Man, I read some of that crap rcknfreud spewed about teachers. Funny stuff. Sounds like his ex was bad at being a wife, so it doesn't surprise me she was bad at being a teacher as well. No reason to assume all teachers are that way though.
Anyway, I don't claim to be a miracle worker or hold myself above others for any reason based on the fact that I'm a teacher. Like Nnuut alluded to, I would be working summers if I had the option. I always did in California. My vacation time ended up being 3 weeks in the summer, 2 weeks in the winter, and 1 week in the spring, along with the other national holidays. Now, as a DoDDS teacher, I don't have the option to work summers, because they don't offer summer school at the high schools. It might ease your pain to know that I'm not on the payroll during that time. The only one paying my salary during the summer is me. We have to be on 21 pay periods during our first year, then we can choose to prorate our salary over 26 pay periods after that. In California, also, I was only paid on a 10 month schedule. I had a special credit union account set-up with automatic payroll deductions so that I'd have what appeared to be a normal salary in the summer.
Basically, I don't think teachers are underpaid. If you break down the daily salary, we get paid just about right. I think there are more than a few bad teachers out there that don't deserve what they get, and rcknfreud's ex-wife probably fits in that category. It's a shame the unions protect those bad teachers, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to detest unions outright. The unions do a lot to ensure the best interests of the students are served as well (that's a topic for a different discussion though).
Anyway, I just got around to checking this site today and saw all the BS that had been tossed around RMI's thread, and thought if I didn't chime in, you might think I was scared or something. LOL. I look forward to hearing the rcker post more about Pearl Jam, failing at posting YouTube links, and telling us how he runs up a big electricity bill every year on Earth Day. What a rebel.
