Capt. Al Haynes sorta OT.

Yeah, teachers only work 195 days a year (but they are only paid for 195 days a
year). Work 7 hours???!!?!?! For the past 3 years my New Year's Resolution
was to leave school before 6PM (I get there at 7:30), I usually stuck with it
until almost late January :-). The retirement is usually decent if you stick
with it for 30 or 35 years as opposed to the federal government or military
where you get a good pension at 20.

Margy

Richard Hertz wrote:

Yeah, but they only have to work 180 days out of the year and work only 7
hour days and then get retirement plans that are killing the tax payers.

"Stu Gotts" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 13:59:54 GMT, "Matthew S. Whiting"
wrote:

wrote:

Jay Honeck wrote:


Capt. Haynes is a retired airline captain, and a sought-after speaker
on the
mashed-potato circuit. As such he should set for life, and pretty
much
rolling in money.


There are some retired TWA pilots that need to work to make ends meet.
There
are some recently retired pilots from "reorganized" carriers who have
lost a
good portion of their retirement.

That is truly infortunate, but I have a hard time feeling too sorry for
folks that made well over $100K/year and didn't sock away a little on
their own for retirement. I make less than most senior airline pilots
and I'm not planning on having SS be available when I retire nor my
company pension. If one or both are still there, that will be gravey.


Then, there's those overpaid school teachers in California who retire
at 100%,
get COLA increases from a bankrupt state, and who are rolling in
dough.~

I'm not familiar with CA (thankfully!), but in most states teachers make
a LOT less than airline pilots.

And put up with mounds more bull**** for about 10 hours a day and at
least 20 days out of the month.

Most teachers I know are out the door long before then.

Also, most other salaried professionals work longer hours than teachers for
no extra pay either, so the gripes about extra take-home work falls on
uncaring ears.

The bottom line is - there are plenty of qualified people lined up to take
the teaching jobs at the current salary levels. Even when unemployment is
at historic lows this is the case.

I oppose all those government gravy pensions. (Military/combat service
excluded)

One other big problem is the non-meritocracy of government/school systems.
Pay is based on years of service and so-called education credits. In the
"real" world pay is based on performance, merit, etc.

Most of the problems lie with the administrations and the general concept of
"free" or public/government run education.


"Margy Natalie" wrote in message
...
Yeah, teachers only work 195 days a year (but they are only paid for 195
days a
year). Work 7 hours???!!?!?! For the past 3 years my New Year's
Resolution
was to leave school before 6PM (I get there at 7:30), I usually stuck with
it
until almost late January :-). The retirement is usually decent if you
stick
with it for 30 or 35 years as opposed to the federal government or
military
where you get a good pension at 20.

Margy

Richard Hertz wrote:

Yeah, but they only have to work 180 days out of the year and work only
7
hour days and then get retirement plans that are killing the tax payers.

"Stu Gotts" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 13:59:54 GMT, "Matthew S. Whiting"
wrote:

wrote:

Jay Honeck wrote:


Capt. Haynes is a retired airline captain, and a sought-after
speaker
on the
mashed-potato circuit. As such he should set for life, and pretty
much
rolling in money.


There are some retired TWA pilots that need to work to make ends
meet.
There
are some recently retired pilots from "reorganized" carriers who
have
lost a
good portion of their retirement.

That is truly infortunate, but I have a hard time feeling too sorry
for
folks that made well over $100K/year and didn't sock away a little on
their own for retirement. I make less than most senior airline
pilots
and I'm not planning on having SS be available when I retire nor my
company pension. If one or both are still there, that will be
gravey.


Then, there's those overpaid school teachers in California who
retire
at 100%,
get COLA increases from a bankrupt state, and who are rolling in
dough.~

I'm not familiar with CA (thankfully!), but in most states teachers
make
a LOT less than airline pilots.

And put up with mounds more bull**** for about 10 hours a day and at
least 20 days out of the month.

Richard Hertz wrote:
Most teachers I know are out the door long before then.

Also, most other salaried professionals work longer hours than teachers for
no extra pay either, so the gripes about extra take-home work falls on
uncaring ears.

The bottom line is - there are plenty of qualified people lined up to take
the teaching jobs at the current salary levels. Even when unemployment is
at historic lows this is the case.

Really? In my area it is very hard to find math and science teachers.


I oppose all those government gravy pensions. (Military/combat service
excluded)

One other big problem is the non-meritocracy of government/school systems.
Pay is based on years of service and so-called education credits. In the
"real" world pay is based on performance, merit, etc.

Yes, that is my biggest beef with the teaching system at present. And
the fact that it is unionized. I don't believe that "professional" and
"union" go together, but then many pilots are union also...

Matt

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote:


One other big problem is the non-meritocracy of government/school systems.
Pay is based on years of service and so-called education credits. In the
"real" world pay is based on performance, merit, etc.

Yes, that is my biggest beef with the teaching system at present. And
the fact that it is unionized. I don't believe that "professional" and
"union" go together, but then many pilots are union also...


I'm in a "right to work" State so Union doesn't mean anything. The real reason
teachers don't have a merit system is they discovered it was detrimental to the
students. Right now if I write a lesson that really clicks and works great I
make copies and give it to all the other teachers. We help each other out to
give the best to our kids. Under merit pay (which many districts had for a
while) teachers would keep their best lessons to themselves so they could be in
the top 5% to get the raise. It didn't work. Another problem is how to score
teachers to rank them.

Margy

Margy Natalie wrote:

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote:


One other big problem is the non-meritocracy of government/school systems.
Pay is based on years of service and so-called education credits. In the
"real" world pay is based on performance, merit, etc.

Yes, that is my biggest beef with the teaching system at present. And
the fact that it is unionized. I don't believe that "professional" and
"union" go together, but then many pilots are union also...



I'm in a "right to work" State so Union doesn't mean anything. The real reason
teachers don't have a merit system is they discovered it was detrimental to the
students. Right now if I write a lesson that really clicks and works great I
make copies and give it to all the other teachers. We help each other out to
give the best to our kids. Under merit pay (which many districts had for a
while) teachers would keep their best lessons to themselves so they could be in
the top 5% to get the raise. It didn't work. Another problem is how to score
teachers to rank them.

We have the same problem in private industry, but there are ways to
mitigate it and I still believe that pay for performance is critical to
achieving high performance. You could have merit pay based on the
performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation). You can also base merit pay and promotions
on how much a teacher helps and mentors other teachers. This is an
explicit promotion requirement for technical professionals at my
company. If you are keeping the goods to yourself, you'll not get
promoted. No system is perfect, but I've worked in both environments,
and I'll take a merit/performance based compensation system any day.


Matt

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote

You could have merit pay based on the
performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation).

Matt

So you want to base teacher performance on student achievement? What is the
incentive for the students to pay attention to what is being taught, learn,
and do well on the test? There is none, for most students, at present.
They are only there because the law says they must be there.

Have you ever watched some students take a standardized test, when there is
nothing in it for them? They go A,B,C,D,A,B,C,D. Don't laugh, I have seen
it, more than a few times. This is how you want merit pay to work? I don't
think so.

I welcome good answers to the problem. Problem is, no one seems to have
any.
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:
"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote

You could have merit pay based on the

performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation).


Matt


So you want to base teacher performance on student achievement? What is the
incentive for the students to pay attention to what is being taught, learn,
and do well on the test? There is none, for most students, at present.
They are only there because the law says they must be there.

Have you ever watched some students take a standardized test, when there is
nothing in it for them? They go A,B,C,D,A,B,C,D. Don't laugh, I have seen
it, more than a few times. This is how you want merit pay to work? I don't
think so.

I welcome good answers to the problem. Problem is, no one seems to have
any.

When I was in school there were teachers able to motivate almost any
student and teachers that couldn't motivate anyone. No system is
perfect, but I want the teachers that are best at motivating their
students to get the best pay and have the greatest chance of staying on
the job. And maybe the other teachers will watch and learn from the
teachers that have figured it out. I'm not saying it is easy, but if
all schools have this problem, then the playing field is level and
whichever teachers are best in even this environment should be rewarded.


Matt

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote

You could have merit pay based on the
performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation).

Matt

So you want to base teacher performance on student achievement? What is
the
incentive for the students to pay attention to what is being taught,
learn,
and do well on the test? There is none, for most students, at present.
They are only there because the law says they must be there.

You're (properly) addressing two issues pertaining to the problem.

If a failure has three causes, you won't fix it by fixing ONE problem area.


Have you ever watched some students take a standardized test, when there
is
nothing in it for them? They go A,B,C,D,A,B,C,D. Don't laugh, I have
seen
it, more than a few times. This is how you want merit pay to work? I
don't
think so.

I welcome good answers to the problem. Problem is, no one seems to have
any.

There are definitely answers, problem is people want to address only one or
tow aspects of a problem that has SEVERAL aspects.

"Matthew S. Whiting" wrote in message
...
We have the same problem in private industry, but there are ways to
mitigate it and I still believe that pay for performance is critical to
achieving high performance. You could have merit pay based on the
performance of an entire grade or school (somewhat analagous to profit
sharing at a corporation). You can also base merit pay and promotions
on how much a teacher helps and mentors other teachers. This is an
explicit promotion requirement for technical professionals at my
company. If you are keeping the goods to yourself, you'll not get
promoted. No system is perfect, but I've worked in both environments,
and I'll take a merit/performance based compensation system any day.

Correct; no system is perfect; OTOH, a system that has no incentives, or
worse, negative incentive, is doomed to failure. Public schools are a prime
example of negative incentives.

Richard Hertz wrote:

Most teachers I know are out the door long before then.

Also, most other salaried professionals work longer hours than teachers for
no extra pay either, so the gripes about extra take-home work falls on
uncaring ears.

The point is that there are a lot of bitter conservatives who seems to
thikn that teachers have some kind of sweetheart deal, and they often
cite "170 days a week, 6 hours a day." Margy's point is that teachers
work OT and extra time just like everyone else, and their deal is not as
sweet as some would portray it.

I oppose all those government gravy pensions. (Military/combat service
excluded)

Government pensions are good because government work pays less. The
good pensions are the compensation for working for less.

My company used to be like that too -- we were paid below market rates
but the generous pension was held out as an incentive. It's no
different -- well it is because over the last five years the company has
gutted the pension plan but you get the idea.


One other big problem is the non-meritocracy of government/school systems.
Pay is based on years of service and so-called education credits. In the
"real" world pay is based on performance, merit, etc.

uh-oh, better call the airlines.