Blah blah blah... the age old argument.

And how many teachers were blind sided by the fact that they had to work? Something recently changed? The work load recently increased? No one knew what it meant to be a teacher BEFORE they decided to pursue a career in education?

We have one of the shittiest educational systems on the planet and the solution of course its always to throw more money at it... in the meantime, it continues decade after decade to decline. Weird how that works.

Teachers in the highest paying school districts in the nation have been striking off and on all through my life and always promising everything would get better if only everyone would put more money in their pockets and guess what? USA still sucks for public education.

No one is "anti-teacher"... most intelligent people who have ran businesses or managed people on a large scale, understand the need to be "anti-shitty employee"

There has to be incentive for someone to do any job, though.

Teachers are educated people- and the old saying about doing and teaching is trite.

Good paid teaching jobs attract better teachers.

Plus, their salaries are adjusted to inflation.

They're not being overpaid.

Yeah exactly my point. Everyone worships the no talent fucking morons that have nothing to offer anyone. No talent idiots are celebrated. A new nation of the instant gratification, ADD dipshits which we are now churning out like we are the worlds largest retard factory. They don't worship hard work, sacrifice, dedication and devotion. There is no sense of tremendous sacrifice and hard work that it takes to be successful. Every black kid when I was little used to want to be a pro athlete and knew what it took to get there, now they all want to be rappers and reality tv stars. Every white kid when I was little wanted an education, to be a doctor or own a business and now they want to gather in a park and blame banks because they stay stoned and play XBox all day.

Yes of course you have to have incentive. You honestly think teachers are not over paid??? Lol. I'm gonna guess either you or someone in your family are teachers. Look at the education of kids these days its a fucking disgrace. "Teachers" are paid close to 6 figures a year and most are absolulty hopeless and bitch and complain. Here in ontario the government just made it illegal for teachers to strike and what are they doing in protest??? Cancelling all sports, after hours activities etc. They say its about the "kids" lmao. Its about them and how they can get more money. Teachers are not most educated people. They have guides on how to run courses and curriculum . They should be happy with what they make and shut the fuck up, like most public unions that are paid by us the tax payers.

What about immigrants who flood in and work for minimum wage? That should account to middle class shrinking as well. Meaning that it actually does not shrink, just immigrant numbers are growing hence percentage of middle class people is going down.
Not saying it is the case, saying that it is part of the case.

Here in the states you need some advanced degree to teach or at least some specialized certification- I don't know about Ontario.

But, (and since you seem to like trite sayings) you get what you pay for. Don't expect much from the public schools.

Teachers should have the same rights as every bus driver, garbage collector, and street sweeper in the province- as your case may be.

I happen to think public schools produce morons- regardless of teachers, so it's neither here nor there.

Teachers here after university have to go to teachers college. Some of the thickest people I know are teachers. Yes they have rights as do bus drivers, garbage collectors etc (all over paid btw). A garbage collector in Toronto probably makes 65k a year lol. To do what?? Throw a bag into a truck. In fact now all the trucks have automated arms and all they have to do is drive close to the garbage and the arm picks up the trash and tosses it into the truck. Don't get me started on their overtime. As soon as they work 7 hrs(they never work a full 7 hrs) its considered double time (again paid by us). I know garbage men that make 110k a year. You don't think that's a problem?

How much should they be paid?

Garbage men making what, $48 dollars an hour? is a problem.

But you see this teacher problem- try taking that money away from them.

What do you think's going to happen?

Pssst - when you don't pay workers enough to be consumers the whole economic system comes crashing down.
You want teachers and nurses and construction workers and civil servants earning enough to buy things.

The role of unions is one of establishing safety and fair wage levels. Most are corrupt.
That means you need to regulate unions better, not abolish unions.
Much the same way that we need to regulate oil companies better after the BP spill, not abolish oil companies.

Knee jerk solutions won't fix anything.

This is one of the smartest men in the room. I salute you Sir !

Yeah, teachers don't make enough to buy cars, Tv's and iPods. Clearly a bunch of homeless people living on the edge with their high 5 figure salaries.

You had a much different opinion when our Govenor Walker broke the teachers union here in Wis. If I recall, you found his actions borderline nazi. What happened? Did some teacher piss in your wheaties..

LOL. Don't kid yourself. The American Dream is alive and well, and people still cross our borders daily trying to get in.

I was thinking about this thread this morning when I was out running. The median income here in town is $40k a year, yet every house seems to have a BMW or a Mercedes in the drive way.

Isn't a "median" income the same as an average income? In that case they would be taking everyone's income and dividing it by the working population.

So all the people who actually make good money would be counted in with the minions that work at McDonalds or Walmart, etc.
So that would bring the average income down nice and low wouldn't it?

1. No. I don't think teachers, for the most part, are overpaid. Be 100% honest here, what jobs in our society are more important that teachers? A person could argue doctors and health care workers, maybe police and fire and then what? Educating our kids is extremely important to the future of this country.

2. Teacher do not make "close to 6 figures a year." Here and here are two good sites that show the average wage of teachers. The first shows that the average wage across the US for teachers is $40-$43K per year. The second show the average per state. There are a few states that get up in the high 60's or low 70's, but most are in the 40's.

3. This is not to say that the system is not fucked up. Yes, there are bad teachers. Yes there are lazy teachers. Yes, there needs to be better ways of getting rid of those people and getting quality people in their places. Also, they need to revise the ways teachers are allowed to teach. Most teachers pretty much have their hands tied. Because of standardized testing they have certain things they need to pound into the kids heads so that they score well on the tests. Those tests leave them very little room to actually teach beyond that.

Every day as English speaking Internet users we get to witness the average quality of students that the USA (and thus its teachers) is producing.

In fact, it makes up a large part of what we find so fucking hilarious here every day. Morons everywhere.

People have the most opportunity to gain knowledge than at any other time in the history of mankind. There has simply never been an easier time to be an educated person. Young people have the most time, opportunity, availability, and resources than ever before. These kids likely don't have to take care of their elders or siblings, care for the family farm or business, or even defend themselves or their property. They are almost completely free to learn as much as they want to.

So I have to ask the teachers of America: Why can't many of your students read well, write well, or even spell? More importantly, why in all your years of teaching have you not been able to convince your captive subjects that gaining knowledge is honourable, virtuous and valuable?

Also I don't think there's a system with more finger pointing than the education system. It's just never anybody's fault. Clearly they don't have the right processes in place for handling dumbasses.

I was a dumbass in school, there's no way they should have let me disrupt the classes like I did. I went to school on acid, mushrooms, drunk.. I missed 30+ classes per class per semester and there were never any consequences. The other kids got put on contract, but I was in the gifted program so it was because I was "bored" or "not challenged". Those are the excuses THEY MADE FOR ME! :) I didn't even have to dream that shit up, it was offered up on a plate.

They are awfully good at making excuses now that I think about it. I always just believed in educating myself, and didn't want to jump through hoops and memorize nonsense. Plus I knew I wasn't going to university or college, so their grades were of little value. I never even took a single computer or business course, and that's all I've ever been into. I literally started 3 businesses while in highschool, all computer related.

Was I stupid for not taking the classes, or were they stupid for not offering something of substance?

Robbie did you miss that guy open-shoving with your-wife-is-a-whore on the first page? That shit shouldn't fly here. She's not even here to defend herself.

Isn't the Upper class shrinking also??? The amount of people in it??

Only their hearts have been shrinking... :winkwink:

Middle class is shrinking because manufacturing is shrinking. We "make" less and less. Hell even I'm guilty of it. Just look at manufacturing in California since 2001.

http://www.cmta.net/20120120_mnfg_jobs_decline.png

Here is the SE almost all of the textile business is gone.

1999, lets see from 2008 till now...

They do not grade papers here in my town anymore, the kids almost never have homework either, it is ALL done in class...

We've been moving to a post-manufacturing economy for quite some time. High-tech is where it's at. Unless we want to be a society of hairdressers, waiters and walmart cashiers, that is...

IMO what's needed is a huge re-investment in our primary and secondary education systems so that we have kids who are really prepared to go to college and get the kinds of good engineering/tech etc jobs that often go unfilled these days.

If it weren't for the H-1B visa program, our high tech industry would be dead in the water. And as the economies in India, China etc join the modern world, a lot of those guys are going back home.

Are there really high paying high tech jobs that go unfilled?

Back in 2010 CNN did a thing each night where they had ordinary people highlighted with their job resume's. I saw people on there who were damn near rocket scientists who couldn't get jobs.

And in his speech at the DNC...Pres. Obama stated that there are 3 MILLION high tech jobs right now in the U.S. that we just don't have enough educated people to fill.

Really?

So there are just 3 million high tech jobs that companies can't train ANYBODY to do right now? That sounds like some kind of bullshit that was made up and fed to us.

IDK about the 3 million number, but overall it's really true. I have bloomberg tv on pretty much every day and business leaders, analysts, economists etc have been saying this for years.

To your last question, I'm not talking about jobs someone with a high school diploma and a little extra training can fill. I mean real, professional level jobs/careers that people can earn solid livings from.

Yeah, that's what I meant too...and there are supposedly 3 million of them according to Obama.

I can't believe that at all. Those companies would shut down if they had that many openings and couldn't get their work done.

I'm not surprised that none of the "Fact Checkers" or Anderson Coopers "Keeping Them Honest" didn't dispute Obama's claim. They were apparently too busy investigating and disproving Ryan's claim that he ran a marathon at a record speed 20 years ago.

You know, the important stuff. :1orglaugh

I would like to know if you or anyone else knows of a list of actual unfilled jobs right now that are high tech and high pay. Not "projected" job needs or theorizing...but actual jobs that companies are begging to have people fill right now.

I would think that IF they couldn't fill them with Americans...then they would bring in Indians or Japanese to fill them. But the story we are being fed is "no"..the jobs are vacant and need trained workers.

Yeah right.

Well, whatever on Obama and politics in general...i'm just talking about what i think is desperately needed.


ps. google is your friend https://www.google.com/search?q=US+u...ome&ie =UTF-8

pps. This is exactly what i was referring to by mentioning the H-1B visa program. As i said, it is what has been keeping our high tech industry afloat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa

Soon, US will be more than 85% service job country. Learn how to say "apple pie too?"
the good jobs are gone and not coming back. Brainiacs in future generations will spend much of their working lives abroad.
The millennial generation do not want jobs. They want to be treated nicely cause they are all special. They have closets full of trophies and ribbons for 10th place to prove it.

Also, they find high school an impossible task.
This is the reality for the coming decades in US
Good luck to USA. lol

The move away from manufacturing, infrastructure, and a gold backed monetary system are the main reasons for the erosion of the middle class. Hi-tech is only one small piece of the pie. I would hardly say "it where it's at" in the context of discussing the middle class.

http://www.psdglobal.com/wp-content/...tor-2009-2.gif

and not to be chippy but " hairdressers, waiters and walmart cashiers" are not manufacturing jobs... they are services.