For those of you who think all there is to teaching is standing in a classroom lecturing and getting 2 months off, Just a little perspective. Teaching is 12+ hrs a day for ten months straight, (who do you think GRADES 150 assignments a day?) and teachers DON'T get paid for those 2 months. As for the 75K, the only way to get a pay raise is to SPEND the money on classes to upgrade your degree (many CPS teachers have master's degrees) and KEEP your teaching credentials. This is a CPS requirement, something the cheaper, money-hungry charter schools don't seem to make an issue of. CPS teachers are required to teach everyone. Charter schools can kick the problem students out and hand them over to the public schools without handing over the voucher money that came with them. The CPS teachers don't fight their battles in the press, which is also why you don't hear the counter-arguments while the papers, controlled by the city spend columns besmirching the people who teach, council and hold the hand of every child who comes their way.
The charter schools treat teaching as a job, CPS teachers treat it as a calling and they've gotten stomped for their work. The reason Chicago is closing public schools is to get out of their obligation of paying into the teacher's retirement fund which they've been neglecting for more than a decade. Imagine what would happen if you could just kill off master card and end your debt?
Keep in mind, everything you are today began with a teacher. Now imagine what you'd be if that teacher said he or she didn't have time for you because it was "quitting time"
