I remember after I had been nursing for a few years, my "baby" sister was making
more money than I was for a while. We both had the same amount of education more
or less. I had three years of nurses training plus a two year post grad giving
me a B.N. and Barb had a four year B.A. plus a B.Ed. I used to kid her about
that, but I didn't want her job. :-)
---
Joan

I always respected my teachers as I went through school.  Back in *those
days* it was very rare to hear a student sass a teacher to her/his face.  My
Dad taught school for 37 years.  He loved teaching, but he could see the
changes coming, and always said it was time to retire when he did.  In those
days teachers were greatly underpaid for all their efforts.  My Dad had to
paint all through the summer months when school was not in session just to
keep our family eating and paying the bills.  A couple years he was an
Assistant Principal, but had to also teach a Civics course AND was the
football coach.  I'm glad at least they have the NEA or some other group now
to "fight for them".  Nanny

Because there isn't enough money to hire them in most districts.  We
desperately need more teachers in most areas, but instead the classes have
30-35 students, even in early elementary grades.  If we truly funded public
education in the US, then we'd have the money to hire enough teachers to keep
class sizes manageable.  Also, in the areas that house large universities,
there tends to be a glut of teachers, but often as near as one or two couties
away there will be openings (speaking as the sister of a teacher and the wife
of a some-time teacher).

Because if they hire you part time, they don't have to pay benefits.
That's why you see so many schools wanting to share teachers, especially
for subjects like music, phys ed, library, etc.

Carole

y'know . . . when the lottery was first passed by the voters of this state
(washington), it passed "specifically because" the profits from it were
supposed to have gone exclusively to all levels of our state's education
system in a separate fund.  our education system was in dire straights in
those days and the voters knew it.  the logic behind its presentation to the
voters was that the lottery was supposed to have eliminated the need to keep
having educational funding ballot measures for each district and would help
keep property taxes from skyrocketing geometrically---and indeed, it would
have.

however, it didn't take the state government long to recognize what a lovely
cash bonanza the lottery proved itself to be.  soooo, typical of
politicians, the state legislators shifted all of the lottery income to the
state's general fund (sound familiar?--like social security?).  guess what?
property taxes have skyrocketed over 1000% since then, and since then,
education has been again vying with police forces, fire depts, medic one,
transportation, roads and a bunch of other things for funding on yearly
state/county/district ballot measures.

btw, parttime hiring to avoid paying benefits is now a very common heartless
practice that has been infecting everything from education, hospitals, fire
depts., police depts, state and city employees, as well as the private
sector.  the heartless reasoning goes--- why hire one fulltime employee and
pay benefits, when you can hire three or four parttime employees for the
price of one?  this leaves many workers having to work 2 and 3 parttime
jobs, for one fulltime wage, with no benefits for themselves or their
families.  we are talking about highly skilled and very well educated
workers, not just unskilled workers.

the current scourges making the rounds is large corporations, like IBM and
many others, dropping all pension benefits for their fulltime employees and
downwardly revising new-hire wage scales, with longer periods required for
new-hires to advance in pay scale and with less benefits.  it won't be long
before that trickles into all the broader sectors and becomes a common
practice, too.

gee, is it any wonder big business wants loose immigration laws and our
borders as unrestricted as possible?  is it any wonder people are cynical
about terrorist threat considerations?---when it appears these are an "only
when it is convenient to be used as a tool to manipulate the masses".

kate

It seems to me I heard somewhere that firechief wrote in article
<UWJDd.17062$232.1705@fed1read05>:

Chief, I assume you're talking about Prop. 98.  If so, johnie should
also notice how last year the Governator suspended that law (Proposition
98, passed in 1988), thus borrowing $2 billion from education with a
promise to repay it this year, and note that last week in his State of
the State speech he indicated there won't be money to repay the "loan"
this year and that he intends to get more liberal provisions and
amendments to Prop. 98 written into the State Constitution--which IMO is
not where operating regulations belong (including the Prop. 98 that's
already there).

One of California's biggest budget problems is years of legislation
setting up mandatory funding for specific programs and interests,
leaving the legislature with little room to increase funding for
priorities like infrastructure, education, health, or emergent needs.
To some extent it's the legislature's own fault for not taking care of
business over the past decades, but the Governator's sledge-hammer
approach (blasting "special interests" like unions while taking
unprecedented amounts of money from big business special interests) is
equally against the long-term public interest.  Some wag recently said
the Arnold's definition of "special interests" seems to be groups he has
to negotiate or deal with.