and/or some sort of financial stability), you are going to get shit if you pay shit.
In no way am I calling for an increase in all teacher's salaries-- that would be ridiculous considering the level of comfort that the union provides. But if we somehow did away with the union and teachers were hired and fired based solely on merit, then they would all deserve a lot more money than they earn.