g - The teachers are not getting increase that are out of the realm of normal. It is taking them longer to get step increases and they ARE paying more for their insurance (thus saving the district money). I did not call the town silly. I called it pathetic - because it is. The council approves the union contract and then refuses to fund it. That certainly makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

kgs,
How about this, we agree to pay Danbury school teachers no more than 20% more than the average private school teacher in the area, including pay, benefits and pension.

This way, we can rest assured Danbury won't pay too much. Think the state will give Danbury an exemption allowing that?

That's fine, g, but then you need to either require all private school teachers to be certifiied and have a master's degree in education, or reduce the certification requirements for public school teachers. You can't have it both ways.

As tough as it is in our school system, I don't think I want these folks teaching my kids, LOL!!

A good thought, Rick, however what I find particularly sad is that our mayor was a teacher, as were some of the council members. The fact that they don't get the importance of education is pathetic.

You need a teaching license, background check, fingerprints taken and what not to be a substitute teacher in Danbury. With all that there are a ton of substitute teaches desperately waiting to suck cash from the Danbury school district. If these guys tried to take cash as substitute teachers, they'd be sued in a billion ways by the union, substitute teachers, and every possible advocacy group you can imagine.

And YES, any random bozo on the street can probably teach better than the folks we get as credentialed teachers these days. Common sense, anything other than a dot ditto mentality are required by teachers today.

Try not handing out homework, as it is useless. Try reducing boredom in the classroom by offering an entertaining curriculum. The district and union won't tolerate it.

Instead, we can pay teachers $100K a year with $0 toward insurance premiums and 60%+ retirements for working 200 days a year and destroying the education of our children. What a great deal.

The teachers didn't have a raise last year, either. If you read the article on the NT website, you'll learn that the union also said that it would take two years for a teacher to get a step raise, a small COLA increase next year and that they will be paying higher co-pays for their insurance, which actually reduces the total amount of the increase by about $600,000. The teachers are making less now than they were, just like the rest of us. My problem is that the City approves the union deal and then does not allocate the necessary monies to actually fund the contract THEY approved. Instead, we lose library and text books, classrooms for art, music and gym, sports, etc. That is not OK. If the City is going to approve the union contract then they need to fund it, in addition to all of the necessities of running a successful school. Do you have children in the system right now? I do... the teachers are great and they do the best they can with the resources available to them. Unfortunately, the resources they really need are not available due to a lack of funding by the City.

Teachers got a raise in benefits and no out of pocket premiums last year. THAT is a raise.

Reducing Danbury public school teachers pay to that of the private school system would more than cut our cost of educating kids in half.