Jim

This is total bullshit, Jim. You admitted your wife entered the teaching system after coming over from another career. Do you really expect your wife would receive a full pension for slightly more than half tenure? As you know, pensions typically follow a geometric curve that heavily favors the later years. It is safe to assume this too was part of your wife's calculus when she changed careers. Why complain about it now? Will she collect a pension from her former career? Again, if so, your complaint is even more disingenuous. Dude chill. This isn't a complaint. We're happy as larks. You set up the strawmen, we knock 'em down. Maybe you would find more life fulfillment with a new career...............maybe teaching?

Actually, they are both true. The larger figure includes 403b contributions(self funded) the lower is the pension alone. Dude. No one here as far as I've read, is claiming poverty - but rather responding assertions that teachers are lazy, over-paid, cushy job suckers on the public teat. But please, carry on.

Wow. I don't know what planet where this is occurring. Earlier I gave my best estimate of what my spouse works as a teacher - and it's generally the same for when she was in private science work - its just that it's crammed into 10.5 months instead of 12. 10 weeks off? More like 5 in the summer and really, breaks during the year are spent playing catch up on grading (like today's "strike" day). Did someone say pension? Oh yea - that's lucrative. If she makes it to 20 years then it will be a whopping $225 a month, and don't forget to reduce your SS benefits accordingly. Yea, it's a cush job.

You could make a valid assertion that Obama wasn't quite ready for primetime given his short stint in the Congress. And he made some rooking mistakes in politics and IMO, letting the banks get a free ride by enlisting the likes of Summers for advice. But- he certainly did not waste our blood and treasure to the extent that the Idiot did. We are still paying for his foreign policy blunders - the destabilization of the Middle East, the rise of ISIS, a flood of refugees - all because of some cheery version of the domino theory that the fall of Iraq would cause a wave of Jeffersonian Democracy to break out among these tribal societies. Stunning.

Well, that's setting a pretty low bar - at least he's not a truther. While you don't have to be smart academically, you have to be a quick study and be able to sift through the mounds of information coming your way, weight the advice of staff, and make sound decisions. After 911 I thought, maybe, that Bush was in a position of history and that he would quickly grow to meet the demands of his stature. Boy was I wrong. Instead, he fell into the neocon reactionary group and here we are. Biggest foreign policy blunder in the last 75 years.

The wackos are in charge: Last week, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, headed by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), approved a bill that would slash at least $300 million from NASA's Earth-science budget. NASA, for its part, responded to the impending doom with howls of protest. Charles Bolden, the administrator of NASA, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General, and a former NASA astronaut, issued a statement saying: And from the Republican folks in charge: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas): "Contrary to the claims of those who want to strictly regulate carbon dioxide emissions and increase the cost of energy for all Americans, there is a great amount of uncertainty associated with climate science." Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin): "I think that the science is inconclusive on this." Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama): "I'm approaching the issue with a healthy degree of skepticism. If the evidence is there to prove it, then so be it." Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky): "I would challenge [President Obama] to show us the linkage -- the undeniable linkage -- between droughts and the change of weather, and some kind of human activity." Really – you can’t make this shit up!! Maybe it’s time for another snowball theater routine.

Reel it in dude. No one said anything approaching that. You need to catch up with the conversation. My advice - scroll upwards.

Skoolled! 8D

Reel it in dude. No one said anything approaching that.

Though my spouse and her teacher colleagues don't seem to care much about the union one way or another, they've seen some shitty administrators who get a bug up their butt about some teacher, and without union protection they could just be let go. Add on the increasing emphasis of test scores in evaluations despite the roulette of who you get in the class, family background, number of Ausberger kids, ESL kids, and just general capability - and I could see why a union helps. The opposite side is true as well - there's a small minority that should just move on out of the field as they are lousy teachers.

To answer the first question - I based in on what she generally puts in, which is 11-12 hrs every day during the week, and ignore the times when it is more, and count the minimum of 8 hrs put in every weekend - again, that's minimum not average. I never made the argument that teachers are underpaid - my statement is that trying to make the case that they are over paid given the hours they put in is bullshit. Sure, she could make twice the money working in her field - but that's not the point. She's a great science teacher and cares that her kids learn, she is not alone, and deserves every cent she earns.

Oh. As I thought. Merely a linguistics exercise without any relationship to furthering an idea. Kinda like the nuns making me diagram a sentence.

And the point of this word play parlor-puzzle is what exactly?

Teacher's should make as much or less than the average hourly salary of a heavy equipment operator. This will keep qualified candidates from joining the field of education and allow them the opportunity to become heavy equipment operators, or join professions that actually matter and improve society, like professional sports. Curious minds want to know, so I crunched these numbers for my spouse last year. I made very conservative assumptions - only putting her down for an average of 60 hrs a week (believe me it's likely more like 70), 3 weeks of break where she takes off one but merely puts in 35 hrs each of the other two (which is a low estimate), 6 weeks off in summer but works 30 hr/wk for 4 of those meeting with teachers, developing/refining lessons (doesn't get out of school after kids leave till last week in June has to be back at school officially week before kids arrive). And it comes out to a whopping $24.85/hr. As she said when she went from geology consulting to teaching - pay cut in half and hours doubled. But she loves it. Regarding a Masters - yes you get a pay bump - but I don't know if they differentiate between a degree that is your teaching field vs. the Masters in Education, which is a softball. Both of us being in the sciences we went through a rigorous MS program - entrance orals, field work, stats, thesis, defense - which took about 3 yrs - an average for sciences. When she went back for a teaching certificate it was a year long program but if she had stayed an additional 3 months (over the summer) she could have earned a Masters in Education! That's an interesting contrast.

Good for you. I think. Personally I would be bored out of my skull just "pushing play on the DVD". The teachers I know are quite a bit more engaged, really care about their kids, want them to learn, and they develop curriculum that is challenging and engaging - and keeps their on minds working. To each their own.

Ian seems a pretty bright guy - I'm glad we have folks like him teaching our youngins' ---BTW the legislature didn't throw out 601 and 602 - it was the State Supreme Court that said it was unconstitutional to require a supermajority for simple procedural votes. Get it straight man!

Saw this guy above 520 the other day: [img:center]http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/paleofuture/files/2012/11/jetson-space-suit-sm.jpeg[/img]

A friend--- Was camping in the NF safe zone next to a family of four. He was taking a nap in his hammock when it blew. Didn't remember being blown out and down the ravine into the creek but remembers suffocating and having to claw the ash out of his mouth. Barefoot he had to walk on the hot ash among the blowdown to the top of the ravine. Could not recognize anything and saw no remnants of the family. Followed the stream downhill until it hit a road - then he just wandered this downhill most of the day. Eventually he ran into to rescuers in full moon suits who called in a chopper and took him out. He was always, well, an interesting guy, but seemed a bit tweaked by the experience. 12 years later he took his life.

Essentially that's the answer to most of the questions regarding budget. I've said it before - most of the teachers I know aren't so much concerned about pay (but a COA would help) the primary issue is class size and some basics - like updated chairs and desks for the kids.

Well - I'm only married to a teacher. Because they miss a day of school, and there are required numbers of teaching days - this is treated as a snow day - so they get their standard two week paycheck but then have to make it up with an extra day at the end of the year w/o pay. Interestingly - another cutback of recent years is to cut back on coordination days. These are days between quarters where the kids either have a full or half day off - and the teachers then get their grading into the system for distribution AND quickly coordinate with the other teachers regarding the next week's new quarter of classes. The state, looking to cutback, has chipped away at these so I think there is now one instead of four - but the teachers come in anyway as they have to get the work done and be prepared - so a 3 day pay cut essentially. Just tellin' ya.

We can always chant together, We're 45th! (in class size)

Insults. Good fall back. Whatever, that was not my original premise--the economics angle on the election was yours. And in any event, the whole Keynes-Hayek thang is not likely to be sorted out by you or I. Translation: I don't have a valid argument.

Oh, I've argued the "stupid voter" excuse is over-played by both sides. Given the facts, however, they aren't obviously voting on economic motivations - least not for the majority of the public. Here in the US it can come down to "other" factors -- a perception of freedom (WTF that means is anyone's guess), social policy (hate the nigras, homos, and baby-killers) or perception of our leaders (...he's a muslim!) Comments like this are more revealing about the liberal mind than any sort of broad-based reality. What you seem to say here is that you don't believe voters who disagree with you are stupid, rather, that they must be bigoted, racist, homophobic. Oh, call the WAHambulance already. Back here on earth, if you could engage in a defense of your original premise, that the UK Conservative party economic policy is a winner - please do.

Oh, I've argued the "stupid voter" excuse is over-played by both sides. Given the facts, however, they aren't obviously voting on economic motivations - least not for the majority of the public. Here in the US it can come down to "other" factors -- a perception of freedom (WTF that means is anyone's guess), social policy (hate the nigras, homos, and baby-killers) or perception of our leaders (...he's a muslim!) I just don't know what are those factors in the UK to counterbalance a rational look at the economic policy of the past 10 years - which really is no mystery.

Maybe they just voted for the US equivalent of Bible thumping, guns, and freedumb - I'm just not well-versed in the culture to know. It's obviously not better dental care.