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It's not like the employees can do anything about it anyway (besides quit and face the same 401(k) scenario elsewhere).
In this day and age, anything to avoid government intervention is a good thing. The 401(k) plan came into existence through government largess and it can easily be taken away. Don't think so, take a look at who's in office these days.
I know some highly skilled teachers who work in Queens Catholic schools. Many of them have masters degrees, including my brother in law.
They can't even "sniff" at a LI teaching job without nepotism or other "connections". They are paid usually an average of 32-40k a year.
You don't think they'd jump at the chance to teach on LI for, say, 50k a year with all those benefits?
I really think some on here are UNDERSTATING the supply of good teachers and overstating the demand. There are plenty of good teachers out there.
Let's envision what the system could be:
1. Hiring practices which focus on hiring the best possible teachers...and not your buddies or your relatives.
2. Lower salaries and realistic benefits along with ....gasp...incentive compensation. That's right....give out bonuses to the best teachers. Private industry finds ways to measure performance. So can teachers.
3. Being able to terminate teachers who don't perform or misbehave.
--
We would have better teachers, who were more motivated, and we'd weed out the lazy ones under that system. What VALUE do the teachers unions bring AT ALL to our children or to the taxpayers. Answer--NONE. They are leeches whose sole interest is in lining the pockets of union leaders FIRST and then in lining teacher pockets.
Even socialist Europe allows for more competition in their schools and among their teachers. It's no wonder they outperform our kids. Why do charter schools in the city KICK PUBLIC SCHOOLS badly even though they have less resources. It's called competition. It's time to wake up in my opinion. There is a better way.
If we continue forward with this attitude of "that cut won't make a difference" then we will never go anywhere. It has to start somewhere.
In this day and age, anything to avoid government intervention is a good thing. The 401(k) plan came into existence through government largess and it can easily be taken away. Don't think so, take a look at who's in office these days.
Government largess for who?
Businesses, that's who. Certainly not for the working people of the USA. So it's tax-deferred money as long as you save it. Whoopee compared to what businesses have for loopholes.
The government turned its head and allowed businesses to stop providing retirement benefits in the form of pensions and neatly shift the burden to the employee entirely with the 401(k) plan. Businesses don't even have to add any funds to employees' 401(k) plans if they don't want to.
As for "who's in office these days" ...
Yes, I concur that his actions in office so far mark him as a puppet of big business (especially health insurance companies and big pharma considering his half-hearted efforts for a true public option), Wall Street (they get TARP at our expense and huge bonuses are never interrupted even once), and war profiteers (Afghanistan anyone?) rather than a supporter of the people who elected him. I voted for him, but I considered him a better choice at the time than "free trader" McCain and his hoochy mama VP. Now I see he is doing some of the same things I expected them to pull on the middle class. I will not vote for him again, that is for sure. He doesn't work for US, he works for Goldman Sachs and their ilk. Take a look at who he has running the show: Summers, Geithner, ad nauseum.
I know some highly skilled teachers who work in Queens Catholic schools. Many of them have masters degrees, including my brother in law.
They can't even "sniff" at a LI teaching job without nepotism or other "connections". They are paid usually an average of 32-40k a year.
You don't think they'd jump at the chance to teach on LI for, say, 50k a year with all those benefits?
I really think some on here are UNDERSTATING the supply of good teachers and overstating the demand. There are plenty of good teachers out there.
Let's envision what the system could be:
1. Hiring practices which focus on hiring the best possible teachers...and not your buddies or your relatives.
2. Lower salaries and realistic benefits along with ....gasp...incentive compensation. That's right....give out bonuses to the best teachers. Private industry finds ways to measure performance. So can teachers.
3. Being able to terminate teachers who don't perform or misbehave.
--
We would have better teachers, who were more motivated, and we'd weed out the lazy ones under that system. What VALUE do the teachers unions bring AT ALL to our children or to the taxpayers. Answer--NONE. They are leeches whose sole interest is in lining the pockets of union leaders FIRST and then in lining teacher pockets.
Even socialist Europe allows for more competition in their schools and among their teachers. It's no wonder they outperform our kids. Why do charter schools in the city KICK PUBLIC SCHOOLS badly even though they have less resources. It's called competition. It's time to wake up in my opinion. There is a better way.
If we continue forward with this attitude of "that cut won't make a difference" then we will never go anywhere. It has to start somewhere.
It's a ripoff that there even are unions for these positions if they are supposedly professionals. What other white collar professionals with masters degrees "need" to be in unions?
I know someone pointed out engineers on another thread, but that is not the norm for engineering professionals with masters degrees by any means and engineers in unions are usually in them because they are in mainly public sector workplaces that already have a high concentration of other unions to the point that the workplace is entirely union (MTA for example) so the engineers are too.
Businesses, that's who. Certainly not for the working people of the USA. So it's tax-deferred money as long as you save it. Whoopee compared to what businesses have for loopholes.
The government turned its head and allowed businesses to stop providing retirement benefits in the form of pensions and neatly shift the burden to the employee entirely with the 401(k) plan. Businesses don't even have to add any funds to employees' 401(k) plans if they don't want to.
As for "who's in office these days" ...
Yes, I concur that his actions in office so far mark him as a puppet of big business (especially health insurance companies and big pharma considering his half-hearted efforts for a true public option), Wall Street (they get TARP at our expense and huge bonuses are never interrupted even once), and war profiteers (Afghanistan anyone?) rather than a supporter of the people who elected him. I voted for him, but I considered him a better choice at the time than "free trader" McCain and his hoochy mama VP. Now I see he is doing some of the same things I expected them to pull on the middle class. I will not vote for him again, that is for sure. He doesn't work for US, he works for Goldman Sachs and their ilk. Take a look at who he has running the show: Summers, Geithner, ad nauseum.
Re: the goverment largess - that comment was in reference to your previous post about why it matters regarding starting older workers on 401k plans. The 401(k) plan's original intent was for highly compensated employees to defer compensation not the masses we have today. For business to avoid raising the ire of the talking heads in DC and the IRS, they usually leave the older workers in the current plans and roll out new plans to the younger workers.
As for the current regime - I abstained on voting for people who are all talk and no action. Whether you voted for the current slate or not, it's the hand we were dealt and that's what we are subject to for the next 3 years, hopefully.
I know some highly skilled teachers who work in Queens Catholic schools. Many of them have masters degrees, including my brother in law.
They can't even "sniff" at a LI teaching job without nepotism or other "connections". They are paid usually an average of 32-40k a year.
You don't think they'd jump at the chance to teach on LI for, say, 50k a year with all those benefits?
I really think some on here are UNDERSTATING the supply of good teachers and overstating the demand. There are plenty of good teachers out there.
Let's envision what the system could be:
1. Hiring practices which focus on hiring the best possible teachers...and not your buddies or your relatives.
2. Lower salaries and realistic benefits along with ....gasp...incentive compensation. That's right....give out bonuses to the best teachers. Private industry finds ways to measure performance. So can teachers.
3. Being able to terminate teachers who don't perform or misbehave.
--
We would have better teachers, who were more motivated, and we'd weed out the lazy ones under that system. What VALUE do the teachers unions bring AT ALL to our children or to the taxpayers. Answer--NONE. They are leeches whose sole interest is in lining the pockets of union leaders FIRST and then in lining teacher pockets.
Even socialist Europe allows for more competition in their schools and among their teachers. It's no wonder they outperform our kids. Why do charter schools in the city KICK PUBLIC SCHOOLS badly even though they have less resources. It's called competition. It's time to wake up in my opinion. There is a better way.
If we continue forward with this attitude of "that cut won't make a difference" then we will never go anywhere. It has to start somewhere.
Charter schools get to select what students they teach..you think that makes a wee bit of difference? How many times has this nonsense been repeated here..this is like the 20th time I'm refuting it myself. "look, Albert Einstein specialty math school in bumblebutt Virginia is in the top 50 in the country!!! See, LI SChools SUCK!!!"
Everytime somebody posts this stuff, it turns out to be a SPECIALTY HIGH SCHOOL that only takes the top 10% of students. Holy smokes. Give up on that noise already. As a matter of fact, haven't I refuted it when it's come from YOU? The old repeat the lie over and over again and maybe it will stick thing.
If your buddies are great teachers with experience and sent their resumes to every school on LI, they will get a job eventually. My wife had no connections, and struggled for 5 years subbing and teaching night school, but eventually got a job from a leave replacement position. Are there too many jobs getting handed out because of nepotism? Yes, I'm all for stopping that stuff 100%, it hasn't benefited me.
First off, not all charter schools have selective admissions and they still outperform public school equivalents. Some are in such high demand that they have to have lotteries for students to get in. Sometimes it's just luck.
Secondly, charter schools in poor areas aren't exactly getting Harvard bound students. They are getting troubled youth as well from tough areas. They just are doing more with them. I don't think it is fair to compare test scores of charter schools with public schools. There are too many variables. But, it is fair to ask why competition is a bad thing for most teachers.
In the end, you're missing my point about charter schools. Even if they can be more selective than public schools, the question becomes why? Why are they more attractive to parents in the first place? Could it be because they are run in a much better manner than public schools? Could it be because parents know that teachers there are accountable and will make sure their kid can read and write?
Why are public school teachers so afraid of competition? There can only be one reason. They have a monopoly right now and they want to keep it. It is all about the self interest and benefit of the teacher/administrator and not the student. There is no way you can argue otherwise. If teachers and unions had students best interest at heart, they wouldn't have nepotism, they wouldn't break the bank (allowing for more $ to go to infrastructure), and they would allow easier terminations for bad teachers.
I'm actually gonna go out on a limb and say the success of LI's schools are overwhelmingly due to most of these kids being part of a succesful, middle or upper middle class environment where most of their peers are highly motivated and there is stability at home. That is not to discredit the ability of the teachers on LI, but when we have over 90% of our schools performing amongst the top in the nation (this isn't an actual fact, I'm just saying...) and then this huge disparity of districts like Wyandanch, Hempstead, Freeport, etc. - where schools have the same exact budgets, same exact teachers, same exact resources yet the students perform horribly, are disinterested in learning and have an incredible drop out rate....what's the only difference? Outside factors, not the schools themselves.
JRP - Didn't you watch Season 4 of The Wire
dman72 makes a great point about the actual math, though....I really don't think we're going to get the same caliber of educators at 30-40k a year, and that's likely what it would take to see any legitimate savings.
I do agree somewhat, but the budgets and resources of some of the poorer districts are not on par with the middle and upper middle class districts. The per pupil spending for example in most of the poorer districts typically rank among the lowest on the Island. Also keep in mind that some of what is included in the budget are reduced and free lunch programs, and things of that nature, which is obviously much more expensive in the poorer districts since you have more of a need for those programs. As a result the gaps in spending on the students, as far as classroom resources are concerned is actually even greater than what it appears.
Honestly, it boggles my mind, that in a country as competitive as the USA, that we find it acceptable to have full fledged monopolies running our schools.
Monopolies do nothing other than allow their owner to profit. They inhibit competition (and therefore innovation), they drive the price of services upward, and they stagnate because they have no one challenging them.
America panics everytime they see anti-trust violations, and yet our schools are in the strangleholds of these unions. It's amazing really.
I do agree somewhat, but the budgets and resources of some of the poorer districts are not on par with the middle and upper middle class districts. The per pupil spending for example in most of the poorer districts typically rank among the lowest on the Island. Also keep in mind that some of what is included in the budget are reduced and free lunch programs, and things of that nature, which is obviously much more expensive in the poorer districts since you have more of a need for those programs. As a result the gaps in spending on the students, as far as classroom resources are concerned is actually even greater than what it appears.
Per Newsday (spending per student):
Central Islip $18,338
Uniondale $18,027
Roosevelt $18,020
Wyandanch $17,370
Garden City $17,325
Cold Spring $16,932
What's wrong with this picture???
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Give up on that noise already. As a matter of fact, haven't I refuted it when it's come from YOU? The old repeat the lie over and over again and maybe it will stick thing. 
