I said nothing about saving for retirement, and the fact that you leapt to retirement as the reason why two incomes was necessary confirms you do not know what you are talking about. The costs that concern families who are not already well established is paying for rent, saving for a home, providing opportunities for their kids…heck, food, clothing and diapers! Many simply don’t have the choice of not working, unless they are to go on welfare. Even with two salaries many families will struggle with retirement, which you are the first to bring up. They will struggle with day to day living. It’s important to realize how privileged most are on this board. Choice is financially limited. To call the lack of financial choice “lazy” is a total lack of understanding.
IP,
glad to have had the choice, but not assuming it was a choice for all
Purely anecdotal, but I have friends and family in primary education and all would rather be a 12-month worker than 9-month. I suspect a 12-month salary will make teaching a more attractive career.
Year-round schooling works in a number of countries, including Japan, Australia, and India, so it can be done.
The advantage of more school days is that the same material gets taught over a longer time period. As for unpaid work done at home…I believe most salaried professional occupations require doing much more than the 40 hours one gets official credit. This is certainly true in scientific research and medicine. I am a geneticist and still put in 70 hour work weeks. MDs do it all the time. I suspect people running businesses, big or small, have similar work schedules.
Sure, as was the case for DH and me when I was in industry. Of course the pay was significantly higher to compensate.
Yes, and I can throw anecdotes right back at you where the myth of summers off is one that got people to consider teaching. Perhaps year round teaching combined with longer holidays or 4 day weeks would work well. When I lived in France we had half days on Wednesday and half days on Saturday, which worked well. That said, as a country we can’t even make changes to daylight savings and insist on changing the clocks twice a year, which in itself has been shown to throw off the productivity towards learning in schools. Having elementary schools start first and older kids last works best with the internal time clocks of school children, but of course that would get in the way of afternoon sports and we can’t have that!
The lack of respect for teachers is what keeps them from getting into or staying in the profession. Career administrators are more concerned about retaining their jobs by holding the economic line at whatever cost to the employees and students. Those students who have legal accommodations get taken care of when parents threaten to sue, but good luck getting that certified accommodation for your kid. Don’t expect help from the school. Accommodations are a hit against the budget.
No easy solution. Many of the most funded schools have the worst return on investment. Too many inputs to control, between parents, teachers, administration, school board and tax payers. Length of time in school is the least of it.
Most of what you said is true the struggle is more universal.
I never said lack of choice is lazy. I am railing hard against putting it on daycare workers with a line of BS and not much more pay.
We as a nation have been $crewed over by supply-side policies that outsourced factories. The GDP would have been growing faster if people were not so gullible.
I stand by call it daycare pay it much better and get the employers to make it up to the parents. Meaning employers can better honor their employees’ needs. That does not include using poorer women teaching in daycare.
Your lack of concern for not paying women is horrible. That is how you read into any statement. Clearly, you are not for paying less. But why not attack you with nonsense? You make things up to use that way. Do you read your attacks? They are pure garbage.
We just need to continue as we are building factories and supply through the government infrastructure. We will better afford things as we go.
I have longevity in my family. I won’t mind a lot fewer boomers gone. The dumber things in the US economy are purely because of how ignorant my generation is. It is sickening.
Not every family can afford not to be what you call lazy. They can’t afford to stay at home with the kids, and don’t have the choice but to go to work.
Yet more weirdness from you. Anyone who works should be paid. You come out with the most insane comments seemingly based on nothing more than the whims floating in your mind at the time.
You are not worth my time.
TMF, PLEASE bring back the penalty box. It would make everyone’s life better.
You would think students would still graduate in 36 months or three years by going to summer school. So it gives better use for fixed facilities. And cost per student should be a bit lower. Not a bad deal for teachers. But does impact family vacation time. Requires some adjustment.
This is one solution for fast growing, bursting at the seams, school districts. Might be better than bond issues to build more capacity. Especially with declining birth rates and declining enrollment expected.
Seriously it is a chance to get free of your kid for the summer.
It would add to a decline in educational standards. There is a reason kids only go to school 9 months per year. Give or take a few weeks. Kids need time to grow into the lessons. We can not just ram school at this as if they will keep up with material for older kids.
Good point. But you still have breaks in the school year. Spring break. Semester break usually over holidays. That would continue. Breaks could be stretched to two weeks.
There are so many education thesis projects you would think there would be data on the out comes. How much break is optimal the various age groups.
Some solutions to this problem are obvious. Do they work well enough?
And lets not forget that many students get behind over the summer. So return to school usually means review for a few weeks to get them back up the speed. Shorter break might have advantages.
So we are giving teachers maybe 2 months of breaks in the school year? How do we pay them? Just the same but they can not take a job elsewhere for a block of time.
The serious thing is the kids can not do it. Some would do extremely well with it no matter what.
The majority of kids need the current pace of learning. We can not change their development pattern.
Reading the article, the “he,” Michael Hicks of Ball State University, was addressing salaries in Indiana. Hicks was not speaking nationally. How are the teachers in your state doing Dr. Bob, not nationally? My question was about your state not nationally.
Indiana went from a 175 day student calendar to a 180 day student calendar during my career. We had 3 paid days without students on both calendars. There was no additional money for the 5 extra teaching days. If 60 extra days were added, Indiana’s teachers should not expect any additional pay.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” - Maya Angelou