Liberal whiners? Who is doing all the whining in this thread? How many of those whiners have paid the money and put in the time to get the degrees that teachers must?
We make some of our most life shaping decisions when we are in our late teens(when most are at their dumbest). Some seem to think they made the wrong choices for themselves and now whine and complain because they feel others have it better.

Some states do, I feel, pay their teacher fairly. Some pay them much less than somebody doing something that is so important, with at least a 4 year degree, too little. And maybe some teachers are overpaid. Elected folks make that decision.

There are some poor teachers just there are poor employees in any field.
And if you believe most teachers are liberals trying to push an agenda, you have bought into a huge lie promoted by media source and other groups that truly are pushing an agenda and have many brainwashed to a point to which they can no longer look at anything objectively. These folks have allowed their capacity to think for themselves to atrophy.

I'll tell you why . Because the 2-3 days they went to protest during the general assembly NO ONE was there to baby sit their kids during the day !!!!!!! Parents got mad

WRONG AGAIN the current teachers and those who are already retired pensions were also going to be effected. The state want to decrease the current retirements(not sure the EXACT amount) by around 15% and tier them down every 5- 10 years

Ya gotta hear the complaining that some parents do when we get a heavy snow. If school is cancelled half of them whine that they have to make arrangement for their kids day. When it's not cancelled, other(or sometimes the same)parents complain that the district is risking the lives of the students so that they don't have to make the day up later in the year.

Has whining become the national pastime in the US?

But someone made the comment that Ky as a state was broke. LOL LOL yea ALL states are struggling but for you non Kentuckians listen to this. The same Gov that wanted to reform the pension plan CUT the taxes to the top 5 % of the income level by 15% . OK Listen close. The BIG horse racing spring sale started this past Monday (13th) , with a total of 1827 horses to be sold. Guess how much sales tax the state is going to receive from those sales? ZERO ZILCH NADA!! Yes the thourobred industry lobbied to exempt sales tax from race horses !!!!!!! Give the right congressman enough "campaign" money and they will hide any law inside another bill. But that's a rant for another day.

REX why are you not on here whining about the tax loop holes instead of slamming teachers for getting what they work for....

https://www.keeneland.com/media/news/keeneland-catalogs-1827-horses-2020-january-sale


http://www.kjeanrl.com/full-blog/2010/01/horse-sales-tax-exemption-good-for.html

I completely agree with you Steven.

The pension issues have not been addressed here in PA. We have a very powerful educators union and they own most of our politicians on both sides of the aisle. That is one of the reasons we have such an unfair school tax system and the reason the school taxes in some districts are insane.

The teachers union is pretty powerful here as well.

Good Morning,

I've been a member on this forum for a long time. I don't post often, but I do a lot of reading. After reading through this entire thread I decided I'd throw a comment or two out there. For the most part I'm not going to address any particular person or their post. Everybody has opinions and were are all entitled to that. I believe this topic got started with two questions, one concerning teacher salaries, the other 401k.

Yes, I am a teacher.

I'm not familiar with schools in KY and what their benefit plans are, so I'm not going to attempt to answer that. As far as wages/salaries are concerned, my thought is this. I think that some of it, if not a lot of it comes down to getting great, quality individuals to enter the teaching field. I teach in a small rural MN town. 24 years ago when I applied for the position I still hold today there were 168 applicants for that one position. I firmly believe there were some outstanding teachers among those applicants, I'm sure there were some not so great as well. Two years ago our district had four elementary positions open. For those four positions we had six applicants. I would like to believe there were some great candidates out of those six. But I would have to believe having more than just six candidates to go through could have been beneficial. I guess for me, the answer to the question is if wages were higher for starting teachers, maybe more qualified individuals would enter the field.

I also think it's interesting how many people, not all, view teachers as lazy, worthless, and not good at their jobs. I know this has been addressed on this thread, but look at any other occupation/profession out there. There's great workers and worthless workers. Through high school, college, and now my summers I have had many different jobs. And with every single job I've worked with hard working people and others that didn't deserve to have the job. quite often on this site I see inquires about taxidermists. All of us know a taxidermist, but when it comes time for you to have your trophy done you want the best one you can find. I would think people would want that for their kids.....the best, qualified teachers that are out there. If it means raising salaries to get them, so be it.

I have standards and a curriculum that I'm responsible for covering (please don't bash me about standards, I don't make the rules but I follow them because it's my job). I teach in a k-12 building and every teacher has standards they are responsible for teaching. Other than teaching those standards I have no idea what conversations take place in other classrooms. I'm simply not in there to hear what dIscussions are taking place. It always surprises me how individuals that have never set foot in their child's classroom know exactly what idiotic thoughts teachers are putting into their childs head. Yes, I do understand that you know because your child tells you so. No need to go into that with anymore detail.

I have way too many stories on what teachers do for kids outside of just teaching, and I have way to many stories about the baggage that kids bring to school with them everyday. Most people have no background knowledge of what schools are like today. I tell friends of mine that are not in the education field that if they did my job for a week, they'd be in jail.

Again, I'm not belittling any thoughts that were previously posted. I chose to be a teacher. It's what I do. All of us have our own stories about our lives. Decisions we've made, paths taken, jobs we've held or have. I'm not saying this in a condescending way, but life is all about choices. If teachers have a cushy job and the profession is easy and you have the ability to express your own beliefs and ways of thinking to influence the kids and young adults of our future, why didn't you choose to go down that road?

I don't see where I was whining about anything just stating the other side of the coin. Like I said last night You have to stick up for teachers because your wife is one. And I hate to tell you this but This is America and I get to say my piece. Like I said last night calm down breath in and out take your meds and have a nice day. lol

This makes since to me. I agree with bad parenting as one of the issues with our youth, but face it, giving a teacher more money on this reason won't change a thing. I have some suggestions.

1. Like pcr2 said, the world needs ditch diggers too. This whole no child will be left behind crap has done nothing but take away accountability for parents and hurt the education of the kids who actually want to learn.

2. Get rid of the Union and make Teachers work like most, merit based raises on performance. Think about what tenor is. It gives the opportunity for bad Teachers to continue teaching our youth. Ridiculous!

3. Make it mandatory that Teachers cannot express their own personal political views, ideologies or agendas. They need to teach both sides of the coin fairly, unbiased, and let the kids decide for themselves.

4. Don't hogtie Teachers with a forced curriculum, this is a disservice to the kids. Let Teachers teach, some of my most enlightening moments in school was when the Teacher went off script. Wonderful debates and discussions led to free thinking.

Excellent post 4fisher.

In southern MN they base pension on your last few years income. There is a unspoken code that they use to work the system. Teachers coming up on retirement are given all extra hours and work to boost their income. It is not unusual for them to double their income in the final years then collect 60 to 80 percent of that the rest of their lives. Most teachers around here spend the summer at their lake home up north!

Wow some of you make teaching sound like a horrible job

None i know are ever looking for something else

Hmmmm

Good teachers, bad teachers, just like any other profession. Pay, some are under paid some should be fired. Pensions are the killer, ponsi scheme at best. Tax payers will be on the hook when the shortfall comes.

I just posted some facts. I never said teachers were overpaid. Their pay is market driven. I tried to explain why teachers cannot be underpaid. There is no coorelation between what you pay teachers or spend on education and student achievement. Of course education is suppose to be about students not the teachers.

I've witnessed fifty years of fixing public education and believe it is not possible from the evidence.

It's closer to 90k , a least here anyways when you add salary and 30 k for benefits

Not a bad gig for as much time off there is

Most don't leave , and why would you with a union constantly raping the tax payers for money

Good post 4fisher. I'll wager you're darn good at your profession.

(Both my parents were educators too and met at Western Oregon teachers' college in the 30's.)

I often thought that a good way to get Teachers to teach Students better, is to base their wage on Student passing grades.

Say a Teacher makes $50,000 a year and teaches 100 Students a day. Teachers work only 10 Months out of the year. July and August is Summer Vacation for most of them. So, that is $5,000.00 a month / 100 Students = $50.00 per Student. Now, let's say 20 % of those Students are failing. Each Month those 20 % are failing, the School deducts 20 % from the Teacher's Monthly Salary . That would take $1,000 out of the Teacher's paycheck each Month until those Students reach a Minimum passing grade. In some Schools in Buffalo , NY, more than 60 % of the Students are failing. Picture 60 % of a Teacher's paycheck being taken away each Month until those Students get passing grades!!!