James Talarico, who reminds me of some creepy televangelist with a face I wouldn’t trust in a million years, thinks teachers should be paid a MINIMUM of $70,000 per year.
No, seriously!
How does he arrive at this number? Well, he pulls it out of his ass, of course. Oh, and he “used to be a teacher and struggled to make ends meet”, so whatever he tells us is gospel and cannot be questioned…because WE unwashed masses are not teachers.
This may shock you to hear, but I am 100% fine with this plan. However, there are going to be a few strings attached:
#1 – Teachers will now work a full year, just like the rest of us. This “summers off” bullshit is an anachronistic holdover from 150 years ago when kids were needed in the fields because most of the population were farmers. That is no longer the case, so school will now be full time. We can break the year into 4 quarters, and you can get a week break between those quarters, but that’s it.
There is no reason to have $20 million dollar facilities sitting unused for 1/4 of the year.
#2 – Taxpayers will not pay one penny more for this plan – EVER. You will get the money a few different ways:
#2a – You will get rid of the dead wood paper pushers called “administration”. Over the last 30 or 40 years, “administrators” have grown roughly FIVE TIMES faster than the student population. If anything, there should be FAR LESS paper pushers today than there were in the 1970s, thanks to the Internet and computers making each worker more efficient.
I have told this story many times on here, but our little grade school (1st through 8th) had 30 students per classroom for 240 students. We had ONE secretary with her mimeograph machine and ONE principal. That was it. Don’t tell me it can’t be done.
#2b – You will get rid of the psychologists and other bullshit parasites like “Educational Diagnostician” Kathy Staruska who is paid $76,000 plus bennies and who educates ZERO kids. Bye bye. That goes for anything else that sounds like bullshit like “occupational therapist”.
#2c – All the superintendents and assistant superintendents will be paid the same as teachers. If teachers are the most important people, then guys like “Doctor” Chane Rascoe who teaches ZERO kids will not make $170,000 plus bennies anymore. He will make $70,000 also. Don’t like it? Quit.
#3 – Class size will be 30 students…and they will all sit in desks facing forward. From my first day of 1st grade (1976) all the way to my last day of high school (1988) we sat at DESKS, and there were 30 of us. None of this “collaborative learning” with tables horseshit – that is for kindergarteners. My teachers easily handled 30 students because there was discipline. That needs to be brought back.
#4 – There will be cameras in every room live-streaming classes for any parent to look in on at any time. If you are paid $70,000 by the taxpayers, you are accountable to the taxpayers. Don’t like it? Quit. Which brings us to #5…
#5 – Stop crying to get rid of standardized testing. If you want the “big bucks”, there is going to be accountability. That means standardized testing to see if you are doing your jobs correctly. Don’t like it? Quit. Speaking of crying…
#6 – No more crying about “we spend time out of class grading papers and making lesson plans”. Guess what? PLENTY of other professions take work home and deal with bullshit after hours. It’s called life. Grow up and get used to it.
#7 – Shitty teachers will be fired asap. If you are dangling $70,000 out there, you are going to get some smart people in there who wouldn’t otherwise be there. That means there won’t be room for shitty teachers anymore, so be careful what you wish for.
For instance, I’d give Cathy “Pork Chop” Kuehne her walking papers the moment I saw her make THREE basic grammar errors on a public Facebook post. If you are too dumb to know how to pluralize “STORY”, then you shouldn’t be teaching. Bye bye. No crying about it either.
#8 – Not a single goddamned smart phone allowed anywhere near a class. If I had my way, they’d be banned until you are 18 years old anyways. Maybe we put two free pay phones out at the front of the school and you can call mommy from those if you absolutely have to. We got by in school without smart phones – these kids can too.
#9 – In the interest of discipline being brought back, we are going to be a LOT faster to expel the troublemakers. No more endless detentions and suspensions. Schools are spending about $12,000 per year for you to be there. If you don’t appreciate it and keep causing problems for the kids who DO want to be there, you’ll be expelled permanently a lot faster than you are now. Then you can go out in the real world and work at Wal-Mart or dig ditches. But the days of giving kids 15 chances are over. Teachers don’t need that shit.
Well, that’s about it! You teachers still want that $70,000 per year salary?? The ball is in your court!