>if they started trimming the fat from college curricula

What would this "fat" be?

> Tell you what…look at a fucking map instead of worry about where I live/work.

 
You told us where you live and work. I checked a map. Driving from A to B takes sixteen minutes.

 
> There is a real issue with thru traffic that makes it damn near impossible to navigate that strip.

 

Apparently not, since people do it every day.

 
We don't need to piss away a billion dollars on a highway from nowhere to nowhere so you can get home four minutes earlier.

Were the RWNJs to stop their war on teachers, more college grads would consider teaching as a profession.

These details are a little exaggerated, at least in my situation. I get 50 minutes of planning a day and a 30-minute lunch. Every other minute is with students. There are things that I reuse from year to year, sure, but there is a LOT of things that need changed or newly created. As an HS ELA teacher, I don’t have a textbook, so everything I use, I create or adapt from an idea I’ve found. But planning is only a tiny part. Grading essays is extremely time-consuming. I work at night and on the weekends. We get a week off at Christmas and long weekends otherwise. I work all summer, but at a different jobs. Lots of teachers have second jobs. We get from second week of June through third week of August. The main stressors are not students and parents; it’s constantly pounding from above for more, more, more and near-constant change to something “better.” Now that I am at the top of our salary scale after 18 years, I will not get more than a tiny .05-2.5% raise each year until I retire. Just some facts from someone active in the job right now.

Yes, as long as it's not expired...

I don’t know why you’re downvoted, you’re exactly right.

Classic example of the bike fail meme. Demand harsh cuts in funding, then come back later saying "OMG Look what THEY did!"

I have a temporary registration with my vin, name and address. Will that work?

I'm not saying pay more. That's the lazy answer.

I'm saying highlight the benefits more, the main one being that you get 4+ months off per year, whereas most Americans get 15 days.

I have my MA and am Elementary certified and haven’t entered a classroom since 2011 because the starting salaries in my area are in the low-mid $30K range. There are several other teachers at my current job who also can’t take a pay cut to enter the classroom again.

I see a lot of people commenting to increase the pay. Of course that would lead to more people going into teaching, but is it justified?

Teachers get ~3 months off during the summer, a week off for spring break, almost a month off for winter break, almost a week for Thanksgiving, along with all other federal holidays. That's almost 4.5 months off work per year.

So teachers are working less than 2/3 of the time an average white collar worker works. People cite "lesson planning" and claim it's outside of working hours, but teachers only teach ~3-4 classes each day, with the rest of the day preserved for this lesson planning and any miscellaneous tasks such as grading.

To that point, most teachers recycle the same content and lesson plans year after year. There's not some major planning that needs to be done before each year/class, comparable to a company's quarterly planning.

To summarize, if you project out the hourly wage of a teacher for actual time worked and factor in the value of their state-sponsored healthcare and pension benefits, they don't seem to be underpaid.

I'm not sure if raising their salaries to attract a new generation of talent is justified. Maybe there needs to be a campaign focused on highlighting the extreme benefits of time off - especially to a generation that seems to value their time more.

Don’t forget about the school boards. They are causing a lot of policies that are leading teachers to leave.

Yes. A valid registration and insurance are required, does not have to be a Pennsylvania registration. Note, Pennsylvania law does not require inspections until you're actually registered in Pennsylvania, then you have 10 days. Some inspection stations and mechanics may be unable or unwilling to wrap their heads around this, but it's fact.

Yeah, property taxes are the worst way to fund schools. It causes extreme disparity between areas. That and I personally believe property tax is the most unjust tax.

Yeah, it's weird. Guns are fine, with a rudimentary permit, but no knives. I had to find a bladeless multi tool to cover the basics.

Fire the glut of useless administrators to free up the cash.

Good to know, I usually carry a leatherman when bike riding. My other knife is a sheathed sailing knife designed for quick deployment. Guess I’m in violation.

I left teaching during that time period after 18 years due to a cheap ass school board in a wealthy school district in one of PA's wealthiest counties. Their cheapness resulted in my not even closely keeping up with the COL.

Shitty administration and unrealistic testing/curriculum standards created by clueless state and federal level legislators and bureaucrats didn't help either.

Ultimately my class sizes grew dramatically, student needs exploded, and virtually zero additional resources were ever provided to assist. You were on your own with hypocritical administrators ever ready to criticize and and everything. Meanwhile, I'd go years without a raise causing financial stress at home as well.

Ironically, I had almost zero problems with students or their parents. They weren't the problem. Our politicians, ed department bureaucrats and administrators who never get out of their offices to understand what current life in the trenches is like. Those are the problems along with bad ed law and shit funding formulas

When I read the title I was ready to be outraged.

Of course no charges!! I’m glad she was carrying.

Lower tuition costs- Many people want to go into teaching but are unwilling to take out a 100k loan in order to do it.

Raise teacher's salaries- The higher the pay, the more applicants. Pretty simple economics here.

Vote in school board elections (and really all elections) to elect pro-education candidates- Across the State and the country, right wing anti education nut jobs have been running in off year, low turn out school board elections and are winning. Their ridiculous policies are causing teachers to leave in droves. This isn't just isolated to local elections either. In Florida, teachers are quitting in droves due to the disgusting policies of Ron Desantis. It breaks my heart seeing all those photos of bookshelves empty or covered up.

Continue to fight the pandemic/sickness in general/embrace scientific consensus in public health policy/law- Schools (especially elementary and younger) are giant petri dishes, and many teachers have quit due to the fact that they just keep getting sick. If we get vaccination rates up, wear masks during cold and flu season, promote hand washing, avoiding crowds, etc, then teachers will be less likely to call out sick or quit due to illness.

Figure out a more equitable way to fund our public schools- Recently, the PA Supreme Court struck down the current way PA schools are funded, which essentially has been keeping schools from wealthy districts well funded and inner city schools underfunded. This is only half the battle. We need to rebuild the way we fund our public schools in a more equitable way to ensure that inner city schools have the funds they need, considering that these are the schools most desperate for teachers.

Income-based payments and they have the potential for PSLF.

But if they started trimming the fat from college curricula, then we could reduce loan burden for everyone.

The thing is, not only is there school/district variation, but also: compared to what? Median teacher salaries are 56k in PA and typically ranging 47-68k, according to salary.com data. Compare with a BSW social worker’s median salary of 66k in PA and typically ranging 59-74k. Or a newly graduated RN: 67k ranging 60-77k. The low end ranges for these jobs are higher than the median salary for teachers.

If you take out student loans to earn a four year degree for a job that pays $50k, more than 25% of your monthly take-home pay would be going to Sallie Mae.

Maybe the answer is substantially discounted tuition for education majors?

Enact merit based pay within public teaching.

I like dogs enough but it’s the dog culture people I can’t stand anymore.

They project Disney animal emotions on their dogs and expect everyone else to do the same.

“He’s a person just like us!” The fuck outta here, it’s a goddamn dog you clown shoe.