Highest paid teachers strike again!

a reply to: Bluntone22

Yep. Thanks a lot, No Child Left Behind. It's as useless now as Affirmative Action.

After 5 years, Chicago teachers get paid $61,800.
That’s w/ summers off.
Chicago teachers work an average of 180 days/ yr.
That doesn’t include sick/ personal days, minimum of which is 12/ yr, the more years worked, the more you accrue.

Do the math, and you find that Chicago teachers work, at most, 168 days a yr.
averaging just over 2 days a week over the entire year.

a reply to: Oaktree

But to hear them, they all work until 10 at night and hold a second job to make ends meet. I mean, FFS, live within your effing means like everyone else does! Every family photo I saw when I researched the teachers who were complaining was on a nice beach or in another country or in front of a huge house in a gated community. If they'd be themselves and stop trying to keep up with the Jones's then their salaries would be more than enough.

Simple solution. Get rid of summer vacation and holidays for them. Then they'll see more money.

originally posted by: Oaktree
After 5 years, Chicago teachers get paid $61,800.
That’s w/ summers off.
Chicago teachers work an average of 180 days/ yr.
That doesn’t include sick/ personal days, minimum of which is 12/ yr, the more years worked, the more you accrue.

Do the math, and you find that Chicago teachers work, at most, 168 days a yr.
averaging just over 2 days a week over the entire year.

That's a pretty slick deal. I'd settle for $60k a year with summers off.

a reply to: dfnj2015

What inflated gasoline prices? I am paying 2.49 a gallon, and I think that's quite reasonable.

The tax rate on gasoline is ridiculous in some areas.

Teachers deserve more than they are paid. Their work is worth at least 30/hr, and should venture much higher. Their job is much more intensive and involves much stronger and more intelligent people than college professors, who get paid more for doing less work and easier jobs.

But, like most things in our society, people believe more money should go to the things they value more, and Americans OBVIOUSLY don’t value education, or their kids futures. So naturally they feel those providing those things are over paid. They also don’t value labor or working class “entry level” jobs, as if a massive chunk of our work sector is not “entry level”. In fact, seems the only thing they value are CEOs, constructs of authority, and militarism. Oh, and rich people. This is clear because those are the areas they always support ridiculous salaries and tax decreases.

It’s very clear what most of y’all want. Drop bottom wages for the vast majority of working Americans. No limits on price fixing or price gouging. Privatization of all utilities, resources, etc. Unfettered power for corporations and capital. Why don’t y’all just move to Columbia or Honduras where you can have all of that and more??

a reply to: Bluntone22

I have a hunch that it's not just political stupidity, but a lot of corruption. IL keeps raising taxes and somehow the state is still doing bad...

Teachers have a crazy hard job, no doubt, I can say that unequivocally. Just like any other person working in the real world, if you want more money, then the work you do has to match the amount you think you deserve. They're a lot of awesome teachers out there, some probably a few years out of college, and passionate about what they feel they've been called to do. But on the other hand, they're just as many teachers who are way past their prime, and are dragging down the rest. You shouldn't be able to hold on an extra ten years past your expiration just to collect more money from your pension. There needs to exist a way to weed out the bad, clear up that room on the payroll and use it to reward the great ones.

Paying a bunch of greedy liberal teachers more money will not grant any kids there a better education. These people already act like everyone owes them money and housing, and paying them more AGAIN won't stop them from asking for more later.

If they get what they want they will be even more pompous and smug than before.

Right. Cause all the people falling over themselves to get teaching careers let’s the schools pick the cream of the crop, right? Sorry, but the myth of meritocracy and the idea that we are paid based off of ability and productivity really need to be laid to rest. Are you guys teachers?? If not then you have no clue what the job entails. And really no basis to have any valid opinion on what they should get paid. There’s no market for teachers, and there’s no price to performance evaluation involved in their salary, just as theirs none in any of your salaries. No one sits down with me and says, “well pexx421, your productivity has earned us an increased 20% return on your labor year over year, so we’re going to bump your pay up 10%” and neither do the employers of the 77% of non management Americans working in the service sector.

Instead it’s the same old “we have made more profit than ever before! But we can’t afford to give you a raise, or at least not one that even matches inflation. And we will need you to do the secretaries job too! That will push our profit even higher. “

a reply to: pexx421

Actually that's almost exactly how I personally get raises and make more money, though it's less about making the company money. It's more about making good decisions for the company which save the company time and money. I don't see why we should pay a teacher who cracks a text book and reads directly from it the same or more than one who put time and effort into her teaching plan.

a reply to: pexx421

and Americans OBVIOUSLY don’t value education

Americans value education. We value it so much that we tie our own houses to it through property taxes. Very few places in the world do that.

What we do not value is waste. Just because a person is a teacher, does not make them a good teacher.

Their job is much more intensive and involves much stronger and more intelligent people than college professors,

That is pretty funny, and I bet there are a lot of college professors that would love to debate you on that.

a reply to: pexx421

And saying that I'm not a teacher, therefore I shouldn't be able to have an opinion on the issue is a cop out. that's like me telling you that you have no business criticizing the president, because you've never been in his shoes and therefore don't understand.

a reply to: Oppositeoftruth

I didn’t say you couldn’t have an opinion. I said it wouldn’t be valid. You have no clue what you are talking about. We all have very clear ideas about what different jobs entail, even if we’ve never done them. I believe that all those ideas are vastly incorrect.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: pexx421

and Americans OBVIOUSLY don’t value education

Americans value education. We value it so much that we tie our own houses to it through property taxes. Very few places in the world do that.

What we do not value is waste. Just because a person is a teacher, does not make them a good teacher.

Their job is much more intensive and involves much stronger and more intelligent people than college professors,

That is pretty funny, and I bet there are a lot of college professors that would love to debate you on that.

Haha! I just had to quote this!! “What we don’t value is waste”!!! This coming from the most wastefully nation in the world! It’s so rich! We have actually built disposable into our business models. Waste creates a nice chunk of our economic plans, from planned obsolescence to massive landfills full of cars that didn’t sell, so we threw them away. Too funny! “What we don’t value is waste”. Haha. Thanks!

a reply to: JAGStorm

I am ignorant of this strike in the US , has the US government or the state put their pay on freeze for 10 years like in the UK ?
or is it just because they are greedy and want more so are striking ?

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: JAGStorm

I am ignorant of this strike in the US , has the US government or the state put their pay on freeze for 10 years like in the UK ?
or is it just because they are greedy and want more so are striking ?

It’s different from job to job and place to place. In hospitals, where I work, there was about a 6 year gap with no raises, and now we are starting to see raises again at 2-3% a year. Less than inflation but better than nothing. Generally for us you have to switch jobs every few years to get your pay increase. Prior to that it was 5% a year.

a reply to: pexx421

thats insane ,, I dont really understand it all in the states, as you guys dont have the NHS like we do , so not sure , are all hospitals privately owned ?

are there any state run hospitals ?

nurses here in the UK have been on a 10 year pay freeze like all government workers, none of us have had a pay rise in 10 years


Id hate to think id need to apply for a new job every 5 years just to keep up with inflation

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: pexx421

thats insane ,, I dont really understand it all in the states, as you guys dont have the NHS like we do , so not sure , are all hospitals privately owned ?

are there any state run hospitals ?

nurses here in the UK have been on a 10 year pay freeze like all government workers, none of us have had a pay rise in 10 years


Id hate to think id need to apply for a new job every 5 years just to keep up with inflation

The vast majority are privately owned or non profit. Some are state run, not many anymore. Some are school affiliated or owned by insurance companies. And it’s pretty funny because they use the economic collapse as an excuse why they can’t give us raises, and yet they make more profit every year than they were prior to 08. Because it’s all a farce.

So, if you stay at one job you will get maybe 2-3% raise per year. Whereas when you switch jobs they will normally offer you their base pay plus 4-5% per year of experience. Oh, and it gets better. Occasionally they will do a “market adjustment” like every decade or so. When they do, they will bump up the pay of new hires, sometimes by 5-10/hr. But often they won’t bump up the wages of people already working there! So you’ve been at the job some 5-7 years getting you’re 2% each year, then comes in some new hire with way less experience making more than you. Some hospitals do it like that, some don’t.

So where I’m at, the pay for prn just about doubled. Well, from 25/hr to 40/hr after the recent market adjust.