Chicago teachers asking for 30% raises over next 2 years

[Indy Texas]

Of course teachers are overpaid. I spend all day around them and can assure you they hardly deserve their salaries. I educate students who threaten to beat me up and have to deal with countless state and federal SPED mandates and I can assure you that I am overpaid.

The numbers clearly indicate so. $75k + lavish pension and benefits for a 30 hour week!

If you think it's a 30 hour week, you're delusional. They grade papers at home in the evenings. They have to be at school at least an hour beforehand to get things ready and often have to stay after school to help students or monitor carpool and buses or look after some kid whose parent is late getting them.
That "lavish" pension you speak of requires you be vested in order to receive it. You usually have to be there at least 10 years before you're fully vested. And if you decide you want to move and teach in another state, poof! you have to start all over from square one with your new state/district's retirement plan.

[Indy Texas]

I'm completely befuddled as to what krazen's on about here.  krazen, 75,000 is a middle class salary. 

75K sits in the second highest quintile that goes from about 60 to 100K according the 2010 data from the Census.

Not in chicago my friend.

 It always seems like these horrors of unionized teacher stories come from a metro area like nyc or chi twon where thecost of living is MUCH higher than normal. It serves to distort the middle-class standard of living such teacher's earn and likewise project it as a false 'coming soon to your community' warning to the rest of middle america.

Effecive ploy. Misleading, but effective.

The second quintile of 60K to 100K is for family income, so two teachers both earning 75K are in the top quintile nationally.

That aside, based on individual salaries in Chicago, what quintile are you claiming Chicago teachers are in, and what is the minimum salary necessary to be "middle-class" in Chicago?

1 teacher making $75k of course already makes twice the cities' average salary.

As cited at

http://www.illinoispolicy.org/blog/blog.asp?ArticleSource=4685

average family income in Chicago is $46,877.

I don't see the logic in claiming that a single worker making 50% more than the average family income of a city doesn't already live at a middle-class level.

Who decided that educators aren't allowed to earn an "above-average" salary? Different professions get paid more than others. 70% of Americans don't have a college degree, which is heavily tied to earnings. All teachers have at least a bachelor's degree, so wouldn't it make sense that someone with an above-average education is making an above-average income?