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By Author Unknown (if you know who wrote it, PLEASE let me know)

Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan– that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET’S SEE….

That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!

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Interesting point.  

In defense of teachers (and I come from a family of educators and have a little insight into what their workload is really like), teachers for the most part really do work more than an 8 hour day.  Yes, they get summers off and holidays off.  But their average day (especially for new teachers) may be closer to something like 12-14 hours.  Plus grading papers on weekends.  Plus teacher in-service meetings.  Plus being drafted to sponsor student activities like prom, and cheerleaders and parades, and all of those things that are designed to make student life more fun.  Plus they often have to take field trips with kids.  Plus (for many public schools) teachers are forced to work with outdated materials and lack of supplies.  

And I've only scratched the surface.  

Now, in defense of the American taxpayer, Public School teacher salaries are paid by us.  So we probably should be concerned about where our tax dollar is going and how it is spent.  Quite often in many depressed areas of the country, an argument arises for more public school funding.  And if you look in the classrooms, you often find worn out text books, lack of cleaning supplies, leaking rooms, not enough classrooms, kids being taught in tiny little trailers parked next to the school. etc.

Yet according to usgovernmentspending.com our govt spends nearly 1 trillion on education.  15% of our budget.  That's equal to our defense spending.  That's a butt-load of money!!!

So if this is true, why are there still problems with supplies in the classrooms?  Quite simply, for some reason, the money spent isnt finding its way into the classroom.

I may have related this story before.  My mom was an assistant principal at our high school.  A saleman came in trying to sell our school a thousand dollar vacuum cleaner.  (Yes, I said a thousand dollars). And it looked exactly like one you'd have in your home...except it had a little chrome on it.  The teachers and my mom all felt it would be a colossal waste of the budget and said so. But the beloved principal at the time demanded that the school board approve it and so we had to buy it.

Somehow the vacuum cleaner disappeared.  The rumor is that it is in the home of that former principal.  Meanwhile we still had textbooks with the covers torn, or all marked up and broken down lockers and almost no cleaning supplies.  (In fact my mom had to call around to all the local businesses and beg for cleaning supplies because the school board wouldnt or couldnt afford them).  To their credit the local businesses came through like champs!

Anyway, because of this story and hundreds like them, I am convinced that, while our govt does spend a lot on education, much of it is lost through corruption, fraud and just pure waste.

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im sick of highly paid, underachieving teachers.

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Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
im sick of highly paid, underachieving teachers.

While some do exist, I think you'd be surprised how small a percent of educators fall into that category.  Mostly our problems are the result of parents treating the education system like a free day care and doing nothing to support their children's education at home (ie making sure they study and do their homework, holding them accountable for doing poorly on tests, or even caring if they pass).  I'm also sick of parents not disciplining their POS offspring, forcing the teachers to waste precious class time correcting disciplinary problems instead of teaching (you'd be amazed at how many times teachers have to discipline kids because they won't stay in their seats, won't quit talking, keep texting each other on their cell phones, hitting each other, etc.  Often the parents do nothing at home if a teacher contacts them about the problem).

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:
Interesting point.  

In defense of teachers (and I come from a family of educators and have a little insight into what their workload is really like), teachers for the most part really do work more than an 8 hour day.  Yes, they get summers off and holidays off.  But their average day (especially for new teachers) may be closer to something like 12-14 hours.  Plus grading papers on weekends.  Plus teacher in-service meetings.  Plus being drafted to sponsor student activities like prom, and cheerleaders and parades, and all of those things that are designed to make student life more fun.  Plus they often have to take field trips with kids.  Plus (for many public schools) teachers are forced to work with outdated materials and lack of supplies.  

And I've only scratched the surface.  

Now, in defense of the American taxpayer, Public School teacher salaries are paid by us.  So we probably should be concerned about where our tax dollar is going and how it is spent.  Quite often in many depressed areas of the country, an argument arises for more public school funding.  And if you look in the classrooms, you often find worn out text books, lack of cleaning supplies, leaking rooms, not enough classrooms, kids being taught in tiny little trailers parked next to the school. etc.

Yet according to usgovernmentspending.com our govt spends nearly 1 trillion on education.  15% of our budget.  That's equal to our defense spending.  That's a butt-load of money!!!

So if this is true, why are there still problems with supplies in the classrooms?  Quite simply, for some reason, the money spent isnt finding its way into the classroom.

I may have related this story before.  My mom was an assistant principal at our high school.  A saleman came in trying to sell our school a thousand dollar vacuum cleaner.  (Yes, I said a thousand dollars). And it looked exactly like one you'd have in your home...except it had a little chrome on it.  The teachers and my mom all felt it would be a colossal waste of the budget and said so. But the beloved principal at the time demanded that the school board approve it and so we had to buy it.

Somehow the vacuum cleaner disappeared.  The rumor is that it is in the home of that former principal.  Meanwhile we still had textbooks with the covers torn, or all marked up and broken down lockers and almost no cleaning supplies.  (In fact my mom had to call around to all the local businesses and beg for cleaning supplies because the school board wouldnt or couldnt afford them).  To their credit the local businesses came through like champs!

Anyway, because of this story and hundreds like them, I am convinced that, while our govt does spend a lot on education, much of it is lost through corruption, fraud and just pure waste.

Something you might find interesting.  My mom works for a charter school.  The company receives the some amount of funding per student as all other schools in the area, gives the school the same amount of finding per student as it received pre-charter, and still makes a handsome profit.  I think the State of California could learn a thing or two about managing funding from these folks.  There is absolutely no reason the public system couldn't be this efficient.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:

Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
im sick of highly paid, underachieving teachers.

While some do exist, I think you'd be surprised how small a percent of educators fall into that category.  Mostly our problems are the result of parents treating the education system like a free day care and doing nothing to support their children's education at home (ie making sure they study and do their homework, holding them accountable for doing poorly on tests, or even caring if they pass).  I'm also sick of parents not disciplining their POS offspring, forcing the teachers to waste precious class time correcting disciplinary problems instead of teaching (you'd be amazed at how many times teachers have to discipline kids because they won't stay in their seats, won't quit talking, keep texting each other on their cell phones, hitting each other, etc.  Often the parents do nothing at home if a teacher contacts them about the problem).

Wow!  See, we DO have some common ground.  

On a different topic, what do you think about school vouchers?

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:

Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:

Originally Posted by Dødherre Mørktre:
im sick of highly paid, underachieving teachers.

While some do exist, I think you'd be surprised how small a percent of educators fall into that category.  Mostly our problems are the result of parents treating the education system like a free day care and doing nothing to support their children's education at home (ie making sure they study and do their homework, holding them accountable for doing poorly on tests, or even caring if they pass).  I'm also sick of parents not disciplining their POS offspring, forcing the teachers to waste precious class time correcting disciplinary problems instead of teaching (you'd be amazed at how many times teachers have to discipline kids because they won't stay in their seats, won't quit talking, keep texting each other on their cell phones, hitting each other, etc.  Often the parents do nothing at home if a teacher contacts them about the problem).

Wow!  See, we DO have some common ground.  

On a different topic, what do you think about school vouchers?

Occasionally we do that.  As for vouchers, I think tax payers would get a greater bang for their buck by fixing the public not-for-profit school system than paying for students to go to for-profit private institutions.  I think there would be a lot to learn from looking at what makes some private schools successful and trying to implement those policies as appropriate in public schools (although I would imagine a large bit of the difference would be the back ground of the kids in private schools, I would expect that they are more likely to be from an upper middle class to wealthy family with parents engaged in their children's education).

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I agree.  Especially the part about fixing the public not-for-profit school system.  

For some reason though, it isnt happening. I mean, maybe in some cases it has.  But there are still schools where teachers are afraid.  Crime and drug use is bad in some areas.  And you know student performance is affected.  

I'm not sure more money is the answer because we're already funneling tons of money toward education.  So how do we fix it?

And...if we cant fix it, should poor children be forced to go to under performing schools or schools that may be dangerous?  If not, and if we wont or cant fix public schools, then are vouchers an option?

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:
I agree.  Especially the part about fixing the public not-for-profit school system.  

For some reason though, it isnt happening. I mean, maybe in some cases it has.  But there are still schools where teachers are afraid.  Crime and drug use is bad in some areas.  And you know student performance is affected.  

I'm not sure more money is the answer because we're already funneling tons of money toward education.  So how do we fix it?

And...if we cant fix it, should poor children be forced to go to under performing schools or schools that may be dangerous?  If not, and if we wont or cant fix public schools, then are vouchers an option?

You ask the million dollar question, but unfortunately I don't have a good answer.  Nor have I heard a decent answer to date.  Short of changing how our society as a whole looks at education (ie shifting to something closer to how the Japanese look at education) and child development (ie acting like parents, interacting with their kids and taking a reasonably active role in their child's education instead of letting the TV raise them) I'm not sure what would work.

As for your second question, I think giving vouchers to the poor kids that would be accepted to private schools (although would not otherwise merit private scholarships) would further hurt the public schools.  Generally speaking the more 'good' kids in a class the better the 'normal' students are likely to do (that is, the 'good' students are going to be good influences on their peers) and the higher the percent of 'bad' students (trouble makers) the worse the average student will perform.  Pulling the kids out who would be accepted to private schools would likely decidedly skew this toward the lower performing students.  That said, if I were a low income parent with a child in a low performing school and the option of having the government pay for them to attend a higher performing private school I'm not certain what I would do (its an interesting ethical problem balancing the good of my family against the good of society).

Vouchers would likely also rekindle another issue.  Most private schools in the United States are religious institutions.  This could create both QAQC and First Amendment problems (although the SC recently upheld vouchers to religious schools, it was a close decision that could be reversed with any change to the bench).

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
  
I'm also sick of parents not disciplining their POS offspring, forcing the teachers to waste precious class time correcting disciplinary problems instead of teaching (you'd be amazed at how many times teachers have to discipline kids because they won't stay in their seats, won't quit talking, keep texting each other on their cell phones, hitting each other, etc.  Often the parents do nothing at home if a teacher contacts them about the problem).

Amen to that. Both my parents were teachers and you'd hear some horror stories when they got home in the evenings, sometimes they were saying that they weren't teachers, they were part jailer and part zookeeper (at one stage my father was bitten on the hand by an 8-year-old who wouldn't sit down when told). A lot of the time the problem was even worse than that - parents who not only didn't/wouldn't discipline their kids but who wouldn't even believe that "their little angel" could ever do anything wrong. Any attempt at discipline in class  would result in the mother or father (but usually the mohter) storming into the school complaining that her little johnny was being picked on by the teacher and it needed to stop.

At one stage one of the kids in my dad's school fell over in the playground and cut his head, and went running home to mommy screaming child abuse and claiming that one of the teachers had hit him. Naturally the mother believed him and came storming in to make a formal complaint, the cops were called and the teacher was suspended pending an investigation. Luckily for him, there was CCTV footage of the playground which proved that he was nowhere near the kid at the time. Turned out afterwards that the kid had a grudge against the teacher because he'd given him a detention the week before for persistently not having his homework done.

So, it's one thing to complain about teachers salary in isolation, but the way I look at it, in some schools these days, you could look at the money they get as danger money.  

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:
Interesting point.  

In defense of teachers (and I come from a family of educators and have a little insight into what their workload is really like), teachers for the most part really do work more than an 8 hour day.  Yes, they get summers off and holidays off.  But their average day (especially for new teachers) may be closer to something like 12-14 hours.  Plus grading papers on weekends.  Plus teacher in-service meetings.  Plus being drafted to sponsor student activities like prom, and cheerleaders and parades, and all of those things that are designed to make student life more fun.  Plus they often have to take field trips with kids.  Plus (for many public schools) teachers are forced to work with outdated materials and lack of supplies.  

You're forgetting about the fact there that in a lot of schools (well, over here anyway) the teachers spend a lot of time on their "holidays" (especially the summer holidays) preparing the curriculum for the next term - the overall guidelines from the dept of education here are just that, guidelines, they tell you what you have to teach but not how.... And over here they have to set the exams as well as grade them, the only exams that come pre-prepared are the big ones at the end of the year, and even then only for 2 sets of exams, the Junior Cert and the Leaving Cert (the Leaving Cert would be the college entrance exams, our equivalent of the SATs).

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Exactly.