So now your saying that Teachers spend as much time in school as say a brain surgeon eh? Sure you aren't the one with limited mental capacity? Takes 4 years to get a degree to teach. How did I come up with 105K? well 51K for 9 months work is the same as $5,666 per month. so add 16,998 to 51k and you get 68K for a 12 month job, add in the value of all those tax payer funded benefits and you get 34K for that, add 34K to 68K and you get 102K, now extrapolate that as the average and you can easily see them getting total compensation over 105K.
I never compared a teacher to a brain surgeon, lots of teachers have masters and doctorates, there are a lot of professional careers that compensate better than teaching that require bachelor's or less. Teacher's don't work 9 months out of the year. Teacher's work many more than 40 hours per week. Teacher's(in most districts) don't receive 34k in benefits annually, and in many professional careers which require similar training and dedication those same benefits are provided at little cost tot the employee.
Teachers don't have the most important job in the world, parents do.
Parenting isn't a job, it's volunteer work.
Most home-schooled children run circles around public educated kids when it comes to knowledge. No one pays those parents to teach, and those parents still pay property tax so your kid can get a free shitty education.
Most families rely on two incomes, who is supposed to stay home and teach the kid? And in home school situations usually one of the parents is making double what a teacher makes.
If money is the answer then how come with the 300% increase in Government funding we have slipped 38 spots in world standing? The opposite of what you preach makes much more sense.
Total spending != teacher compensation.
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/pie/edu_pri_tea_sal_sta-education-primary-teacher-salary-starting
You want to improve education? Get people who give a shit to do the teaching. Also we could do plenty about getting rid of no child left behind, that's just a farcical way of passing kids through the grades and graduating them even though they are illiterate.
NCLB is meant to destroy our public education system by starving it of money(the same way conservatives have been destroying our governments for 30 years). Schools are forced to pass kids on, help them cheat, teach from the test, and fudge the numbers because the school will lose funding if they don't meet the benchmarks. And its not the teachers fault, the administrators are putting pressure on them to do it.
How do you expect a school to improve while cutting its funding?
I don't think you have it out for teacher's, I just think are you're another victim of the extremely vast and powerful right-wing infosphere.
And the main reason why teacher's are afraid to lose bargaining rights and fight very hard to protect their job security is because they rely on their pensions to retire. You work 10 years as a teacher, get fired, lose your pension, and you are fucked.
Most professionals will change jobs(or even careers) every 4 years or less. Their are very few professions left where you have to stay at the same place for 30+ years in order to retire comfortably, I can see why they fight so hard to protect their job security.