Almost Every person in the USA pays taxes, children pay taxes, what is your point?
Yeah, I do think 50k a year is a bit much when they only work 3/4 as long a year as 4-6 year degree people who are only making 45K a year. Teachers get summers off, or haven't you noticed? Plus lets not forget tenure, some can get tenure in a short amount of time and then its near impossible to get rid of them if they end up being POS teachers. I have never been able to get Tenure at any of the jobs where I worked no matter how long I worked there. Lets not forget the nice pension, 401K, medical, dental, vision care etc etc etc. Those benefits are worth quite a bit.
This last part is why I have severe issues with American workers. "They make more than blah blah blah, take away their benefits and pay them less"
People should not be upset that some public workers make more than them, they should be upset they themselves do not have the same benefits and pay. Just because people feel helpless that their raises and benefits are being screwed so the upper management and board members / CEO's can rape the company and then the company claims they can't afford to pay the average worker a fair wage does not make it right to place the blame in the wrong place.
You should be pissed the average Joe is getting the shaft and happy that at least in some areas of employment the workers are done right.
How retarded is it to want to engage in a race to the bottom.
Also, do you happen to know how much $$ out of their own pocket a teacher needs to spend on teaching supplies. There are standards for what is needed to teach a classroom and in the majority of school districts the school does not supply all that is needed.
How do I know this? My profile states I am a semi retired truck driver.... not by choice, I had a heart attack at 41 yrs old, Oct 8, 2003 at 8:05 am and could not pass a CDOT physical for a few years.
During this time so as to not go crazy I volunteered at my sons school. You would not believe how fucked up our education system is ( you might but for the wrong reason) The teachers out here make nowhere near 50k unless they have been here forever, avg wage is closer to 28k-32k and you have to purchase 50-75% of what you need to teach the class. The district I am in, in Colorado, the average k - 12 teacher spends 2-4k a year out of pocket to make a class happen.
I cannot speak for every school out there but here in Colorado at a specific Elementary school and a Middle school they are wayyyyyyyyyy under funded.
Teachers also do not get 3 months off, it is closer to 1.5 or 6 weeks of vacation. Teachers out here have 2 weeks after school ends of work and start 2 weeks before school starts again, that and a few workshops during the summer.
I consider myself lucky as far as the vaca goes, in my job I get 3 weeks of vacation (16days) and 2 weeks of sick/personal time (14 days) and I am at a private non union company where the owner prefers to take care of his employees, all of his employees not just upper management. Thing is, back in the 80's vaca and personal time like this with good benefits was normal, at least in my line of work. Now you gotta give some of it up so they can pay your CEO 10 million plus a year and another 100+ million in stock options.
Again, if you are complaining about tenure, pensions, 401k, dental, medical etc... etc... it is NOT that they get too much, if you are complaining it is because you are getting too little.
