On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 20:41:40 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

Alan Gomes wrote:
And to those whining about a tax rebate for home schooling, how about for

BTW: My wife is a public school teacher in So. California. She's a great
teacher but it's a really crappy system--massively top heavy bureaucracy,
wasteful, poorly run, etc. Granting that we cannot abolish the public
education system entirely (my personal preference), we support vouchers as a
good compromise. And as for the teacher's union, we got her out of that
years ago (though we are obligated to pay a relatively small amount of dues
that goes to the collective bargaining portion, but nothing that goes to
support their political agenda).

--Alan Gomes

If you and your wife had any integrity, she'd quit working for the
public school system altogether, and go to work for a private voucher
system school, where she could be hired and fired on a whim,

That's not true. Now if you are talking about the various religious
centered schools (non-Catholic), then you might be right.

earn about a third to a half less,

Neither is that - at least in this area. Private schools are on a
par, most have higher pay scales, than public schools.

and, of course, not be a part of a teachers' retirement system.

Just for the sake of argument, what's so great about the Teacher's
Retirement System? In this state, the funds were raided and put into
the General Fund and are funded every year instead of being a
cumulative fund run by professional managers. Teacher's aren't
eligible for Social Security benefits. None of that is provided by
the NEA/AFT by the way - it's provided by the State. There are no
health benefits provided by the NEA/AFT as there are in other Unions.
In short, the NEA/AFT does nothing for their members after they leave
service. Zero, zip, nada.

Later,

Tom