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I'm sure your not talking about the South, Bob. From what I see the South seems to crank out a lot of atheletes but they come up a little short on Rhodes scholars.
I saw on the TV sports the other day that Princeton was playing Harvard, those are NC high schools and that's about as close as those students will ever get to the real Princeton and Harvard.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike NJ but their public education system is top notch, (not including of course the schools in the hood)
There are plenty of great schools in the south, and plenty of kids that go on to Ivy League schools from the south. To say otherwise is ridiculous.
Ok not sure where they stand on the salary guide or how long they have been teaching but the salary seems ok. Teachers in NJ pay for both pensions and health cost as well. The major diffrence would be the 25 years benefits.
In many towns, teachers did not pay anything into their healthcare costs until the recent law that requires them to pay 1% of their salaries. Which is a drop in the bucket as we all know.
Without question COL is directly related to leaglized political corrupted behavior as well as illegal behavior, ineptness, incompetence, greed and acclimation to a complacent electorate. Hard to say if NJ's problems fall more on the shoulders of the electorate or the pols, but the partnership has made NJ a nationally known feeding trough.
Career politicians/lawyers spin legalese as a foreign language like secrect gang codes to exclude citizens from grasping the implication of legislation passed simply as coin of the realm in an exchange for pet project votes from other complicit legislators.
To raise taxes one penny is an insult to the citizens of NJ as it declares the financial waste, through coruption and incompetence of elected officials, is tolerable and accepted as part of an inherited culture. The default action is to raise taxes in lieu of taking corrective action.
Case in point, JC, et al legislated no multiple pensions. Problem was he forgot to mention the folks that were grandfathered in and those about to qualify for multiple pensions. His legislation was meant only for newly elected officials but unethically marketed as an absolute cure to eliminate existing and future multiple pensions from the face of the earth.
Which brings us to the legal wrangling of legislation that requires costly interpretation, appeals and reversals, all spoken in a vortex of measued words and calculated sentences to confound any clear declaration of right and wrong.
Sit back and hand the reins over to career politicians and lawyers who all declare to have your best interests at heart.
The loudly proclaimed campaign refrain of 'Trust me', is followed by a whisper of, 'I'll need more of your hard earned money and I fully intend to ignore any concerns you may express. Now hand $it$ over!"
Corruption is the problem , density not so much... They waste so much on junk they don't need in this town and some $$$ for home improvements...its embrassing... I think someone told me my town of less then 9,000 spent 10 million on upgrades we didn't need , and it seemed the politicians and cops homes got nicer.... A Million on a new Library....
I'm sure your not talking about the South, Bob. From what I see the South seems to crank out a lot of atheletes but they come up a little short on Rhodes scholars.
how obnoxious of people from the north east to actually believe that they are more intelligent than people from the south.
In many towns, teachers did not pay anything into their healthcare costs until the recent law that requires them to pay 1% of their salaries. Which is a drop in the bucket as we all know.
I understand that but the notion that no teacher paid for insurance is just political nonsense that makes really good soundbytes. All public employees must pay at least 1.5% of their salaries. Still a great deal but some were already paying more then this.
I didn't knock the schools- I simply said that they're not the reason for high taxes- though the teachers union is a big part of the problem....
Thanks for sharing. What exactly about teachers unions are problematic? Do you have any concrete reasons that you can share? Thanks.
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A Million on a new Library....
