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Why am I paying for someone else's pension, full or not, when I don't have one and need my own money for 401k? It's not like teachers salaries are so low that they can't switch over to 401k and contribute to it themselves. With no raises in several years, very little/no 401 matching, and increasing healthcare, it's unfair we still have to contribute to someone else's raises and pensions; someone who's probably making more and working less hours. Working from home? That's common for us, and plus we work from 8-6 often eating lunch at our desks. When there are deadlines, it could be into wee hours in the morning. And no summers off or any days off except vacation, sick, and federal holidays. Snow days? What are those.
Very good points a lot of people are making; even people who do much better than teachers are sick to death of it.
She says it is a full pension. Since this lady I know started working over 30 years ago, she must have been on a different tier where the rules were different than for your wife.
That's a great point that I didn't think of and now that you mention it, I'm sure that you're right.
I know that even since my wife got hired, the pensions have changed for all the new hires. I'm not sure what the differences are between then and now.
It is not that difficult getting a teaching job is you are qualified and are one of the top applicants. I needed to find a teaching job after getting excessed and had twenty interviews. Granted, I am certified in math and science, but I did that on purpose knowing that I would have to compete to get a job. I also applied for law jobs. That is where I found fierce competition. I didn't get anywhere near the same response. Law schools are churning out graduates with no prospect of jobs. If you want to teach, you can head to NYC, but a lot of teachers are not willing to work in the City.
Common core and tests are not ruining teaching. I have been doing this for ten years and love my job. Going into teaching has been one of the best decisions I have ever made. I love my kids. I look forward to going to school and am sad when it's over for the year.
This site bashes teachers, as well as other things on the agenda.
It is not that difficult getting a teaching job is you are qualified and are one of the top applicants. I needed to find a teaching job after getting excessed and had twenty interviews. Granted, I am certified in math and science, but I did that on purpose knowing that I would have to compete to get a job. I also applied for law jobs. That is where I found fierce competition. I didn't get anywhere near the same response. Law schools are churning out graduates with no prospect of jobs. If you want to teach, you can head to NYC, but a lot of teachers are not willing to work in the City.
Common core and tests are not ruining teaching. I have been doing this for ten years and love my job. Going into teaching has been one of the best decisions I have ever made. I love my kids. I look forward to going to school and am sad when it's over for the year.
This site bashes teachers, as well as other things on the agenda.
I agree, I personally would like to pay my Master's Degreed educators a respectable salary. The best case scenario would be to do what other countries are doing, recruiting teachers only from the top third of the class. I have no problem with teachers' salaries, they are not too high, if anything they are too low in other places.
Again, people on these boards keep mentioning this. The truth is that getting a good job these days is all about who you know and not what you know, in every industry and sector - whether you agree with it or not. You're more likely to get a job through a family member, friend, former co-worker, school alumni network/fraternity and sorority brothers and sisters, or being a former intern/volunteer rather than applying blindly. Not going to lie, my last two full-time jobs I obtained through a connection, and I worked in the merchandising industry. My former boss openly admitted she got the job through her husband's friend. Not too long ago I read that about 80% of people get jobs though some kind of connection. Networking is now the number one key to getting job.
Not so true any more about it easy to get a job as a teacher in NYC in any subject area. Even the BOE says that they hire one out of 20 applicants. They can get NYC teaching Fellows to work in the bad areas.
The nepotism has been rampant on LI since they started to rehire after the great layoffs in the mid-70s. The hiring process then completely changed. The difference between this type of "networking" as you call it, is that they still go through the phony process of wasting everyone's time and money by paying for expensive advertising, calling in candidates for mulpple interviews, filling out a long application that includes multiple essays, putting together and submitting a portfolio at the candidate's expense, giving a demonstration lesson to a committee of adminstrators who take time off from their regular duties to watch someone who is showing off how well they teach, when they have absolutely no intention of hiring this person because the job has already been handed to someone's relative. Not to mention that the demonstration lesson takes time away from the kids' time to learn and from the classsroom teacher's time, especially when that same class has to sit through 3 or 4 demonstration lessons over a month. But hey, they can claim that they did a national search for the best person so that Long Island children are getting the "best of the best." Somehow, the best of the best ends up having the last name D'Amato.
Not so true any more about it easy to get a job as a teacher in NYC in any subject area. Even the BOE says that they hire one out of 20 applicants. They can get NYC teaching Fellows to work in the bad areas.
The nepotism has been rampant on LI since they started to rehire after the great layoffs in the mid-70s. The hiring process then completely changed. The difference between this type of "networking" as you call it, is that they still go through the phony process of wasting everyone's time and money by paying for expensive advertising, calling in candidates for mulpple interviews, filling out a long application that includes multiple essays, putting together and submitting a portfolio at the candidate's expense, giving a demonstration lesson to a committee of adminstrators who take time off from their regular duties to watch someone who is showing off how well they teach, when they have absolutely no intention of hiring this person because the job has already been handed to someone's relative. Not to mention that the demonstration lesson takes time away from the kids' time to learn and from the classsroom teacher's time, especially when that same class has to sit through 3 or 4 demonstration lessons over a month. But hey, they can claim that they did a national search for the best person so that Long Island children are getting the "best of the best." Somehow, the best of the best ends up having the last name D'Amato.
You are right about this kind of hiring for LI schools and it is totally not right. Although this kind of process most certainly happens in many private industries too, and I've experienced it first hand myself. Companies will already have someone picked out for an open position (a employee/intern already within or someone's relative/friend/school peer/etc.), but they'll interview a few people anyway - same idea in that they can say they "searched for the best candidate." The other side of the coin is that companies will publicly post a job opening, but won't bother conducting interviews since they already picked who is going to fill that position. I guess that's somewhat better than wasting time interviewing, but regardless it's still unfair to the job seeker.
The problem is that employers are required to post most of their the job openings, even if they know who they're going to hire. Nepotism is rampant in all industries, which is why you don't make any connections or connection to an employer you'll have a hard time finding a decent job now.
The problem is that employers are required to post most of their the job openings, even if they know who they're going to hire. Nepotism is rampant in all industries, which is why you don't make any connections or connection to an employer you'll have a hard time finding a decent job now.
Their own rules to make the filling of jobs look "extremely fair" just in case some wiseguy who did not get the job tries to sue them for not getting the job.
I got pushed out of a great district in Suffolk after two years and have had to go teach at a private school in Manhattan, a 90 minute commute. Even though several influential parents wrote letters and made calls to the superintendent asking them to please please keep Mr. (Me), they just said their hands were tied because I didn't have tenure. So even though some nasty old teachers who flagrantly defy policies get to stay, I am hopeless because of tenure. I teach two languages. I interviewed for LI jobs I was extremely qualified for, did great demos and even had a rec from my old boss, who is the head of the entire NYS Assoc of Foreign Language Teachers. No avail. Commack, for instance, pretended to take my interview seriously and then ignored me when I emailed weeks later asking if they could please let me know their decision. "Oh, that was given to a more qualified internal candidate." I've been applying to OLAS jobs for 3 years and never gotten a single callback. Just recently a friend who works at OLAS told me that BOCES covered up a terrible faux pas: for several years now they accidentally forgot to look at any resumes for names from M-Z, which includes yours truly. I am so down and angry and depressed at the LI teaching situation.
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