Snouts in the Trough
(Via Hit & Run)
Side Note: Ebenstein would be even more persuasive if he understood the difference between “effect” and “affect.”
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Ambiance 
Randy said,
October 9, 2010 at 10:15 pm
While I’m at it, the next time you hear someone lament the poor pay of teachers, you might want to consider this interesting examination of the average Illinois teacher compensation package.
amba12 said,
October 9, 2010 at 11:18 pm
Man!! That is appalling!
(Maybe you should have said “he’d be even more affective.”)
Donna B. said,
October 10, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I’m not totally anti-union, but it seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with unions for public service employees. I think it has something to do with the built-in job security of working for a government. Businesses can close or prosper – governments can’t really do the first and shouldn’t do the second.
Whenever I hear someone say that government should be run more like a business, I cringe. No it should not.
wj said,
October 10, 2010 at 12:04 pm
There are lots of problems with teachers and the teachers unions. And both desperately need changes, both for the sake of our children and the sake of our public finances. (And the same is true, if not more so, for other public employees and their unions.)
But I have to raise one exception to the Illinois’ teachers article. I believe that the “5 hours per day” number is only the hours in the classroom. All but the worst teachers spend a significant amount of time beyond that, planning lessons, grading homework, etc. The ones I know work 8 hours per day or more, including both the weeks that school is in session and several weeks before school starts for the year. That doesn’t add up to the number of hours most full-time workers put in (let alone those of us in the IT industry). But it is far closer than the article suggests.
wj said,
October 10, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Donna, amen!
Donna B. said,
October 10, 2010 at 4:03 pm
wj, thank you!
About the 5 hours a day, I think that was averaging the time over a full year not just the school year. I agree that classroom time is merely the culmination of quite a bit of work.