re: Oklahoma teachers prepare to strike

Private sector employees that work M-F and never on weekends while taking a week vacation work 254 days a year.

Teachers work an average of three months less a year than that person.

3 months.

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they aren't paid for the summers technically. Their pay is just stretched out so the get monthly paychecks.

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Yes but that’s EXACTLY what they don’t seem to understand about their own jobs. They work 3 months a year less than everyone else and their salaries reflect that. They’re not getting screwed; it’s just that, whether they consciously knew it or not, they chose days off over pay.

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It would be like if your job kept asking you to do the work of other departments without any of the extra pay.

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That happens in the private sector all. the. time. Welcome to... life.

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I’d bet it would rank well below other households with two college educated adults.

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Perhaps. But not really on point.

E.g., How might your observation compare with teacher income vs other fields in other states.

Then again instead of focusing solely on income, how would associated vacation time compare vs other fields?

I can say the school year here in Louisiana is 192 days then I do at least two weeks during the summer of "workshops" so 202... and parent days don't count so I only work 210 days actually....

Now 210 of 365 sounds great then add the 105 weekends usually in a year that everyone gets and we are at 315 of 365... sounds great we get 50 extra days off... remove Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, MLK, Mardi Gras, etc that most jobs give off for then it is really like 40 days extra.... Now I'm not sure which jobs time off, sick, + personal time off as well. I know my mom who is a doctor gets two weeks vacation + ten days sick a year and her vacation can roll over if not used. So an additional 24 days off, so I have 16 more off days than she does.

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Last year, about a quarter of the state’s public school teachers left the state or quit teaching altogether.

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I don’t get the hate. The poliboard usually sides with market demand. ...If these teachers want better salaries, they should just move to the private sector...

Here, 1/4 of the workforce quit despite the fact the workweek was reduced to 4 days...that indicates a serious workforce problem.

Consequently, Oklahoma can either:

1. Find teachers willing to work for less
2. Pay the current batch more; or
3. The kids can teach themselves.

The ball is in the legislature’s court. Nonetheless, I sympathize with taxpayers who don’t want to pay a premium for education, when either:

1. They don’t have children; or
2. They feel obligated to pay tuition for private schooling.

If they get the raise, good for them. I'm not going to pay for it because I don't have to. And when these assumed revenue streams fall short of their projections and they can't pay for 15% pay raises, I'm going to laugh at all 9f the people that sided with the teachers here in Oklahoma.

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And when these assumed revenue streams fall short of their projections and they can't pay for 15% pay raises, I'm going to laugh at all 9f the people that sided with the teachers here in Oklahoma.

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I agree wholeheartedly... but, they will raise pay until they find a way to reduce the attrition rate.

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Yeah, I'm sure the private sector is being asked to do two jobs a year and only getting a 100$ raise a year.


Probably three or four people’s job. Publicly traded corporations are run extremely lean these days

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Sounds rough, those guys should consider moving to the public sector.

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If they get the raise, good for them. I'm not going to pay for it because I don't have to. And when these assumed revenue streams fall short of their projections and they can't pay for 15% pay raises, I'm going to laugh at all 9f the people that sided with the teachers here in Oklahoma.

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If I understand correctly I won't be paying more money right now. I don't think they raised our property taxes. I don't use Tobacco and when Im in a hotel in OK my insurance is paying for it. Im all about them getting paid so maybe I will sell 2 extra cars per month. Okies don't save money. They will put it right back into the economy