For a nation concerned with being competitive with the rest of the world we are doing all we can do to gut that competitiveness by gutting education. We refuse to tax those who could afford it, instead we want to gut, gut, and gut a little more in all pursuit of of some idealogical fantansy.
Having dated a school teacher for the last 3 years, I am not sure why anyone stays in the professional. I understand the burn out rate early in the career is high. I’m sure folks get into teaching for many reasons, and I know for many that reason is a need for a socially significant profession. We should reward folks for these occupation.
From what I hear teaching has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. Plus teaching has become an exercise in teaching to standardized tests.
Below is a link to an excellent article and retro video about this issue.
Have You Hugged A Teacher Lately?
If you do a Google search on Teacher Burnout, I came up with close to 200,000 hits.
A couple of interesting quotes from the article:
“Nearly half of all teachers quit during their first five years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but the numbers alone don’t convey the full severity of the problem.”
“It is often the best qualified teachers who leave first because they have the easiest time finding employment in other fields.”
Yet there is a group of politicians (and citizens) trying to make them the scapegoat for our financial problems. Shame on them.
My daughter, a teacher, sent this to me last week. She doesn’t know who wrote it but it puts the current foolishness into perspective.
“I’m fed up with teachers and their hefty salary guides. What we need here is a little perspective. If I had my way, I’d pay these teachers myself…I’d pay them Babysitting wages. That’s right. Instead of paying these outrageous taxes, I’d give them $3.00 an hour out of my own pocket. And I’m only going to pay them for five hours, not
coffee breaks. That would be $15.00 a day. Each parent should pay $15 a day for these teachers to babysit their children. Even if they have more than one child, it’s still cheaper than private day care.
Now, how many children do they teach in a day, maybe twenty? That’s $15 X 20 = $300 a day. But remember they only work 180 days a year! I’m not going to pay them for all those vacations. $300 X180 = $54,000. (Just a minute, I think my calculator needs batteries.)
I know you teachers will say, “What about those who haveten years of experience and a Master’s degree?” Well, maybe, (just to be fair) they could get the minimum wage,and instead of just babysitting, they could read the kids a story. We can round that off to about $5.00 an hour, times 5 hours, times 20 children…$5.00 X 5 X 20. That’s $500 a
day times 180 days. That’s $90,000. HUH? Wait a minute…! Let’s get a little perspective here.”
Babysitting wages are too good for those teachers. Did anyone see a salary guide around here???!!!
In Wisconsin, the $$ the governor wants to save is almost exactly equal to the tax break he is giving to the rich – who paid for his election, I might add.
It’s simple, really. It is a plan for the rich to finish taking over the country. Me, I’m investigating becoming an ex-pat.
Perhaps the Gov. needed a teacher to explain the basic math to him.