busbus wrote in
:

On Aug 11, 12:54*pm, Han wrote:
The counterargument is whether you'd want your kids to be educated by
high school teachers who make 40K/year. *

As far as the hours worked, from what I see my kids do, it is a
rather consuming job teaching math & physics in Paterson NJ and
similar districts. *Apart from the miserable shape those communities
and kids a
re
in, the hours of school and after school efforts plus the hours of
grading and lesson planning would have exhausted me within a year.
*Gla
d
it's not my job ...


I am not saying that teachers or firemen or policemen or whomever do
not work hard. You want to know the truth? My son will be starting
his sophomore year at Penn State to become a high-school math
teacher. I know it is no bed of roses. But, at the same time, he is
not looking for a free ride.

That said, you mention that your kids started out at $40/K each four
years ago. Here is the thing: there are a number of people living in
that community who are paying taxes and are paying A LOT more for
health insurance and are paying into their own retirement accounts.

Like somebody mentioned befo nobody is taking anything away; they
are changing it for the future. It needs to be done. Sorry.

Somebody else mentioned the "security" part of it. That is gone ,
too. Yes, it is a sad thing but there is no security in the private
sector and, in a number of cases, the person doing the same job in the
public sector gets paid less than the one in the public sector NOW (it
was not like that before). It is upside down.

This slanted sort of thinking is exactly what brought Greece down and
is bringing a number of other European countries to their collective
knees. Take off the blinders and see. Both China and Iran are
licking their chops waiting to become the kingpin in a post-America
world. And that doesn't even count all the religious crap that is
going on.

As long as we fight amongst ourselves over this piddly crap, the
stronger the other side becomes.

Some of that I can agree with. OTOH, employee-employer relations are
much more combative than they need to be, hence the unneccesary strikes
(teachers can't strike in NJ, I believe). The only thing they could do
was not volunteer for after school work with the kids after years
without contract.

I'm all for reorganizing some of the work rules. Especially the rule
that says your pension is based on the average salary you made during
your last (1,2,3?) years, includng overtime!! That's ridiculous.

--
Best regards
Han
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