Tarpley, you're right. I've always said that those who complain about what a teacher makes must have grown up with a lot more than I did. I'm finishing up a special ed degree this year to make myself a bit more marketable (and also because I just plain enjoy SpEd more) and if I can get hired on this year, my wife and I will be able to start overpaying the mortgage by more, overpaying our student loans again (they're almost gone mostly because we overpay) and get that new van she's had her eye on, plus broadband and maybe a gun safe.
We won't be rich, but we'll be a far sight more comfortable than we are now! But then, what I call comfortable, many would call "poor." The problem is that a lot of teachers compare themselves to everybody else who got a bachelor's, whether IT techs or biologists. Well, an IT tech put in the same four years and makes more money (if he can find a job) and that's fair enough--but why does he make more? Because he isn't paid out of property taxes, which no one wants to raise, and he creates direct profit for his employer, which a teacher simply does not (and cannot.)
I am NOT opposed to unions. I thinkthey have valuable role to play, and after all, if an employer can be a massive group of people incorporated into the "person" of a corporation, why can't the workers of that company do the same? But too many teachers' unions have no limits on their arrogance.