Romney: We have too many teachers, cops, and firemen. Fire them!

Ziggurat said:
In ordinary salary negotiations, the person paying the salary is on one side of the negotiating table. If they can't afford to pay the demanded salary, then they won't accept the deal.
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Not an accurate description of the situation.

When pensions are negotiated the employer obligation to pay those pensions are spelled out. They know how much they are supposed to be setting aside to meet the commitments they are making.

For various reasons, some of which are even valid apparently, government pension plans tend to get under funded. They knew what it would cost to pay those pensions and deliberately made lower contributions. After years of not paying in what they were supposed to they decided to simply make a low retroactively saying they don't have to pay after-all, effectively confiscating the money they were supposed to have been contributing all along.


I'm not sure if public sector pensions were involved but in the late 90's it was all the rage for companies to simply take money out of pension plans they deemed to be "over-funded" and give that money to their shareholders.

They calculated that they money they were contributing as part of their contract with the employee were too large and that now they had more money then they needed to pay their pensions so they just took the "extra". Then of course the stock market peaked and they discovered these pensions were now underfunded. Today most of pensions have been reworked into lower paying plans based on the available money but I bet the companies that raided their employee's pension plans didn't give any of the money back.
 
Ziggurat said:
Do most teachers who retire at 65 do so because they can't work anymore?
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No Ziggy, but most people love the opportunity to retire at age 65 instead of working until they keel over and die (which I'm sure you'd have no problem with).

That would seem quite the coincidence.
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It would also seem it's none of your business what reason someone would have for retiring at the age of 65!
 
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WildCat said:
And Chicago teachers already average $75K/year (starting pay is $50K) for working one of the shortest school days in the country, barely more than 5 hours.
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They get paid $75K for working 5 hours in a year? WOW! I want that job! Where can I get a job like that?
 
dc1971 said:
No Ziggy
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So you admit that referring to people working until they can't is spurious.

It would also seem it's none of your business what reason someone would have for retiring at the age of 65!
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I never claimed it was. You were the one, not me, who decided to try to make motivation for retirement part of the conversation. And you did so in a transparently dishonest manner, as your own confession above shows.
 
Ziggurat said:
So you admit that referring to people working until they can't is spurious.
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Once again, twisting words out of context. Did you miss the part about people enjoying the opportunity to retire?


I never claimed it was. You were the one, not me, who decided to try to make motivation for retirement part of the conversation. And you did so in a transparently dishonest manner, as your own confession above shows.
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Confession? Gee, I missed that this was an inquiry? If we're going to do that, shouldn't we meet in a dark room somewhere?
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
class prep time, grading, curriculum, supplies---all those things teachers can't do during school hours and have to do (no one does it for them)? They shouldn't be paid for that part of the job?
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You really want to compare average hours worked per year for teachers compared to, well, just about any other job?
 
WildCat said:
You're really going to defend block grants, the holy grail of pork?



Do you know what "interstate" means? And the national interest in a modern highway system?

Now, what is the national interest in Uncle Sam paying for Peoria's cops, firefighters, and teachers?
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To avoid having to send in the national guard and fema to handle situations that develop when large population areas don't have adequate police, fire and education systems?
 
Brainster said:
Most schools have found that more teachers doesn't mean better teaching; by definition more teachers being hired means that you are scraping lower and lower in the barrel. So, yeah, maybe the class size is smaller, but the average quality of instruction declines.
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Got cite or reference?
 
ponderingturtle said:
Only socialists use the interstates!
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Hey! Interstate highways are a Republican (progressive republican at that) achievement, let's not bad mouth the good guys. (besides Ike is liable to rise from the dead and punk you like a sweet-lipped juvie tried as an adult for insinuating that he had anything to do with a red plot)
 
Trakar said:
To avoid having to send in the national guard and fema to handle situations that develop when large population areas don't have adequate police, fire and education systems?
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And when did that ever happen?
 
dc1971 said:
Once again, twisting words out of context. Did you miss the part about people enjoying the opportunity to retire?
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Did I? Let's consult the post in question:

dc1971 said:
In other words, they shouldn't retire. Don't expect anything when you get old and you can't work anymore.

Hey! Unfairness is now unavoidable! You said it!
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That's the post, in full, no edits or cuts. Hmmm... indeed, I am having trouble finding the part about people enjoying the opportunity to retire Perhaps because it really and truly isn't there.

Oh, you made some mention of that in your next post, after I called you on this post. But this is the post I objected to, and you can't use the contents of a later post to invalidate my initial criticism of this post. Not without time travel, anyways.

dc1971 said:
If we're going to do that, shouldn't we meet in a dark room somewhere?
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You need to wine and dine me first. :p
 
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WildCat said:
And Chicago teachers already average $75K/year (starting pay is $50K) for working one of the shortest school days in the country, barely more than 5 hours.
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Assuming your figure is correct, it only refers to official working hours. Is there any measure as to how many unpaid or unofficial/off-the-clock hours of work they put in each year? 'Cause a lot of folk are in the position of being expected to work extra hours for their job, hours for which they are not directly paid.
 
dc1971 said:
...However, I'm gauging off the rhetoric that teachers make all this money in the course of a school year then get three months off. I have looked high and low and I have yet to find that IDEAL situation.1
Most teachers I had in class growing up worked a supplemental part time job to2 make ends meet. My parents were the exception because they BOTH had teaching jobs...

I also remember my Dad staying up late nights to grade papers when marking period tests were due. He never got paid extra for taking his work home with him.3
As for three months off. It's a myth. Factoring in In-Service weeks at the end of the school year and the beginning of the school year and then being mandated to take vacation time to pay for the rest of the summer, there might be a MONTH in there. That month is NOT paid.4
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1. Here's J. P. Greene on the teacher pay myth.
Teachers have long vacation periods, several personal and sick days and work a shorter day than most other professionals. We can only properly understand these hours away from work as a benefit of the teaching profession. That is, a teacher who earns $45,000 to work for nine months is clearly better paid than a nurse who gets the same salary for working 12 months...
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average public elementary school teacher in the United States earns about $30.75 an hour. The average hourly pay of other public-service employees - such as firefighters ($17.91) or police officers ($22.64) - pales in comparison.

Indeed, teachers' hourly rate exceeds even those in professions that require far more training and expertise. Compare the schoolteacher's $30.75 to the average biologist's $28.07 an hour - or the mechanical engineer's $29.76 or the chemist's $30.68.

Whose hourly pay is competitive with that of teachers? Computer scientists ($32.86), dentists ($35.51) and even nuclear engineers ($36.16).

Note, too, that these hourly figures exclude benefits, such as health coverage and retirement accounts, which are typically more generous for government employees, such as teachers, than for private-sector workers.
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2. "To" is a statement of intention. Intentions are mental events. dc is mindreading, here.
3. Lots of trades and professions take work home. Carpenters don't get paid to sharpen their chisels on the jobsite.
4. When I worked for the Hawaii DOE twenty years ago, I received $30,000 for a 180-day work year. I did not think I was underpaid. Teaching is fun if your students want to be there.
 
Corsair 115 said:
Assuming your figure is correct, it only refers to official working hours. Is there any measure as to how many unpaid or unofficial/off-the-clock hours of work they put in each year? 'Cause a lot of folk are in the position of being expected to work extra hours for their job, hours for which they are not directly paid.
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I taught Math for ten years in the Hawaii DOE. I assigned and graded homework and classwork when I started, then I learned better. Grading homework is unfair, since you don't know who did it. Classwork is for practice, a chance to make costless mistakes.
Perhaps it's different for History and English teachers.

"What works?" is an empirical question which only an experiment (in public policy, federalism or competitive markets in goods and services) can answer with any accuracy. A State-monopoly enterprise is an experiment with one treatment and no controls, a retarded experimental design.
 
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