I have no disagreement with much of this, complaining about our pay is the wrong way to go since we all know we will be paid.
I will comment on teachers however, I believe they should be paid more but they should also compromise on many things like tenure and teacher evaluations. Their profession raised standards to require masters degrees without demanding higher pay over the years, that is their fault. in most states that value education at a higher level, most teachers easily top out at 85+, along with extra curriculars that also pay like baseball and choir etc, putting them over 100. Yea in some districts like nyc and LA that’s still unaffordable, but making 50 plus in Arkansas is just fine especially with a spouse who also works. The 50 hours a week is only when they are working, they have every major holiday off plus others, don’t work summer, and work very few full 5 day work weeks months of the months they are working. And They are never forced to come in Saturday’s and sundays. Knowing that does give them some work life balance comfort. the local education budget comes from local taxes, I just don’t agree with raising pay and school budget when currently they are also working to keep schools closed in many locations therefore forcing the education of the student to suffer. In my opinion, for the local school budget to go up they need to give something up or we need to restructure what we locally spend our tax dollars on.
Full disclosure: my wife is/was a teacher (TOL area) before I moved facilities so I have a direct connection there; she's enjoying her life outside the classroom and doesn't know if she wants to return or not at this point. One uncle, 4 cousins, and 3 close friends that I can think of are teachers (some public, some charter). There are definitely more but I am not going through extended family or my friends list to tally. They teach in decent school districts throughout Michigan (GRR and metro DTW); I would put that state towards the top of ones that value education at a higher level.
None of my teacher friends/family have ever voiced any issue with giving up/reigning in tenure, that genuinely seems to be a union sticking point. I don't understand what you're saying about evaluations (you think there needs to be more evaluations or they need to be more intensive?), they are all evaluated at least once per year; my wife was evaluated twice per school year and they were most definitely not a cakewalk. Again, all my contacts outside of my uncle (just retired 2 years ago) and one of my older cousins (mid-40's) are not breaking $40k a year, and 3 of them get/got paid ZERO for their coaching and extracurriculars (families literally pooled together and bought a couple of them $50-100 gas cards each year just so they could break even on gas expenditures).
If you average their work out over 52 weeks, they absolutely average 50+ hours a week for the entire year. They work on holidays, just not at the school. They work over the summer, just without students.
My wife was at the school 7am-4pm every day (sometimes 8pm or 9pm depending on the day) and at least another hour each night at home just lesson-planning. Add in another hour at least three times a week for grading. Add in one to three hours a week volunteering to supervise extracurricular student groups. Add in about 6 hours a week coaching 2 sports for which she did not get paid a cent. That right there gets you to 60 hours a week during the school year. Their winter, spring, and summer breaks are mostly spent at the schools doing in-services and professional development days. My wife legitimately had an aggregate of 2.5 weeks "off" over the summers, only one week of which was an actual full week off. No pension, generic 401k match setup, and mediocre health benefits. Her last year teaching? $36,400
COVID has thrown them another curveball entirely. Responding to emails and video conferences and phone calls from 6am until 10pm. Being the verbal abuse recipients of not only the typical "how can you treat my fantastic and amazing and spectacular child this way" but now also, "you're a puppet for the government/COVID isn't real/you're destroying my child's mental health/you're a socialist/you're a fascist."
Teachers and police officers are the two most shat upon public servant roles that receive so much general hate and vitriol on a regular basis that I just don't understand why anyone would want to pursue those career paths anymore.
But this is a government shutdown thread so I look forward to seeing where this post ends up getting moved to after my diatribe.
