@krellin, it is possible that you get away with 8 hours a day (after a few years of experience) assuming that you did actually teach... I have seen teachers do that... and they are crap. My wife is a teacher, two cousins and a grandfather are/were professors, and my mother in law was a teacher... and each of them put in more than a normal work day most days and definitely more than a normal work week every week and more than a normal work year every year. Incidentally, my wife, who was laid off this spring along with everyone else in the district with less than 8 years experience (thanks to budget cuts and resulting class size increases), my wife is right now working on lessons with a colleague. Yes - she isn't even employed and she's working - on the hope that it will help her prepare for a job that might or might not come next year. Later this summer she attends three different one week courses offered by the school district.

The work, for a half-way decent teacher, doesn't end on the last day of school nor does it end at 3PM... there is always more to do... If your day ended at 3 and your year ended on the last day of school, then shame on you. Oh - and as far as materials and equipment... well, she has paper rationed out to her. If she uses more than a ream a semester (which is a given that she will - obviously) then it is on her. She provides the pencils, if she wants something laminated she pays for it.

I was a student teacher this Spring and the science department I was in had a budget of $100 per teacher per year. This is science we're talking about... with equipment that breaks down, projector bulbs and such that go out, chemicals and biological specimens that get used... not to mention paper and toner. A kid loses a paper, and literally, the teacher would say "you'll need to get a copy from a friend". Several teachers had projector bulbs go out on them during the semester and literally they had to stop using the projector (this effects slide shows as well as videos and demonstration experiments). Granted, I live in California - which, though it boasts the sixth largest economy in the world also has the second lowest per student spending in the country (second only to Mississippi)... but things are hard all around. Education funding is based on property taxes and whatever the state gives you - both of which can vary significantly from year to year and decade to decade - and have been crap and getting worse for the last few years.

So - your lack of being able to see past your own lazy ass 8-hour-per day nose and your complete lack of knowledge of the economic situation in education in this country is hereby noted.

Sorry Santa, I wasn't aware literacy requirements varied by medium.

And there's something called credibility, and when you don't sound educated yourself you undermine it.

And to sound educated, it means I have to spend more than the fifteen seconds it takes to type out a response before I get back to real work, so I'll take the trade-of.

I love to read the excuses from teachers about funding. What's funny is a public school around the corner is satisfying its mission with the same funding while another school is a dismal, miserable failure.
Give out student vouchers and let the parents decide.
It's painfully obvious that teachers and education administrators can no longer be trusted with autonomous control of education.
Give vouchers to the parents and let them decide what schools are best.
The bad schools, crappy teachers, and horrific administrators will be gone in no time and money will flow to the good schools, good teachers, and good administrators.

"Krellin 30 Jun 2010
I'm not a teach, you moron. I never said I was. Again....maybe you should try phonetics to learn to read."

Too funny. Krellin is a liar. Wow. His crap opinions have always irritated me... now I have reason to not even trust any claims he makes. How does it feel to be a liar, Krellin?

Maybe there is a correlation... people who have crap opinions probably lie more often than those that have well reasoned opinions. It's kind of a lazy ass short-cutting tendency.

Play nice, children

My grandmother taught math of all subjects to underprivileged black kids for 40 years. She worked at least a 40 hour work week and did ungodly amounts of work at home and on weekends. She also spent a lot of her own money on things needed for the classroom. Did I mention that she taught in a trailer because the school couldn't afford brick and mortar? She was a damn good teacher too. Her pay was shit and I cannot for the life of me understand why a woman of her determination and skills took up teaching.

Education should be the number one priority of any community, city, state, or nation. The number fucking one priority. Thucy's essay needs to include how awful Western education is, particularly American, in his discussion regarding the downfall of the American (Western) empire.

Tettleton said: "I love to read the excuses from teachers about funding. "

Of course those who say "paying for talent" at the level of CEOs and company executives is a completely reasonable idea (how else are you going to attract talent, they say) are also *against* paying teachers anything reasonable. Pay spoils teachers. Pay, including signing bonuses and stock options and golden parachutes for executives, that, on the other hand, is reasonable and its what companies need to do to "attract talent". High pay for doctors? Reasonable - you don't want some low paid lackey doing your surgery, do you? High pay for lawyers? Reasonable - you don't want some loser to be the only thing between you and jail. High pay for teachers. Of course we care about educating our children, its just that pay has nothing to do with results. They don't deserve it - and we all know that high wages in a profession does nothing to attract talent. (i.e. demand does not drive supply... a curious disconnect for libertarian/conservative type people to make) /sarcasm.

Teaching should be one of the most praised careers, but for some reason, it is one of the most looked down on. This is partly because a lot of teachers are bad, but that isn't surprising considering what you pay them.

I would be an excellent teacher (I have a lot of experience and enjoy doing it), but the working condition are so awful that I have a very hard time justifying that as a career choice. I don't mind getting paid less for doing what I enjoy, but teaching would involve literally a 100% paycut than what I could otherwise make after finishing my masters. Very hard to justify that.

"The Atlanta investigation uncovered the anxiety among teachers who were intimidated and threatened by principals and administrators. A third-grade teacher confessed to investigators, "There are ways that APS [Atlanta Public Schools] can get back at you [if you do not participate in cheating]. APS is run like a mob." The report unearthed a "culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation" that coerced teachers into giving students the correct answers and changing wrong answers on standardized tests."

http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/8130-report-widespread-cheating-in-atlanta-schools-by-teachers

Again - don't blame the broken culture on the teachers - when it is the administration that fostered the culture for this... and, with jobs on the line, some teachers did the wrong thing (and should be fired - along with the administrators). NCLB needs to go.

100% agree with you abgemacht.
I'd love to be a teacher, but there's no fucking way I'd do it knowing how much money I'd be giving away by switching careers.

^^ This problem needs to be fixed.

And really, money is the least of my concerns. I'd suck it up and take the pay cut if it weren't for:

-BS teacher unions
-Over emphasis of Standardized test
-Lack of supplies
-Overall incompetence

Dexter, cut and paste whatever you like, but you completely sidestepped the issue.

There are tons of worthless teachers out there with tenure that school districts force parents to send their children too because there is no school choice at all.

Why are teachers scared of school vouchers that will end the monopoly that school districts have on where kids can go to school aka their neighborhood school?

Good teacher aren't scared. They know they will thrive if parents have the freedom to send their kids to good schools and can escape bad schools.

The bad teachers are scared stiff because they would be out of work lickity split if parents had a choice.

Give parents the freedom to send their children to whatever school the parents choose and take the monopoly on school choice aware from teachers unions and administrative bureaucrats who have utterly failed the nation in identifying poor teachers and failing schools.

@Tettleton, school vouchers - as they've been proposed so far (that I've seen) - are not sufficient to pay for school... and so, those who use them are only those who can afford to pay the difference... *and* (critically) those who can afford the time and expense to transport their kids to some school further away... this means that, as is always the case with private schools, the schools "of choice" are simply magnets for the upper middle class - a mechanism for white flight. ...and present no solutions to the problems of inner city schools - or any school system that is struggling. ...it would only exacerbate the problems in those schools. I do not favor anything that helps the relatively well to do at the expense of the less well to do. If we want to fix problem schools, we need smaller class sizes, more counselors and community outreach (because it's not just about school - by a long shot), free (healthy) breakfast programs for needy populations, etc.

Blaming the school in isolation is not going to solve anything. My wife has taught in three different schools in three very different communities for two different districts - and I'll tell you, there is very little difference about the quality and passion of the teachers. Biggest difference?: Parental involvement, coming to school hungry and dirty or not, having drug users in the house or not, seeing people get shot, having parents that can't read and who have the TV on 24/7, being actually homeless, etc.

Studies have shown that *when one corrects for income level and education level of parents*, that charter schools are no better on average than public schools.