Wisconsin’s Teachers: Betraying Students, Robbing Taxpayers
The average salary of a Milwaukee public school teacher is $56,500. But factor in the enormous benefits packages, including health care and pensions, and the annual average compensation is $100,005! In spite of such well-compensated instructors, and per-pupil spending higher any other Midwestern state, two thirds of Wisconsin 8th graders cannot read at a proficient level, according to 2009 data from the U.S. Department of Education. Twenty-two percent, or nearly one in four students, cannot even read at a “basic” level. True, that is slightly higher than the national average — but what a pathetically weak average it is! An atrocious 30 percent of 8th graders nationwide are “proficient” readers.
In spite of this dismaying record, Wisconsin’s teachers had the temerity to walk off the job en masse in protest of Walker’s proposals, flock by the thousands to the capitol in Madison, and force the closure of schools throughout the state. Of course, though they declined to teach while protesting their right to bankrupt the state, they were still collecting their salary. As reported by the MacIver Institute:
In Madison, the school district was closed for three days after hundreds of teachers engaged in a mass sick-out so they could attend protest rallies at the State Capitol. That could cost the district $2.7 million […]. If all the teachers in Milwaukee and Madison are paid for the days missed, the protest related salaries for just the state’s two largest districts would exceed $6.6 million dollars.
American public-sector workers have become more loyal to their unions than to the state, just as Roman soldiers became loyal to generals instead of the Senate. It’s the corruption that comes, and always will come, when one class of citizens is given privileged access to the public purse.
Remember this song? (esp the last lines…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IudPPlBmJs4
At one time I too looked at the unions with contempt. Then I grew up. I entered the workforce in a Right To Work State and At-Will Employment. Now I am middle-aged and I have learned one thing from all of this. Working without benefits or job protection is not going to provide prosperity for anyone except the business owner.
Thinking back to the troublesome mischief myself and others participated in as a youth and the patience shown towards me and my fellow classmates by our teachers, administrators and staff while in school and I am happy to say that $100,000 after benefits in today’s economy is pretty fair for a wage. Too bad that wage is not true of ALL educators. The wages are set by the state and adjusted for cost of living differences in many states. Milwaukee, Wisconsin has a higher cost of living index than Rhinelander, Wisconsin for example.
The issue I have is the exorbitant amount official in the school districts are paid. These are the bureaucrats that often receive salaries at the level of hundreds of thousands of dollars in many larger cities.
Trim the fat at that end of the steak first and then come talk about further cuts across the government wards.
Heaven forbid an elementary school teacher might have to drive a Ford Escort to work. Mercedes or strike.
Many teachers do drive Ford Focuses to school and there is nothing wrong with that. However the majority of the teachers that I know also have at least one other job just in order to keep food on the table. I have been teaching for 12 years and my take home pay doesn’t even equal $30,000. Yes, I will have a good retirement when I retire, but I pay 14% out of every paycheck into my retirement. Incase you don’t know that is higher than my federal and state taxes combined. I lose $1200 out of every paycheck for deductions and most of that is not my choice. While I don’t believe in striking cause that isn’t good for the students and they are why we teach. I do believe in liveable wages. Oh yes we do get pay raises every year. I think this year was $200 a year more. Divide that by 12 months and and then deduct the taxes and retirement and see what is left. Please check your facts.
As a teacher, your arithmetic is a little rust. The divisor is no 12, it’s 9, but actually should be less than that, because the school year is only 180 days, and there are a lot of teacher days,conference days, and teacher meeting days that are partial days off.
The complaints aren.t really about salaries, it’s about value and paying poor teachers to be an office clerk or stay home because they can’t be laid off or fired. That, plus the fact that they’re not innovating, to develop more effective processes. They just keep doing the same old things, that don’t produce educated kids. That’s a fact!
And those fatcat and usually unnecessary administrators are ALSO unionized.
Where else will you find management in the union?
“Working without benefits or job protection is not going to provide prosperity for anyone except the business owner.”
Not only that. Employees across the nation are now depending on 401Ks for retirement. But 401Ks were never meant to replace pensions, and their adoption by employers is the biggest sleight-of-hand ever perpetrated on the American worker. As a result, millions of workers will NEVER have enough to retire.
The 401(k) forces people to be responsible for their own retirement. What is the problem with that? We’ve invested 10% of our income towards retirement for over 25 years now. It’s not that hard. We don’t need Big Brother Employer or Big Brother America to do it for us.
My husband actually has a pension from one employer but is too young to draw it. However, we’ve planned our retirement without that pension and without Social Security–both will be long gone by the time we retire.
The problem arises when you use the word “plan.” Planning implies the ability to make rational choices and prepare for an uncertain future. That implies the intellect to make these decisions. Today’s teachers want government to remove all uncertainty and guarantee a secure future.
Notice that some of the comments about this article concern the student’s disruption of the classroom and how someone should be compensated for dealing with that problem. In effect, they are saying–we have to put up with your children 5 days a week/9 months (approximately) a year. Few address the issue raised in the article that a significant portion of students cannot read at acceptable levels. Without saying it, the inference is that students are not able to function in an academic environment. Or, more to the point, a weak academic environment is established and the youth disrupt it. While the teachers are dealing with the incivility of today’s youth, they are not teaching the courses they were hired to teach. It requires strong, dedicated teachers to control and teach in today’s classroom–unions do not encourage this type of teacher (too independant–they don’t need the union).
When you don’t perform your duties, you should not be paid–the antithesis of union thinking. The purpose of teacher’s unions is to retain incompetent teachers and collect a good chunk of change from all teachers (good or bad) to guarantee their job. Rather than the focus of our educational system being on the student it has become a haven for the least quailified to hide and make false claims about educating young people (research clearly shows that among people who enter the social sciences, physical sciences, business, engineering, and education, the group with the lowest IQ are in education). Thus, we hand over our most precious commodity–our children–to the least intelligent segment of college majors–education.
I have worked in a right to work state and found that pay and benefits are approximately the same as those in union states. The difference is that I make my own decisions and don’t pay part of my check to a corrupt and corrupting machine. If you really want to see what unions have done for workers in this country look at the number of jobs that are leaving the US. The unions can claim that it is the evil owners and managers who are moving the jobs but, if it is in their best interst, they would stay if they could. In effect, they have taken the decision to go or stay out of the owner’s hands and made the decision for them by making exhorbatant demands. Shared governance and shared decision making is the goal of all unions. Congratulations–you have achieved your goal. Now you have to live with the consequences.
You are so right, but as usual they will not listen. The system has been corrupted by the politicans who over the years have perpetuated this financial ponzi scheme with the unions, Noone thought it would come to a head so soon, but here we are broke and close to having the whole thing collapse.Either these p[eople come to the table willing and ready to give back what they never should have recieved or they can be fired. What a sad state crooked progressive politicans have brought us to.
right from the marxist playbook …you have learned well worker.
Thank goodness our educational system is light years ahead of the rest of the world. If it wasn’t, then compensation twice the national average simply wouldn’t be worth it.
When you get right down to it, is even $100K enough? Shouldn’t teachers be given 2-month all-expenses paid vacations in Paris, Rome, Greece and other educational destinations during the 3-months when they aren’t working.
And don’t get me going about the coffee. In stome state, teachers still have to pay for work-hour Starbucks on their own dime. What could be more outrageous than that?
What happened to personal responsibility? Your retirement should not be the responsibility of the state in the first place. The twisting of social security into a retirement fund instead of what is was supposed to be (supplemental retirement income), the addition of pension benefits to public workers, and unions taking dues and using them to get more socialists elected so they get even more public money for doing less and less is exactly what got the states (and fed) into this position. It’s time to kill all GOVERNMENT unions. It’s a conflict of interest and outright theft. Either kill the unions, or publicly funded workers should not be allowed to vote and the unions should be barred from ANY political donations.
Let’s clarify publicly funded workers: anyone who works for an entity with taxing authority. While I do have an issue with the entire concept of a quasi-public entity, I nevertheless recognize there is a distinction between a public university and a public school. While both receive taxpayer money to fund operations, only the latter has taxing authority; the former receives appropriations at the whim of the State Legislature without any input in the process, and while it would be best to sever the connection, there is no conflict of interest in a union negotiating with an elected board of regents that has no power to tax.
So you think $100k is a fair wage for everyone. Would that include the private sector? And if so, who determines that? If revenue from its products doesn’t support such wages, would you expect a private business to just lose money? Whose money should it lose?
If a business raises its prices beyond those set by the free market in order to pay higher salaries, then it won’t sell as much and will have to lay off workers. You could try to let the “State” set prices so that these higher wages can be paid – but the rest of the world won’t go along and if your private sector job is dependent on exports, don’t expect to hang on to it under such price controls. And even if you believe that the USA can function as a closed economy through tariffs, etc., if everyone gets higher wages and all domestic product and service prices go up in proportion, then where is the net benefit?
The bottom line is that the only reason that public employees can get these exorbitant salaries and benefits is because the rest of us – on the average – don’t. If we were all “treated” the same way, price inflation would wipe out everyone’s wage gains and foreign businesses would eat our lunch in global markets. Our economic system would collapse like the USSR or Cuba.
But, hey, I guess you guys “deserve” whatever you say you deserve.
Speaking of fatcats, Brian…
$480 grand, Brian… heck of a salary for a union boss, hmmm? Especially when the AFSCME is actually the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which includes employees in Wisconsin.
And then there’s the NEA:
So, you’re right… let’s trim the fat… and cut the union boss’ paychecks before asking the teachers… which is to say, the taxpayers… to cough up more in dues.
You’re absolutely correct! ALL unions are socialist card-members and an extension of the old organized protection mafia’s and more recent historys corrupt crime mafia’s. Education [bureaucrats] have spent 60 years destroying America’s traditional education that gave us the folks who raised up America to its highest pinnacles of greatness. Folks have the ignorant conception that only by union membership can you successfuly negotiate and in some instances [demand] changes from an employer. Union advocates and education bureaucrats virtually legislate education today…not the professional classroom teachers. Classroom teachers are simply used and abused by those morons for objectives that has nothing to do with education.
Look at the trillions of dollars thrown at education by these morons over the past 60 years as education results systemically decline year by year. Successful education ‘investment’ has never been among their objectives!
In our local district three years ago they built an $8.2M BOE palace in which only 1/3 of the total floor space is occupied. While teachers have been on involuntary furlough days to the average of $3K per year, the BOE highed two sets of administrators for schools not yet built nor probably never will be built….bought a 12 year old defunct college campus for school and community arts use….added a staff of 9 more non classroom bureaucrat educator specialist some of which have no education experience or certification….and the list goes on. Did I mention this is for a county with a population of 40K including the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division base?
Teachers and students are lab rats at the bottom of the educational chain!
You’re not getting paid to be patient with students, you’re getting paid to educate them. Depending on how how well you’re doing the latter, $10K/year may be exorbitant, much less $100K.
Myself, I’ve found that working without benefits or job protection can provide a reasonable bit of prosperity if one’s labor is, you know, actually valuable and effective. Garbage in, garbage out.
While you have been attacked for this post, know that I too had the same experience because of no union protection. There are those who think, as did the Romans cited above, that slavery is the optimal system: no pay, nothing but profit.
Yeah… because slavery and extortion are the only two options on tab. God forbid there could exist a system where employee provides a service to an employer, who pays the former what it’s worth to the latter.
It’s hard to understand why such arrangements seem unreal to certain people. One’s tempted to infer that such people might have nothing much to offer an employer, and imagine that the boss only wants slaves, unable to grasp that what he really wants is the foreign concepts of value and competence. But that would be uncharitable, I guess.
Mr. Grimmer has identified the elephant in the living room — administrative salaries. Proportional to teachers’ salaries, they consume a huge chunk of taxpayer monies. (Viz.: this link — http://tinyurl.com/bug2rm )
On top of that, are union salaries/costs, which are astronomical. (Viz.: this link — http://tinyurl.com/ng23at ) Note this link addresses only the National Education Association. American Federation of Teachers’ numbers, while smaller, undoubtedly add yet more to the pot. And further note how very little actually goes to rank-and-file union members.
It is crystal clear this has to stop. Public collective bargaining must end in its current form.
That is your experience but I have worked in both union and non union jobs and I would NEVER work in a union shop again. They steal your money, do nothing but make deals that will put more money in their corrupt pockets. How come you have a problem with the very people that put their money and homes at risk to provide you with a paycheck but have no problem with a union that forces you to pay money for services that only make the union bosses richer???? The stress of working under the watchful eye and fist of the union boss was more than I could stand. When working in a non union shop the employee and the employer had a partnering relationship that was not allowed to take place in a union shop. Non union shops KNOW they have to pay competitively or they will not have a work force. If they do not pay competitive pay and benefits the turn over will cost them more in the long run. Again, you are speaking from an point of view that lacks intelligence and knowledge . You are speaking from a singularly personal point of view. Most of the people I know would never work in a union shop if they could help it.
your thoughts and references don’t seem related to a serious discussion
of public sector unions.
I agree, I was in the CarpentersUnion and beleive that unions are essensional for the working man but NOT in Goverment Jobs. As FDR (the most union president) said, “government cannot be unionized because then they would go on strike parallyzing the country” these teachers and other government unions in Wisconsin have had a gravytrain for 52 years now and it is time to Stop It, Now before this whole country goes down the toilet just like the Romans!
You should become an employer and then pay all your employees twice the going rate and make a million yourself. Ignorance is bliss!
Every teacher that shows a bogus doctors slip stating they were out sick and are proven to have been on the picket lines should be fired immediately with no recourse. Then if they have received pay for their absence, they should be required to repay the monies they have stolen and or, taken to court for fraud and theft from the system that paid them
Yes, the USA is going the way of Rome in every aspect of our culture. The USA has been dumbed down by Teachers and Hollywood and the Politicians Have Made It All Possible.
I beg to differ. The voters have made it all possible.
In Wisconsin, union leaders agreed to concessions requested by Mr. Walker: to pay nearly 6 percent of their wages for pension costs, up from nearly zero, and double payments for health insurance. At that point, most governors would declare victory and move on. Instead, Mr. Walker has rejected union concessions and won’t even negotiate. His true priority is stripping workers of collective-bargaining rights and reducing their unions to a shell. The unions would no longer be able to raise money to oppose him, as they did in last year’s election, easing the way for future Republicans as well.
Well, duh. Because if benefits remain within the CBA ambit, the same crap will happen over and over and over again. Unlike salarty, which has to be funded in the here and now, it’s far too easy for elected officials to make unfunded promises for the future without the wherewithal to pay for them down the road.
Although, mind you, shutting down the union-Democrat money-pump isn’t a bad thing: nothing more nor less than a mechanism for filling Democrat campaign chests with taxpayers’ money.
So the teachers get to suffer because of a failing of the legislature?
Yes, its easier to keep the budget balanced by keeping the public workers from ever bargaining. However the problem isn’t that teachers are bargaining too well or from too strong a position its the fact that the government side of the bargaining gives in too easily. So why not deal with the real problem and create incentives for legislators to actually deal intelligently with the current and FUTURE budgets.
the problem is that the confiscated funds from the private sector and taxpayers goes to the “hiring” of the legislators that “cave in” to the unions
it is a cycle of s— that wont end unless it is ripped apart
create incentives for the legislators? wth is that? you mean like they wont be physically ripped out of office by the citizens and tarred and feathered and left to bask in the heat of a wisconsin summer?
That wouild mean barring all Democrats from public office; they have every incentive in the world to keep cycling the maximum amount of taxpayer money through the union cash-pump.
Barb, do you think it is healthy or right that a significant portion of your union dues are supporting far-left politicians like Obama, Reid, and Pelosi?
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Like it’s something short of an all-time GREAT thing.
Others have commented on “pay for performance”… if the kids aren’t being educated, then the teachers shouldn’t be paid. On that same scale, has Obama earned his $200k-for-life presidential pension? I think not.
“For decades, public-sector unions have used their influence to help elect their own bosses and demand lavish pension and health care benefits. The result is 44 states facing an estimated budgetary shortfall of $125 billion.”
Well, don’t worry, our president will be only too happy to bail the states out, ESPECIALLY if it means helping the pension plans of the union workers who keep getting you elected, right Barry O? But the problem is that the Repbulicans now control the House of Representatives and could take over the Senate in 2012, so a massive bailout for the states, even if we could afford it (which we can’t) is not in the cards for Obama. Sure stinks when you lose elections, doesn’t it Mr. President?
The person to watch, though, is Ben Bernanke. Maybe the states will go directly to the Federal Reserve for a loan? Don’t laugh. Ben Bernanke was the same person who just about a year ago said we would NOT be buying our own debt. Now we are. So why is it such a stretch to think that Bernanke will come across with the cash in order to prevent another depression within the states, especially big states like New York, California (which is basically broke), and Illinois? The Fed could by-pass Congress and just give the states the money. If it does, Congress becomes irrelevant and inflation will explode.
Somehow I doubt Congress will cheerfully accept being rendered irrelevant. If Bernanke pulled a stunt like that, Congressman and Senator Paul would find themselves with a lot of support for their joint resolution to abolish the Federal Reserve.
Public employees have become the second estate. A petty nobility that guards it’s privileges through direct and indirect political action. Unions don’t care about the customer and that is on full display in Madison.
Bingo. The EU court in Brussels has been called the “New Versailles,” and we’re approaching something like that here.
Two thirds of Wisconsin’s 8th graders cannot read proficiently, yet they believe they are worth this kind of pay and benefits.
Walker should have been hammering them on that from day one. Why are we paying you this kind of money for demonstrable incompetence?
Any school teacher who can be identified in the videos of the protests, and who called in sick, is guilty of fraud and should be fired and prosecuted for that fraud.
good idea…never gonna happen. No one involved has the balls.
Prosecution costs money- far more money than they lost on this nonsense. Just fire their asses and let them stew in their rage. They’ll scream and shout, but they’re already doing that, so who cares? If nobody can be found to replace them (and I doubt that’s the case), hire them back as substitutes and pay them per diem, no benefits.
“American public-sector workers have become more loyal to their unions than to the state”
Simple solution: lay them off and let’s see how good those union benifits really are. They say they are brothers in arms. Time to test the theory in practice.
It’s ironic that in betraying their mission, they’re actually giving their students the best civics lesson possible: how union politics and a me-first attitude can bankrupt a state and gridlock the democratic process.
In the early ’70s, I was in school in a suburb of LA. As an 8th grader, there was a state wide test (don’t remember why, was young)to assess reading proficiency.
As an 8th grader, I tested out as reading at an 11th grade level. Although in fairness, I actually read novels for recreation (the ones my parents read).
I was tested again in 11th grade, and then assessed as reading at the level of a junior in college.
I graduated, but no good college considered my grades high enough to merit admission (I had heard the term, but didn’t even know what an SAT test was until getting out of school). So I went the military route, and tested out in the top 5%. I had an IQ in the 130 range. I ended up in the cryptography/communication/intelligence fields in the Navy.
Our schools kind of sucked, and definitely did a poor job in preparing me for academics beyond the high school level. But I was from a poor family, and the rich kids got all the help.
The only reason that I did as well as I did, was because I didn’t spend all my time staring, zombie like, into a TV for hours on end. We didn’t have video games. But we had books.
I will say that even back then, one of the things I remember most about classes in civics, psychology, history, sociology and the like, the teachers spent far too much time trying to impart ideology rather than knowledge about the subject matter (in the Vietnam and post Vietnam war era, the teachers became increasingly militant). It wasn’t until I went into the service (I thought I was a liberal until then. I actually had a biology teacher encourage us, including providing the forms, to join GreenPeace) that I started realizing how much mental fecal matter those teachers spewed on their captive audience.
A few years ago, I wrote my old algebra teacher to tell him that it took months of retraining so I could actually understand the subject that he presented in my class with him. He totally dismissed my criticism, and was unconcerned that I had struggled through his class. His defense was classic “I’m a great teacher. I’ve been teaching the same subject, in the same classroom, in the same school for 30 years”. I had another public school teacher tell me that it isn’t the teachers responsibility that a students learns, only that they present the learning material.
I feel bad for the kids. Screwed at home, screwed at school.
And then they get to go out and vote. So I guess I feel bad for the rest of us as well.
While I understand your pessimism, I can’t agree with your blanket indictment of teachers and parents. There is a high school near where I live that consistently tops the state wide test scores, and consistently produce a majority of graduates that are college ready. Many of those graduates receive scholarships in math and science. This is a rural school (think farmers), not monetarily rich, but rich in dedication of teachers at all levels and rich in involved parents. The demonstrators in WI are a very small percentage of the teachers in WI. We hear what the union thinks and wants, but the majority is unheard. Private sector unions that did what they set out to do, worked themselves out of a job and were happy to do so. The others have become criminal enterprises, the Teamsters, and the UAW to name two. Even the great socialist FDR felt that unions had NO PLACE in American society. Public sector unions are NOT the sole cause of the current calamity but they are the largest balloon to be popped. Do the hardest first, and move on to the next.
["I had another public school teacher tell me that it isn’t the teachers responsibility that a students learns, only that they present the learning material."]
Fact of the matter is, it is the teachers primary job to present the curriculum content within a number of common accepted modalities. Beyond that it is a ‘TEAM EFFORT’ concept of learning.
Teacher…student…parents….mentors!
Being more than a bit familiar with CA’s education system in the 70′s, you neglected to infrom the folks that CA had extensive networks of community/city colleges that were essentially free to residents…to better prepare students for core transfer programs for entry into college and university upper level study, and specialty developed AA/AS education tracks.
Just saying, students back then, as today, were equally responsible for achieving their educations. The tools, bad teachers or not, are there if you seek them! Maybe take a serious look at all of America’s early black achievers who attended education schools hardly the likes of an Ivy League Harvard or Yale….nor did they live in homes of educated families.
Excuses for individual irresponsiblity are like buttholes…everybody has at least one.
T.T. Thomas, while I agree with your assertion that education is a team effort, as I pointed out to JWill, it just isn’t that simple. In the late 60′s I was raising children in southern CA. The educational system was beginning to fray. Note the failure to educate suits of the late 70′s that CA lost. One of my children was having difficulty paying attention in class. Discussing the problem, I discovered that my child had been placed next to the window, about as far from the teacher, while remaining in the classroom. My suggestion that a location, away from the window and closer to the teacher seemed to be in order, was flatly rejected. The following summer I was transfered to Memphis TN. At the enrollment interview, the principal informed me, what I already knew, my child was not ready for the next grade and she had no option, to hold my child back, as I requested, Federal Law, you know! The next year and a half was hell, but with the aid of dedicated teachers and long hours of tough love from me, that child became an “A” student. That child is now a small business owner, with a six figure income, looking to expand. The point I am making here is a non-team member teacher or teachers can cause great havoc and sometime permanent disaster! A point to ponder 1964 was the last year that the SAT and ACT scores advanced. The decline was so great that both tests were re-calibrated a few years ago! Why is that? In 1964 a majority of the population did not have a high school diploma. then as now teachers were extremely important to positive outcomes.
Robert…I can appreciate your story. However, let me flip the coin over. Life is NOT fair nor are all people equal contrary to the socialist indoctrination. NO teacher has the personal or professional freedom to teach to the individual needs of 24/30 students per class for 50 minutes under the best of conditions….just as doctors seeing a different patient every 15 to 20 minutes often misdiagnose or fail to diagnose critical health issues that result in millions of deaths each year because diseases were not timely discovered and treated. As I ALWAYS say, until you’ve walked in the shoes of a teacher, especially an elementary teacher, few have any clue what it is to be a teacher today. Classroom teachers and students in most areas of the nation are nothing more than used and abused lab rats and day care centers in the chain of education. And we haven’t even begun to address all of the ‘problems’ of the inner city and military based school districts.
Something else to consider. Generally speaking 60% + of HS students with average to great GPA’s who go on to college do not progress beyond their freshman year academically. Should we blame the K-12 teachers for them also?
Sorry, but my generation, often referred to as the “Greatest Generation”, spawned the new generation that threw individual responsiblity to the wayside and thus, the once greatness of traditional America with each following generation.
There are poor performers in every profession but we do not measure professions by the 1 to 3% of poor performers.
Your reply is without merit. The comparison I made was between two school systems, one in CA where the teacher noticed that my child was not keeping up, and instead of taking action in HER classroom, sent a note home long after the fact. The other was in TN where not only was I encouraged to be involved but kept up to date on the progress made. This is not an apples and bricks comparison, but teaching professionalism verses a previous lack thereof! At the time CA was touting itself as the progressive teaching Mecca, while they considered TN hicksville! Your ignorant comment about walking in their shoes assumes facts not in evidence. It was a condescending attempt to blunt and deflect just criticism.
Your attaching yourself to the “Greatest Generation,” makes me wonder exactly where did you see combat? There were those that lived during that time and those that did great things!
I love it when the left talks about how they care about the “little man” when they only care about robbing us blind.
http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2011/03/unions-are-outdated-fossils/
Public sector unions are the ideal mechanisms for Obama’s wealth redistribution. National debt and state debt will ultimately require increased inflation and increased taxation. Or, Obama’s greatest dream realized, ie taking from the productive and redistributing to the dependent and the Unions who payoff the Democrat politicians. In other words the use of an unholy feedback system of third world country dictators. If one could stop the cronism between Unions and congress the democatic party would crumble. Scott Walker is standing tall against the union thugs and their demanding hateful minions. The unions don’t care about anything but maintaining and increasing their power at the expense of anything or anybody including school children or citizen neighbors whom they extort. Their ugly screeming mob tactics displayed on TV help reveal exactly why they should be stopped. Do you really want these people teaching your children, and being on the public payroll ? Ugly is as ugly does.
The teachers in Wisconsin are far down the list of people I want to demonize for the goings on in WI. First on my list would be the 14 cowardly democrats who are unwilling to do the job they applied for. Fire them first. If you want a one political party town, move to Chicago. I’ll drive over and help you relocate to Rahm’s World. Second on my list would be the outside agitators who have been brought in who have behaved like thugs. If you aren’t a taxpayer or voter in WI, after a couple of days, GO HOME. The outside agitators who have been brought in who have behaved themselves, only a week of school detention in your home state for you. And a month of school lunches.
For our shallow, self-serving president, stay out of this issue. I know you are worried that you won’t raise enough coin from WI if the government stops collecting union dues to hand them (almost) directly to the Democratic Party. Maybe a majority of the Wisconsin taxpayers aren’t really that into you. And if they wouldn’t vote for you, why the heck should they have to fund your campaign? Taxation without representation, where have I heard that before? Someone send the Prez a history book so he can see how the story ends.
If the teachers had more respect for themselves, they would not have accepted the outside agitators into their demonstration.
I’m still wondering what the over grown hippies beating on drums in the rotunda have to do with teachers
The teachers union has done away with any decency teachers had.
I really have no sympathy for them.
The “i won” really doesn’t care about anything except getting reelected and finishing the destruction job he is doing.
Beatniks, hippies, ne’er do wells. The scariest thing about the news and film from the Madison WI capitol is that these people actually come in contact with children. Your children and you as a taxpayer give them paychecks. Let’s roll that Alinsky, Ayers and Cloward-Priven ball right back out there. Seems it still has life in it yet. America what you see is a bunch of people who have an allegic reaction to work. Why else would they hold the State Capitol of WI hostage for this many weeks. No work, no pay, I say. Bedwetters, bedwetters all.
As I understand it, it’s the conflict of interest that is the crux of the problem. The Union dues are used to elect legislators who decide the amounts and nature of the public employees compensation. The tax-payers have no recourse, other than to elect officials who are not part of the cycle. The flee-bag Democrat legislators are doubly despicable, refusing the will of the people and taking the pay-off.
Thank God for Scott Walker, taking the reins and showing what a true leader can do!
They represent the same corrupt media white washed mentality exposed in the house and senate in DC while they controlled a majority vote with presidential support. Let Wisconsin proclaim “The buck stops here”. Let no government authority act beyond eternal vigilance. General Motors is only one of many to be negatively affected by unions demanding health care benefits in a corrupt FDA controlled market of skyrocketing cost with monstrous malpractice insurance and parasite lawyers attached. Demand that they each clean their own house and adjust their own budgets before asking for a threatening refill.
Kind of like Reid, Pelosi and O’bama shutting out ALL republicans while they were “writing” Obamacare bill. What a strange turn of events. On the other hand, Walker ran on the exact items that are being executed right now, no more no less. So I guess it isn’t EXACTLY like the libs and their Obamacare fiasco. Im guessing no one would like the golden goose taken away after they’ve enjoyed being the benefactors after all these years. Yeah, I suspect that is a hard pill to swallow. Kind of like Madoff being unhappy that he was finally discovered. It was working, right???
When are we going to call public sector labor unions what they are. They are the operational arms of communism.
As a mom I’m looking at these people and seeing these teachers acting like lunatics….. and they expect me to take my kids to school and let them teach my children?? Now you know why our children can’t read….these teachers can’t either!?
What exact purpose does the legislature serve. All they do is pass laws that the taxpayers can’t afford to have enforced. If they can’t even muster a vote to balance their budget, then perhaps it’s time to do away with those so inept at their jobs. Surely, taking the taxpayers money with no enacted results is a continual criminal enterprise and they should be prosecuted under the RICO statutes.
What would you propose we do to pass and repeal laws after we dissolve the legislature?
That would be direct democracy, I would not like that on a national or state level.
they should fire any teacher who skipped classes to go to the demonstrations and criminally charge those that used bogus medical notes.
Much of the talk, hubris is public sector unions are a ‘necessary evil’ for Police and Fire personnel.
With respect to police officers, they’re given 90% of their highest paid salary when retiring (or higher, dependent upon the strongarming of their union head). Most officers take a gig in a higher paid/cost of living area for a year or two during their career. Sure, there may be a longer commute for this caveat but are usually provided a cushy desk job, B S job (like D.A.R.E. Representative or something as mundane) when returning from that locale when completing their last years in uniform. Most officers earn more in retirement than their average salary! Quite the accomplishment in thievery.
Don’t get me wrong. Police officers are essential services for some. Especially those afraid to speak up to punks and too scared to apply their given 2nd Amendment rights, living under the, ‘When seconds count the Police are but minutes away’ motto.
Fireman, or ‘heroes’ as often referred to by police officers have it even better. They too exercise the option going to another higher paid firehouse during their respective careers.
What’s not disclosed is 90 +% of the calls received by fire department’s fire responder only stations and/or inclusive EMT services is for drunks falling down/bar fights, and other nonsensical calls hardly needing a response, but are carried out due to possible city legality entanglements.
Fire personnel get so much unneeded overtime it’s truly disgusting. For the most part they’re sitting in their personal bark lounger chair watching t.v., working out or washing their vehicles.
Cut the fire personnel numbers drastically and tell the unions to go to h ell.
Agreed, neither one needs a union. Give them the same deal we give the military, and if they don’t like it, they can go work for Xe, or whomever will hire them.
What I’m beginning to focus on is something beyond the Union spearhead.
Why don’t Republicans spend more time pointing out that the Democrats (i.e., the Cuddly statistmarxists) never seem to operate within the framework that has worked so successfully in the US for two centuries.
1. The dems lose the election, so they leave the state. Meanwhile their corrupt cronies use the time to negotiate contracts that the majority of the people clearly want to do away with.
2. A federal judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional, and the government doesn’t skip a beat in implementing it.
3. Congress won’t pass Crap and Tax, so the boy king directs the EPA to implement it by executive order.
4. Bankruptcy law says the Chrysler bondholders get part of the proceeds of the company, and by fiat, the boy king overrules it.
Obviously, this is a handful of thousands of actions that if not clearly illegal, are certainly pushing the envelop of how this country operates.
Why aren’t the Republicans screaming from the rooftops…”If your plans are so magnificant, why must you bend the limits of our republic EVERY SINGLE TIME to trample on the rights of the majority?”
Did the Packers have to cheat to win the Superbowl? What would the country think of them if they had?
because the republicans for the most part are collectivists too.
I am begining to think most republicans are just dimwitted dupes of the marxist hordes.
the unions are closer to stalins russia that anything called american.
regards
Exactly. This is the issue that stuns me.
1)The Democrats lose a majority in the election. Their reaction is not to continue to work, as elected representatives in the legislature, but to destroy the legislature. That is, they refuse to attend the legislature and since it requires a quorum to legally operate, they thus render the legislature ‘null and void’.
2)I consider this a violation of and breach of their elected duty – which is to represent their electorate by attempting to persuade, with facts and logic, the legislative body, of the viability of their position. If they cannot persuade the majority – tough. That’s democracy.
I don’t know what legal measures are available to deal with such a breach of duty.
3) I consider this a violation of and an attack against the Constitution, for their refusal to attend the legislature has effectively prevented the legislature of the people from operating. This is an open attack on the people of that state – to deprive them of their duly-elected government.
They ought to be recalled/fined/whatever – for this violation of the people’s right to a government.
This isn’t a minor issue. This isn’t just a difference of opinion. It’s a dereliction of duty and an attack on the democratic rights of the people of that state. The people have a right to an elected government – and the Democrats are effectively saying: “If policies don’t go Our Way – then, we’ll prevent you people from having a government.”
That’s outrageous!!!
“The average salary of a Milwaukee public school teacher is $56,500. But factor in the enormous benefits packages, including health care and pensions, and the annual average compensation is $100,005!”
I am interested how pensions are factored into the above figures. If teachers have now agreed to now pay 6% of their salary for pensions, we would decrease their take home by that much pay, assumedly lowering their average take home to about 54,000 and their overall package to 97,500. So if we lowered somehow their take home to $20,000, they still would be getting $60,000 in benefits? Somehow these numbers just don’t make sense to me. Can anyone explain? I know that health care costs a lot, but not 30,000 a year.
I suppose that one needs to have the values for a fully vested pension. In Mass., I believe that teachers now pay 11% of their salary for pensions, but that does not necessarily fully fund the plan, depending on how the money is invested, the returns on the invested money in the plan, and how much each teacher actually collects once he or she retires. For health care, I pay 125 a month as a retiree and the Town more than matches that, I believe, although that contract is up for grabs, and they may “renegotiate” so we pay all of it.
Bottom line; 1. the article above is about as one-sided against public employees as it could possibly be BUT
2. Public employees should (and will) pay higher per cents for pension and health care.
The truly oppressed groups though would be all those people over 250,000, who would have had to pay 39% instead of 35%. C’mon, I’ll give you the 250k-1M folks, but the people over one million should definitely be paying 39%.
We have to cut spending AND raise taxes. Anything else is just partisan tilting.
your comment boils down to raise the taxes so that one group of people have a better standard of life then those who are forced to pay for that standard.
there are producers and parasites. your choice which you chose to be.
I often speak to the arbitrary and circular inflation values for goods and services, long perpetuated by the labor unions. We all as a nation become the victims of that arbitrary inflation. For example. the natural cost of a tree for lumber hasn’t changes in oh, a few thousand years yet, the retail cost of that lumber has become almost unbearable. Softwoods are managed to be constantly renewable for most any market demand so limited availability is hardly the driving cost for its inflation. Anything you can think of, has that arbitrary inflated value, largely impacted directly or indirectly by unions influences.
The stupidity of most, including the unions, is that adjusted for their influenced inflation, the dollar is worth about the same as the mid 1950′s. Add to that,few folks live within their inflated incomes and fixed cost of living anymore. They have been indoctrinated to live beyond their means on credit…consumer credit which has become one of the nation principal economic platforms. The more you make..the more you’re indoctrinate to spend and borrow….the old circular thing!
Teachers are no different than their neighbors or all other American’s today, unionist or not. More, more, more, more………
The nation is in a big mess!
“Bottom line” “BUT”.
That should be Pick It Fence BUT from now on?
“the article above is about as one-sided against public employees as it could possibly be…”
So, the facts as presented are not correct, Red Pencil Neck?
“Anything else is just partisan tilting.” Yeah, like being a teacher and having a steak in it. Raw meat, that’s right.
Really now. “Anything else”? “Anything else”? The Ping Pong Tongue puts a little spin on the much traveled Brown Ball of Love.
Seriously D-White, are you going to let “them” GPS your guns too?
You’ve been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books…
And you and I have even lived “The Crack Up” but what of it?
1. Average health insurance can easily be higher than $20K per year.
2. FICA is 15% for Social Security pensions that adjust with inflation, but you can’t collect the full amount until 66 or 67. If teachers collect at 62 or even 55, then the state’s portion must be much greater than 15%.
3. Add in vacation days, sick leave, dental, child care, continuing education allowances and whatever other bouquet of riches the unions have awarded themselves and 100K is reached real quick.
Nearly all Wisconsin teachers are covered by the most expensive health insurance available in the state: WEAT. Initials ring a bell? Yep- the Wisconsin Education Association Trust, an arm of the teachers’ union… which mandates WEAT insurance as part of the CBA, the money flowing straight into the union’s coffers.
Nice racket.
I am now 69 years old. My Father warned me over 55 years ago that the unions would be the ruination of our country if they got a foothold. Now I see why. The foothold turned into the entire personhold, controlled by the union. Those who want liberty to remain in America should take a good hard look at what the unions have accomplished. If there were no unions, companies would not relocate overseas, for one. And on and on and on. The mantra by the left of “redistribute wealth” and make the rich pay for the poor, is bogus. The rich still remain rich and the poor have no reason to become rich if they have to go to WORK to become rich. The government would supply their every need. They do not even realize how poor they really are! America is on a socialist/communist cliff. I, for one, am not going to follow the left over it. I worked hard all my life and am still not rich, but I am not jealous of those who are either, they supplied the JOBS for me and others. I am CONTENT! Don’t stamp on my liberty to do what I do or did for myself! I still wake up free in America, something not available in any other country. I thank God and the troops. Even Jesus knew freedom from sin was not free! He shed HIS blood for all to have freedom from sin. GO Governor Walker! You WON the election. The Democrats can’t stand it so they ran away! Their yellow stripe shows when they turn around with their back to their Wisconsin constituents. Shame, shame, shame on them!
Very well said, madam. I am 49 years old and living in Texas. I, too, have a daily struggle with the employees I manage, who tend to think that they are entitled to earning an exorbitant wage “just because” they think they deserve it. Performance means nothing. Their contribution to the profit margin means nothing. Their character means nothing. A sad state of affairs. And, yes, I am a transplant from New York, Puerto Rican by birth, and I wouldn’t live within 1000 miles of that hellhole.
V-8. all cylinders roaring
Another point not made about those who “were fighting for the middle class” is that, according to Wisconnsin State Journal the bill to clean up the mess left by these protestors will cost the WI Taxpayer approximately $41 million. This is the 1st expense that should be deducted automatically, like Union dues,from the paychecks of those who occupied the state offices.
teabaggers versus hired mobs
teabaggers: leave the property they visit cleaner than when it was encountered (im surprised the msm hasnt extrapolated this into some kind of suppressed nazism)
hired mobs/union thugs: spontaneously create crap and trash and piles of filth with every bit of oxygen they inhale
perhaps an oversimplification but it does say a lot about the 2 sides of the coin
The term “teabagger,” is a pejorative description of sexual-deviance, those, oh so civil, liberals tried to apply to the TEA Party. What is left describes what went before. With Liberals garbage is left behind, every time!
Its not just the $100,000 salary + benefits that the teachers’ make. Its the lousey eductations they provide, especially in the large and medium sized cities. They are paid a high price for providing a crappy education. Then there is the indoctrination in the liberal mentality: socialism, soak the rich, and global warming. And you can’t get rid of lousey teachers nor reward the really good ones. Its a demonstration of the socialist mindset; everyone is the same regarless of the output.
The bottom line is their ability to extract salary and benefits have far exceeded our ability to provide them.
Someone may have already pointed this out, but the teachers’ total average compensation of approximately $100,000 is for nine months work per year.
As the old song says, “Nice work if you can get it. And you can get it if you try.”
aren’t you fogetting all that unpaid overtime and cruel working hours?
oh wait…
I would distinguish between “teachers” and “teachers’ union.” In California, also a union state, the public sector unions spent a LOT of money on elections. And the teacher’s union insists that all layoffs be handled as a strict seniority matter, with no consideration whatever given to questions of performance.
They’re not acting in the interests of the newer teachers at all, much less in the interest of the students.
It has been noted before — Public sector unions are nothing but money laundering operations for the Democrat party. The Democrats would collapse without corruption including the alliance with the major media.
On the other side the Republicans whine, cry, complain, and depend on the Democrats to extort money from the taxpayers. They want all the money that they can get their hands on too.
When will the Tea Party be joining in with all of the above ?
We are all on our own – in case you hadn’t noticed.
Google “walker approval poll”, and it is down to 43%. Whatever “approval” means. Maybe people are mad that he hasn’t fired the crooked teachers yet.
Here’s a joke with some resonance:
A CEO, a union worker, and a Tea Party member are at a table with 12 cookies on it. The CEO grabs 11 cookies and says to the Tea Party guy, “Watch out, that union guy wants part of your cookie.”
Not feeling the resonance.
Missing from your analogy is the given: at the outset, the cookies BELONG TO the CEO. He paid for them before your scenario begins. Now, he may willing to part with them in exchange for some worthwhile labor.
However, the union member and Tea Party member brought no cookies to this particular. table. To the latter, the CEO’s wanting something in exchange for them sounds fair enough. The former, however, can’t quite grasp that none of the cookies are his by birthright; he’d rather get together with some like-minded folks and pressure the CEO to hand some cookies over for as little as possible–ideally, for nothing. But if he has to, he’ll set fire to the table and rough up the other two guys.
..it was obama and the unions not the CEO who took 11 cookies …and you are one of his parasitic minions
tell a lie over and over and many will believe it to be true …but is is still a lie.
there are parasites and producers …you have chosen which one you are.
it seems the biggest issue here is not the right to organize and collectively bargain, but the apparent conflict of interest of the unions supporting the elected officials who they then have to negotiate with to get raises.
Seems to me the way to fix this is not to deny the unions the right to organize and all, but to prohibit them from making political donations, or to require any politician who takes donations from unions to recuse themselves from any votes or decisions that wold benefit the members of that union.
Hmmm, there was that recent SCOTUS decision regarding contributions equaling speech, right, at least when it came to corporations, who put on pressure to get tax breaks, support regulation which may hurt rivals and oppose regulation which will hurt themselves. Well, sauce for the goose…etc. There is no question that it is all a messy business, but the current system lets one mess play out against another.
Dwight, a public union corporation (and unions are corporations) is not the same as a private corporation. There are two key differences.
The first is that the union’s money, and they rake in millions every year, comes from the taxpayer. Not from the profits of the corporation’s manufactured products sold on the market place. Then, the union takes this taxpayer money and hands it off to a political party for election expenses. This is illegal; to use taxpayer money to fund political campaigns. The union is laundering the money – and gives it, in millions, to the Democratic Party. Hmmm.
Second, is that the union does not ask its members if it’s OK to give all this money to a political party. But a corporation’s shareholders must know and approve of its donations; it can’t make them without shareholder approval – or – the management risks being fired for such an action.
So- don’t confuse the two: the public service unions and private corporations. There’s no comparison in how they get their money and what they do with it.
So its a bad thing when public employee unions can collect dues and influence elections. But when corporations use shareholder money to influence elections, its a good thing??
How ’bout some facts:
1) In none of the 50 states do unfunded pension obligations exceed 1% of future revenue.
2) California public employees are paid 7% less than their private sector counterparts, even though 44% of them have 4 year college degrees (only 35% of private sector employees have 4 year degrees).
If you’re still worried, how about free cigarettes for public retirees? Get them off the books faster.
Y’all should stop shilling for Goldman Sachs and the Wall Street fat cats. The real reason they are going after the unions is the limits on corporate management shenanigans insisted on by Calpers and the other big public pension funds.
Tom – what’s your data source? The source below contradicts you:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-01-1Apublicworkers01_ST_N.htm
It shows that the average public sector pay in:
California is $71,385 and this is +$7,977 above the private sector.
So, the public sector worker ‘earns’ $7,977 MORE than the private sector.
Oh, and the public sector worker produces nothing of value for the economy. Civil service jobs don’t produce consumer goods that transform raw resources into market products..that make jobs for people.
As for their education, the university degree is irrelevant. It doesn’t mean that they are more intelligent, or that they ‘ought to’ get more money. The key to evaluating the economic viability of work is: does it enable the economy to prosper? I frankly don’t see how the bureaucrat accomplishes this.
And yes, it’s a bad thing for unions to collect dues and give that money to a political party. Why? Because these are PUBLIC unions; the money comes from the taxpayer. So, what is actually going on, is taxpayer money being handed over to a political party – and usually only the Democratic Party. Using taxpayer money to fund election campaigns is illegal. But the way these unions do it, is ‘money laundering’.
And private corporations are not the same thing as a public service union. These unions, by the way, are also corporations. But the private corporation can’t make such a donation without the approval of the shareholders. However, these public unions (which, again, are corporations as well) don’t ask the worker members for permission to hand over millions to election campaigns. They just do it. A private corporation would dismiss its management if it did the same.
Common first name. Quick hit. No data. Shotgun slander.
Yep, he’s a paid troll.
As for the ludicrous claim of 1% of future revenue, the same could be said about anything. “future revenue” might be a lot, if the country can survive these blood suckers. And what is that “revenue”, anyway? Oh yes, it’s future tax payments, isn’t it? So to complete the thought, people like “tom” aren’t worried about unfunded unbounded pensions for people who work 9 months out of the year, because until taxes are 100%, there is always a source of additional “future revenue”.
The plain facts are that inflation adjusted pensions are toxic. That’s why they were phased out of the private sector during the last 25 years. Now only our country’s little marxist collectives; i.e., unions and government workers, gnaw them out of the hides of taxpayers and shareholders. Businesses and rational people that want to stay in business no longer promise open-ended annuities to anyone. It’s now widely considered to be evidence of something that tom is expert at…”stupidity”.
“1) In none of the 50 states do unfunded pension obligations exceed 1% of future revenue.”
“of future revenue.” Wow. Kin yew say “completely measningless pulled-out-of-the-ass propaganda “statistics?”
Just as education bureaucrats beleive that one-size-fits-all, it appears that the masses lump all teachers into a one-size-fits-all. Not all teachers belong to a union! Not all teachers that belong to the NEA are active beyond membership for liability insurance and legal fees insurance.
As recent as 2007, NEA studies showed that the trend of Nationally, about 50 percent of teachers leave their jobs within their first five years and 30% within the frist three years. The low pay of teachers and the rigors of the work contribute to attrition according to studies over time.
Only on the East Coast, some of the Northern and West Coast States are teachers actively involved in teachers unions and making the kinds of wages that is indicated in all the populist anti-teachers rhetoric of today. Of course nobody compensates for the cost of living in those area’s when they ridicule teachers pay.
Until one walks in the shoes of a classroom educator for more than seven years you haven’t a clue what the profession is all about. 99% of the anti teacher folks wouldn’t make it through their first year as a classroom teacher! Showing up in the classroom and teaching the mandated curriculum is the VERY LEAST of what is [required] of a classroom teacher. Theres layers upon layers of justified bureucratic reasons why America’s good teachers leave the profession and return to the private sector for new careers. Then those great teachers who refuse to be broken get lumped into the irresponsible rhetoric of the anti teacher folks.
If you want to place blame place it where it belongs! Maybe like 50 years of perpetual new classroom experimentation on nearly an annual basis, socialist indocrination that all children are ‘equal’ but for poor teachers, inclusion/co-teaching that places special education students in the traditional classrooms with a special ed teacher disrupting the main class to teach the slow disfunction learners desk by desk or a separate group in the room, mandated content learning in lieu of cover-to-cover content…oh, teaching to the federal mandated test, you say. The list is so long that it is not appropriate to list them all on here. And these are all the bureaucratic mandates not even touching on all the legal and students home environmental variables.
Maybe those casting stones should become classroom teachers and the nations education problems would rapidly go away…Obama is looking for legions of new highly qualified teachers you know and….wow, all that pay teachers make for only 10 months work…go get it folks!
By the way, I’m anti teachers unions, anti government education bureaucrats and I’ve never been an educator though… I have been an active legislative advocate of returing education controls to the States and local districts.
As usual, you make good points TT, but most people are picking a bone with unions not teachers. Teachers deserve to make a living wage, and good ones are valuable resources for the country.
The problem, as you know, is that the unions (read…communists) have soiled the water and convinced many teachers that they are underpaid and overworked. Chapter 782, verse 1109 of the marxist mantra. Aren’t we all underpaid and overworked? When you add in the fact that it now seems that teachers are pretty well indoctrinated to the socialist party line, and teaching it to our kids, the frustration people feel when they demand delux pensions is understandable.
The plain facts are that teaching is an important job, but not one that is very high on the stress scale, or unpleasant working conditions or work hours. Teaching also doesn’t require unique genius although it is good if every school has some teachers who are uniquely good at what they do.
When I think about it, it seems that teacher compensation ought to be pretty close to the average compensation for all workers in a country. If superior teachers were allowed to increase their influence by training and inspiring other teachers, and could prove it by raising test scores in their schools, then I wouldn’t have a problem with the best ones making a lot more. Which, as I understand it, is exactly what their unions prevent them from doing.
“The plain facts are that teaching is an important job, but not one that is very high on the stress scale, or unpleasant working conditions or work hours.”
Once you are actually IN the classroom, trying to make things stimulating, as well as edifying, and dealing with bored, restless, and/or alienated adolescents, the stress can be very high. Many of the people who leave after five years do so because they can feel the job getting to them. Yes, the hours and number of workdays per year are good compared to most jobs, but for a good English teacher, let’s say, who assigns an appropriate amount of writing, the workload outside of working hours is heavy.
Actually, one of my beefs with our union was that it did tend more to cover the weak sisters rather than promote excellence, and it did not reward teachers who taught higher levels of skills, as opposed to higher levels of nurturing in the lower grades. Gym teachers got paid the same as those who taught AP classes. For years it was assumed that married female teachers would settle for a lower contract, if push came to shove, than male teachers, who were the sole, or major breadwinners. The union went with one size fits all, which was frustrating, but created more overall unity and power, for better and for worse.
Finally, one should compare comparable data. Teachers make less, in general, than their counterparts in the private sector with a similar education, but about the same when benefits are thrown in.
Dwight – the fact that it can be hard to stimulate students is not a reason for the fact that the pay scale, benefits and salaries are so much higher than in the private sector.
After all, it can be equally difficult and stressful, if not more, to research, develop and market a new consumer product. Selling on commission is not easy. Developing a new product, finding financing for it, marketing it – not easy. Teaching, on the other hand, has no risks whatsoever.
Furthermore, ‘equal amount of education’ is not a valid criteria for determining pay scale. You have to factor in other variables, such as the economic results of the work (do the students actually learn?); the risks of the job (teachers get jobs-for-life with little to no accountability); the benefits and pensions (ahh, those two months off); etc.
But they are NOT higher when you factor in educational level and yes that IS relevant, although not determinate. Yes teachers make more than waitresses, (most, but not all) assembly line workers, roofers, landscapers, and migrant workers, about the same as fire and police, and less than doctors, lawyers, and CPA’s. What, in your opinion, is the fair level of worker which they should be compared to?
In reply to Dwight at 2.09 pm – no, I continue to disagree. Educational level is not a key criterion in determining pay scale. After all, a general degree in the humanities and social sciences, frankly, says very little about intellectual knowledge or critical thinking capacity.
Furthermore, you are missing the point – which is that the salaries and benefits and pensions of a public service employee far outweigh those in the private sector. AND – that the public service provides no economic benefit to the progress and well-being of the people.
As for teaching – with those two months off – and that tenured job-for-life of a teacher – there’s nothing comparable in the private sector.
But you still haven’t suggested an occupation in the private sector, which teacher salaries should be no higher than. That is because if you picked one which requires a college education and often an advanced degree, those people would be making MORE than you think teachers should get.
“Teachers make less, in general, than their counterparts in the private sector with a similar education”
Oh, please. Just because it’s a bachelor’s doesn’t make it “similar.” It’s hardly a secret that Blackboard Science is a gut major along the lines of Speech Communication and Rocks for Jocks. We ain’t talking astrophysics or biomedical engineering here.
teachers today (not all of them but obviously most) have failed to teach.
unions blackmail the government (which really translates to blackmail their neighbors) to get paid more while doing less.
the facts show that the system turns out illiterate students and they cry for more money …they just need more money and everything will be alright …until next contract.
the federal government is a criminal enterprise.
proreason…I’m a lifelong enemy of any unions post 1950′s.
For 60 years now teachers and education have become the victims of socialist transformation, labor union intervention and government ‘educator’ bureaucrats. As I repeat over and over on deaf ears outside of education, classroom curriculum deliver is the very least of a teachers job today.
When I first started tracking about 20 years ago, elementary classroom teachers had a ratio of 1:.25 administrative and bureaucratic mandates requirement…meaning for each 50 (1 hour) of classroom instruction there was a bureaucract mandate of about 15 minutes. Today, at the minimum, dependent upon location, that ratio is 1:1 and in many, many location exceeding that. Much of the mandates actually require the teacher presence outside the classroom during instruction time leaving the class in the hands of a para-pro or another teachers classroom.
Long story short, classroom teachers, teach under strict bureaucratic mandates from the State and federal governments education bureaucratic machines….yet it is the teacher who takes all the heat and crap from the rest of society when all that perpetual bureaucratic crap fails the teachers AND the students. Add to that all the societal and individual problems that students bring to the classrooms today for teacher mediation. And, we haven’t even gotten to what the horrible effects are on public education by todays military should your school be in an area of a major military installation. These probelems are far worse than anything you hear about in the big inner city districts.
Its a mess and I haven’t the time or space to adress it appropriately on here. Until education and all its government bureaucracy is drastically reformed nationwide, with folks understanding its government bureacracy and not teachers who are the problem, there is little hope for reforming the degree of labor unions in education. SAD but true!
Remember, Ronnie said “government is not the solution…government is the problem.” Let us all fight the ‘right’ fight!
Say more about that military district piece, please; I don’t know anything about that.
Dwight…envision the plight of the nations cancer cities inner school districts as only a starting place. With the exception of the Air Force, todays major military installations (Especially the Army) brings to public schools a devistation that is educationally, nearly unbearable….thanks in large part to Clinton and GOP Cohen’s (SOD) vision for a new military blueprint to, among many other things reduce installation costs such as schools, family base housing and health care. That social term ‘inclusion’ comes to surface once more. Move military families into the community and use the communities public resources to reduce military installation costs. Now you have thousands of folks in the ‘community’ without direct military control and discipline restraints…and the younger ones spitting out babies as fast as nature allows, married or single….and a huge new welfare state within the community that otherwise would be an economy of only about 10K folks. But back to education!
Every school in the district is now Title I schools.
Students are highly transitory for reasons of family spats, divorce, deployments and State orders of wards of the State. Often times when a child moves from one district to another or from one State to another the child is not re-enrolled back into school until the following year.
When a childs parent(s) takes vacation in the middle of school or come home for two weeks R&R from deployment the children are taken out of school with some returning and some not until a month or more later.
Extremely high rates of behavior, emotional and learning dissabilities….if you know what I mean.
Extremely high rates of families ‘totally’ disconnected from their childrens education.
Extremely high rates of children living in home environments of drugs, prostitution and other violent crimes.
And the list goes on and on!
Yet, it is schools classroom teachers who are held to account for not only the welfare of the children but their educational achievement with weeks and months of absences in addition to the other noted problems.
The one-size-fits-all standardized test mandated by bureaucrats is what the teachers performance is to be judged upon.
Another example. One elementary classroom teacher just had 7 new students show up last week that will be required to take the mandated CRCT test later this month. Four of them are coming from other States and indications are that they have not been in school for over one to two months. Another two who’s records have been received have straight failing grades from special ed and will be placed in “inclusion” by this districts policies and the federal laws. The remaining student has exception ‘recorded’ grades.
How many of you would want those students CRCT test scores to measure your teaching proficiency with about 60 days to end of the school year? Oh and the class size is 27 with this adjustment and having lost 5 decent students last week to God knows where.
Sounds brutal.
I taught in a top notch affluent suburban high school with high test scores all around, and we still had plenty of problem students, but they did not reach critical mass; the ethos of the school was high-achievement, and yes, high taxes for the community.
If ever there were an argument for shrinking the size of government, surely this is it.
I must admit I love these state benefits.I love my insurance that cost me very little. I love the 13 Holidays I get a year. It is nice to get a week off (with pay) when an aunt,uncle or newphew passes away. It is nice to have taken two years+ off with sick leave (with pay) over a 28 year period. It is also nice to add those 30 days a year vacation. Yes I just dont understand why America is not more prosperus and you dumb working stiffs that do not work for the government should just quit working and let us government workers keep you up a while. Maybe we all should make the government retire us all from the day we are born until the age 70 and then go to work,I am sure that will be much better.
My parents weren’t teachers but many of their friends were. The constant refrain was not enough money. What was left out was the school day ending at 3PM and big chunks of time off throughout the year with summer of course being the whopper. Oh yeah, and almost total job security. For the mostpart the kind of people who become teachers value security and a not terribly hard life over intense effort and the possible pot of gold and then spend their lives complaining about the pot of gold being out of reach. In short they lack character. What do you expect of such mediocrities? Insight into themselves? Restraint? Ha.
I think that you are correct on the “valuing security” piece, but teachers are employees, not entrepreneurs. I will also grant you that complaining is always tedious to listen to. Just note the folks here who are always complaining about Obama….or teachers.
ricpic….You’re not doubt right in wherever you sourced your information that a teachers job is so easy and undemanding. I suspose thats why 50% of the nations teachers leave the profession within the first three years and that number increases to 60% by the seventh year. I had forgotten that todays generations seek those really hard demanding jobs and not the easy, undemanding jobs like being a teacher. Thanks for getting me out of the bar ditch and back on the road!
I think the phrase you’re looking for is “quit in disgust.”
I posted this on the article by Glenn Reynolds on the “lower education bubble.”
GR writes: “So at the K-12 level, we’ve got an educational system that in many fundamental ways hasn’t changed in 100 years – except, of course, by becoming much less rigorous – but that nonetheless has become vastly more expensive without producing significantly better results.”
This is absurd!! The number of special ed and ESL students has increased exponentially with concurrent costs attached. Special ed, especially, is a budget buster, but nothing in the current wave of educational critiques seems to be addressing that issue. As Texas and California demonstrate, having huge numbers of children of migrants, legal or otherwise in your system does a job on your educational achievement numbers.
It is quite possible that this phenomenon has a watering down effect on the regular ed students, and privatization is hardly going to dent these problems. I am certain that there are more cost-effective ways to develop services for special needs students, but many of their parents are VERY vocal advocates for the kids and inform the schools what state laws (in generally unfunded mandates) demand for their kids.
Dwight – I’m not sure of the point of your comment. You say that increasing ‘special education’ needs is a key element in education budgets and ‘those immigrant children’..
But, this doesn’t address the key issue of the budget, which is that the public service employees are overcompensated in salaries, benefits and pensions in comparison to the private sector. The issue is not on the number of users of the education system, which would presumably be dealt with by the taxes those users are paying…but the scale of pay for the employees in that system. It is this scale that is unreasonable and that must be addressed.
A little background..one size does not fit all.
State: GA
Single parent teacher
11 years HQT K-12 Professional License Endorsement, MSEd Specialty Reading and Math Development
Pay scale $52k
Furloughs two years $6.8K
Not a member of any teacher unions
Living in rented singlewide mobile home $900 per month
Debt Liability only student loans $16K
Can’t qualify to buy a home valued over $120K in this rural military market that is inflated due to Army’s 3rd Infantry Division. A glut of new homes sitting empty waiting for VA sales ($150K and up) and even more expensive homes that only high two income families can possible afford in the $250K and up range.
Every other classroom teacher at her school is double and triple government dippers with incomes of 200K plus.
Maybe we shouldn’t blindly lump all teachers together?
The special ed kids require smaller and/or extra programs that make their education much more expensive. Then, as someone else as mentioned, they may have a special aide who accompanies them to the mainstream classes, where the teacher also has to make special accommodations, not to mention all the accommodations they are making for all the students on ed. plans. They in no way fit into the category where you have one teacher, teaching 100 students more or less. In special ed., the ratio is more like one teacher for forty or many fewer students with all sorts of aides, special transportation etc. And yes, all of these teachers are being paid at the going rate. BOTH are huge factors in school budgets.
GR is talking about how “nothing has changed,” and I am insisting that a lot has changed which influences lower averages and higher costs. So one can then look at the big picture and pontificate on total money spent for education, which is obviously a lot more, the average of the achievement and test scores, which includes many of the special ed. kids and all of the ESL kids, which is therefore averaged out to “no change” BUT it is also a situation in which many MORE students “needs” are being addressed. Back in the day, you could count on a higher percentage of kids dying at childbirth, dropping out, or simply never being given access to public education. Now, many babies survive difficult births, but are impaired to one degree or another for the rest of their lives, and we now teach them.
Alas, it is a kick in the teeth to the conservative survival of the fittest mantra, but there are too many damned people who want their “damaged” pregnancies to produce a child for them, and then expect that that child will receive all sorts of special services for the rest of their educational lives. Righties want to save the pregnancy, but then…..do what…after that?
Dwight….addressing your narrow point that education hasn’t changed over the last 100 years. One doesn’t have to go any further than the LBJ administration to start tracking the changes in America’s education and its results. Reynolds was correct in his assertion of “except, of course, by becoming much less rigorous.”
LBJ’s Great New Society was the beginnings of so much social distruction to include education.
I guess that LBJ was ignorant of the fact that black folks had been educated in black colleges starting with the first two: Cheyney University (Pennsylvania), founded in 1837, and Wilberforce University (Ohio), founded in 1856….and many more from that time forward being founded. I might add. that those colleges had rigorous demands for achievement and did amazing great.
Anyway, LBJ being the moron he was sure screwed up America…and education!
But you are ignoring my special education point and from my experience IN the schools, that really is the most important change relating to the cost of educating these days.
yes the liberals always throw that “WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN ..” so it makes anyone with a reasoned approach seem mean.
it always comes back to are you contributing or taking from the pot.
…..parasite or producer
I seems the costs imposed on the taxpayers of Wisconsin, by the Teacher’s Union tantrum is north of $16 million, and climbing. Trash removal and repair of damage to the State House is estimated to be $7.5 million+. If this were done by drop-out, spray-paint, vandals that would be bad enough, but these were allegedly highly trained professional teachers! Is there a civics lesson in this?
Dwight…you don’t want to get me started on special ed…especially, the more recent years of bureaucratic reforms. When the federal government says that a profoundly ‘handicapped’ student is required to achieve at the same level as mainstrem student on whatever the States NCLB or RttT testing criteria may be, well…..you fill in the blank!
Special Ed is a major source of extra government financial support. Heck, in many States even the family of a special ed students recieve ‘special’ financial aid.
The Education of All Handicapped Children Act established two important legal concepts based upon the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, FAPE, or Free and Appropriate Public Education, and LRE or Least Restrictive Environment. FAPE insured that the district was providing a free education that was appropriate for the child’s need. Public insured that it was provided in a public school. LRE insured that the least restrictive placement was always sought. The first “default position” was meant to be in the child’s neighborhood school in a classroom with typically developing “general education” students.
Nuff sed!
ETAB wrote: “So- don’t confuse the two: the public service unions and private corporations. There’s no comparison in how they get their money and what they do with it.”
So, bottom line for you: corporations have First Amendment rights, but public employees do not. Got it.
Oops
ETAB wrote: “So- don’t confuse the two: the public service unions and private corporations. There’s no comparison in how they get their money and what they do with it.”
So, bottom line for you: corporations have First Amendment rights, but public employees do not. Got it.
The First Amendment has nothing to do with how the unions get their money and what they do with it. Absolutely nothing. A political donation isn’t an act of free speech.
The point is, with regard to the millions the unions rake in every year and the millions they donate to the political party, the Democrats, that this is taxpayer money. It isn’t shareholder money of a private corporation, where the shareholders decide who to give their profits to. The taxpayers don’t get to advise the unions how to donate that taxpayer money. Even the employees don’t get any say in the matter.
Again – this is taxpayer money because those union dues come straight from the taxpayer. It’s illegal for a political party to use tax money; yet, by laundering it via the unions – the Democratic Party gets millions for its campaigns. Indeed, Obama’s largest donations came from the public unions.
Hi ETAB I’ll try and answer you question as honestly as I can I have done a lot of searching for the truth in this mater. it is very hard to find an unbiased web site and this is not one of them. you started out really bad about unions I suggest you look up history of labor unions in America. The reason Republicans are anti union is because they are the only thing that supports and protects the American workers from corporations and the Republican party. the unions are the only funding Democrats get for their campaigns. “public union? NO! They are public servants!” they are not a union they just chose to have the benefits and security unions offer to their members.They are public servants but you do not own them. they work for wages like most people do. The protest is not nor has it ever been about the kids and it is not about their benefits or pay. The budget issue was no longer an issue they had already given everything to walker that had anything to do with the budget.It is about Walker taking away their rights to collective bargaining when the old contract is going to run out they can bargain for a new contract for what ever concerns them it could be pay, benefits, work place safety or anything about their job. The students matter a great deal to teachers if they did not they would not be in that profession. What they are frighting walker about is very important.Not only for these workers but all workers if they can take rights away from one group they can take them away from any one. They did not ignore their students. If Walker had not demanded their rights they would have been in the class room doing their job. they stopped talking about their pay check when they agreed to Walkers monetary give backs. Class size is important because the more students that are in a class room the less time the can spend with each student and some may require more time than others. They can and did do the math that’s why there was no fighting over the real budget issues. Taxpayers do not fund their pension fund. They put their own money to fund it 100%. They are paid a curtain amount and out of that they take and put some of it in the pension fund It’s not like they get that curtain amount and the taxpayer puts more in for the pension. as for the 7 million bill I am assuming your talking about the cost of them playing hooky. If Walker had not been so dead set on taking away their rights they would have been in the class room because there would have had no reason to protest make walker pay the bill. the health care bill I no nothing about that’s one thing I did not research but I did research how the teachers pay compared with private sector workers and on three sites it ranged from 4% to 4.8% lower than their counter parts. Tenure has nothing to do with the students and nothing to do with the budget. Tenure in most places is called seniority this is suppose to prevent the workers that have been working the longest are less likely to be laid off before the newer workers. some places like to work some people right up to a point of becoming eligible for some kind of pension so they fire or lay them off before they get it or some time they work people up to a certain pay scale so they hire new low wage people have the older workers train them and then fire or lay off the higher wage workers so they came up with LAST HIRED FIRST FIRED. to protect the old timers. They are more than willing to take their lumps financially but it makes them wonder in the first two weeks Walker was in office he gave business a large tax cut it wont effect this years budget but it will in the next years budget will Walker ask for another cut in wages and benefits from these same workers to make up that short fall? When dose it stop. These businesses use the roads and enjoy the protection of the fire and police departments when are they going to start paying their fair share. I hope this is understandable and I have helped you. I had written you a whole different one of the these but I was not very nice, then after I read your comment again I realized that you were asking really good questions and you wanted real answers I did the best I could.
Any person that makes the argument that one group has more access to advertising or more voice then another group is sadly wants their lives controlled and don’t want people to think for themselves. The fear that our founding fathers had, along with 5 Supreme Court justices, is they understand the power of the government to control the message.
1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
U.S. Supreme Court Striking Down McCain Feingold.
“If the First Amendment has any force,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, which included the four members of its conservative wing, “it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”
And what is your point, Speedypete? We are not talking about the right to express oneself, either as an individual or as a group, but where the ‘power of the voice’, so to speak, comes from.
With the public service unions, the power, i.e., the millions they give in donations to the Democratic Party, comes from the taxpayer. Neither the taxpayer nor the union members have any ‘voice’ in approving or disapproving the handover of these millions to the Democrats. Thus, the Union is DEPRIVING both the taxpayers and the workers, of their rights to free speech. The union is ‘speaking for them’…without their permission. Get it?
Oh- and it’s illegal to use taxpayer money to fund a political party. That’s because, again, the person handing over the money isn’t asking the taxpayer if it’s OK to do that.
Your “logic” is digging you deeper and deeper into a hole. You are completely missing the fact that once the employees get their salary, it becomes THEIR money. The next thing I expect to hear from you is that public employees should not be allowed to VOTE.
I had you all wrong I thought you wanted answers to your questions on your other comment but you already know every thing and I can tell there is no changing your mind With the public service unions, the power, i.e., the millions they give in donations to the Democratic Party, comes from the taxpayer. wrong that money comes from the members How in the world do you figure that the money unions donate to a political party comes from the taxpayers? If you mean because you are a taxpayer and pay them with your taxes and some how you still retain ownership of it and dictate how they can spend it you are dead wrong. They have worked for it, it is now theirs to do what ever they want to with it. You do not own these people just because they are public servants dose not make them indentured to you, they owe you nothing extra. It’s their money not yours!!! The world dose not revolve around you we are all taxpayers even the public service workers pay taxes . That dose not give you any right to tell anyone what they can do with their own money . The dues money the members pay is none of your business or any other taxpayer. The members have a say so about it. The union has to get written consent from each member that wants to contribute to a political purpose you are wrong on both counts!!!!!!! you are really stretching the right for free speech. dose not mean you have any right to order someone to do something you want them to do. you can talk about it but that is it. you are one self centered control freak and I reserve the right to say that. Neither the taxpayer nor the union members have any ‘voice’ in approving or disapproving the handover of these millions to the Democrats. Thus, the Union is DEPRIVING both the taxpayers and the workers, of their rights to free speech. The union is ‘speaking for them without their permission. Get it? have you ever considered therapy?
Oh- and it’s illegal to use taxpayer money to fund a political party. That’s because, again, the person handing over the money isn’t asking the taxpayer if it’s OK to do that.
union = monopoly
union = extortionism
union = priviledged class
union = collusion
Public Union? NO! They are Public SERVANTS!
If the rally is about the kids, why are the teachers rallying about THEIR benefits?
If they want time to matter for the students, why did so many skip out and ignore their students?
If they are so worried about the size of their classes, why do do the protesting teachers only talk about the size of their paychecks?
If the protesting teachers respect learning, why can’t they comprehend basic math, and understand the the taxpayers funding their pensions are broke?
If they work to serve our children, why are they serving the public a 7 million dollar bill (and counting)
Why do public union members pay only 1/4 what private workers pay for pension benefits, and 1/5 of what private workers pay for their health benefits?
If this is truly about the students, why won’t they stop talking about tenure?
If they wish to teach our children to share, why are they unwilling to pay their fair share?
Tyler are you living under a rock or do you tunnel vision. the protest has nothing to do with their pay or benefits. It is about their rights, The teachers have already agreed to the monetary part of what Walker wanted with out a fight or a whimper. You are trying your damn dist to make these teachers and their union look like crooks or low life’s and they are not any of those things both the union and the teachers know the state is in deep doo doo so they did their civic duty and took a pay cut so stop your bitchin’. they are public SERVANTS do you want them to kiss your feet as well as teach your children? do not blame them for any thing after they made the monetary concussions because that is the only thing that had to do with the budget. Every thing after that was Walkers fault. No American is going to give up any rights without a fight. Walker did no show any concern about the children why can’t you do the basic math and realize that their pensions are funded 100% from their pay it dose not come from taxpayers.Your putting the blame on the wrong people give the bill for that 7 million to walker. It was his choice to drag this out He wants those rights really bad. If it where your rights you would be fighting too. where do you get your information? the entire cost for their retirement comes from their pay check not from taxpayers. I don’t have a clue about their health benefits but I will look it up. Tenure is important because it keeps the employer from firing or laying off someone that has work there for along time and screw up their retirement or to keep them from getting one. last hired first fired. It also keeps the boss from hiring new cheaper people and laying off the older people that have finally rich a good wage level. they are more than willing to share but when thy are ask to give up more and Walker gives corporations and business a big tax break two weeks after he is elected and before he had even figured out his budget it makes you wonder is this really fair to the SERVANTS who have sacrificed so the business people could be reworded with a tax break. you have ask a lot of good questions and I have answered them the best I could. you should really look this stuff up for yourself. it take a lot of time to really find the truth. here is a tip you will not find the truth on Fox or any right leaning web sites like this one. Good luck to you and hope for the best but Walker will not give it to you.
Not all police and firefighters are members of a union. In Texas public unions are barred.
Hey Anonymous44 is Huston in Texas? if it is what dose this mean; the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association Local 341 look around and you will find out a lot moor are unionized
I hear argument from both sides that are good arguments. I also hear argument that is simply bogus and not worth repeating or refuting. But I did not notice what I consider two of the most important factors in this situation. One, the legislatures who are voting for this are also giving up actually more pay the the unionized employees. Two, and this has pretty much been ignored by the media. Those “protesters” not only mostly consisted of hired thugs, they violated the right to “peaceable assembly” in several areas, 1st, they threatened the governor, and the elected officials who were voted into office to do this very thing, and 2nd, they destroyed public property, trashed a state (tax payer) owned building and 3rd, they peed on the toilet seats and floors of the rest rooms. Creating more work and very dirty work for their supposed union brothers and sisters. I personal know that their threats scared several representatives into moving out of their homes and staying at motels for fear of being attacked when they did not have police security. This is not the behavior of civil people, this is the behavior of thugs and criminals, this is the way of of todays union. Having been a union member myself, I have seen first hand the workings of unions in WI. I have been threatened by my own union rep with a walk in the river wearing concrete shoes. I have been forced to strike when there was no need, we were content with what we had for wage and benefits. If we did not strike they threatened to refuse all benefit money from our employer to our Health and Welfare fund. On the other hand, a non union employer picked up my uninsured hospital bill 6 years after I had left his employ. To be clear I resigned from the company in 2001 and in 2007 he paid $187,000 hospital bill I ran up when I had a heart attack. If you do your job, you will be rewarded, if you screw off, you get what you earn. Unless you belong to a union. No body should be paid to do a job and not do it. Earn your keep or keep out.
Gee lastmanstanding what was the union you were a member of. Sounds like a 1930′s movie plot. If there was no reason to strike they would not have done it. Union member know that no one wins in a strike. So it has to be important to strike because the workers that strike will never get back the money they lost while on strike but the workers that come along after will benefit from it. I am a member of the United Association of plumbers, pipe fitters and fire sprinkler fitters local 709 in Los Angeles, California. I was working on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley Ca. and i got a call from the union hall and they said that the contractor I was working for had stopped paying into my health and welfare fund but not to worry that the would get it for me. about three years later the told me that the contractor finally paid up in full. I didn’t have to do anything the union handled it. Not much chance of getting it back on my own. When working on the L.A. subway Wilsher Western station and a non union company was doing the fire sprinklers for the tracks. At lunch we went to talk to the non union workers and ask them how much they were getting an hour they told us and we informed them that on that job they have to be paid the prevailing wage which was about two thirds more than they were getting. I ask if they had a pay check stub, they ask why and I said the contractor was ripping them off and pocketing 2/3rds of what they should be getting and I would take the stub to my union hall and tell my business agent about what was going on. The union got them what they should have been getting by law and retroactive, Those guys came running over to us waving their checks. So you see unions are for workers union or not. So you see lastmanstanding I personally don’t believe you were ever in a union. Now about those accusations about the protesters first off a judge sent out a letter stating that he was pleased with the protester for respecting the capital building and the grounds and saw no damage so to us the word thugs and all that other BS your passing off as true is a crock. stop watching Fox news and listening to rush and O’Reilly. cause they look pretty silly when they spout off with the hate and exaggerations when now days you have a wonderful tool to find the truth. It may take some time but well worth it because the truth can be a weapon to defend yourself with.
Interesting piece.
Making an analogy between Wisconsin’s public employees and some 500 years of Roman military history was pretty specious though (and the history lesson was spotty too).
Those who can’t, teach.
Using Milwaukee as an example of Wisconsin as a whole isn’t realistic.
Its more a suburb of Chicago. Exclude Milwaukee, and the average salary
goes down, and student performance goes up, significantly.
A few observations:
• Our country and its workers seemed to do quite well between the 50s and the 70s.
• Everything changed after Reagan got into office. A new lexicon then entered our lives with terms like downsizing, outsourcing, hostile takeovers, corporate raiders, pension raiding, deregulation, dual-income households, and globalization. Look at the result.
• With the price of everything rising, how are people supposed to live quality lives and raise families
on stagnant or lowered earnings?
• How are young families supposed to make ends meet while also putting money aside for:
– A new home down payment
– Retirement
– Vacations
– College tuition for their children
– A Medical Savings Account
– Insurance
– Car payments
especially as everything continues to become more and more expensive?
• How do American businesses expect to remain profitable, let alone survive, if the middle class no longer has disposable or non-discretionary income, or the desire to go deeply into debt?
Has anyone really, I mean really, looked at the Big Picture?
Matt,
Your comparison to Rome makes the big jump of FALSE ANOLOGY. You say that the ruination of Rome was due to overexpansion of the military but our downfall is the TEACHERS? JHC! Talk about comparing apples to oranges; it costs us $1,000,000 a day for each of our soldiers to be in Afghanistan risking their lifes to further the agendas of the banks, the industrial/military complex, the oil companies, the CIA drug runners and Israel. Rome was driven bankrupt by their out of control military spending empire building not social programs or teachers for god’s sake. We are in exactly the same boat. Get a clue.
The knucklehead who wrote this article obviously gets his information from Fox News. He also forgets that without teachers he wouldn’t have been able to write that junk
I work as a part-time janitor for a certain school district, making about $3,900 a year gross. I receive no benefits whatsoever, and have no representation.
The people at the top make about $200,000 a year with full benefits.
The teachers make more than I do, with benefits, but a whole lot less than the top people.
Even so, the school district is slashing the budget from the bottom up, rather than the top down, starting with the janitors. Go figure.
You’re right, Kel, the administrators want their overfill of what is
served at the table. Teachers get smaller scraps, and it sounds like
you get very small scraps. The table that gets to the administrators,
and their “subordinates”, has already been destroyed by the gluttony
of our real enemies.
Heard a rumor that janitorial work will be shifted to students.
If you don’t participate, you won’t graduate. Sorry; I only
had a vision of the rumor, hope its a false vision.
Perhaps the kids can’t read, but teachers in Wisconsin have at least taught the people there to stand up for their rights – the American way. The great tragedy here is, this is not about poor teachers’ salaries, it is about taking peoples’ rights away, while giving TRILLIONS of dollars to Fat Cats in “too big to fail” companies, all the while wasting trillions more on absurd wars in countries we have no connection to, except to make more money sub-contracting out defense contracts. I am astonished at the people who buy right into the idea that teachers’ salaries have ANYTHING to do with the wholesale CRIME of the banksters and corporotocracy that is going on every day since 2008, and well before.
Thank you,
Lorin
And just what are parents in this state doing about this poor educational standard, for surely of this they must be aware?
I taught my 2 sons to read by the age of 2 using flash cards. That took about ten to fifteen minutes, a couple of times a day.
In human physiology, the brain is almost hardwired by the age of 3. Earlier stimulus will get more synaptic jucntions connected and that increases inteligence,logic, etc.
I looked over many of the comments and I’m astounded. It reads as if unions and teachers are THE cause of our nation’s troubles. And little to NOTHING about WALL STREET!
Last year they GAVE THEMSELVES, $150 BILLION in BONUSES! Yea, and that was on top of their saleries.
But no, no, let’s beat up on teachers. Snap out of it people!
If you really think that teaching today is easy-breezy, please, PLEASE, go to teacher college, come out in DEBT, and you teach to tests. And if the little darlings don’t do well on their tests because they’re more interested in texting and sexting, IT’LL BE YOUR JOB!
You want to aim your verbal guns at someone, how about WALL STREET! The solution to the budget crisis is really simple. TAX WALL STREET!
Yes! A 1% sales tax on all investment turnovers would fully fund everything! Get your calculator out. What’s 1% of $2 QUADRILLION DOLLARS? The poorest of the poor in states such as Virginia pay sales tax of FOOD and clothing, but Wall Street investors pay NO SALES TAX!
HEY WALL STREET TYCOONS! What’s the matter, can’t give back ONE PERCENT as a gesture of patriotism for making a fortune in the best nation on the planet? Too much to ask?
teachers and state workers aren’t robbing you, THAT’S WALL STREET’S job, you just don’t know it.
Bravo to you and 56.Bill. The dialogue seems to be shifting,
let’s keep it up. There has to be opposition to the bankers
first, war contractors second, politicians third, and Israel
getting a cut of the three forementioned. Otherwise, we can
kiss our way of life goodbye.
What Nonsense.
America has Overseas Bases in 130+ Nations.
America has launched 2 wars/Occupations on proven Lies and run up a tab of over a Trillion, $3 Trillion with interest when said and done.
America gives trillions to Bankster Bailouts, Billions to Israel, Billions more to Jordan and Egypt to be nice to Israel, but having the Government honor its contract with the Teachers of WI is too much to ask?
They average 46K, and starting pay is 25K.
Bus Driver, Janitors are also in that group.
If you think They are behind the economic woes of the state, you need a lobotomy.
END THE FED
Okay, kids can’t read “proficiently”. I am in Illinois and I removed my kids from public school for academic reasons, the dictated curriculum was totaly inadequate for teaching elementary aged children anything much less the basics, between the school board and school district administration the teachers were instructed in the “dumbing down” methods. I have witnessed this phenomena starting in the 80′s to the current point where elementary school is essentially social engineering, a continuous experiment on our precious children. Don’t blame the public employee teachers because they are constrained by whatever local school boards and administrations decide curriculum should be, usually on a yearly basis so the kids never benefit from a fully formed method. This is not to mention children with behavioral and learning disorders which happen to be a lot more than diagnosed. And I agree with the guy who said we need to cut the fat at the top, administrators are paid far more than they are worth.
Why didn’t Gov. Walker cut the non-union, top paid state employees?
Why aren’t either the republicans or the democrats addressing the fraud in government programs and the salaries and benefits of the non-profit, sub=contracting agencies? There is more fraud and abuse, duplication and replication of services in the Medicaid funded “Family Care” for the elderly and disabled to try to keep them in independent living which is costly to say the least than there was in the Day Care Fraud Scams. Why isn’t anyone addressing the unnecessary doctor visits and expensive tests and referrals the doctors are ordering much less the medications? I’d think we’d save a ton of money making sure benefits were going to those who qualify and show responsibility. CUT OUT THE WHITE COLLAR FRAUD.
Education fall off in Wisconsin isn’t always at the classroom level per the inadequacies of the teachers as so many mistakenly believed as much as it is resulting from the dictates from the Dept. of Public Instructions. We can’t flunk all the kids that we’d like here in Wisconsin. When we get a kid two years below grade level in reading and math it’s up to us to remediate as best we can and we do try but we can only do so much in the time allocated. The child isn’t behind because they were paying attention and getting help and attention from the parents our partners. We are not allowed to group by achievement for instructions. Give me all your slow or high kids so I can teach at one level and reach all the kids in my classroom instead of having ten that are done before I hand out the paper, ten that get done in the time allotted and ten that never finish. WE NEED TO CHANGE THE MANNER IN WHICH WE TEACH, and group and demand proficiency before we pass them on. When a child doesn’t pay attention, doesn’t do their seat work, doesn’t do and bring back homework, what do you expect me to do? I’m supposed to establish a relationship with your child and thereby get the kid to do his or her work? That’s what is expected of teachers in Wisconsin. Sometimes that takes weeks. Weeks where the kid is missing most of what I’m teaching the rest of the class and they never seem to catch up. We need fast track remediation programs that are sorely lacking. Give me back my pointer, let me be the “bully” so I can tap a few of them into paying attention and staying on task and maybe we’d get faster better results.
unfortunatley they will get away with this as this is part of the new world order take over and we all no there isn’t one thing we as voters can do about this this will spread through all the states like wild fire
and when it all fails it will of course be someone else’s fault other than
there own entitlement programs gotta go or be much better managed as is only what there doing here, anyone not at work on Monday should be fired
and of course rehire new people under the new rules that mean they will be
paying there share of health, life and pension plans or whatever freebies
there now getting remember we are all in this together and the private
sector should not have to keep paying the way for Federal or State employees any longer they need the same rules the rest of us live under
Wow Ken you have this all wrong man. There are no entitlement programs most people get the same as they do only they call it a pay check. There are no freebies they pay 100% for their retirement it comes out of their pay. you have been listening to the wrong people. believing every thing you hear on Fox News, Rush, O’Reilly or Michelle Malkin and this web site. They will not get away with any thing! You are right about this spreading like wild fire the other Republican run states will follow for sure because the Republicans Want to crush the unions Because that’s where the funding comes from for the Democratic party and if that happens you can kiss the 8 hr day, 40 hr week and a whole lot more you take for granted. Then you and everyone will have to except what scraps they give you. What have the Republicans ever done for the American people. The only thing they are good at steering up hate amongst the American people It’s called divide and conquer. It will happen and your rights will be next.
Yeah, it’s all the teachers fault that our idiot politicians ran our state finances into a debt hole so big even you pajama clowns can’t see the forest through the trees.
And now, you morons will be oh so happy when your little snot nosed brats are even dumber because the class size is now 50 to 60 students per teacher…
You ever see how your little retards act when you aren’t around? They are little mirror images of you big retards.
Oh, Brian – Have you got that right! I taught for 27 years, and I used to tell my students that they were an advertisement for their homes. Mirror images, they are. And the larger the class size, the worse the behavior. No one ever considers the educational practice of ability grouping for more advanced subjects, so what happens to the students of lesser ability? They are grouped together in classes. Everyone should have the opportunity to stand in front of one of THESE classes! Then you will see how many children could possibly be left behind. Every parent wants good behavior for every child – except their own. Every parent wants every child punished for misbehavior – except their own. Public education is NOT for every child! Just go observe a few classes at your local public school. YOU will get an education.
How can you compare warriors and teachers completely different and as for teachers demanding more and more taking down the empire is BS. The teachers had already gave Walker all the monetary things he ask for. So the budget was no longer an issue. any thing after that was because of Walkers agenda to bring down the unions by taking away the bargaining rights of the teachers. If it were one of your rights and being an American you would have done the same thing. Because no true American will give up any rights without a fight. The difference here is that if it where your rights the teachers and unions would have been standing next to you locked arm in arm with you to fight with you because we are all Americans. This was not about money!!!!!!!!!!
This web site is so bias, Look at the head line. “Wisconsin’s Teachers: Betraying Students, Robbing Taxpayers” It is Walker that betrayed the students It was more important for him to take away the workers right to bargain than to keep the teachers in the class room the teachers have had this right for 52 years with no problems. As for robbing the taxpayers no one put a gun to the head of who ever signed the contract! They should never have signed it if it were to outrageous. You keep over looking the fact that teachers and union were willing to give every thing to Walker that had to do with the budget. He just wanted to weaken the union! Can’t you see that? As for the clean up cost take it out of Walkers pay because there would never have been a protest if not for him. Walker claimed the protester caused $7.5 million to the capital building from tape residue. So a free thinking judge wrote a letter saying how pleased he was with the protester for respecting the build and the grounds and did not see any damage. When the painters union said that they would clean up the tape residue for nothing. There was no more talk about $7.5 million. If it where not for unions shielding workers from Republicans and corporations there would be no middle class. we are headed to becoming a third world country Very rich and very pour, no middle class at all because the Republicans and their corporate bosses could dictate what ever pay they wanted to give the workers. Ask yourselves what has the Republican party done in the last 30 years for the American people?? name one thing. They had a good chance when they had full control during the Bush Jr’s. years, six years nothing in their way and what did they do? Gave a $1.3 trillion tax cut for the rich.Then started two wars that was funded borrowing money from a communist country that has no human rights, the same country that got most of our jobs. That has sided with or enemies since WW II remember Korea and Vietnam. Now we are indebted to a country that permits the fist born be killed if it is not the gender they wanted. why did we start dealing with this country, corporate greed The Chines only make .24 cents an hour. They have no unions or labor laws. They have to take what is offered. Now how is American workers going to be able to compete with that. the corporation and our government has put the American workers in this position. the only way we can compete is to work for .23 cents an hour. Who has made this possible Republicans. I have traced it back to Nixon. He seat up an insurance company for corporations as part of the government but funded by others what others I don’t know I searched but couldn’t find it. What this company dose is if corporation want to go into another country they can without fear of loosing any money due to government take over or any other reason they will get their money back. what I’m getting at is it was not union wages that run the jobs out of here. Corporate greed and their corporate funded republicans did it. After Nixon came the workers best friend good ole union busting Ronny Reagan he was the one that started talking about free trade it was not NAFTA but the for runner that would become NAFTA, He also started educating businesses and corporations about how to move to Mexico what with insurance that Nixon set up and the tax incentives he would provide. There was no risk or cost involved. So the taxpayers paid to send the jobs south. Then George H. W. [Remember "The New World Order"] picked up the free trade Idea and ran with it refined it and started to sell it to who ever would listen he did the negotiating with the other two countries you know who they are. He signed the agreement with the other two leaders. He did not have enough time to get it passed by congress. So he left it up to a person that was voted into office to stop NAFTA from becoming a law. Bill Clinton The Democratic champion of the working class of America. Yeah he signed in to law he also I’m not real clear on how he did it but some how we got into the world trade organization and so did China. Bill Clinton turned out to be the best Republican president we ever had! He did everything the Republicans say they will do but never do it. You have the roll of unions all wrong.If they were not still here we all would be working for pennies. well that was a colossal wast of time. The Republicans can never change their minds unless the tea party, Rush, O’Reilly or Fox news tells them is OK.