OT: THEY FOUND THE MINERS ALIVE!!

Interesting. I am wondering, however, where they are getting the figures. The reason I am asking is that, whenever the newspapers print these figures, they are often including the school's share of benefits that aren't actually paid out as salary. For instance, the school's share of health insurance. The reason I know this is because inevitably a teacher will write a letter to the editor to set the record straight.

I have seen figures in our local area as low as $27,000. That's not much of a salary after four years of higher education. Of course, then the public always counters: but it's only nine months work!

Dianne

Joan E. wrote:

Just changing the subject line lol

Hah! We had the same idea, one minute apart lol

Most things do.

Elizabeth

I honestly do not know; maybe it is a median salary. As I said, it was something that came over the media, and I didn't see it in writing.

G

I knew that, Elizabeth.:) I guess I should have left part of Karen's statement in there, too, so it was clearer. I left the website for reference to my post. Sorry.

Joan

Okay, I just paid my yearly taxes. School tax was 3,000 dollars. That doesn't include city and county tax, which both almost doubled in this last year. We absolutely voted down the school budget, however, you must know that this school budget was to buy every kid in high school a laptop computer and they wanted to build a three million dollar football stadium and additionally they wanted to put astro turf on it, which was even more than that estimate. Teachers here make

28,000 and yes, many of them average about 600 dollars a year in buying supplies for their rooms out of their pockets, which is appauling, but I didn't see a big rush in the budget to give any teachers raises. Do you think I should pay for each kid in high school to have a laptop? Do you think a high school football coach should be making 75,000 dollars a year? Texas is way out of wack, failing tests, so they now teach to the test, etc. I will always vote that budget down, as do about 75% of the entire city I live in.

Done.

No, does not mean I vote down teacher salaries. I explained why I vote the budget down. It's insanity.

Dianne Lewandowski wrote: Of course, then

If more people only stopped to think: summer vacations are no longer a full three months, they're more like 10 weeks, and teachers work a week before school starts and a few days after the last day. And during the summer, most of the teachers I know are required to do some kind of education or curriculum training, so they don't have all those weeks "off," just working outside the classroom.

Sue

True, but the first- and second-year teachers still show up in the media whining about how little they earn for as much education as they have, and how little it's gone up relative to inflation, so I didn't think it had gone from 28 to 35 that quickly. I was under the impression that it was still in the low-30s, not mid-30s.

Granted, they need that fifth year of education for the Calif teaching credential, but most starting salaries with a four-year degree are less than teachers make their first year. And especially when pro-rated that most starting salaries are for 12 months work. And in light of the fact that we don't have equivalent benefits, nor tenure to protect our jobs, nor a union to fight for us when someone decides to get rid of us for personal reasons.

Non-union jobs in most states are "at will employment" -- they can fire you for any reason, or none at all.

When my employer came up with a letter (on someone else's case that I didn't remember ever working on) where someone typed "teh" instead of "the" to support firing me for "doing bad work", a union or tenure would have required him to come up with something a lot better than a simple typo as an excuse to get rid of someone who had worked that many years without a reprimand. I had neither union nor tenure as protection. And it was done a few months before I turned 40, so I had no "age discrimination" protection, either, when I was replaced by a cutie half my age and half my size. All I could do was walk away muttering under my breath.

But, as Elizabeth says "living well is the best revenge". I got the first job I seriously applied for, with much better working conditions than I'd had. And every bit of news coming to me from the old office made me LMAO, because it was becoming apparent that he'd fired the best worker and kept the slackers who goofed off while I did their work in addition to my own.

I'm with Vic on this. If the school issues were specifically to give teachers better pay, replace decade-old worn-out textbooks, and to make it so that families and teachers don't have to provide the necessary consumable supplies and workbooks for every classroom, I wouldn't hesitate to vote for the tax raise. I also don't mind replacing old buildings in situations where replacing will cost less than trying to bring old buildings up to current fire codes and accessibility standards. If upgrading existing buildings is cost-effective, then I support that. I also prefer building expansion projects in areas (like this township) where class sizes are growing rapidly and permanently; that sure beats having kids spends several years in those nasty "temporary classroom" trailers.

I refuse to support multi-milli> >

S'ok, you just never know when someone will come in halfway through a thread and I seem to get in enough trouble all by myself. *grin*

Elizabeth

We do earn very little for as much education as we have. I could have earned as much with a BA as I started with once I completed my Ph.D. Fortunately, I'm not in it for the money, nor do I think anyone should be. I would like it, however, if the state would negotiate our contracts in good faith and fund them once they're negotiated.

Elizabeth

I heard an old coal miner interviewed this morning,( Had a lot of coal mining in Nova Scotia and there is a possibility of opening up The Donkon again which goes miles out under the sea, it would take the men an hour and a half just to reach the coal face on the rail car. ) He talked about the bond that forms between the miners and that was big thing in the men wanting to continue to work in the mines. The camaraderie. A very interesting interview. Not every one wants to be a school teacher, biologists, etc. And in spite of the risks etc, there are men who actually like being miners. Like there are men who like to go fishing in this cold, fridged weather for lobster. It isn't all about money. Ruby

And this town has yet to figure it out that we are still voting down school budgets because Admin built themselves a $16M palace, then cried poor-mouth when it came to a few bucks to repair roofs and A/C at the schools.

Bought out the remainder of a superintendent's multi-year contract, then hired him back, and paid him a second time for those years, then cried poor-mouth when it came to a few bucks for classroom supplies.

One such ploy after another. They can have more of my money when they show that they can spend what they have properly.

Isn't free for any other profession, either. If I wanted to take a skills improvement class, I not only had to pay for the class myself, but had to sacrifice a vacation day to take it.

But I like helping you get in trouble. Here, let me enable you some more

How odd , Families of the miners are still mourning and all you can do here is debate other salaries, No respect for other`s feelings... Also,as long as Coal is needed there will people willing for any reason, to mine it. I don`t see any of you stop using energy provided by coal ,,, If you really care , start Voicing the need for Improoving the situation in mining, there are many technical help things that aren`t used because of cost ... mirjam