Want to know why teachers are demoralized? Read this story from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Michigan has been a national leader in attacking public education, increasing charters, and diminishing teachers’ pay and benefits. Governor Rick Snyder must take pride in crushing his state’s public school teachers.
Oh, did you know that more than 80% of the charters in Michigan are for-profit?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is there another so-called profession where its members are eligible for food stamps? Well. maybe now that teachers have been dragged down, those who have been jealous of our luxurious lazy a$$ jobs will be satisfied. Misery loves company. The only problem is that it becomes really difficult to recruit teachers who will need to be on public assistance.
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How about a related profession? Many professors are eligible for Food Stamps when they are hired as contingent faculty, as are 70% of college professors across our country. I qualified for them last year, but after going to a local Food Pantry in desperation at Christmas time (for which I was very grateful), I was too proud to take them. Luckily, I found an additional job at another college just before the cupboard was completely bare.
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Eric Zorn wrote about that in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE today: http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2013/03/-teachers-colleges-getting-early-lesson-in-obamacare.html
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Yeah, my second job told me last week they are cutting down on my numbers this year, and my first job already did that to all of us last year. Thanks for your Care, Obama!.
But I hear Wall Street topped out yesterday. Must be the schadenfreude of the 1% over the hardships little people are now facing due to the sequester, I guess. Nobody cares.
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Unfortunately, it won’t be all that hard to recruit teachers once the only other options available will be big box clerk or unemployment. We’re rapidly becoming a banana republic, if we’re not already there.
First they came for the teachers….
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Dienne, How true. How true. “Men die, but the plutocracy is immortal; and it is necessary that fresh generations be trained to its service” -Sinclair Lewis
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When teachers are hired by employers as 1099 contract workers, they don’t qualify for unemployment. I wonder how many Wal-Mart greeters are intellectuals with advanced degrees.
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When I said “unemployment”, I meant in in the sense of the state of being unemployed, not as in unemployment benefits, which probably won’t exist much longer anyway.
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Fairly common in Idaho for teachers–even experienced teachers–to be able to qualify for food stamps and other social services, after years of budget cuts, salary freezes, furlough days, and an endless stream of “education reform” legislation. The Republican-dominated legislature just got around to raising the starting salary for teachers, from $30,500 to $31,000. <—- NOT A TYPO.
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At $31,000 you are 300% above poverty level, there is something wrong if you accept food stamps.
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In Idaho, the monthly income limit for a family of four is $2498, or $29,976 per year. For a family of five, $2927 per month, or $35124 per year. With furlough days, some Idaho teachers are making less than the current starting salary of $30,500. With salary freezes dating back three years, some experienced teachers are still making that starting salary.
http://www.healthandwelfare.idaho.gov/FoodCashAssistance/ApplyforAssistance/Applyforservices/Whoiseligible/tabid/1556/Default.aspx
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