The top 24 hedge fund managers made as much in salary as 330,000 teachers including all their, salaries, benefits and retirement last year combined.

If you want to fix schools, take the handcuffs off our educators. There is not a more profound profession that gets so little respect in this country.

Support our teachers.

Maybe those teachers should have tried to become hedge fund managers? You know, I’d like to be compensated like a doctor or professional athlete. I agree with your point that our teachers are under paid, but something called tenure has given a lot of bad teachers a whole bunch of security the rest of us private sector people don’t get. If you want to make $50k a year and have summers off, be a teacher. I don’t think any of them went into it for the money.

Keep it in perspective.

If you research the negotiations and interactions between teachers and the Elk Grove school district over the last several years, you will see that today’s protest is NOT about making more money. Instead this about not being required to forfeit more. Check copies of the local paper, Facebook, and U-Tube.

Last year the teachers voluntarily agreed to reductions in salary, additional furlough days, increased healthcare costs, among other losses in compensation. Clearly they care about kids.

Now the district has made moves to force a “hard cap” on healthcare contributions (repealed to 2010 premiums). The teachers agreed to previous concessions to help a district that declared it would not have enough money to operate past the Spring of 2011. One board member actually stated last month that if teachers did not use their healthcare plans, they would see no increase in costs.

There is now a $60M surplus in the district coffers. How can the district ask teachers to stand in front of kids each day giving lessons on justice and peaceful protest, the economic value of being educated, and at the same time implement measures that devalue their profession?

They chose a profession where they knew the terms beforehand… Whitey is right, they can always change professions. Besides, does anyone think those hedge fund managers are paid that well because they are average performers? If making huge profits was that easy, they wouldn’t get that pay……and we all would be doing it…

@ Value Teachers – You said “How can the district ask teachers to stand in front of kids each day giving lessons on justice and peaceful protest, the economic value of being educated, and at the same time implement measures that devalue their profession?”

The district is not asking you to teach justice, peaceful protest, etc. Try getting these little kids to read, write, and speak like a human being first! Teachers devalue their profession every single day! Stop playing martyr, take your personal opinions to the trash, shut your mouth, and do your job!

@ James Curnutt – Stop complaining about your CHOSEN profession not making what a hedge fund manager does. Being a teacher is not profound at all. Why do teachers, state workers, and cops all think they are safe from being messed with. YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE GETTING INTO!!! You all knew that this “bubble” would pop someday, just like the housing market. You don’t like it old man, then get out!

If they don’t have a doctors letter they should be fired. I hate unions!

Cut the salary at the board of trustess, the supperidendent, & all of the people in the district office and give it to the teachers. They work hard trying to teach a handful of kids who are only there to keep the chiars warm. Teachers can’t teach the kids manners of good behavior anymore. Let’s go back 20 years when the kids wanted to learn. They took away P.E. nad the recesses & only care about learning. You have to excercise the body to excercise the brain.

Im sorry they aren’t making what they want. But the choose a profession to help kids learn. They should be teaching, not having a sub fill in with buys body work. They are not helping the kids in any way by doing this and should lose pay- for today!

Cal – Please visit the EGUSD web site. The stated values and concepts are noted in the Benchmarks and Standards, which are also in line with the State Framework for instruction. These ideals are also implied in the mission statement of the district with regard to hiring practices, intended outcomes of student performance, and participation in activities in and out of the classroom. This includes lessons that utilize the skills of reading, writing, and speaking from an educated position. Justice and Peaceful Protest are indeed rights acknowledged for all human beings in our own Bill of Rights and Constitution. To deny “personal opinions” and acquiesce to “shut your mouth” would indeed devalue teachers’ value in society.

They get sick days, which are essentially paid vacation. It’s not about money, it’s about using people like you in the public to bully teachers when teachers have already solved the budget issues.

What about all other employees who call in sick – whether for an appt., family needs, car maintenance, or for personal time off? Are they questioned for proof and treated so poorly by the general public? No. It happens every day.

Anyway, why are teachers blamed for every problem in society? Teaching children is wonderful and rewarding, however, we shouldn’t be held responsible for “raising” children and teaching them how to be civilized human beings. Much of the responsibility belongs to their parents and other people in the child’s life. Yes, teachers know what they are getting into. They understand the pay, the difficulties, and the rewards. Money is clearly not the issue. The issue is every year receiving a pink slip, getting laid off, losing health insurance, taking a pay cut every year, receiving more furlough days, and not knowing whether or not you will have a job the following year. I’m pretty sure those conditions would make anyone uneasy and upset. You say – don’t complain, deal with it or change your profession – okay, you’re right. We can change our profession. But someone has to do it. And I’m pretty sure all of the critics wouldn’t last a year in the profession.

By the way, how many sick days have you taken in the past year? Were you publicly criticized and treated like a horrible citizen? I doubt it.

It is difficult to consider a teacher under paid when the starting salary 7(at least in the elk grove district) is $37k for 9 months of 7.5 hour days (according to contract). That’s the same annual salaray as a state worker in a non-managerial but highly technical position–except they work 8 hour days, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, excluding holidays, and if they don’t work they have to use vacation leave, unlike a teacher who gets 3 months off during the summer. As far as the objection to paying the equivalent of 1 months salary forannual health care premiums, my husband pays almost 2 months worth for our dental and medical premiums, so i don’t think it’s unfair to expect another paid professional to do the same. The other thing that is seriously wrong is the demand to have the return of the lottery stipend. when the initiative was passed to allow the lottery the money was not suppose to be used for salary. calling it a stipend doesn’t change the fact that it’s part of their income. they get taxed on it like wages so why not call it what it really is. supposedly the union negotiated in contracts the stipulation that the lottery funds could not be used for recurring costs. however the teachers received the lottery stipend annually. If something occurs annually, isn’t it a recurrence? Up until the recent activities of teachers working to contract in hopes of securing overtime pay for the “extra hours” they put in an this sick out, I wanted to become a teacher. Seeing these adults behave in such a greedy, self centered makes me ill and I don’t want to become lumped in. In the past parents have been pretty supportive of what teachers fought for. I think they’re pushing it too far if they’re not carefull they’re going to lose support of their parents, a.k.a the tax payers that make it possible for them to have funding in the first place.

Non-teachers, please tell us what you would do in our situation? Would you continue to take a pay cut every year? Would you be content with getting laid off every year and then waiting a few months not knowing if you would have a job/insurance the following year? Since you are so knowledgeable of what it’s like to be a teacher, please tell us what you would do in our position. I, on the other hand, won’t tell you how to do your job, since I have no experience or personal knowledge of what that field is like.

In response to people bashing unions. I don’t have any strong opinions one way or the other. However, as a teacher, the union existed long before I was born and will (most likely) continue long after I retire. Teachers are forced to financially support them. Money is taken out of our paychecks every month to go to the unions – whether we are a member or not. So, again, what exactly would you have us do? We can’t really separate ourselves from the union or tell them to go away. We don’t really have any power, in reality.

Don’t forget teachers have lives outside of their classrooms too. Aside from the budget cuts, rowdy students and foolish parents who constantly ridicule their work, teachers are people with families who like many others, pay the bills and must find means of financial support. And it’s not like this issue just recently surfaced, it’s something that has plagued schools, teachers, parents, and students alike for many years.

The basis of any job is the underlying foundation that education has provided for their students. And when you have budget cuts and take away from the schools, the teachers aren’t the only ones hurting. By doing so, you take away from the students the potential to be even more successful, you hinder their education, impose limits on their abilities due to the inadequate lack of resources. Being a student myself, I have learned quite a bit from my teachers. They have put faith in me to achieve and succeed, encourage me when problems seemed impossible. It is not an issue of money, it’s the unfair treatment teachers are subjected to time and time again.

Of course you will also have your “bad” teachers, but since when was there a time in which all employers were “good.” Frankly, I don’t care too much about the teachers whose sole purposes in life is to baby sit kids. My concern is centered more towards the teachers who have helped construct my ability to think and grow, teachers who are there to teach and build people out of students. I can recall the teachers who have heavily impacted my life. They cast shadows that I find far more intriguing than many others and their influence will be carried with me throughout my years of study and research.

How can you hold a bankrupt California hostage for more money ? Oh that’s right !…………..Raise taxes !

Saying teachers are not into teaching for the money is absolutely ridiculous nonsense, many people who were layed off for different reasons went into teaching to make money just like everyone else is working to make money. If you cannot have the position you really want then you take the one youi can get.

When there was a shortage of money coming from the state of California, Elk Grove teachers agreed to make concessions to help the district make it through the lean years. Now the district has over $60 million in surplus money. Using a portion of that money to compensate teachers is the responsibility of the District. They are failing to own up to their responsibilities to the students enrolled in the 2011-2012 school year and trying to short change the students in the 2012-2013 school year. Why should anyone let the district get away with this? A teacher’s working conditions are a student’s learning conditions.