I was a bit irritated this morning by one of the critics of my latest Huffington Post blog, "Kick Me, I'm a Public School Teacher."
The comment simply said, "How about contributing more to your enhanced benefits?"
Apparently, there is nothing wrong with the politicians who are eliminating our benefits and degrading our profession left and right to earn hefty pensions for as little as two years in office, but when it comes to public school teachers, it is open season.
This is my response:
Enhanced benefits? There may be a few places that have those, but in Missouri, we have the following enhanced benefits:
1. We are not eligible for tenure until after we have taught five years and if we move to another school district to receive more money after two or three years, we have to wait another five years to be eligible.
2. We have a good retirement benefit, but in order to receive it, we have to pay far more than other workers pay into Social Security.
3. Many of our schools offer weak health insurance packages with high deductibles and extremely expensive coverage for other family members. In addition, the percentage we pay each year of the cost has increased at the same time that coverage has been scaled back.
4. Missouri teachers do not have collective bargaining.
5. Beginning teachers in this state can be paid as little as $24,000. Teachers in most schools with long years of experience and advanced degrees are barely making $40,000, if that.
6. The Missouri Career Ladder program was eliminated by the state last year forcing many veteran teachers to take a pay cut of from $1,500 to $5,000 a year. This will not be replaced. The lost money, in addition to impacting monthly budgets, also decreases our retirement benefits.
7. For the lucky teachers who still have a job, many are working for less with added responsibilities.
Some benefits.
4 comments:
It's not much better in Oklahoma, where my wife teaches. I can't even describe how angry I get when I hear people talking about teachers like they are welfare queens. It's just...beyond infuriating. If I had to encapsulate it into a word, I think it would be volcanic. My rage on this subject is volcanic.
I'm with you, Randy, all the way...
So the people who pay you i.e the TAXPAYERS should make do with less while the federal excuse for a government devalues our money, and meanwhile we actually pay into our pensions but those losses should not affect you. We should pay you more when we have less, correct? Of course we get 3 months off from work too (but for us that is after we receive a pink slip). You should be thankful you have a job at all, oh wait...a government job and free pension are guaranteed Constitutional rights now aren't they...along with welfare and public housing too!
Have you ever considered that taxpayers who pay your bills find your failure to even acknowledge who you work for repulsive. We are sick of being taken advantage of by public employee unions who negotiate with corrupt politicians over how to dole out ever increasing sums of our money. You talk about tenure as though everyone in the workforce gets tenure. Guess what: IN THE REAL WORLD, TENURE GROWS IN THE FIELDS FERTILIZED BY UNICORN DROPPINGS!!! We all pay for our 401Ks, insurance and even medical bills. Until you stand up to your unions for the rest of us who actually pay you, you are just as responsible for the financial destruction of this country as the "welfare queens". The fact is, resentment over this from those who actually pay you is far more volcanic than you think. The whole concept of public employee unionization is founded on a conflict of interest. Add to that the union bosses are up to their necks in politics that we don't necessarily support and you get angry taxpayers like myself.
If public workers want to unionize then they should be willing to give up their right to vote and NO taxpayer funded union dues should go towards political campaigns.
Here is where you should consider the old adage about biting the hand that feeds you as you hold your head in shame and pray that the bleeding from damage done stops or there will not be a hand that feeds you at all. Does finding a real job in the private sector sound appealing right now?
The real answer to the question laid out in the title to your post is the BECAUSE THE TAXPAYERS DO!!!!
Well, I was going to tel you how my Republican friends feel but never mind, Andrew-the-asshole has done it for me Randy.
The only part he left out was how the people who can afford to pay for education should get a quality education for their kids and the others should not. I've heard that more than once from the conservatives I know. Of course, you understand, eliminating taxes for schools is a must and would save millions.
Andrew, I got two words for you and they aren't "happy birthday".
FY
-Angelfire-
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