Taken from the McHenry County Environmental Defenders eNews:
The McHenry Co. Federation of Teachers, Local 1642, will present a screening of “Inequality For All”, a documentary that follows former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich as he looks to raise awareness of the country’s widening economic gap.
Woodstock High School Auditorium, 7:00 PM on Wednesday, May 13, 2015. Open to the public, $5 donation suggested.
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To the best of my knowledge, District 200 is the only place where teachers are not members of the Illinois Education Association.
The Administration in D.C. touts how they are working to help save the middle class when in fact it is being decimated by the current Administration with the willing complicity of Congress.
We are observing the impact of ‘selective capitalism’.
Socialism the lefts/labors answer for everything.
Thank you for posting this.
I think we should study all perspectives.
Reich does have some good points.
However the power to grab money extends beyond his points.
How about the inequality between public sector pensions and private sector Social Security + 401K, in particular, where public sector pensions were hiked by legislative benefit increases to UNDERFUNDED pensions; and end of career salary hikes by school boards which hiked pensions which are UNDERFUNDED.
So his movie doesn’t tell the whole story.
Do teachers around here consider themselves under paid and part of the income inequality?
If so, COME ON REALLY?
Woodstock District 200 is the only teacher union local in McHenry County whose members are not part of the Illinois Education Association (IEA).
However there are a few other Illinois Federation of Teacher (IFT) locals in McHenry County.
These locals (bargaining units) do not represent not teachers; rather they represent other employee classifications.
Woodsock District 200:
Woodstock Council of Classified Employees, Custodial Chapter, McHenry County Federation of Teachers Local 1642, IFT/AFT.
– Custodians, Groundskeepers, Couriers, and Maintenance Personnel.
Woodstock Transportation Employees’ Council, McHenry County Federation of Teachers Local 1642, IFT/AFT.
Woodstock School Related Personnel (WSRP) Council, McHenry County Federation of Teachers Local 1642, IFT/AFT.
– Secretaries, Aides, Food Service Workers.
McHenry County College:
McHenry County College Staff Council, McHenry County Federation of Teachers Local 1642, IFT/AFT.
– This is the Staff, not the Faculty, and represents classified employees, Assistants to Directors,
Coordinators, Administrative Assistants, and other exempt (professional) employees.
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The IEA is the state affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA).
IFT is the state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
The AFT is one of many labor unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
The AFL-CIO is a labor federation, also known as a national trade union center, which is basically an organized network of labor unions.
The NEA is not affiliated with AFL-CIO or any other labor federation in the United States, although internationally the NEA is affiliated with Educational International (EI).
The AFL-CIO is affiliated internationally with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
EI & ITUC are affilated with other international / global unions in the Council on Global Unions (CGU).
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Woodstock did not always have a unit school district.
In the never ending consolidation effort of taxing districts in Illinois, in 1969 – 1970, Woodstock High School District 152, Woodstock Community Consolidated District 10, & Woodstock Community District 72 formed Woodstock Community Unit School District 200 (CUSD 200).
Teachers have no room to complain. Work part of the day and part of the year for exorbitant wages and benefits.
Quit crying teachers, think of the taxpayers that work most of the year so over half of their tax bill is for you.
What? Can’t they wait until kids get into college and get brainwashed by professors anymore?
Teachers expect and demand mandatory pay raises each year even if their jobs don’t change. Maybe this kind of thinking is what is destroying a once great country.
This stuff about all kids getting an award every time they participate in something is also nuts.
Heaven help America and her people.
Yes parents you are paying for brainwashing. Wait until all the non-citizens get to vote in our elections. Spiral down.
According to retirement income calculator at massmutual.com:
A $50,000 annual income needs to save 50% of that amount annually (rising with inflation annually) in order to save enough for thirty years retirement of inflation adjusted equivalent salary after 30 years(teacher pension near-equivalent).
$3,000,000 ($3 million) is needed today to produce annual pension of $117,828.
($117,828 is the inflation adjusted equivalent of a $50,000 salary after 30 years at 3% inflation).
assumption used in calculator model:
A 25 year old who wants to retirement at age 55 with full income , income today of $50,000 annual, 3% income increase annual, 7% annual returns prior to retirement and 4% annual returns after retirement, and 3% inflation assumption.
Full career (35 years of service) teacher pensions in the Chicago suburbs, for teachers retiring now, are more than $50,000.
Easily $60,000.
It varies, but probably a better average is $70,000 – $75,000.
Some are higher than that.
Administrator pensions are higher than the teacher pensions.
The general formula is starting pension for teachers and administrators is 75% of the average of the last 4 years worked, for 35 years of service.
The information is public, have to cross reference Better Government Association (which provides Years of Service of the teacher) with Open the Books (which provides the school district for the teacher).
Due to legislative benefit hikes to underfunded pensions and local salary hikes, the teacher and administrator pension system is out of control.
Starting teacher salaries in the Chicago suburbs are $40K – $50K+, with no experience, and that doesn’t include the value of their benefits or stipends.
Average salary hikes have in some cases gone done during the recession but were about 6% from at least 1999 or so.
Maybe someday someone will release a movie about Illinois public sector pensions.
The figure $50 k starting salary was with current average in mind.
To repeat, a $50000 salary needs to set aside $25,000 per year for 30 years under very generous assumptions about investment return in order to get a lesser version (no guarantee, lower cola) of teacher pension deal.
I know how to make this documentary for $200k.
Maybe we can get it crowded funded .
I do not mind teachers’ pay.
I frankly think that teachers are not appreciated in this country.
That is I think the major reason why the profession does not attract the best students into teaching.
I also think that unions do not help the best teachers, only the mediocre ones.
The problem is that even the good teachers feel that the union protects them.
I wish I had a choice as to which school/teacher would get my property taxes.
I frankly am not happy with the current public school where my children go.
But I do not think that the teachers there are overpaid.
I mean come on… do we really want to pay teachers less than lawyers, self serving politicians, and all sort of other government bureaucrats?
Really?
Not many teachers advocate paying teachers as much as lawyers.
Some teachers do make more than some public sector government lawyers, even more when benefits and pensions are included.
A law degree is much more rigerous than a teaching degree.
Plus you can begin teaching with a bachelors degree, whereas lawyers need an advanced degree.
It’s far more difficult to pass the bar exam than to obtain a teacher certificate.
Not many (any?) public sector government lawyers receive lane pay hikes for successfully completing college classes as is the case for teachers.
The point is that when guaranteed pensions with cola and Cadillac healthcare plan benefits are quantified and added into base salary, it means that a $50,000 annual salary is closer to $85,000 annual salary….and it doesn’t require a full year of work.
Nurses and doctors, for example, need to provide for their own retirement savings.
In order to normalize a nurse remuneration against that of a teacher, you must consider that a nurse would need to save half her salary for 30 years ago to own enough to purchase an annuity with characteristics similar to teacher pension.
You would have to consider that the nurse works a full year, the teacher 3/4 of a year, so hourly wage comparison is skewed.
( teachers work on their own time after school grading. nurses work unpaid hours after shifts charting).
You would have to compare the quality and cost (to recipient) of health ‘insurance’ available for purchase by nurses to that supplied to teachers.
A law degree, I am sure, has some uses.
But a lawyer will never plant a tree, build a home, heal a sick person.
As the saying goes, when you put a lawyer in a town, he will starve, when you put 2, they will both make a good living.
A good teacher is much more useful to this planet than a good lawyer, that’s how things look from were I sit anyhow.
Look all around you, surrounded by legal gunk, aren’t you?
Wonder why Chinese are eating our lunch and why their children will eat our children’s lunch?
The fact that the US has the highest concentration of lawyers per capita, BY FAR, has something to do with it.