Teachers under attack

[marmar]

High teacher salaries under scrutiny in Michigan
Pay, benefits may be squeezed as schools try to balance budgets

Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News


As state leaders grapple with a looming $1.6 billion deficit, thousands of teachers know they have a target on their backs.

With K-12 education one of the state's largest expenses, any funding cuts could put pressure on teacher compensation. Michigan educators, who get some of the nation's best teacher wages and benefits, know their pay stubs are likely to see big changes.

For many, those pay stubs are ample, according to a Detroit News survey of area districts.

More than 300 teachers in the region make more than $100,000 — double the median household income — and the average top wage for a teacher with a master's degree and roughly a decade of experience is nearly $82,000, according to a survey of districts in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Livingston counties. The information was gleaned from employee compensation reports that school districts must post online.

Although starting teachers right out of college make roughly $40,000 in many area districts, they can earn well above $70,000 by age 30 if they get a master's degree. And that's for nine months' work and most holidays off. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://detnews.com/article/20101118/METRO/11180420/High-teacher-salaries-under-scrutiny-in-Michigan#ixzz15ftXrwHp

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Don't worry; corporations will happily buy and run all of our schools.

They've been patiently waiting to do so. They even have friends like Ahnold, to help things along.

Remember, you'll have a hard time choosing something you haven't learned.

[JackRiddler]

6. Buy? You mean receive for free with subsidies? Yeah.

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Oh yeah, that. See? I don't think as evilly as they do.

Get your enemy to give it to you for free, AND pay you to boot.

[Pholus]

2. "can earn well above $70,000" -- and you "can win the lottery too."

Why the strange wording. What is the mean salary?

[GrantDem]

3. The race to the bottom continues...

And with the repubs taking control of the Michigan State Legislature and Governor's office public education is certain to come under attack.

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. The race to the bottom is brought to you by those who will gain from it: Disaster Capitalists.

[DCKit]

5. I don't know a whole lot of kids....

But give me ~28 clones of those I do and expect me to spend an entire day in the same room with them, day after day, and not everyone is going to come out alive.

$100K/year is reasonable compensation for a teacher. It's "Lord of the Flies" every day for those folks.

[MadHound]

8. Same old anti-teacher bullshit

"And that's for nine months' work and most holidays off." Yeah, if you consider spending most of that time attending continuing ed classes, college classes, seminars, or simply catching up on projects that you don't have the time to get to during the normal school schedule.

Oh, and let's not forget that a lot of those teachers won't be receiving Social Security benefits, so they're basically on their own as far as retirement goes.

Another thing: "(Teaching) is an awfully nice job to have for that kind of pay," Yeah, right, ten-twelve hour days is a really cushy job.

But no, people want to reduce the pay of people who have gone out and paid their dues, getting masters degrees and other advanced education to the level of what, a privately contracted garbage collector.

If people in this country want quality education and quality teachers, they've got to face the fact that they've got to pay for it. Far too many highly qualified students who would love to be teachers opt out of teaching because the pay is abysmal.

The war on teachers, the war on public education continues.

[Monique1]

9. and don't forget the teachers

who spend time at home working on lesson plans and planning projects and spending their own money to have their class a success.

[Bonhomme Richard]

10. We are all under attack. n/t