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The Myth of Teacher Poverty
Capitol Confidential ^ | 8/12/2015 | Tom Gantert

Posted on 08/13/2015 11:04:39 AM PDT by MichCapCon

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1 posted on 08/13/2015 11:04:39 AM PDT by MichCapCon
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To: MichCapCon

PLUS they only work part of the year. They get amazing benefits. If I found a job that paid me full time to work only part of the year I’d do it. BUT, I have to work way more than full time to keep my shop up and running.


2 posted on 08/13/2015 11:06:28 AM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: Organic Panic
I've been screaming this for years....

teachers are actually overpaid in many instances for their very simple degrees....

you don't see social workers or accountants or librarians or journalist coming out of school with the whole summer off, every weekend and holiday plus extended time off through out the year...

its the teachers dirty little secret how much they make....

and does everybody like me get so teary eyed when they read how some of these teachers have to pay up to $200 a year just to get bulletin board decorations....imagine any other "professional" whining about such a tiny little cost of doing business....and still, they get a credit on their income taxes for it...

the teaching profession and their sycophants have been running a scam for decades now...

3 posted on 08/13/2015 11:17:59 AM PDT by cherry
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To: MichCapCon

If it’s overpaid, then why are there still vast numbers of openings for Stem teachers ? Being a former teacher, I can say the average person wouldn’t last a week in today’s typical public school classroom. These kids are not angels.


4 posted on 08/13/2015 11:30:21 AM PDT by sunrise_sunset
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To: Organic Panic

If it’s so easy, then try the job yourself.


5 posted on 08/13/2015 11:30:44 AM PDT by sunrise_sunset
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To: cherry

Again, if it’s a cushy job then why are you (and many others) not running off to do it ?

You do believe in market forces, correct ?


6 posted on 08/13/2015 11:31:52 AM PDT by sunrise_sunset
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To: sunrise_sunset

They are evil.

I did not want to have children after working in public schools. They were that bad.


7 posted on 08/13/2015 11:37:43 AM PDT by T-Bone Texan ('Zionists crept into my home and stole my shoe' - Headline)
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To: sunrise_sunset
There's no way I would want to be a public school teacher today. Even if it paid six figures. Not only are kids disobedient and unruly but if you try pushing back, the parents will back their snotty kids up and cause you to lose your job or worse. Not to mention that all it takes is one vengeful accusation of abuse, physical or sexual, and not only your career but your life is ruined.

No thanks, teaching not for me.

8 posted on 08/13/2015 11:37:49 AM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: Organic Panic
PLUS they only work part of the year.

Teachers' work is not between 8 and 3 p.m.; it is more like 2 jobs during the school year. When I leave school, my "second" job is just beginning. I have to go home, research and write another lesson plan (or two or three, depending on how many subjects I am teaching that year). I am very picky about the images I use for my PowerPoints, so it could take quite a while to find the perfect image or graph. I have to call parents. I have to go out and buy stuff (on my own dime) for classroom activities. I have papers to grade. I have mandatory workshops and meetings to attend as well, outside of regular school hours. Yeah, I just WISH I could go home and put my feet up. But teaching is not that kind of job. So I am working double hours during 10 months of the year. I am lucky to get to bed before 1 a.m., and then get up at 5:30 a.m. or 6 to do it all over again.

All this, for a steadily decreasing reward of the satisfaction of seeing kids learn. Nowadays, you are forced to pass kids that should never pass or see administrators change the grades of your students behind your back so that their passing stats look good. You have to stand there and put up with students threatening you, "F___ you, bitch I gonna get you fired!" or "F___ you bitch, I gonna find your a@@ after school and jump you", knowing the administration will not only give you no support, but will likely bring you up on charges based on student fabrications. And now the good governor Cuomo wants teacher evaluations based 50% on state exams. So if you are teaching ghetto kids who barely attend class let alone do any work or, G-d forbid, study, it won't matter how thoroughly you prepare your lessons or try to help the students; you can lead a horse to water, as they say. And if the students then tank on those tests, YOU are penalized. As if you can control how much they study for the tests.

There are significant drops in enrollment in teacher degree programs and more and more states are experiencing teacher shortages. Who would sign up for this?

Oh yeah, you knee-jerk "teachers are bad" folks: flame away all you like. I'm simply telling it like it is. I have thousands of colleagues who are IN the trenches, unlike the finger-pointing outsiders, who will back me up.

9 posted on 08/13/2015 11:44:53 AM PDT by EinNYC
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To: cherry

I’ve never had sympathy for teachers because I have too often experienced their whining. “Oh, I have to go back to work tomorrow! I ONLY had three months off! It went by SO fast! Poor me!” And they have the nerve to do this in front of people who only get two weeks off in an entire year! Not to mention the spring breaks, winter breaks, and numerous holidays teachers get, plus fully paid medical, etc.

Either go into teaching because you love it, or if you think teaching is such a rotten deal, look for a better paying job and quit griping.


10 posted on 08/13/2015 11:45:44 AM PDT by Nea Wood
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To: sunrise_sunset

You answered your own question. It’s not a matter of money; it’s that schools are liberal cesspools.

With apologies to all the great teachers out there, American schools as a whole suck. Teacher’s programs suck even worse. Dewey was a brilliant evil bastard and our school system is the culmination of his vile socialist dreams.


11 posted on 08/13/2015 11:47:53 AM PDT by antidisestablishment (I was mad when they changed Republican states to Red, but I now I see they were right.)
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To: Organic Panic

The teacher’s union and the majority of teachers are interested in tenure, high pay, and huge pensions. All of this paid for by regular people who make much less. The whole scheme is a racket which must be stopped.


12 posted on 08/13/2015 11:48:20 AM PDT by Sam Clements
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To: EinNYC

Most teachers are not bad, but the entire system is evil. American public education had spent almost a century now systematically undermining the American way of life. It has set itself against every tenet of Western Civilization: it has worked to destroy discipline, family, religion, capitalism, and patriotism.

They claim ownership of the nation’s children and target any who dare oppose their hubris. They grant themselves titles, all the while opposing any independent objective measure of competence. I agree they have been underpaid—those running the institutions should be paid in full...
for their calculated treachery.

And true American teachers should be free to work toward professional certification, in competitive, private-sector solutions that reflect American ideals rather than socialist indoctrination factories. Those who risk the ire of the system should be greatly remunerated.


13 posted on 08/13/2015 12:11:45 PM PDT by antidisestablishment (I was mad when they changed Republican states to Red, but I now I see they were right.)
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To: EinNYC

FReeper Clara Lou was/is a teacher in the school I worked in as a long-term substitute.

A middle school.

It was a racial war zone were everyone lived in fear of the blacks. Their savagery, lack of empathy, and predisposition to violence made it very unfulfilling.

One student, Malachi, had a mom who sued the district. He was a feral savage animal. Thus everyone was afraid to reprimand him, so be was free to roam the halls and punch white girls in the face with impunity. The female teachers refused to even acknowledge the issue unless pressed. When pressed they made a lame assed liberal excuse (example: I just didnt understand because I did not come from a poor black background).

It disgusted me that the women there (like most schools, the faculty was dominated by females) would defend the violent criminal and blame the victim, AS POLICY, so as to protect their careers.

It never entered their brains that children were being assaulted and injured, sometimes seriously, on their watch. They were a fundamental part of the problem.

This occurred in Bryan, TX.


14 posted on 08/13/2015 12:15:24 PM PDT by T-Bone Texan ('Zionists crept into my home and stole my shoe' - Headline)
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To: sunrise_sunset

Did that. Shop teacher. Quit.


15 posted on 08/13/2015 12:45:11 PM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: sunrise_sunset
Again, if it’s a cushy job then why are you (and many others) not running off to do it ?

The question you should be asking is, if teaching sucks so badly, why don't you all quit?

There is zero, zilch, nada preventing you from leaving the profession. Yet thanks to the teachers themselves, through their unions, the barriers to entry for anyone else, outside of 19 year old recent education major grads, are substantial. Why would a profession that is so gawdawful and that merits such incessant whining strive so hard to keep everyone else out?
16 posted on 08/13/2015 12:53:20 PM PDT by chrisser (This space for rent.)
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To: MichCapCon
I guess we're having trouble getting teachers and just imported 6 teachers straight from the Philippines. They have arrived with a suitcase and little else. The administration is scrambling to get them household goods.
17 posted on 08/13/2015 12:56:41 PM PDT by tiki ( r)
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To: MichCapCon

Teachers have always cried poverty. It got old when I was in grade school. And RAT politicians also lie about how poorly paid teachers are.


18 posted on 08/13/2015 1:11:35 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: MichCapCon
And on cue out come the broad brushes.

I teach in the Ozarks, below the state average in pay in a state that is below the national average. Like people in all professions I'd like to be paid more but I'm not a big whiner about it. I knew what I was signing up for and I like the other benefits. Besides, just as my dad knows God called him to preach I know He called me to teach and coach. Why teach in those “Godless” public school? Like Jesus said, you send a doctor to sick not the healthy.

I know our school is different, we say the pledge every morning and our FCA chapter has great support for our administration. Our principal spoke openly of his Faith in front of hundreds of students at our Fields of Faith rally. If I lived in another place I might have homeschooled.

But I can always count on my fellow freepers to tell me how evil, greedy and sinful I am for following God's call to teach. Makes me understand why Jesus hated the Pharisee's so much.

19 posted on 08/13/2015 1:31:09 PM PDT by fungoking (Tis a pleasure to live in the Ozarks)
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To: sunrise_sunset

In 1987, I worked as a teacher in a small rural Texas school for $14,000. Two years later, I took a summer contract with GTE (now Verizon) at $14/hr ($28k/yr) while I worked on my masters degree. That ended up becoming a 21-year career where my pay maxed out at about $100k (plus comparable benefits).

I’m back to teaching, this time in a rural community college at just under $40k. The minimum starting teacher pay in Texas is $28k, but many districts start around $45 or more.

The hours are great, the benefits are adequate, vacation time is great, the students are great. The pay is low compared to what my skills could command, but I choose to do this and I knew what I was signing up for when I took the position, so no complaints here.


20 posted on 08/13/2015 1:48:21 PM PDT by Stegall Tx (FWIW)
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