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Are Teachers Overpaid and Underworked?

Are teachers overpaid and underworked?

  • Yes, they are overpaid and underworked

    Votes: 10 15.2%

  • No, they are not overpaid and underworked

    Votes: 56 84.8%
  • Total voters
    66
Guy Incognito said:
It is because our system is not a free market, rather it is a corrupt corporatist plutocracy. So what looks like a free market is really a wildly distorted and corrupt system that, from a libertarian perspective, is more like the Maria the a free market.
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This is the first thing you've said on this thread that I can agree with. Apart from the Maria bit. That's too catholic for my taste.
 
Kandahar said:
A glut of qualified teachers available *is* an indicator that salaries are too high. Because the supply exceeds the demand.
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I don't accept the assertion that because supply outstrips demand the value of the labour is hence over-valued. As Guy pointed out, we do not operate in a free market economy. If it were then your assertion might be correct.
 
zstep18 said:
Problem is, there are crappy workers in any profession. There are crappy lawyers, doctors, etc. Teachers aren't the only profession where there are crappy workers.

People seem to forget that.
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The difference is crappy teachers can't get fired for being crappy teachers because of the teachers union. If that union was removed crappy teachers would be removed too and good teachers could take their place. This would fix our education problem and save money.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Not only are teachers over paid and under worked they are in a union that guarantees them employment no matter how bad they are at their job. A teacher can't be fired unless they are caught having sex with a student and their union is probably working on that as we speak.
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Blatant falsehood. Teachers have been given due process when the school district attempts to fire them, to protect against corrupt administrators.

Fewer things will demotivate teachers more than their sensing a major lack of support from their administration, and these protections help to guard against some of that.
 
Phys251 said:
Blatant falsehood. Teachers have been given due process when the school district attempts to fire them, to protect against corrupt administrators.

Fewer things will demotivate teachers more than their sensing a major lack of support from their administration, and these protections help to guard against some of that.
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In every other non union job you get raises and promotions based on performance and you get fired if you don't live up to standards,why should teachers be any different?
 
Everyone, in every occupation is overpaid and underworked, except for me, I'm underpaid and overworked. :)
 
The students, who create the value of education, are not rewarded at all, except 5 to 20 years later, which is no motivational factor. Considering all the unnecessary and unusable learning they are required to do, they are overworked, which is why they refuse to do it. The situation here is a slow-down strike action by the student work force.
 
PrometheusBound said:
The students, who create the value of education, are not rewarded at all, except 5 to 20 years later, which is no motivational factor. Considering all the unnecessary and unusable learning they are required to do, they are overworked, which is why they refuse to do it. The situation here is a slow-down strike action by the student work force.
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As a current student..i wholeheartedly disagree with the bolded
 
Sig said:
No, if education is privatized, teachers will be grossly underpaid; the top executives of these private companies will be overpaid; the company owners will overcharge the state with abandon because their generous donations to the local political machine will allow them to do so; education will take a serious downturn and eventually cost more than ever; people like you will be scratching their heads wondering what went wrong with their utterly naive, neoconservative, pseudo-libertarian "bright ideas."

If you want to know what is wrong with our education system, start examining what the schools actually pay for desks and computers, etc., and then compare these prices to what such items go for at the local Staples. Then start asking yourself why textbooks should cost as much as they do.

You can privatize all you want, but until you figure a way to keep private industry from bilking the taxpayer to death via pay-to-play schemes with local, state, and federal government officials, you will only make matters worse---much worse.
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The free market is a fleece market; the Good Shepherds of Wall Street clip the sheeple bald. The only market force is the force of dominant wealth. A free market means that the rich who control the market are free to do anything they want.
 
the makeout hobo said:
Guy, you seem to see the market as a purely rational and impartial mechanism, free from faults when let to run itself. With that in mind, what do you think the explanation is for the fact that CEO wages have increases by several magnitudes over the last few decades? What do you think led to that happening?
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In reality, the free market turns out to be chaotic anarchy, dog-eat-dog law of the jungle. What would a free market in traffic be? Those who drove cars built like tanks would be the only survivors. What about a free market in disease? History disproves the claim that necessity is the mother of invention, but the Little Piggies Who Go to Market would say that diseases would create a demand for cures and the market would quickly solve the problem. "Sink or swim!" is shouted out by those loafing on the deck of a yacht. Most people drown from that survival-of-the fittest attitude.
 
Andalublue said:
This is the first thing you've said on this thread that I can agree with. Apart from the Maria bit. That's too catholic for my taste.
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haha. It is supposed to say "mafia" but my phone messed it up.
 
Cardinal said:
Have you considered getting a dog instead?
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Get over yourself. If you cannot get involved in a political debate over the internet without becoming hysterical, you're the one who needs the dog.
 
Henrin said:
And you should be able to force those things on the employer because...
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Because the only market force is force. The power of numbers is the only thing that can combat the power of wealth. Force the employer or he will force you into poverty. And let the people use political force to outlaw sweatshoppers moving jobs overseas so they can pig off 15 cents an hour wages as in the Gilded Age. Who gives them the right to outsource? It is merely a claim, and we the people can claim differently. Only sissies let themselves get bossed around by arrogant MBA dictators. You got a problem with that? (Teamster comeback)
 
Standardized testing makes teachers so 1 dimensional. They teach to the test and not the full material. They need to be given the freedom to teach the subject how the would like to and then be evaluated by the individual school. That is why Private Schools are generally better educations, because they do not have to have standardized testing.
 
the makeout hobo said:
The issue is that some people would see a marked decrease in their education, and its those people that I worry about.
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Why would you expect a decrease in some people's education?
 
PrometheusBound said:
Because the only market force is force. The power of numbers is the only thing that can combat the power of wealth. Force the employer or he will force you into poverty. And let the people use political force to outlaw sweatshoppers moving jobs overseas so they can pig off 15 cents an hour wages as in the Gilded Age. Who gives them the right to outsource? It is merely a claim, and we the people can claim differently. Only sissies let themselves get bossed around by arrogant MBA dictators. You got a problem with that? (Teamster comeback)
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This is not an argument, it's a collection of socialist slogans.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
In every other non union job you get raises and promotions based on performance and you get fired if you don't live up to standards,why should teachers be any different?
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How much classroom experience do you have?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
What exactly does that have to do with job performance and retaining your job?
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You talked as if you know how teaching actually works. How much experience do you have in the classroom?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
I talk as if I know how employment works and real employment is based on job performance which is something teachers are not judged on.
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So your answer is zero, as in, you have no classroom experience of any kind? (Being a student does not count.)
 
Henrin said:
And you should be able to force those things on the employer because...
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Because the employees have EARNED them. Because the labor is what creates the value. Because without labor there is nothing. Because the rich fat cats don't get rich without that labor. Because without the bargaining power the workers don't get a fair share of the pie. Because 15 cents an hour is not fair compensation. Because a rich fat cat who hasn't created the wealth doesn't deserve a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean while the person who has created the actual wealth has his life destroyed in poverty. Need I go on?
 
Luna Tick said:
Because the employees have EARNED them. Because the labor is what creates the value. Because without labor there is nothing. Because the rich fat cats don't get rich without that labor. Because without the bargaining power the workers don't get a fair share of the pie. Because 15 cents an hour is not fair compensation. Because a rich fat cat who hasn't created the wealth doesn't deserve a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean while the person who has created the actual wealth has his life destroyed in poverty. Need I go on?
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Yes, please do. I am tremendously upset somebody is being paid 15 cents an hour. Where is this happening? And who is the scoundrel fat-cat on the yacht who's the employer here?
 
nota bene said:
Yes, please do. I am tremendously upset somebody is being paid 15 cents an hour. Where is this happening? And who is the scoundrel fat-cat on the yacht who's the employer here?
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That happened at the turn of the 20th Century and is the inevitable result of unbridled capitalism. It doesn't happen now thanks to laws that protect workers like the minimum wage, laws that the far right want abolished.
 
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