Whoever came up with the concepts of pensions and tenure - wow, that guy must have been some kind of BS artist

stringer bell wrote:

Someday I hope you're fired because your job is outsourced or a younger, cheaper worker is brought in to take your spot. Oh I know, you're so important to your company you'd never be let go. Right. And when it happens I'm sure you'll happily leave.

Well that's not very nice. I'm not irreplaceable, it could certainly happen to me someday. I'll just continue trying to do the best that I can. If the axe ever hits - I don't know, can I really expect a company to keep me on when someone else can do the same job for 10-20 grand less? My employer isn't a charity.

Teachers are the worst, most paranoid, and possibly the laziest group of workers. They truely have the government worker mentality.

The idea that the second you make X dollars they'll get rid of you and hire younger cheaper students is insane. Look around the private sector, does this happen? NO, because the experience workers have skills that are valued, so their money is determined BY THEIR SKILLS AND VALUE NOT THE FACT THAT THEY'VE BEEN ON THE PAYROLL FOR X NUMBER OF MONTHS!!

Just because you've taught for 8 years doesnt mean someone that's doing a great job in year 4 shouldn't make more than you.

You might ask yourself why companies employ anyone over 40. I mean, can't they find anyone younger and cheaper to do the same jobs?

It's very hard to quantify things like experience and institutional knowledge.

I used to think state employees were underpaid, then I realized the state pension system was a HUGE benefit down the road. I will find a way to work for the state before its too late.

for reals now wrote:

Pension - the worker will continue to get paid for the rest of his/her life for NOT working. How utterly unsustainable, unproductive, and ridiculous.

Money put into any kind of retirement fund comes straight out of the base pay. If the going salary for a given job is 50K, it is not as if some firms are offering 50K with a pension and others are offering 50K without a pension. The firm with the pension is going to pay 50K minus whatever they're contributing to your pension. I'm not sure why management shouldn't be willing to accept such an arrangement.

for reals now wrote:

Would it make you feel better if I said teaching AP calculus rather than the alphabet? Because my point is the same.The new teacher might have the same technical math skill as the veteran, but all the qualities you listed above obviously come with time. What's better - a veteran teacher with all of the above, or a new teacher with none/few of them but at a bargain price? Again, I would leave that decision to professional educators and administrators, but it seems to be to be a decision worth considering.

And no, I do not presume that I could do your job.

No it would have made me feel better if you hadn't suggested, by use of your ALPHABET" example, that teaching was nothing more than delivering simplistic concepts to a group of eager/well behaved/etc children.

Here is the thing.....most people do not have the TECHNICAL skills to teach, but it is the other skills/qualities which define your worth as a teacher.

So simply put, I dont think it is a discussion worth having. I would think most parents of young children would want their kids in the hands of strong teachers, not just any joe-blow who just passed his teacher exam. These teachers do need a chance to gain experience, and little Johnny is not going to traumatized by having a weak teacher or two, but do you want to fill all our schools with younger/inexperienced teachers?

Have you really thought through the implications of what your proposing? I can tell　from experience you do not want to go that route if you care anything at all about your child's educational experience

HotPanOliveOil wrote:

Here is the thing.....most people do not have the TECHNICAL skills to teach

Sorry that should have been most people DO have the technical skills to teach

fttxc wrote:

I used to think state employees were underpaid, then I realized the state pension system was a HUGE benefit down the road. I will find a way to work for the state before its too late.

It may be too late. Pensions will only be cut from what they are now. Tax revenue is too low.

To the guy talking about outsourcing. That is a risk we all take. That is why we have the responibily of developing marketable skills. There's no stopping market forces from adjusting to changing conditions. Every living being has to adjust to the environment it lives in.

EZ10Miler wrote:

Teachers are the worst, most paranoid, and possibly the laziest group of workers. They truely have the government worker mentality.

You CANNOT be serious. This is so incredibly inaccurate that I can only assume that you have no practical knowledge whatsoever about teaching. Talk to a teacher or, if it's so easy, try it out yourself. You'll even get some of those FREE* benefits!

*Free in that you pay for them out of your paycheck.

Pensions are a joke compared to 401ks, our hospital was bought by another chain of hospitals, and vested pensions were paid out when that finalized. The only problem was management knowing what was coming, began firing lots of people who had been there for decades, for trumped up reasons. A 401k, you leave the job, the money goes with you, its yours. Pensions on the other hand, foolish to count on those until the day that you retire and cash the check.

I would rather have my kid taught by 3 teachers each with 10 years of experience than 2 teachers with 30 years each since the class size would be a lot less (20 instead of 30). Your couple bucks is more like 50% and experience after a while (5-10 years in most professions) is overvalued. When thinking about my school teachers, experience had pretty much nothing to do with quality. There were good teachers who were about 25 and mid 50s and bad ones that were 60 and 30.

new toys wrote:

SO, by all means, yank tenure and pensions from the teaching contract. I just hope you're ok with recent college grads with no experience teaching your children K-12, just to save a buck or two.

a sidebar wrote:

Defined Benefit pensions are a great benefit. If a company sets it up correctly and funds it properly, it is a benefit that is beneficial to both the employee and employer.

Many people don't have a clue on how to invest or ever save for retirement. A DB plan is perfect for those people. Companies have been switching to 401(k) type plans and people are not saving enough for retirement or don't know what they are doing when they have to invest. They either leave too much in a money market account or just select one or two funds when they get set up on the plan and never adjust it no matter their age.

The first paragraph has several pretty big "If"s.

I think pensions gained ground during the wage freezes of the Depression and WWII. In order to attract workers (since FDR in all his wisdom set wages) companies competed with benefits such as health insurance and pensions. Both were around prior, but really took off.

I have no issue with the idea of an employer setting up a retirement plan as a benefit to the worker (deferring income to a point when tax rates should be lower is a smart move) as long as the taxpayer is not on the hook. Currently we are on the hook for a lot of defined benefit plans. Heck a good chunk of the auto bailout went to fund poorly run union pension plans (probably lots of corruption).

If people do not know how to invest then they are just lazy. We are bombarded by our plan administrator with opportunities to learn.

I think tenure is an idea whose time has gone especially for government run high and elementary schools. Heck all a teacher has to do is show up to work for 2 yrs and he/she will get tenure. At least in colleges, they have to show something to earn tenure. One of the reasons for tenure was to protect profs if they taught something controversial.

Ho Hum wrote:

EZ10Miler wrote:

Teachers are the worst, most paranoid, and possibly the laziest group of workers. They truely have the government worker mentality.

You CANNOT be serious. This is so incredibly inaccurate that I can only assume that you have no practical knowledge whatsoever about teaching. Talk to a teacher or, if it's so easy, try it out yourself. You'll even get some of those FREE* benefits!

*Free in that you pay for them out of your paycheck.

You said it wasnt accurate but failed to give one example where it is not. You lose.

As far teacher pay they might as well base it on age: "Here you're 40, that means you now earn $45,000 per year."

asdfasdfasdasdfasdfasdfa wrote:

When thinking about my school teachers, experience had pretty much nothing to do with quality. There were good teachers who were about 25 and mid 50s and bad ones that were 60 and 30.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious. Listen, the problem with all of these "solutions" to education is that they are based on the FALSE assumption that one can effectively - and fairly - evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher. Test scores? No. Waaay too many variables to use norm-referenced tests. It depends on the students who enter your classroom. Student evaluations? Teaching becomes a popularity contest. Peer evalations? Same thing. Principal evaluation of classroom practices... maybe. Which is now it works now.

You simply can't do any outcome-based evaluation that's fair and effective. Private sector ("good business") approaches don't work. You can only evaluate what the teacher chooses to do in the classroom, not what happens as a result of those choices.

Teachers open the door; students must choose to enter. If you can find a away to evaluate (objectively, fairly) how teachers of different subjects with students of different abilities "open that door"... then I suppose you have something.

Until then, stop with the "keep the effective teachers, fire the bad ones" mentality, because even though there is definitely a range of teacher quality, as in any profession... figuring out who belongs where is a logicistal impossibility. AND expensive. But that's another story.

Bismarck actually created the old age pension. I don't think he had much of a reputation for being a BS artist but you never know.

for reals now wrote:

Seriously, think about both of those concepts for a second.

Pension - the worker will continue to get paid for the rest of his/her life for NOT working. How utterly unsustainable, unproductive, and ridiculous.

Tenure - a teacher/professor works hard for a number of years and then has permanent job security thereafter. Must be nice!

If you have a pension or tenure, hey, I'm not knocking you, you (or your union) negotiated those things into your compensation package, more power to you. But it boggles my mind that management would ever accept such an arrangement, or even that someone would come up with these concepts in the first place.

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Wow! Someone should work for four of five decades and then just get a watch on his way out the door -- he is on his own? When did people acquire this good slave mentality? Talk about boggling the mind? You seem to think that economic security is a bad thing. It really concerns me when I see that such a subservient mindset is so prominent among letsrun posters -- presumably young people.

for reals now wrote:

Pension - the worker will continue to get paid for the rest of his/her life for NOT working. How utterly unsustainable, unproductive, and ridiculous.

Or could it be that they are being paid for years of loyal service and contribution?

Did he mention getting a watch?

I always wonder why people who complain about teachers, civil servants, etc. having such a cushy deal don't simply get a job as a teacher or civil servant.

lib - and you are part of the same people who want to go to war with Iran, N Korea etc. while eliminating most VA benefits. Get your bozo ass down there and enlist for three then come back and talk.