Are the teachers on Long Island overpaid? (2013, salary)

[JosephPicarilloJr.]

Originally Posted by Avienne

1. Anyone who thinks $60K is lavish on Long Island needs to get their head examined. Seriously. To hear these people talking, you'd think teachers were making six figures.

The lavish lifestyle was meant more for the police, my mistake. However in many school districts teachers are making more than $100k, open up a newsday.

Originally Posted by Avienne

2. Instead, they are complaining about $60K to teach their children how to read, write, and so on. It really speaks to their value systems, that education is so far down on their list of priorities that they think teachers aren't worth $60K.

Again, this is one example. And don't make judgements on anyone's value system. Who are you to do that? And why are you even in this thread - you don't own a home so you have no credibility - adios.

Originally Posted by Avienne

3. A teacher's personal situation has nothing to do with it, so your neighbor's four kids don't really factor into it. I feel anyone in any job should be paid based on the skills and education required for the job, the worth of the job in society's eyes, and their own professional experience and skills. Location is a secondary concern, but yes, people in NY would ideally make more than people in Idaho for the same job, all other things being equal. So another $10K oughta do it.

Again you don't own a home so you saying what teachers ought to be paid is ridiculous.

[Yzette]

Originally Posted by JosephPicarilloJr.

The lavish lifestyle was meant more for the police, my mistake. However in many school districts teachers are making more than $100k, open up a newsday.
Again, this is one example. And don't make judgements on anyone's value system. Who are you to do that? And why are you even in this thread - you don't own a home so you have no credibility - adios.

Again you don't own a home so you saying what teachers ought to be paid is ridiculous.

When you place a low value on teachers, your actions are saying that you place a low value on education. Don't shoot the messenger.

And not for nothing, but the homeowner nonsense doesn't fly with me. I live here, and when the education system starts to suck because people like you don't value education enough to pay teachers a livable wage, I will get to deal with the charming little products that graduate as a result. You know, the kids who end up semi-literate with no options other than to work in a factory in Melville and spend their lives oozing resentment for the things they don't have, if they don't end up becoming little criminals.

Of course, then you'll be screaming about how we need more police.

As for my supposed "agenda," why don't you put things in context? It is entirely congruent with what I've been saying all along about how it is so much easier for people with your mindset to try to take away something that someone else has rather than try to change your own situation so you have it too.

It is clear to me that you are more interested in saving a few bucks for yourself--because if you cut teacher salaries, how much do you REALLY think your taxes will go down?--than in the greater good. Good luck with that.

[llama8]

I am a teacher and I pay a lot for family healthcare...it is not free!!!!!!!

My husband has better benefits through his business job (his benefits are cheaper and we are currently using his medical).

Also, although teachers do ok, $60,000-80,000 after 10 years experience is not that great. It is ok. Not even close to lavish and I wouldn't even call it extremely well compared to cost of living on LI.

I'm not complaining or whining about my teacher salary, I love my job, but any lower and I couldn't afford LI.

Teaching is a valuable job...where would society be without them?? All of the people in the private sector would have no skills without teachers and education.

We are one of the only countries in the world where teachers are treated disrespectfully and unimportant.

If you open a Newsday, read the entire article. They wrote about one teacher in Suffolk making +$120,000 with over 40 years experience and coaching 3 sports. No teacher on LI makes even close, but Newsday perpetuates this story about one sole person...an anomaly, as fact and ell people now think teachers make that salary. Not true.

[azzurrony]

Joseph,

You are being generous to teachers when you say they work 10 months. If you accrue all holidays and vacation days, we are talking about much less than that.

If you extrapolate a 60k salary out for a full year, you are looking at 80-90k plus great benefits. We simply can't afford this anymore as tax payers.

It's not that we don't like teachers, we just can't afford it.

[DeadPool1998]

Originally Posted by azzurrony

1. Let's talk about the greatness of organized labor. Unions had a place in America decades ago when the workplace was unsafe, no laws on discrimination existed, no federal laws on pensions existed, etc. The real purpose of unions ended a long time ago, and then they became greed filled entities much like the corporations they malign. Did you know how many hundreds of millions unions donated to the last Presidential campaign? How come no one mentions their sweetheart deals with the White House and all we hear about is big bad private corporations?

So by getting rid of unions, what improves? These problems are permanently solved? Explain what improves and how once unions and their lawyers stop vigilantly watching corporate labor practices?

These institutions are "greed filled" to the extent that they protect their membership from one-sided exploitation. I've never heard a union malign a corporation. They want to bargain on a level playing field, but they don't poop where they eat.

What is wrong with unions donating to campaigns?

State your point.

Originally Posted by azzurrony

2. Some people on here think the white collar industries should organize into unions. This is pure insanity. First, unions will cripple a business. How did that work out for Detroit? You and I are propping up our auto industry with our tax dollars because of it. Secondly, what do you companies will do if they are forced to unionize. They can't afford it. They'll shut down, go bankrupt, or lay off tons of people. The unemployment rate in the private sector will rival European rates of well over 20% or more.

Unions don't cripple businesses. Unions are convenient excuses to export work to cheaper labor markets. This is the fruit of NAFTA and Asian labor agreements. This is largely the blame of unregulated finance industry that has caused Wall Street investment dollars to be syphoned away from domestic manufacturing and into the finance "industry." If banking can get you 24% annually, while manufacturing, still profiting, can only return 7%, manufacturing loses. R&D investment and engineering is cut back to return larger margins. Unions are blamed.

Show me I'm wrong.

Originally Posted by azzurrony

3. Do we really want to become what we see in Europe? That population is a slave to its government. The Danes for example live in a constant blur where almost all decisions they make are controlled by a government agency. It is very Orwellian in nature. There are very strong unions much of Europe, but there is mass unemployment because there is no flexibility in the labor market (ie. you can't terminate the morons in your organization). The public sector is paid very well, but taxpayers can't afford it anymore. Public debt is rising and a big day of reckoning is coming for them.

Show us some indicators that demonstrate empirically that the quality of life for the Western European middle class is worse than it is here.

As far as I can tell, their debt is a smaller percentage of GDP, they get free college, health care, long vacations, and early retirement. Sounds pretty good to me. Combine that with longer lifespan, better diet, and paid maternity/paternity leave, significantly less crime, non-existent gun fatalities, and it doesn't sound so bad. How is it bad?

Germany is included in this, and their labor is unionized. How does Mercedes compete with all that socialism driving their country into the toilet? Hmmm. I need an economist to help me with that one. Will you help me?

Originally Posted by azzurrony

We are going down that same path here in America.

I hope so!

Originally Posted by azzurrony

4. The answer to all of this is pretty simple. We have to reign in fat public sector contracts (like teachers and cops) and reduce our taxes. However, we need to also do the following:

I get it! Reduce pay to teachers and police! That always helps property values, construction and local development/investment. That drives the people with money back into the city because they don't want to live in your suburban hell. Property values drop. (I'm liking this!). Soon Huntington and Huntington Station are indistinguishable! (Excellent!). Cut the cop staff and drugs proliferate. (This is brilliant!)

Originally Posted by azzurrony

a. Investing in new technologies and industries that spur real economic growth instead of just artificially growing the public sector through taxes and debt. Why do we have one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world? Why can't we lower it and attract more businesses here. Why do multinationals go elsewhere to set up their headquarters when they could be coming here to give us more jobs?

If public sector people are paid for their service and then they spend the money, doesn't the "invisible hand" of the free market reward the technology, industry, and innovation of the marketplace? Why do we have to deliberately direct dollars one way of the other?

Keep in mind, too, that investment in the military industrial complex is intended to do just what you are calling for: invest in new technologies. Since 2001, we've dumped several trillion dollars in the development of new technologies (military and university), and we still aren't pulling out of this recession. How much more should be directed to research and development? And doesn't government involvement in such matters always screw it up? Gingrich says so!

Multinationals move to P.O. boxes in the Caribbean in order to avoid income tax assessment. Aren't you an economist? You should know better. The people who actually run the companies end up operating out of their headquarters in nice suburban areas of major Western European and American cities because they have good schools there with well-paid teachers.

Originally Posted by azzurrony

b. Real immigration reform. We should be enforcing our immigration laws while setting up new ones that attract the best and brightest in the world. We should set up new visa categories that are very easy for professionals and PHD grads abroad to obtain. Get the best minds in the world back here and limit illegal immigration that is not productive.

We should also all be happy and be nice to each other. How do you make it happen? How do you make it happen when the corporations clamoring for the cheapest labor possible are lobbying to kill nearly every form of immigration control and enforcement you are calling for? Ph.D. grads are still coming here. They'd rather work here than in Sri Lanka. I know of no shortage of immigrated professionals in various well-paid industries. The flood of illegals has no bearing on the former.

You can't cry that illegals are here, and then complain that corporations don't want to stay. You will just give them more incentive to leave.

Originally Posted by azzurrony

c. We have to have real medical insurance reform by capping tort damages, limiting malpractice suits, and allowing more competition in the health insurance industry.

Various sources show that this isn't "real" reform. Tort reform is a blip on the radar screen compared with the other factors exacerbating this problem. You have the Glenn Beck talking point right, but you fail to understand this issue if you think that health care costs go up more than 10% a year because of malpractice suits.

By the way, no one ever seems to mention the people who've been mal-practiced on. Why should their suits be limited? If someone leaves a gauze in me, why shouldn't I be allowed to sue for damages and punitive costs? I'm puzzled.

Originally Posted by azzurrony

d. I love how people on here bash outsourcing. Like that could ever be stopped? Do you really think this country could survive it it places major trade barriers up? Do you know how much it would cost to produce everyday items on our own? The rate of inflation would SKYROCKET and people would be in bread lines!! It is an economic fact that every industrialized country reaches a point where they no longer have cheap labor. At that point, they HAVE to import. They have no choice.

I hadn't anyone bash outsourcing. Then again, if YOU feel that something harmful can never be stopped (though it could be by an act of Congress), then by all means give up. I'm not surprised that you would oppose collective efforts to oppose corporate influence.

Tell us what it would cost to produce "everyday items on our own." Until recently, Rubbermaid produced products in the US until Wal-Mart refused to shelve their items because Wal-Mart wouldn't make enough margin until Rubbermaid exported their manufacturing. They've done the same to various other manufacturers.

People are in breadlines. Today, they are called "unemployment lines." So, explain, just how is the outsourcing working for us?

There is manufacturing all over Western Europe, and durable good are made all over the United States. The syphoning of labor didn't occur until NAFTA passed, and that was during an economic boom.

Much of our pain is self induced, and it is the result of listening to people who bluster around sounding like they know what they are saying, but who have failed to marshall any facts in support of their claims.

[JosephPicarilloJr.]

Originally Posted by Avienne

When you place a low value on teachers, your actions are saying that you place a low value on education. Don't shoot the messenger.

I place a high value on education and don't mind spending to ensure the kids have the equipment and tools they need to succeed. Paying $100k plus civil service benefits for a teacher is like paying double for drink in order to make the bar owner wealthy. Why not get the drink for what it's worth?

Originally Posted by Avienne

And not for nothing, but the homeowner nonsense doesn't fly with me. I live here, and when the education system starts to suck because people like you don't value education enough to pay teachers a livable wage, I will get to deal with the charming little products that graduate as a result. You know, the kids who end up semi-literate with no options other than to work in a factory in Melville, if they don't end up becoming little criminals.

So the teachers compensation being cut will lead to semi-literate kids? Please - the hyperbole is ridiculous. Nothing would change. Maybe a teacher or two would leave, but at the end of the day the line is long to fill those posts. Any you owning a home does matter because you don't feel the impact. So sit back and leech of the system and tell everyone what their value system is.

Originally Posted by Avienne

Of course, then you'll be screaming about how we need more police.

Yes, and I say that now. I want more police... and if we didn't pay these guys so high we could have more on the street.

Originally Posted by Avienne

As for my supposed "agenda," why don't you put things in context? It is entirely congruent with what I've been saying all along about how it is so much easier for people with your mindset to try to take away something that someone else has rather than try to change your own situation so you have it too.

The difference is, if a consulting firm wanted to overpay their employees, their fees would be high and no one would hire them. They would go out of business, even though they have the best consultants, and that would be the end of their firm. Not so with the teachers and police, because they can just tax away at us.

Originally Posted by Avienne

It is clear to me that you are more interested in saving a few bucks for yourself--because really, if you cut teacher salaries how much do you REALLY think your taxes will go down?--than in the greater good. Good luck with that.

Actually, if teachers and police compensation were both cut 20%, they would still be extremely competitive jobs and my taxes would go down significantly. You don't pay a property tax bill so you don't see how big of a help that can be, but a 20% decrease would be a nice one.

[Yzette]

Originally Posted by JosephPicarilloJr.

I place a high value on education and don't mind spending to ensure the kids have the equipment and tools they need to succeed. Paying $100k plus civil service benefits for a teacher is like paying double for drink in order to make the bar owner wealthy. Why not get the drink for what it's worth?

So the teachers compensation being cut will lead to semi-literate kids? Please - the hyperbole is ridiculous. Nothing would change. Maybe a teacher or two would leave, but at the end of the day the line is long to fill those posts. Any you owning a home does matter because you don't feel the impact. So sit back and leech of the system and tell everyone what their value system is.

Yes, and I say that now. I want more police... and if we didn't pay these guys so high we could have more on the street.


The difference is, if a consulting firm wanted to overpay their employees, their fees would be high and no one would hire them. They would go out of business, even though they have the best consultants, and that would be the end of their firm. Not so with the teachers and police, because they can just tax away at us.



Actually, if teachers and police compensation were both cut 20%, they would still be extremely competitive jobs and my taxes would go down significantly. You don't pay a property tax bill so you don't see how big of a help that can be, but a 20% decrease would be a nice one.

Oh, yes, but my boyfriend--you know the civil servant?--he never talks to me about property taxes, so I don't know anything about that. And I don't know any homeowners around here. Oh, no. Never. I live in a vaccuum, you see.

Kriest, the presumption is almost palpable.

[Yzette]

Originally Posted by JosephPicarilloJr.

Your mommy and daddy paid property taxes so you know all about them, right? Pay a tax bill them come back to this thread.

Attacking me personally is only proving to me that you don't have a valid point.

I knew it would come to that, with the weak arguments you've been making.

Thank you, drive through!

[TomMoser]

It's always an interesting thread when people share their opinions about teacher's and policemen's salaries. I have always wondered why people who think that these people have it so great did not go into those professions themselves. It would be very interesting to hear the posters defend their own salaries.

Perhaps Obama's Pay Czar could weigh in.

[Keeper]

Thread is reopened due to an appeal by a member .. however stay on topic, no personal attacks or insults. If you disagree then post your opinion without bashing other members who are entitled to their opinion.