Why can't teachers/cops live with 401(k)'s instead of pensions?

[The Dad Fisherman]

So JD......are you lumping ALL Public schools together under the same exterme spectrum.

I happen to like the public school system where I live. We have a nice mixture of old and young teachers and a lot of them really do care about the kids. I can e-mail any of them with my concerns and they will get back to me w/ things they can do to help.

I even got in touch w/ my kids Music teacher and he signed on to be a Merit Badge counselor for the kids that he teaches.

My wife and I looked around and checked the school systems of towns in the area before we bought our house here. Are there budget issues.....absolutely. but to assume that because of these that kids aren't going to get a good education is a bit of a stretch.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

So JD......are you lumping ALL Public schools together under the same exterme spectrum.

I happen to like the public school system where I live. We have a nice mixture of old and young teachers and a lot of them really do care about the kids. I can e-mail any of them with my concerns and they will get back to me w/ things they can do to help.

I even got in touch w/ my kids Music teacher and he signed on to be a Merit Badge counselor for the kids that he teaches.

My wife and I looked around and checked the school systems of towns in the area before we bought our house here. Are there budget issues.....absolutely. but to assume that because of these that kids aren't going to get a good education is a bit of a stretch.

That's a good point. I have great respect for teachers (for the most part), the unions are despicable.

[TheSpecialist]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

That's a good point. I have great respect for teachers (for the most part), the unions are despicable.

The reason you need unions is because rather than parents taking the blame because their kids are not applying themselves, especially at home, they want to blame teachers who can only control for the most part what happens in the classroom. When I was in HS you had kids that went home and studied, did their homework and excelled. More often then not their parents were heavily involved with what the kids did after school. On the other hand you had the kids who showed up, caused distractions, never studied or did homework and barely got by because the parents never pushed or helped their kids. In these times they want to blame the teacher for this,and use incentive based pay, now do you think that is fair? You could be the best teacher in the world, and still have a student who just is never gonna get it, and you as a teacher should not be punished for it. As far as pensions go, they should be phased put , not outright taken away. Are 401k really that much better in the long run for employees, or are they better for the employers? AFAIW most pension pay outs are guaranteed, your 401k is not, just ask the hundreds of thousands who were looking forward to retiring recently on their 401k's, and had to put those plans on the back burner.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

So JD......are you lumping ALL Public schools together under the same exterme spectrum.

I happen to like the public school system where I live. We have a nice mixture of old and young teachers and a lot of them really do care about the kids. I can e-mail any of them with my concerns and they will get back to me w/ things they can do to help.

I even got in touch w/ my kids Music teacher and he signed on to be a Merit Badge counselor for the kids that he teaches.

My wife and I looked around and checked the school systems of towns in the area before we bought our house here. Are there budget issues.....absolutely. but to assume that because of these that kids aren't going to get a good education is a bit of a stretch.

Having worked with as a subcontracted percussion instructor at multiple different schools - public and private, yeah I am grouping them all together. There are definitely exceptions, but my repeated negative observations seem to be the rule. I'm not willing to gamble that a school system that is good today, will still be good in 10-12 years and those last 4 years are the only ones that colleges look at.

Ask the handful of people here that have/had kids in the Mansfield School System. 10 years ago, it was a model system for the region in terms of academic, sports and extracurricular performance. But, now that the town isn't printing money like it used to, it has slowly but steadily been wilting. This is definitely not all on the Unions, but the Unions prevent progress from happening, while also causing huge added costs.

[fishbones]

Most people don't go into teaching for the pension. They go into it for the summer vacation. Seriously, I think most teachers go into it because they really want to help children learn. In order to be in that profession, they have to join the union. Once they're in, they are pretty much committed to whatever the union wants to do. I can't really fault them, but I agree about the pension being an outdated for of a retirement plan.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by fishbones

Most people don't go into teaching for the pension. They go into it for the summer vacation. Seriously, I think most teachers go into it because they really want to help children learn. In order to be in that profession, they have to join the union. Once they're in, they are pretty much committed to whatever the union wants to do. I can't really fault them, but I agree about the pension being an outdated for of a retirement plan.

I completely agree with you with regards to why people get into teaching. All of the younger teachers I know are some of the most motivated individuals. After a decade or two of dealing with everyone else's problem kids and realizing that all you have to do is the minimum work expected from you as long as you are not diddling the children, the more veteran teachers stop caring - again, there are exceptions to the rule.

The luxuries of seniority-based power - dead weight be filtered out and teachers that perform above and beyond are not rewarded - gold ribbons and stars outside the Main Office don't count. It is amazing how impossible it is to get rid of bad teachers if they have been teaching for 10-15 years.

[Piscator]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

perform above and beyond are not rewarded

Yup, that's a Union for you. All I've seen them do is save the poor underperformers who should be fired anyway and do nothing for the ones that outperform.
Actually, in labor Unions they make it hard on the “over performers” so that they aren’t too productive. They don’t want someone too over productive to the point that they put a fellow “brother” out of work

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

I completely agree with you with regards to why people get into teaching. All of the younger teachers I know are some of the most motivated individuals. After a decade or two of dealing with everyone else's problem kids and realizing that all you have to do is the minimum work expected from you as long as you are not diddling the children, the more veteran teachers stop caring - again, there are exceptions to the rule.

JD, I don't think they stop caring, but depending on where they teach,
they get tired of wiping kids noses, trying to motivate unmotivated students
and doing the disciplining that the parents should be doing.
Throw in uncooperative parents who don't take an interest in their kids, or the opposite where the parents think their kids are right and the teachers wrong and they get

Being a good teacher requires cooperation from the home.

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by fishbones

Seriously, I think most teachers go into it because they really want to help children learn. In order to be in that profession, they have to join the union. Once they're in, they are pretty much committed to whatever the union wants to do. I can't really fault them, but I agree about the pension being an outdated for of a retirement plan.

Pensions are outdated for sure.
There are no sure guarantees that the money will be there even with the PBGC protecting them.
When they're out of money they're out of money.

The way to make the switch over to a 401K fair, would to grandfather the workers
who were hired with a promised pension receive the pension but offer a 401 k for them
going forward. New hires would only have a 401 k pension plan.