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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.

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 public school teacher’s salary (nation-wide) is $50,000 per year.

$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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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

quote:

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.
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 public school teacher’s salary (nation-wide) is $50,000 per year.
$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!!!!

Are You Sick Of “Highly Paid” Public School Teachers?

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ORIGINAL: spanxalot15
Does anyone really believe we teachers get paid summers off? Does anyone really believe that we can work miracles without the buy-in of parents at home? Does anyone really believe that a child's poor test scores have everything to do with the teacher, and nothing to do with the possibility that the child has slept in the same clothes, in a car, for the past three nights, while he and a guardian are trying to keep from being beaten up at "home"? Really?? Oops, sorry...didn't mean to confuse anyone with the facts...

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ORIGINAL: spanxalot15
Perhaps I misread...sounds like we agree on some of these points...

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
I have argued time and time again that throwing more money, more money, more money into education isn't going to improve the situations of the kids with the lowest scores, typically. The problem those kids generally have, is the lack of a good, stable, home environment where the parents are involved in the child's life and exerts a positive attitude towards learning.

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In a perfect world (and presuming a magic wand to wave) I'd like school teachers to be like working at google used to be. I'd like a serious performance incentive system setup with decent base wages and top performers being rewarded in yachts. I'd like all that because I'm a good little capitalist and I believe that our children really ARE important... not just at the human level but also to the success of our nation going forward.

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ORIGINAL: JstAnotherSub
In a perfect world, I would agree with this 100%, but, you can not take a brain that has not been stimulated to learn for the first few years of its life and magically make it learn, no matter how great of a teacher you are.

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That said, I do believe that anyone working for a public school system should be there first and foremost because they love children. If they show, by their words or attitude that they are there just to bring home a paycheck, I would kick their asses to the curb.

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ORIGINAL: JeffBC

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ORIGINAL: JstAnotherSub
In a perfect world, I would agree with this 100%, but, you can not take a brain that has not been stimulated to learn for the first few years of its life and magically make it learn, no matter how great of a teacher you are.

Again, I totally agree with this which is why money isn't the answer. But I gotta tell you that there were marked differences in attitude between the people I worked with in my job and the teachers I interacted with regards my kids. I could talk about lots of less important things like, for instance, actually attending scheduled meetings... but in my head the biggest thing goes something like this:
Where I worked people didn't want to hear excuses they wanted to hear about success. The entire culture was focused that way. Incentive systems were deep. Even sticky problems got attacked with vigor because doing anything else would be unthinkable within the culture.

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That said, I do believe that anyone working for a public school system should be there first and foremost because they love children. If they show, by their words or attitude that they are there just to bring home a paycheck, I would kick their asses to the curb.

Not me. I don't really give a rat's ass what their motivations are. What I care about is success.... real and tangible results. If they're only succeeding because of greed I'm down with that.

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ORIGINAL: cordeliasub

First, I almost never joined the teacher's union because...well, in my state they are just political lobbyists who whine all the time.

That being said. I worked a ten month contract....and my pay for that ten months of work was PRORATED over 12 months. They spread out the ten months' of pay over the whole year. THAT is why I got a paycheck every month. I got to school before 7 a.m. every morning, spent almost every weekend doing SOMETHING at the school, worked at home, and went to professional development and seminars and system mandated teacher training during the summer. Most teacher have 25 or more students in their classes, several of whom may have IEP's, all of whom learn at slightly different levels with different learning styles. There will also be the kids with actual behavior disroders and then the kids who seem like they have behavior disorders because no one has ever told them no. There are the gifted kids who get looked over because "hey, they're smart so they'll get it - the teacher can just give them extra stuff to do." In addition to planning lessons, teaching lessons, grading papers and projects, and managing a classroom without the benefit of most of the disciplinary tools WE all grew up with (because it might damage self-esteem), they attend meetings, do paperwork for assessments, give repeated assessments, are evaluated several times yearly, meet with parents, pay for the kid's field trip whose parents won't, buy a coat for the kid who doesn't have anything to wear except his big sister's hand-me-down pink and purple one, clean the roaches outof another kid's backpack, explain to the helicopter mom why her baby didn't get the lead in the third grade play......mend boo boo's, listen to Suzy cry because her parents are getting a divorce, share her lunch with Tommy - who never has one.

I am a teacher. I love kids. I love when their eyes light up because they get it. I love when the kid you had to stay on top of for throwing a book across the room, asks if he can eat lunch with you because he is glad someone finally gave him limits. I love the creativity and excitement they have. I love it when they get into a heated debate over The Declaration of Independence and forget they are "studying" because it is so much fun. I love it, and I didn't gp into it to get rich.

But I am sick of people who wouldn't make it one WEEK in a room full of kids deriding what I do. 99% of the teachers I know pour blood, sweat, and tears into every kid they teach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpog1_NFd2Q

After more closely reading a few of the responses and not just the OP, I have to add a question....

Do we REALLY want to see our CHILDREN as products? I mean, do we really want to treat them like ipads or pie charts or quarterly reports? Let's get real....we are talking children. Not inanimate objects. Anyone who knows anything about either children or education knows you cannot apply some dry business model to the minds of growing human beings. I believe every child CAN learn and every child CAN progress......I do not believe that every single child in every school building in America can read on grade level by third grade. I do not believe every child can pass advanced algebra (I mean actually doing unmodified work). Not every kid is going to start on the football team. not every child will write an award winning essay. Children have different intelligences, and until we stop looking at a bubbled-in high stkes test and start looking at our kids....we aren't going to get it.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML
~FR~
Doncha think the article cited in the OP was a spoof? Seemed intentionally ludicrous. Have a look at the web site.

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ORIGINAL: ElChupa

Take any big city school district and look at the performance. Tell me why these teachers should still have a job. Of course, one good reason to keep them is their forced union dues end up in democrat party coffers. Having been raised in Michigan, I can tell you I was stunned, shocked, and delighted that they went right to work. Nothing like a frothing union thug to entertain. Threatening "there will be blood." Now is that the kind of civil discourse we can expect more of from these caring democrats?