Teachers unions are contributing campaign money? I thought unions weren't allowed to do that.
Citizens United took care of that too.
Unions have traditionally been the biggest financial backers of liberal politicians. They may not have been able to do it directly before, but now, yeah, anything goes.
On the flip side, as someone whose mother, mother-in-law, two aunts, two uncles, and sister-in-law are teachers or retired teachers, I see some benefit to having teachers' unions -- especially considering how many modern day parents are utter jerks to their kids' teachers. The unions will go to bat for their members, helping with legal protection when a dumbass parent blames the teacher for their insane kid physically assaulting her (yes, this happened to one of the teachers in my extended family). I'd also like to add that, even with said unions, teachers are paid far less than anyone else with the same level of educational background is.
Lou is right. Also, saying public sector employees are secondary citizens just because they don't produce profit (which assumes that tax spending is only a drain and does not produce wealth) is the rankest Randian bullshit. Teachers should be barred from setting education policy? Firefighters should be barred from setting fire-fighting policy? BULLSHIT. BULL. SHIT.
Depends on where they work. My English teacher makes $88000 a year, but Boston is kinda abnormal.
That may be the case. None of my teacher relations made anywhere near that much, although they all pretty much pre-dated the era of requiring Masters degrees (they all had Bachelors, which was all that was required at the time of their hiring). Nowadays, you can't even get interviewed as a teacher without a Masters degree in most of the country.
Nothings wrong with it, it's just that it isn't "far less than anyone else with the same level of educational background."
I have no clue how I remember this, but you go to Boston Latin, don't you Greg? Seems like one of the most prestigious high schools in the country would be prone to a few abnormalities.
Also, in my old high school, there were teachers making $100,000+. One crucial problem was how seriously education and qualifications played into salaries. I was taught Calculus by a dude with 4 different degrees who was a total moron (and making six figures).
I kinda wonder how a total moron could get 4 different degrees... unless he was just a moron at teaching/common sense/etc. yet somehow was good enough at book learning to grind his way to getting those degrees. The "absent-minded professor type" or something.
Me and my friends have started to use the phrase "too fucking idiot" to describe people who are very smart and know a little bit, but have no common sense. We have yet to coin a phrase for people who aren't very smart and don't know anything but still do well, which is at least 75% of our school.
Oh, and Schnevets, yeah, but teaching at BLS doesn't actually increase your paycheck (save for some of the admins), the job is just much less painful than teaching at any other Boston Public School.
My mom uses the term "absent minded professor" (as in from the old Disney movie which was later remade as Flubber) to describe the same kind of person in more polite terms than "too fucking idiot," as I mentioned earlier. Part of it may be because she refers to me as an "absent minded professor" as, unfortunately, I do have some of those tendencies...
That may be the case. None of my teacher relations made anywhere near that much, although they all pretty much pre-dated the era of requiring Masters degrees (they all had Bachelors, which was all that was required at the time of their hiring). Nowadays, you can't even get interviewed as a teacher without a Masters degree in most of the country.
That is a thing? Most of the teachers I know, at the grade school level, around my area only have Bachelors. At best most make 50,000 less than what Boston pays apparently.
Apparently the right wing has now started to actively and pretty much openly massage polling data under the guise of "fixing biases" in other polling firms data sets. Talk about desperation...
That may be the case. None of my teacher relations made anywhere near that much, although they all pretty much pre-dated the era of requiring Masters degrees (they all had Bachelors, which was all that was required at the time of their hiring). Nowadays, you can't even get interviewed as a teacher without a Masters degree in most of the country.
That is a thing? Most of the teachers I know, at the grade school level, around my area only have Bachelors. At best most make 50,000 less than what Boston pays apparently.
Teacher requirements vary by state. Some, like NY, require that you have a Master's degree to get initial teacher certification and then you need to actually teach for three years before you can get the professional certification. It's also considered one of the most difficult states to get certified in. It also means that getting a certificate in NY will often carry over to other states if you choose to move. Also, $88,000 is almost unheard of for a classroom teacher in my experience. A majority of teachers I know aren't breaking $45,000 and have been teaching for years. I'm making $37,000 AND I need to work over the summer because the contract is a 9 month contract. That means I do not get summers off with pay, contrary to popular belief. Additionally, in the two week breaks between the summer and regular sessions, I do not get paid anything. The lack of respect teachers get from most politicians (local and other) is shocking, particularly with what we have to accomplish on a daily basis. The union is absolutely necessary to protect teachers from ludicrous things like basing teacher evaluations on standardized testing (which I could go on for a long time about) or hostile environments or general abuse. Chicago's teachers were totally justified going on strike, for example. They were going to get screwed. I lost a lot of respect for Rahm Emanuel because of some of his comments about the whole thing.
Apparently the right wing has now started to actively and pretty much openly massage polling data under the guise of "fixing biases" in other polling firms data sets. Talk about desperation...
That isn't news, both sides of the spectrum and everyone in-between have massaged and "interpreted" poll data for as long as polls have been around. Opinion polls are inherently inexact to begin with, numbers like that are just begging to be played with.
Apparently the right wing has now started to actively and pretty much openly massage polling data under the guise of "fixing biases" in other polling firms data sets. Talk about desperation...
That isn't news, both sides of the spectrum and everyone in-between have massaged and "interpreted" poll data for as long as polls have been around. Opinion polls are inherently inexact to begin with, numbers like that are just begging to be played with.
I'm not talking about that though. There are in fact some conservatives starting up to collect and reweighing real polling data so that it shows a better picture for the Republican party. For example. They are cutting out any and all mention of them interpreting the data, and they simply repackage it and pretend that it is valid dataset. They even have the audacity of calling it "UnSkewed".
And maybe worse, the site the slate article I linked to is talking about is a goddamn eye-sore.
That may be the case. None of my teacher relations made anywhere near that much, although they all pretty much pre-dated the era of requiring Masters degrees (they all had Bachelors, which was all that was required at the time of their hiring). Nowadays, you can't even get interviewed as a teacher without a Masters degree in most of the country.
That is a thing? Most of the teachers I know, at the grade school level, around my area only have Bachelors. At best most make 50,000 less than what Boston pays apparently.
As MacRoss said, teachers in different areas often have different requirements. Also, depending on how old the teachers are, they may be grandfathered in. For example, all the teachers in my family except for my in-laws only had Bachelor's degrees, but they work in states (MA) that presently require Master's. The difference is that they've all been teaching (and some of them are retired now too) for over 20 years and you didn't require a Master's back then, so they were allowed to keep teaching provided they take regular refresher courses, which they all did.
Well that makes me feel even worse about the treatment of teachers, even more schooling for little compensation. I guess a big part of my confusion was that I know a guy who was a teacher without any degree but he taught spanish, which was his second language (english was his third), so that probably played into it some.
Edit: Ignore that, I messaged the guy to ask him about it and it looks like it was only a provisionary teacher certificate or something because they needed someone to teach spanish or they would not have had a second language class at the school. Once they found someone with a degree he was supposed to be let go but he quit before that since he made more money tutoring than teaching.
I don't think I can even get worked up about Republicans anymore. They've gotta realize that they're on the losing end of the spectrum, since their appeal to angry white guys is failing so spectacularly.
What would really be spectacular is if, in 2016 or 2020, Texas went blue due to changing demographics and the inability of Republicans to realign themselves with various minority voters.
I don't think I can even get worked up about Republicans anymore. They've gotta realize that they're on the losing end of the spectrum, since their appeal to angry white guys is failing so spectacularly.
What would really be spectacular is if, in 2016 or 2020, Texas went blue due to changing demographics and the inability of Republicans to realign themselves with various minority voters.
I think you may over estimate the average political intelligence in Texas, but let's hope. :-)
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Asshole.
Also, in my old high school, there were teachers making $100,000+. One crucial problem was how seriously education and qualifications played into salaries. I was taught Calculus by a dude with 4 different degrees who was a total moron (and making six figures).
Oh, and Schnevets, yeah, but teaching at BLS doesn't actually increase your paycheck (save for some of the admins), the job is just much less painful than teaching at any other Boston Public School.
Also, $88,000 is almost unheard of for a classroom teacher in my experience. A majority of teachers I know aren't breaking $45,000 and have been teaching for years. I'm making $37,000 AND I need to work over the summer because the contract is a 9 month contract. That means I do not get summers off with pay, contrary to popular belief. Additionally, in the two week breaks between the summer and regular sessions, I do not get paid anything.
The lack of respect teachers get from most politicians (local and other) is shocking, particularly with what we have to accomplish on a daily basis. The union is absolutely necessary to protect teachers from ludicrous things like basing teacher evaluations on standardized testing (which I could go on for a long time about) or hostile environments or general abuse. Chicago's teachers were totally justified going on strike, for example. They were going to get screwed. I lost a lot of respect for Rahm Emanuel because of some of his comments about the whole thing.
And maybe worse, the site the slate article I linked to is talking about is a goddamn eye-sore.
Edit: Ignore that, I messaged the guy to ask him about it and it looks like it was only a provisionary teacher certificate or something because they needed someone to teach spanish or they would not have had a second language class at the school. Once they found someone with a degree he was supposed to be let go but he quit before that since he made more money tutoring than teaching.
What would really be spectacular is if, in 2016 or 2020, Texas went blue due to changing demographics and the inability of Republicans to realign themselves with various minority voters.