Teachers Strike

[ivan]

why do you assume rich folks who run governments are going to be more enlightened in their relations w/ labor than the same folks dealing in their private businesses with their employees? if the latter justifies unions, why wouldn't the former? i know i've given up on you long ago, i just can't for the life of me see how you fail to grasp that basic logic...

 

most teachers have kids in public schools as well and have no more interest in seeing them harmed than in their professional charges

 

who's using kids as shields? the current testing regime requires autistic children w/ zero awareness of the outside world to submit to hours and hours of meaningless assessments in order to honor the conservative pipe-dream of "accountability?"

[ivan]

 

No problem with private-sector unions. No use for public extortionists who use kids as human shields.

so, in theory, it's fine for a union of private-school teachers to go on strike?

 

is it extortion to demand that a legislature honor the will of the voters that their kindergartens not have to compete w/ 30 other kids for attention? maybe i've watched too much of the sopranos, that's just not how i understand that word.

[Fairweather]

Yep, you got it. Union thug extortionists. Were you as outraged when the legislature threw out the will of the voters who passed I601 and I602? And how about those Tim Eyman initiatives? Selective outrage?

 

If you are so unhappy teaching, why not quit? Seriously. Take your skills where you feel they will be respected and or adequately compensated.

[olyclimber]

Yeah. Seriously. I hear the prison industry is hiring!

 

If you care so much, you're clearly not suited for the job.

 

 

 

[olyclimber]

ya teacher union thug!

 

messing with those poor, poor politicians and putting pressure on them to fund you! might as well be putting them in concrete shoes.

[olyclimber]

he's not the hero we need, he's the hero we deserve.

[AlpineK]

Based on Faiweather's union stance it seems like in either love or lust with a Midwesterner

 

[img:center]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xUBUqv3YCFU/T7wXpLmX4KI/AAAAAAAALGE/0tR6JsgVD7Q/s400/koch_crooksliars.jpg[/img]

[Jim]

Yep, you got it. Union thug extortionists. Were you as outraged when the legislature threw out the will of the voters who passed I601 and I602? And how about those Tim Eyman initiatives? Selective outrage?

 

If you are so unhappy teaching, why not quit? Seriously. Take your skills where you feel they will be respected and or adequately compensated.

 

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!

[Buckshot]

I taught for two years after graduating college with a measly 2.9 GPA, its not an exclusive job and the pay is commensurate with the work and education required. I think K-3rd grade would be a nightmare but High School was pretty easy to teach. I have friends who are 40 years old and make 60-80K with their masters degree and coaching something. The pay and bennies are public knowledge its not supposed to be a surprise to anyone that its not manufacturing or bankers wages.

I might be non-typical in my opinion because I actually love substitute teaching; push play on a DVD for $150 per day (no union dues) isn't bad extra coin on my days off and I can do it after I retire.

[Jim]

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.

[Stefan]

Anybody know the hourly rate for a teacher? Compared to the hourly rate for people with bachelors and those with masters degrees? If you compare salary...that's like apples and oranges because teachers do get a lot of time off...so salary is not really applicable

 

Just wanting to know.

 

 

[Choada_Boy]

You guys against this "illegal strike" are correct: teachers are parasitic scum that serve no purpose in our society.

 

We should close all public schools and have parents teach their own children the things that they feel that they will need for them to succeed in our increasingly complex and demanding society.

 

STEM classes, for example, can and should be taught in the comfort of the family home by skilled parental educators well versed in the basic knowledge of differential and integral calculus, precision machining, CAD, kinematics and mechanics, genetics, and stoichiometry that any responsible parent normally bequeaths to there children. Right?

 

Otherwise you are simply an internet troll that should get a life.

 

It is useless to argue with zealots...

 

 

[Choada_Boy]

Anybody know the hourly rate for a teacher? Compared to the hourly rate for people with bachelors and those with masters degrees? If you compare salary...that's like apples and oranges because teachers do get a lot of time off...so salary is not really applicable

 

Just wanting to know.

 

 

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.

[Choada_Boy]

Anybody know the hourly rate for a teacher? Compared to the hourly rate for people with bachelors and those with masters degrees? If you compare salary...that's like apples and oranges because teachers do get a lot of time off...so salary is not really applicable

 

Just wanting to know.

 

 

Great question. Teachers have bachelors, and masters, and sometimes even PhD degrees, and therefore, the hourly rate of teachers equals the hourly rate of people with bachelors, masters, and sometimes PhD degrees.

[max]

...because teachers do get a lot of time off...

 

I'm a teacher.

 

Right now I'm working 5x12's (6am to 6pm) with an additional 2-4 on Sundays. I don't have classes to teach over summer but I also have a giant JJA (June/July/August) list to complete. The actual time we get off in summer is less than you might think and we pay for it during the year.

 

(Full disclosure: I'm an idiot for doing, but I also have to to do a good job. I suppose the "if you don't like it, quit" folks would support me putting in my clock-time and come and do a mediocre job.)

[Jim]

Anybody know the hourly rate for a teacher? Compared to the hourly rate for people with bachelors and those with masters degrees? If you compare salary...that's like apples and oranges because teachers do get a lot of time off...so salary is not really applicable

 

Just wanting to know.

 

 

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.

[Choada_Boy]

Teachers only work half the year. That's all we need to care about as we excoriate these ne're do wells.

[Peter_Puget]

also, my comment wasn't that there are Republicans and Democrats in the membership (though indeed that is true, albeit w/ an imbalance) - i meant that we use both republican institutions (like deliberative representative councils at the local, state and national levels) and democratic approaches (majority votes of the entire membership on contracts and labor-actions) as part of our scheme of self-government

 

Thanks for the clarification. It seems tho that your distiction republican and demoractic intistitution is incorrect. A republican system is not the same as representative councils. A republican government is one in which the political authority comes from the people. You seem to be refering to a representative government wich is a form of democratic approach.

 

Assuming your definitions are correct you are rally creating a disctinction without a difference. The "Republicans" seem to be consistently outvoted by the "Democrats." THe union doesn't reflect their views and they are often compelled by law to help fund the union.

[Jim]

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

[Peter_Puget]

Jim do you know if teaching are actually losing pay while striking and if the strike

Is technically illegal

 

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.

 

 

Hmm so you agree they aren't losing pay due to the strike and then bring in an outside issue to confuse everyone.

 

Many compnaies operate in industrieswhere increasing productivity year over year is essential. I work in a labor intensive industry where we plan on an average of 3% improvements in productivity every year. Thats life. Nothing inherently unfair in it. Nothing unique to education except that despite all the phd and education programs teachers claseem unable to agree on productivity measurements.

[Peter_Puget]

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

 

Wanting words used correctly is hardly word play.

[Jim]

Oh. As I thought. Merely a linguistics exercise without any relationship to furthering an idea.

 

Kinda like the nuns making me diagram a sentence.

[Fairweather]

Anybody know the hourly rate for a teacher? Compared to the hourly rate for people with bachelors and those with masters degrees? If you compare salary...that's like apples and oranges because teachers do get a lot of time off...so salary is not really applicable

 

Just wanting to know.

 

 

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.

 

Jim, are you using x1.5 for plus forty/week, or plus 8/day? Either way,that's pretty easy take-home math--and it doesn't help your argument that teachers are underpaid.

 

I like your points about the MEd softball, though. Spot on.

[Peter_Puget]

Estimates vary but here's one saying salaried workers work on average 49 per week (no summer vacation!)

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/salaried-workers-spend-49-hours-a-week-at-work-1739/

 

A few months every year I end up working seven days a week. Sure I'd like more money as I am sure your wife would. Aprearently your wife prefers her current situation to an alternative. Her low effective wage simply indicates how great the non money benefits must be for her. You do not indicate she is looked for other employment so logic seems to dictate that she stays in her current job because she is better off than she would be at other types of employment she has considered or experienced.

[Peter_Puget]

Wow Jim no repsect to Ivan or me. Ivan thought it important to post and I offered my comments as part of a discussion. You just offer snide comments.