No I am not.

I taught a college class for one semester and decided that it was not for me.

My wife is a teacher with a Master's degree. She stopped working when we had our second child, and she will most likely return to teaching once our youngest child hits Kindergarten.

The comments that "teachers only work 9 months a year" are bullshit. They lesson-plan, attend seminars, take classes, are required to maintain their teaching certificates through continuing education, etc.

And I've also heard comments about how they only work from 8 AM - 3 PM. That's even more bullshit. The good ones are grading papers, taking phone calls from parents, lesson-planning, etc. usually around 10-12 hours per day.

Now, granted, my wife is a great teacher, and there are some that she's worked with that are not good at their jobs and do slack off. But to generalize about an entire group based on some bad experiences you may have had with some teacher(s) in your past is ridiculous.

And this isn't just about teachers. It's about all public employees in WI (except for police officers & firefighters, whose unions just happened to support Walker in the election). If Walker wants to bust up the unions, fine. But then don't lie for three weeks saying that the collective bargaining piece of the legislation is non-negotiable because it has to do with the budget. It was never about the budget.

Unfortunately, I also don't think Wisconsin will be able to pull off a recall. I do think they'll be able to recall a couple of Republican reps, but not Walker, and not enough to turn the tide in the State Senate or State Assembly.

it takes an incredibly naive mind to think that the only time teachers are working is when they are at their desk in front of the classroom

My mom and my wife are both teachers. My grandmother was a teacher, too. I know how hard teachers work.

Good ones, anyway.

Wife is a teacher.
She's working all the fucking time. More than she did when she was a journalist. And she's active with the union, too.

I don't disagree with you, but this "teachers don't work" argument used to justify shitting on teachers is irrelevant anyway. Teaching has a schedule and job requirements. In exchange for performing those duties, you get compensated in cash and benefits. I knew guys that worked on offshore oil rigs back in college, two weeks on and two weeks off. Nobody said, "yeah, but they only work half the time."

Yeah, I disagree with Huskerpunk but I agree with you.

My mom and step-father are both educators. They realistically only work about 10 months of the year and they were both home by at least 4 every day. All that lesson-planning, etc. can be accomplished during their breaks/off-periods. High school teachers are a little bit different because they're are lots of extra-curricular activities that take place at night that they must attend. But they're not working 10-12 hours a day. Sorry, it's not true. Some might but that's by choice and a rarity (as it is in almost every field).


Still, I think they should be paid as much as we can pay them. It's simple really. Do you want highly educated children in America? The only way to accomplish that is for professional teachers to be compensated enough to attract talent. Lots of people would love to teach but won't because the salary sucks.


But I also think we need to ditch the antiquated summers off for school and start year round schools. Ironically, one of the reasons we don't is because the teacher's union would throw a shit fit.

Yeah, I'm a fan of year 'round school, too.

Me three on the year round school...now that I'm not a student or teacher.

I was a teacher for many years... I worked at least one hour in prep for every two hours of instruction. I know plenty of teachers (now that I am admin) that work very little. I know lots of teachers that work 10-12 hours a day and their whole life is absorbed with doing a good for their learners. If you are a high school English teacher you are correcting hundreds of papers every single night and you are required to go to after school activities, sometimes weekends.

This "teachers have it light" and "my folks were teachers so I know about every teacher" is astonishing in its dim-wittedness.

Teach high school English in south central Los Angeles for 37k a year. Yeah, you're overpaid.

I should clarify:
Wife is a special ed teacher. In middle school
So she lesson plans not only for her classes, but for each individual student in those classes
She also modifies tests created by other teachers that teach the classes that her students take with other teachers. Has frequent phone conversations with parents regarding the behavior issues of some of her more troublesome students. Attends seminars. Continuing education. Certification renewal. Grading. Etc. Etc.

It's 10-12 hrs. a day, easy. Usually more.

Yeah, I know that not all teachers (even special ed) are as dedicated as all that. But a lot of them are. And a lot of the better ones get burnt out pretty quickly. It doesn't help that they're not paid all that well, so the solid benefits are the best things that they have as a reminder that they are appreciated.

But even those benefits are not as cushy as they're painted out to be.
My wife pays 15% of each and every paycheck into that pension. It's overseen by the state, but that's pretty much it.
And the only person that is covered for free under her medical insurance is herself. It jumps to more than $500 a month out of her check if she were to add anybody from the family. So we're all on my insurance.

Year-round school? It would have to be done right, or you risk burning out all of your most-dedicated teachers even more quickly.

There's a big difference between "teachers have it light" and they realistically work 8 hours a day for 10 months. Making that assumption is actually dim-witted. Harry, you're the biggest offender of generalizations about people who don't agree with you. Which would be ironic if not a sad true cliche of the supposed moral left.

And how is my experience less than yours as far as having a qualified opinion? My step-father was the principal of an elementary school that is annually selected as the best in Louisiana. He was president of the Louisiana principals association and a frequent national speaker. He was also the principal of my school. I road to school with him in morning and waited in his office until he could leave. He was the last to leave. I know what every teacher in that school did for at least 20 years to be honest (mostly because my step-father has always been my best-friend and I was always around him for everything). My mom is also a teacher at inner city school.

Do you want to talk research, statistics and analysis(plenty of studies about how much teachers work), or do you want to throw epithets? "You are the biggest offender of people who don't agree with you"... biggest in comparison to...? Usually I find you pretty lucid even when I don't agree with you.

Oh, and as administrator I work over 60 hours a week.

There would be less burnout. They wouldn't work much more because the 3 month break would be spread-out throughout the year. There's too much lost with 3 months off. But burn-out is a reality in any field.

To your other point. Todd, I commend your wife. She's dedicated to her profession and that's great. But we are talking about the general requirements of the standard teacher. Which isn't a lot of hours. That's the truth. I know there's a lot of great teachers ( I'd like to think my parents are some) that go above and beyond the call of duty and work more. But that's really not required to keep your job.

I also know the job isn't easy. As Fu said oil field workers make a lot for a little amount of work but a lot of that work is hard too. Your job can be extremely demanding without being 10 hours a day. And as Fu said, it's all not important anyway. There's no reason for pay to be related to hours worked. It's about quality education and I don't see how we create that without well paid teachers.

I apologize Harry. I took the dim-witted comment more personally than I should have.

I agree most teachers work longer hours than they do in the classroom. Then again, I work my 40 at the office and still bring work home some nights and usually do a bit on the weekends myself. So, it's not like that is out of the norm for salaried workers in any field, really. That doesn't mean I don't fully support the compensation they receive. It just rubs me the wrong way when people wanna talk about how overworked teachers are as if the rest of the work force puts in their 40 and goes home.

You could have made a reasonable point here, but you're oversimplifying and basing your arguments on personal anecdotes as much as anyone else.

Teachers working 10-12 hours a day are only doing so by "choice" in that they're "choosing" to do their job well. "All that lesson-planning, etc. can be accomplished during their breaks/off-periods" ??? Really? For what grade level(s)? What subjects? Tell this to my wife, please. She would strangle you to death as the words leave your mouth.

And no offense, but there is a MILE of difference between being an administrator (a principal like your step-father) and being a teacher. I'm sure you know this. I'm not saying it's easier - it's certainly harder on many levels - but it is simply not the same. There is a very clear dividing line between teachers and administrators and their jobs are very, very different. Principals don't prepare lessons or grade papers. Naturally their jobs can require them to be on site longer than the teachers, but they don't have to take their work home with them, not to the same extent that teachers who are really committed to their job do.

But I think year-round school is a good idea as well, as do many educators that I have known, including my mom (I think).

Of course there are good teachers and bad teachers. Those that work 10-12 hours per day and those that don't.

My main issue is that Walker's budget will cut $834 million in public school funding, along with now the elimination of collective bargaining for those who teach in public schools. What will happen is that schools will start firing teachers based on the most money they can save, with no regard to experience, or worse still, performance. Class sizes will increase, and all in all, the public schools will get worse, not better, because of the Republican's plans.

Education in Wisconsin was dealt a blow today, not a victory like Walker would like everyone to believe.

Most of those international studies that show how far behind US students are do not account for 1. demographics - socio economic status and literacy levels of parents, nor 2. contact hours of instruction. Finland (the Holy Grail of educational achievement), Japan, others... all have 10-20% longer school years. And in the economic crisis we are in now states/districts are shortening the year to bare minimum. BTW, I absolutely would like an easier way to fire teachers who are not capable. I would like to have a peer-review component to counseling teachers out to another career. Good teachers know who the teachers are who are struggling and not helping learners. It will never happen in current collective bargaining climate. Just a bit of info to demonstrate that I actually think about my opinions and do not cough up canned leftist talking points.

There is a difference between principals and teachers. My mom is a teacher as well. I also have several friends who are teachers. My only point is that I saw the inner workings of a school, and a good one. If they're not working hard there, then I don't know where they are.

My wife also taught for about 6 months, which was a disaster. The job ate her alive. She returned to public accounting and is now the controller of a private organization. She worked more in public accounting but she would never return to teaching because it was too difficult for her.

Look, we can go round and round on this as we are all taking our personal experiences and creating an opinion from that. But no one is going to convince me that John Doe public teacher works 10-12 hours every day.

Mostly have agreed with you, but respectfully disagree here. Administrators are constantly working with curricula, assessment, data about learning, planning professional development... i.e. being educators. I ALWAYS take work home. I think this idea that "there is a MILE of difference" between admin and teachers is received opinions that really need to be challenged. It is destructive to creating a "community of learners" that demonstrably characterizes a work culture at schools that are doing a good job.

Starting to sound like my step-dad, Harry. Now, he complained about how much he made all the time. "I work more than teachers, but they get the pay raises." His salary did basically stay the same for about 20 years. He started out as double a teacher's salary. Before he retired, he was making roughly the same as his teachers but a little a more.

He would have loved to go back to the classroom and only became a principal for the pay to raise a family.

My daughter is starting Montessori next month and I'm really happy that it's year around.

The public schools here have actually shifted more towards year around in recent years: They start earlier, get out later and have more breaks scattered throughout the year.

No answer, but a cogent narrative analysis of the grounded reality of the white retro-grade middle voter:

http://alstefanelli.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/about-people-who-vote-against-their-own-interests/