Nor can you expect payment to be the primary motivator of good educators nor can you expect payment alone to buy good education.

REALITY CHECK: Our education spending has skyrocketed and our results have stayed the same or fallen. This is evidence that funding is not the biggest problem, if it is a problem at all.

The United States president considers it an authority and has surrendered control of the US military to it. I hate to disagree, but that's at least one person.

Get On My Level Ho

mandrewsf,

"U mad? Because it seems that clear, cogent arguments are too much for your impotent intellectual capacity...."

You posted some retarded spam. I said that it was idiotic. Cry about it.

"And anyone who's ever received a decent education (and this clearly excludes you) would understand that it is hard to be a teacher."

And you go on to hypocritically call anyone who doesn't agree with you uneducated.

"I've been a TA in both high school and college and I know first-hand how much time and effort it requires to be a good teacher, and how little compensation they receive in return."

And here we learn the motivation for your drivel: You're not up to the task that idiots often accomplish. You feel society owes you more.

You didn't make "arguments," you made outrageous claims and I called you a troll or a moron. Your tone is condescending, your arguments are nonexistant, your claims are ridiculous, and everything about your posts is juvenile. You're clearly upset and you're ranting about me being "mad." Get over yourself. Nobody is impressed by you being impressed by you.

"From my personal experience, teachers seldom use the same curriculum twice, due to the different pace of different classes. "

Your experience? 2 months of TAing? You're such an expert. I stand corrected. Obviously many teachers often have to re-plan how to teach the same history, language, etc... Oh wait, that's retarded. That's a moronic claim. You're pissed that you didn't get a legitimate response, but my point is that garbage like this doesn't deserve one.

"My English teacher usually came to school at 6:30 in the morning and usually left around 5--a work day of 10 and half hours, not counting the extra time she spends for meetings, for school events, for grading big assignments like final papers, etc."

Completely irrelevant to the topic. You could have had 12 teachers that worked 14 hour days and it'd still be irrelevant. We're talking about teachers putting in the minimum hours with bachelors degrees getting $80,000+, 2 pensions, and premium benefits. That you have trouble learning to teach on a K-12 level isn't evidence of this not being unjustly burdensome on Amerikan taxpayers. We're talking about overcompensated teachers as an example of overpayed unionized government workers, and you're talking about teachers who aren't overcompensated. That many teachers aren't overcompensated in no way negates the point that has been made.

If you had a point I'd respond to it. I respect intelligence and knowledge, even when it doesn't support my position. But the ranting on irrelevant facts (nevermind the ridiculous claims), because presumably the poster doesn't have the presence of mind to understand what the topic is, is hardly a position of intellectual high ground.

Purin,

You quoted my summation of my point, then accused me of making an ad-hominem attack in calling someone a troll. Seeing as neither he nor you address points, you're sounding like a troll too.

"Here is another fallacy."

A fallacy is an error in reasoning, not a false claim. And, regardless, you're equivocating on irrelevant claims of personal experiences. I may have been wrong. Some people I mistake for trolls could be small children or just really stupid.

Zarf BeebleBrix,

I'm not "arguing" points like that the earth is round or water is wet to juvenile idiots/trolls. He was wrong. I said it. I don't care about a "legitimate" "method of arguing" to respond to angry simpletons ranting about irrelevant personal experiences and presumptions. You're not helping them by encouraging them.

Purin,

"Teaching is something that I believe is underpaid."

Yet salaries are all determined locally and vary greatly from area to area, so this is a stupid generalization.

"Why not pay teachers that kind of salary, so the cream of the crop will have a monetary motive to become a teacher?"

Way to think inside the box! You're speaking as if salaries are the only variable here, and government control of most education, union power, and a virtual complete lack of accountability and competition don't matter.

Again, this is completely irrelevant to the topic. But if you want to ramble off-topic poorly, I'll criticize that too.

mandrewsf,

"Moreover, since teaching is already a relatively unattractive career, it will become even more difficult to attract talent if one of its only perks--that of job stability--is taken away, thus exacerbating an already serious problem."

You presume that job stability attracts good teachers disproportionately more than bad teachers. Too bad you have absolutely no basis for this claim; baseless, as well as pointless, conjecture.

The point of vouchers is to introduce competition into the education system. Private schools are still publicly funded with vouchers, but privately owned/managed. Again irrelevant, again over your head!

"If that is the case, then since maximizing success rates is a rational course of action for any doctor or lawyer, then it necessarily do not cause statistical distortions since the basis of action for all actors are the same. "

But they're not all in the same position. Different backrounds and firms give them different starting client bases, and different starting client bases influence their clients going forward.

lol @ mandrewsf not understanding Zarf BeebleBrix's well-articulated explanation.

lol @ Purin's incoherent remarks supposedly in response to Mr. BeebleBrix.

Purin,

"Generous benefits such as health insurance? Lol."

They tend to pay less into theirs than others privately employed. This is kinda relevant lol.

"I think the main issue is cultural. Education in the U.S. just isn't given as much respect as it is other cultures. Thus, it is easy to imagine cutting the Department of Education's budget and screaming about how teachers are overpaid while the Department of Defense's enormous budget lives on."

The department of education doesn't pay them. You have no idea what you're talking about but you're embarrassing yourself anyway. Don't stop. <3

Shooting commies is always okay. They don't value human life anyway. But Jesus, not their kids.

I'm with you in mocking trolls. I'm sure I'll get banned for being mean to trolls eventually.

But I think this one's just honestly that stupid.

Did xeno just repeat an entire mega long post? Moderators! Ban this spammer!

Oh, hi troll. Sorry, I'm not into really dumb troll bait, so pardon me if I'm brief. You're making completely ridiculous claims about teacher hours and educations. Comparing them to engineers, one of (if not the) highest paid groups of professions? Yeah, that's legit.

I asked for one citation when you referenced teacher salaries. I additionally remarked that it's their benefits which tend to be really out of hand--so shouldn't we be looking at total salary+benefits--but you just ignored this legitimate question.

You pretend to be unable to read. When I said that I was referring to a figure from more than a decade ago (which has surely risen), this escaped you. When I said repeatedly that this was figure for one area and that the problem is NOT in all areas, this escaped you. When you said "more than 80k" was normal and I subsequently referenced "90k," this escaped you.

You're just insulting everybody's intelligence with this drivel. You want a citation for the fact that 35 hour work weeks with weekends, holidays, and summers off is less hours than a 40-50 hr work week? While many teachers put in significantly more time than this, many do not. Planning/grading time is built into their schedules in that 35 hour week. Many design/grade tests in that time. With computer scanning sheets, the 3 minutes it takes them to grade exams just isn't that taxing. I was overly generous in my generalizations before. Some work far less hours than I suggested.

You go on to post national averages, as if they mean _anything_. I've already addressed the fact that some teachers aren't overpaid and are underpaid. That they bring down the average doesn't change the fact that we're talking about grossly overpayed teachers, not all teachers on average. Good job missing the point/argument entirely and responding to a red herring!

mandrewsf,

"Short hours? No."

While good teachers do spend significantly more time with their work, the fact is that the required time is not huge. Their average is brought down a bit by their lack of holidays, weekends, and _entire summers off_. Are you bad at math? You might want to avoid mathematical arguments in the future. Their required hours are significantly shorter than that of any other profession w/a 40 hour work week, because very few others professions get anywhere near their huge number of vacations. Even better teachers averaging an extra hour/day to grade work still have short hours.

"No competition? No."

Not in the public sector. Teachers unions take good care of their members.

"BA teachers are now rare (about a third of the teachers at my old high school had doctorates)"

For your information, this is not usually the case. It does explain your being out of touch with reality, though.

"17 years of work for $80k is unimpressive;"

With a BA? Should everyone make 90k with a BA? It's impossible to argue that they should without violating the laws of physics. If everyone with a BA was making 90k we'd have to print a lot of money and we'd all be broke.

"someone with a master-level professional degree can make easily twice that amount, if not more"

160k easily with a masters? Have you done it? Now you're just making things up.

"if he is as hard-working as a teacher"

As hard working as a teacher? Tell us, how hard do teachers work compared to other professions? How do they rate compared to coal miners, power plant technicians, secretaries, doctors, etc? Now you're just making up nonsense, as if you can rate how hard teachers work compared to others.

"In any case, teachers' pay seldom exceed the average income of the private-sector workers in their school district, since the education budget (and teachers' pay) comes from local taxes (usually property) and is voted on by the local population, the vast majority of whom are not government employees."

Could you please cite a source for this statistic? Additionally, shouldn't you compare their average compensation, not just income, on account of the fact that their pensions tend to pwn the crap out of (to use a technical phrase) those in private sector?

You don't seem aware that teachers unions' typically contribute a lot of funding to local politics, such as school board elections. They fund the campaigns of those who then negotiate with their unions. Sometimes they get a lot of ringers in there. Sometimes (in some areas) they don't; but those cases aren't what we're talking about here.

"And fundamentally, to think that we should reduce incentives for a job that is already having a hard time attracting talent and cut funding on education"

How can you propose that the primary motivator for teachers to take up the profession is money, when it's not a high-earning profession? Have a look at a few graphs (w/citations):
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/edlite-chart.html
And try to make the argument that funding is a problem. Funding has skyrocketed while scores have typically stayed the same or even fallen. If you want to talk about hurting the vast majority of the population, maybe you should consider that you're blaming funding while it's clearly not the problem. You're ignoring the problem(s).

"I think mandatory, lengthy unpaid overtime definitely makes up for that."

Says who? Additional requirements differ from area to area. That 3/4 your teachers had PhDs explains why you have no idea what the average time spent is. If you think that the average teacher spends 2+ hours on their work after hours daily, I think you're a drug user or psychotic.

The point is that _some_ teachers are making (including benefits/pensions) far, far, far, far more than their private sector counterparts. That you think $90,000 a year for a bachelors education (+benefits/epic pension [or two]) is normal/acceptable pretty much concedes this point. And again, the example I referenced was from the late '90s. Those salaries are surely higher than 80/90k now (which is still above average, as are their benefits/pensions).

The point is that this is an example of unjust and unsustainable government spending, made possible in large part because of government-worker unions in collusion with elected officials. They each fund each other with taxpayer dollars. We're getting screwed. That this doesn't happen in some areas is great. And irrelevant, because we're not talking about those areas.

Altruist
"I think Justinian's suggestions in his 1st posts would give a true hard core bolshevik communist movement a real chance, even in the US. The Bolsheviki thought it necessary and helpful to worsen the situation to make everybody see the need for revolution. Well, they weren't nice people and certainly did not shy away from some mass-suffering."

That's what Amerika's current leaders are doing. Many of Justinian I's suggestions (I'm leaving some of them alone!) would help the situation, not worsen it.  This is why both Republicans and Democrats (aka progressives, both parties) have been fighting to break the US for decades. Nobody with a brain thinks we hit $15.5 trillion in debt by being responsible. The explicit goal is a collapse. The catalyst is power hungry leaders and a lazy people who keep voting for handouts, oblivious to the obvious unsustainability of the beast.

"In that brutal way there seems to be quite a common ground for bolshevik communists and capitalistic exploiters."

Capitalist "exploiters" can be prevented with simple laws and effective law enforcement (what a dream, I know). I think Justinian I is arguing more for unchaining capitalism's best attributes for the greater good of all (against Bolshevism), less for not regulating it with legitimate (not corrupt) laws. I see your point, I'm just saying that I think his aim was more to combat Bolshevism than to aid it. That matter comes down to the effects of his proposals. I don't think most of them are very catastrophic; I think, on the whole, they'd tend to be more beneficial than crazy.

I'm not demonizing humane things unions fought for decades ago, but there's absolutely no parallel between those actions and the bilking of the taxpayer that goes on today with public employee unions. I have an alternative to unions for government workers: If you don't like the conditions/pay/benefits, go find a real job in the private sector.

The more bloated these public employee unions benefits get because of union-government collusion to steal from taxpayers, the harder it is to find real jobs in the private sector because they're squeezed with additional taxes to pay for the union-government theft.

I love government worker unions. Even socialists acknowledge they're impossible to manage, and here we are.