and reminder that the opportunity cost of a few days’ strike is far outweighed by teachers being overworked to the bone without adequate compensation or psychological support, resulting in the best teachers weeding themselves out of the field altogether.
anti-union sentiment is hurting kids.
My dad has told me multiple times “teachers unions are the worst thing that has happened to teachers.”
Someone very close to me is a teacher and I don’t think I’ll be able to stand hearing him say it again.
thats so enraging im so sorry
He claims to understand the plight of teachers because his mom was a high school guidance counselor 50 years ago and his sister was a tutor/substitute teacher 15 years ago. He’s 100% out of touch and if that wasn’t already clear, he told me that he didn’t believe there was a teacher shortage.
Autodidact here. If one has drive, and a >20Mb internet connection and even a ten year old computer, one can teach oneself Mechanical Drafting, Excel & Access (or other spreadsheet & relational database, like libre office suite). Here is my advice to any driven young person, like 16 with a car.
I went with finishing public HS till 18, instead of jumping out with a GED or HiSET at 16, getting an apprenticeship (mechanical drafting) & doing that put me 2 years behind the ones that did this, and like AI, those are two important years, like the Pink Floyd song, Time…
And then one day you find
Two years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
It’s a good deal if you live till ninety and retire at 65. The one in my family is rolling along at her same payrate each month (adjusted COLA) as she had when she left, and since inflation has been under control, generally, it’s like her pay was effectively doubled. Every month she gets a Direct Deposit for the amount she would have got if she were still working, 25 years of that and she only worked for 20… UNIONS!
Full disclosure I don’t think anyone who has started teaching in the last 10-20 years will live to 90 if they continue teaching until they retire. The stress alone is likely to take a decade or two off their life.
yeah, mom lived in the ‘golden era of teaching’ where the parents backed the teachers