I am a special education teacher and your comment is ignorant. My school goes almost year round, I bring work home with me all the time, I have 10-18 meetings a month scheduled before or after school (parents don't show to half of them)I spend my own money on stuff for my kids, and I am a conservative in a sea of sharks trying to make a difference. I am also a combat veteran who has also worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I don't really appreciate such careless and narrow-minded comments. What has qualified you as a superior authority on which specific jobs are worthy of positive recognition?
I applaud your background and what you are trying to do.
However you are in the minority. You are way outnumbered by Socialists that want to indoctrinate instead of teach. Also, for many school districts, teachers are off about 1/3 of the year counting summers, holidays and “Teacher's Days”.
I just don't see how we will be able to continue to pay so many State and Federal retirement plans, as well as the Union retirements that are going to have to be paid by us since their plans are under-funded. I have paid into SS and earned a retirement from the AF. I don't plan on ever collecting any SS and wonder if the gov’t will stop my retirement check at some point. If so, I won't like it but I am hard working, frugal and have held jobs doing everything from farm work, kitchen work to teaching at college level and currently as an electronics engineer. I will find a productive way to survive without expecting a handout. As long as I am physically able I will find some type of productive work.
At some level whether it is personal finances or public, bankrupt is still bankrupt and non-essentials will not get paid. Realistically one of the first things that need to be examined are the exorbitant pension plans and Teachers are among those.
My point was not to make little of your profession or you personally. I just think we have a very tough road ahead and survival, for the bulk of us, is going to rest on whether we have REAL marketable skills. There was a time when Teachers received food, lodging and a very small salary from a local community, I know because there have been teachers in my family for many generations. I think we may be heading back to times like that rather than the relatively easier lives of the last generation or two. Look into what life was like for Americans since Colonial days, the last generation or two was an aberration and totally unsustainable.