In article .com,
"Wayne Knight" wrote:

Jeff Miller wrote:
i'm ashamed to say that a 1st year teacher with a masters
degree and all proper teaching credentials in my city's schools has a

starting pay of a little over 29k...and it takes 20 years before
he/she
can expect to earn over 40k.


Working 10 months out of the year, 29K would equate to 35K for the rest
of us. Not a bad start, when you consider how relatively easy it is to
obtain an education degree and the lack of real knowledge on a subject
needed to *teach* it in some states, it is not unrealistic to expect
lowered salaries. (Please note i did not say teachers did not *know*
their subjects in all cases)

Elementary and Secondary education is not the noble profession many
folks make it out to be. Can some teachers make a difference in some
kid's life, of course. it still does not the whole profession noble.

You want to raise teacher salaries? Raise the bar to get in.

Wayne
I might have left this alone if I wasn't writing checks to the IRS and
state today after receiving my property tax bill yesterday.

You should have.

Let's look at some other things about teaching...

Out of that "not a bad start", you are required to take continuing education
courses... of course, you don't get PAID to take them, like in most other
professions... they're out of your own pocket. And of course they're only
available during the summertime. So much for that "10 months of the year" job.

You spend several hours a night grading papers, recording grades, writing lesson
plans, creating classroom materials, reading background material, correcting
textbooks, reading professional journals, contacting parents, other teachers,
administrators... So much for that "8 to 3" job...

You buy extra supplies (just little things like classroom materials for 30 kids,
extra reading material for the kids, all those little extras that make a
classroom more than an empty box with students in it) out of your own pocket, to
the tune of several thousand dollars a year (We have the receipts to prove
it...) So much for that "not a bad start"...

Any attempt to maintain classroom discipline is met with angry calls from
parents denying that their little darlings would EVER do anything disruptive
(despite the fact the the little "darling" has spent more time suspended than in
the classroom), and the fact that due to a few bad apples, a teacher can't even
hug a crying student on the playground anymore. Of course, the parents are
completely ignorant of the fact that if you let the TV raise the kids for the
first 6 years, there's almost nothing that a school can do to rescue them.

Not to mention the fact that anytime a school levy comes up, you have to act
like a beggar, pleading for the community to pass it so you will have a job the
next year.

Then you've got the school board that keeps the number of teachers as low as
possible, so that you're constantly at a load that is ONE student short of the
number that would require them to assign you an aide... and you're working with
special ed students that all have different needs, and writing 12 highly
detailed individual lesson plans a week (over the course of a year, over 1000
pages worth!).

On top of all that, after years and years of teaching in the highest stress
field, you're thrown out without even a gold watch when the strain gets to be
too much, with completely inadequate counselling and assistance available.

I was a substitute teacher for 2 years, and taught music for 7 years. I was a
profesional musician for over 30 years, and have 2 recordings to my credit. I
bacame a Mr. Mom after my son was born because it was clear there was no future
in teaching, and have made more money in retail hell than I ever did in
education. My wife taught "special needs" students (ages to 13, highest
functioning at about 2-3 grade)for 25 years. You clearly have NO idea what
teaching is really like. You probably wouldn't survive a week in an elementary
classroom, and a high school basic math or English class would eat you alive in
an hour.

Think about this - those taxes you pay aren't for the kids you may or may not
have in school any more, they're payments on the credit you were extended for
the education YOU received, and still use.

So go ahead and **** and moan about your taxes. Poor baby.

--
"What it all comes to is that the whole structure of space flight as it
stands now is creaking, obsolecent, over-elaborate, decaying. The field is
static; no, worse than that, it's losing ground. By this time, our ships
ought to be sleeker and faster, and able to carry bigger payloads. We ought
to have done away with this dichotomy between ships that can land on a planet,
and ships that can fly from one planet to another." - Senator Bliss Wagoner
James Blish - _They Shall Have Stars_