But luckily we live in a democracy and those who don't contribute a dime get to choose how much I should contribute to this. Less work for me. Less money too. But at least government employees get a nice pension so it's all worth it. Plus if we didn't do it this way then there's no other way at all - it's the government's way or the highway.
God bless democracy.
Educators get poor pay, somewhat decent benefits, and an ok pension. Their working conditions (especially for new teachers, and this is largely the problem with retaining them) are pretty crappy. They put in 7-8 hours of instruction time a day. After 3rd or 4th grade (in many states) they're teaching a specific subject area, so they have 100+ students they see each day. That's 100+ papers to grade, exams to grade, parents to contact for various reasons. And they have to do all that in their planning period and after school hours. That's effectively two full-time jobs that they get paid (depending on the state, for a new teacher with just a bachelor's degree) between $25k and $40k to do. They can get extra money by sponsoring clubs or coaching sports teams. But then that eats into the time they have to spend on the academics they're hired to teach, and puts them up to 2 full-time jobs and one half-time job (depending on the number of clubs or particular sport).
God bless democracy for fucking over yet another generation of students by cutting corners on education. Something we decided a few hundred years ago was one of the government's primary responsibilities.
For instance, the private industry can't provide accessible education for the poor because everyone that works in the private industry only does it for money and profit, which are bad things. But people that work for the government do it out of the good in their hearts (they don't care about the cushy job and the benefits at all).
So because it's impossible to gather round a bunch of kids in front of a $20 blackboard on some public space and teach them some skills, we need to spend $5 Billion (I actually think that's not enough, it should be at least $6.2 Billion) to hire more librarians.
How can you not see that this is the true way?
I hear this relatively frequently (my wife is a teacher and so are many of our friends), but I disagree. I think saying it is "poor" depends on what you compare it against.
The median earnings for a bachelors degree in the US is about $58k. In my county in MD, a teacher 10 years into their career makes $50k. Although, at this point teachers are required to get a masters.The masters scale goes all the way to $82k at 30 years.
IMHO, the pay is fairly well in line with the norm. If count the benefits and pension, which are better than the norm, then you could argue it is quite good.
This is, for this county, "good" pay. This is not, for the level of responsibility and time commitment required of them, good pay. They're expected to maintain their certifications on their own time. They're expected to remain current on the field they teach on their own time. They're expected to finish their masters degree on their own time and dime. All with less than $50k income and having families.
$82k for a professional after 30 years with a masters degree is not "good pay". It's ok pay. It's certainly enough to keep them out of debt, I'd hope, but it's not going to make up for the 12+ hour workdays they'll have spent most of their adult life dealing with. And it takes 30 years to get to that point in your state. Do they get tuition assistance for that masters degree? What's the average cost and how much of that pay raise is actually spent dealing with the debt incurred in paying for the degree?
[0] http://www.nea.org/home/2012-2013-average-starting-teacher-s...
EDIT: The teachers I looked up teach in the same district so they're getting the same locality adjustments so it's an apples-to-apples comparison. Going one county north results in boosted pay, but it's simultaneously a wealthier county and scarier (violent crime in schools) county.
I know several teachers and I don't know a single one, (except for coaches who get paid to work longer), that works anywhere near 12 hour days on average--not even close.
A quick google search backs me up. This study by the BLS shows that on average they work around 40 hours per week when they work (this includes time working at home). [1]
Furthermore, teachers only work 190 days out of the year, so they end up working far less on average than other professionals.
So yes, as you put it so eloquently, this system is set in stone and it's pointless to think of better ways to manage these problems.
So indeed, we should spend not only billions, but trillions. And if it doesn't work then we should up the ante and go to quadrillions. Then I think it will work.
Probably because you needed a smaller class size in civics/history/social studies class so the teacher could spend more time making sure everyone actually learned the material.
This forum is not for constructive discussion (which would imply accepting any valid argument, not simply censoring them by downvoting).
This forum is for patting on each others back for being statists. So I'm just fitting in.
When I get good enough with my snark it will be indistinguishable from the actual arguments I used to argue against and be downvoted for.
So be patient, I'll get there.
http://sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/initiatives/FinalText_57...
...whether these citizen's initiatives have been captured by special-interest groups is another question.