patrick.net

Teachers don't get paid for the months off. They can usually elect to have their salary spread out monthly, or only take their salary during the 8-9 months when they are working.

Besides, ever go up to a C-Suite on a Friday afternoon? It's usually quiet and nobody is around. They're all in the Hamptons or in some Vineyard getting drunk instead of working like the rest of the slobs. Getting paid to get drunk and go golfing with the same guys from their college fraternity.

Vicente says

Easy you call summer a "vacation" for teachers. It is not, it is unpaid time off, as certain as any furlough, or part-time worker. Most teachers are not fatcatting around Barbados during the summer, they are working as lifeguards or just looking after their own kids. Summer is only a "vacation" for students who are compelled to be at school the rest of the year.
So you could say you were wrong about that.

My dad was a HS teacher. He always called it summer vacation. Call it whatever you want does that really change anything?

thunderlips11 says

Teachers don't get paid for the months off. They can usually elect to have their salary spread out monthly, or only take their salary during the 8-9 months when they are working.

Then the per hour pay would be even more ridiculous. An $80/yr salary would work out to be $10k/month, only 21 work days in a month, on average 6hrs in a school day! The Monopolist School union salary is obviously set up to be a fully year salary, as most teachers do not have to find another job for summer. When calculating retirement benefits, each school year is also counted as a year, instead of 3/4 a year if it's like some of you insist that they are effectively furloughed for those months.

Besides, ever go up to a C-Suite on a Friday afternoon? It's usually quiet and nobody is around. They're all in the Hamptons or in some Vineyard getting drunk instead of working like the rest of the slobs. Getting paid to get drunk and go golfing with the same guys from their college fraternity.

Leadership and Management are not the same thing.

The Monopoly School equivalent to that would be the school district bosses. They too draw $300k+ salaries and go to vacation at the same places that you listed. The teachers however are the equivalent of line workers and average office workers. Their pay is way more than what the average private sector worker can find in a career: about 57% of the work (50k hrs vs. 88k hrs) and almost double the pay in a life time . . . all because the union holds the kids as hostage for ransom.

Compared to other industrialized nations, US teacher pay is solidly in the median.

I agree about the Superintendents. There is entirely too many functionaries.

Also, the schools are too damn big. Whoever had the brilliant idea of packing 1000-2000 hormone-enthused teenagers into one building was clearly a crack head, or suffering from late 19th century gigantism/Taylorism, but I repeat myself.

Small schools and "small learning communities" have been one of the big attempted reforms. There are some benefits, the big one being that everyone knows everyone.

The upside to the huge schools is more diverse course offerings. Plenty of honors classes and AP course in every subject. So the sky is the limit as to what kids can get out of it if they are willing to apply themselves.

A tiny little charter school isn't going to be able to accommodate the really bright kids. They will have to go to local colleges to get many of the classes equivalent to the AP classes offered at many of the bigger public schools.

Ultimately, I believe that class sizes are going to make a bigger difference than overall "small schools" (ie small schools with huge class sizes).

Troy says

Cook County resident says

Just to be clear, he said this happened in the late 60s.

We haven't had it that good since:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UNRATENSA

There were ~2M males turning 18 each year in the 1960s, and we were drafting a big chunk of them, too.

Baby boom was aged 6 to 21 in 1968. Massive demand generation. Credit was only started getting rolling:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1xQ

I think the unions didn't react well to the demographic changes between the 60s and the 80s. Getting a job was much easier in the 60s.

Another illustration by anecdote:

My brother was working construction and joined the union around 1980. At that time, there was a long slowdown of construction work. There were plenty of second half baby boomers ready to work but the union sent most of the jobs to the guys with seniority. Senior guys who got work easy enough in the 50s and 60s and were still getting work easy enough during the slowdown.

For a while, he's spending his days watching daytime TV and worrying about his bills, including his union dues. So he gives up on the union, gets a non union job in manufacturing and has been working steadily for over 25 years.

So, if his union had acted less like an old boy's network in times of a labor surplus, maybe they'd have more boys around today.

thunderlips11 says

Also, the schools are too damn big. Whoever had the brilliant idea of packing 1000-2000 hormone-enthused teenagers into one building was clearly a crack head, or suffering from late 19th century gigantism/Taylorism, but I repeat myself.

Almost 4000 students there when I was in High School. About 45% white -- mostly working class kids with some higher income, about 45% black -- mostly kids from two parent homes with a job holder and a significant number of inner city kids who were improperly registered by relatives who didn't want their kids in the inner city schools. The balance was mostly second generation Hispanic.

I learned alot there. One of the things I learned is that the kids mostly reflected their upbringing and family's expectations. Kids were smart or not so smart, or they might have had wonderful teachers or not, but whatever, they were likely to end up much like their families and neighbors.

It blows my mind that Math and Science teachers are not payed at a premium.