Grand Avenue by Mike Thompson for August 30, 2011

If he’s paid like I was when I was teaching, there won’t be that many presidents!

I agree. with perceptor3. My mom dosen’t make much as a teacher.

Puleeze! I’m sick and tired and hearing about “poor teachers”. Average salary in our district is $51,000 - for NINE months. Retirement and benefits that are “golden.” There are teachers who wear buttons in the lunch room “DO NOT DISTURB, ON BREAK.” Wouldn’t want the job but wouldn’t constatly complain about it if I had it—FOR NINE MONTHS.

…And they don’t get paid for THREE MONTHS, but they are required to do Continuing Education during the summer, which they pay out of pocket and are not reimbursed for. During the school year many of them end up working 60+ hours a week, trying to keep up with lesson plans, correcting homework and exams, dealing with the requirements of NCLB and it’s kin. There having to deal with the parents who want to second-guess your every move, the parents who think their kid is ‘special’ and want to to cater to his every every whim, the parents who are uninvolved and don’t come to conferences, answer requests for conferences, or show any interest in their kid’s progress- until grades come out and suddenly they’re climbing down your throat…

And I have to ask if that $51k include administration? Because the teachers around here are earning a lot less. It’s the administration that is sucking up the money. A first-year teacher (usually with $$$ in student loans to deal with) pulls down a princely sum in the mid 20s.

These are people who hold our future in their hands, every day. And I think that how we treat our teachers is a direct reflection on how we value our kids.

Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, maybe, but no Jacksons or Grants (and Hamilton and Franklin aren’t presidents). I once had a Grover Cleveland and wouldn’t mind having a Woodrow Wilson.

Of course they bash teachers. You can’t destroy a country like USA without the support of the terminally ignorant. A few lies like how pampered teachers are helps the cause. The Presidium of the Central Corporation knows best.

Why couldn’t the twins go the third grade already?

27 years ago I dated a Kindergarden teacher for a while. Her allotted budget for classroom expenses was $200. For the YEAR! I helped out by taking all of her things she needed copying to work and running it there. No smelly ditto sheets for her class, only the best that Kodak could produce. And for kids to draw on, the back of green bar printouts that I would’ve tossed into the trash. One decent size COBOL listing kept her kids happy for a year.

And from what I hear, the budget has been cut.