Are you sick of highly-paid teachers?

[Anonymous]

What public servants seem to forget about is their guaranteed retirement. Even if they pay it, my understanding is that they're guaranteed a salary in retirement. There are so many industries out there with no contribution toward retirement and no guaranteed retirement payouts. It's just whatever you save possibly with some small yearly contribution by your employer until you leave. When you factor that in, many public servants salaries are much more reasonable.

[Anonymous]

I posted about Finland's model. Of course we can't get rid of our current teachers but starting soon, make teaching a more appealing job for younger people by offering a higher salary. Offer incentives for the best students to study education in college like no student loans. We have 2 new teachers at our school who graduated last year. One of them told me she owes around $55k in student loans. That is ridiculous! She is probably earning no more than $45k per year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted about Finland's model. Of course we can't get rid of our current teachers but starting soon, make teaching a more appealing job for younger people by offering a higher salary. Offer incentives for the best students to study education in college like no student loans. We have 2 new teachers at our school who graduated last year. One of them told me she owes around $55k in student loans. That is ridiculous! She is probably earning no more than $45k per year.

And that differs from many other occupations how?

Doctors and Lawyers often have 4 times that debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted about Finland's model. Of course we can't get rid of our current teachers but starting soon, make teaching a more appealing job for younger people by offering a higher salary. Offer incentives for the best students to study education in college like no student loans. We have 2 new teachers at our school who graduated last year. One of them told me she owes around $55k in student loans. That is ridiculous! She is probably earning no more than $45k per year.

And that differs from many other occupations how?

Doctors and Lawyers often have 4 times that debt.

Somehow I just knew somebody was going to say that, even though it's totally irrelevant

Do you want really good, highly qualified people to go into teaching? Then make sure they at least earn enough to be able to pay their student loans.

Similarly, do you want really good, highly qualified people to go into primary care medicine, as opposed to a specialty? Then make sure they at least earn enough to be able to pay their student loans.

(I'm not going to say anything about lawyers because we'd all be better off -- including lawyers -- with fewer people going to law school.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What public servants seem to forget about is their guaranteed retirement. Even if they pay it, my understanding is that they're guaranteed a salary in retirement. There are so many industries out there with no contribution toward retirement and no guaranteed retirement payouts. It's just whatever you save possibly with some small yearly contribution by your employer until you leave. When you factor that in, many public servants salaries are much more reasonable.

That's nute. In VA, it's simply not true. VRS requires (post May, 2010) a 5% employee contribution; the employing school division doesn't contribute much more, so roughly 40-50% of the total cost is coming from the employee; the total value of the contribution from the school division is at most a few thousand per year; at retirement, the annuity is very much variable based on multiple economic factors; the corpus of the account does NOT belong to the retired employee's estate; no withdrawals or lending permitted since the 70s, even for a senior employee with an over-funded account; if the employee leaves even after the basic vesting period, the employee can only roll-over his or her own contributions, so the plan is like a cheap handcuff. Sorry PP, you're just completely wrong about this. The "Massive Guaranteed Free Pension" myth is a tea party fairy tale.

[Anonymous]

Sure but doctors and lawyers make enough to actually pay back those loans. My colleague cannot afford to pay back the loan payments on her salary. Our principal wrote a letter on her behalf to help lower her monthly payment so she could pay her rent and food and utilities,etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What public servants seem to forget about is their guaranteed retirement. Even if they pay it, my understanding is that they're guaranteed a salary in retirement. There are so many industries out there with no contribution toward retirement and no guaranteed retirement payouts. It's just whatever you save possibly with some small yearly contribution by your employer until you leave. When you factor that in, many public servants salaries are much more reasonable.

That's nute. In VA, it's simply not true. VRS requires (post May, 2010) a 5% employee contribution; the employing school division doesn't contribute much more, so roughly 40-50% of the total cost is coming from the employee; the total value of the contribution from the school division is at most a few thousand per year; at retirement, the annuity is very much variable based on multiple economic factors; the corpus of the account does NOT belong to the retired employee's estate; no withdrawals or lending permitted since the 70s, even for a senior employee with an over-funded account; if the employee leaves even after the basic vesting period, the employee can only roll-over his or her own contributions, so the plan is like a cheap handcuff. Sorry PP, you're just completely wrong about this. The "Massive Guaranteed Free Pension" myth is a tea party fairy tale.

In Maryland, the pension is now the responsibility of the district, not the state. Employee must pay in, but there is no guarantee that the district won't go bust like Wisconsin. Not comforting at all.

[Anonymous]

No, just sick of lazy in competent teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, just sick of lazy in competent teachers.

Hahahahahahaha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

In Maryland, the pension is now the responsibility of the district, not the state. Employee must pay in, but there is no guarantee that the district won't go bust like Wisconsin. Not comforting at all.

I thought that it was only half of the pension being the responsibility of the county?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

In Maryland, the pension is now the responsibility of the district, not the state. Employee must pay in, but there is no guarantee that the district won't go bust like Wisconsin. Not comforting at all.

I thought that it was only half of the pension being the responsibility of the county?

The district is responsible for roughly 50%, the employee is responsible for the other 50%. Even though the district participates in controlling the pension board, the employee is stuck with part of the underfunding liability. Contributions by the school district have been held steady; only the employee contribution has gone up since '98. The employee is NOT deemed to have paid the cost of disability benefits, so if an employee is disabled and cannot work, the income dramatically drops and is still taxable. The retirement benefit formula has been reduced three times since 1998 even though the cost to the employee has gone up. The plan has cut out all but basic life insurance as part of coverage. Overall, it's turned into a jalopy plan. Given that salaries are not great, the pension plan no longer really makes up.