Honestly, it annoys me when people say "Everyone needs to stop complaining about the cold, People in (insert cold place here) deal with this all the time! And they don't have heat." Blah Blah Blah, Guess what, I don't live in that god forsaken cold place. I live in a suburb right outside of Chicago. Weather.com says the average High for January should be 31, with the average low at 16. December should be 35 and 21 respectively. I want to be in a place where the average temperature falls between high teens and freezing. Not the insane weather we have gotten.
Weather.com also says the average precipitation should be 1.73 total inches in the month of January and 2.25 for December. (By the way, 10 inches of snow = 1 inch of precipitation.)
Do you want to know what January was like??? The average HIGH temperature has been 24 degrees, but the average LOW temperature is 6 degrees. That's a huge difference. Its been, on average, 10 degrees colder this year. While I don't know what data they use for average, I'm sure its more than the past 30 years. And lets be honest, the past few years have been warm. AND, none of this includes windchill. I don't know what the windchill averages has been, but it has been a crazy windy month.
Guess what else, we broke 2 records this year for coldest temperature and tied another, 1 record was set in 1988, another in 1977, and the record we tied??? 1955. Do you see what I'm trying to say? It's been CRAZY cold. So cold that we have broken/tied records that have been set for 59 years!
Lets compare precipitation now... We have had 4.88 inches of precipitation in the month of January. That's almost 3 times the AVERAGE. And guess what, there's a 60% chance it'll snow tomorrow. God only knows what that's going to be like. Oh and December?? also much higher than the average...
So lets go back to comparing warm places with cold places... On January 10th (this year) got 8.5 inches of snow... that was a lot. And yesterday, Atlanta got 3 inches of snow, which is a lot for them. Atlanta had 1200 accidents because of that snow, and you don't see people saying it was "no big deal." Because guess what, while 3 inches of snow may not be a big deal for Chicago (it happened 5 times this month alone), its a HUGE deal for Atlanta.
I choose to live in Chicago, so when we have a 60 degree swing in temperatures of the span of 3 days, Its not a shock... That's what Chicago is like. But I don't live in the North Woods, or Russia, or Alaska or any other cold place, I live in Chicago. And you know what? I'll cry about the snow if I want to.
Showing posts with label My Opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Opinion. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Monday, September 17, 2012
Its been a week, negotiate already!
Chicago Public School (CPS) are on strike right now. And they have been for a week. All I have to say is I'm going to get a LOT of flack for this post, and I'm sorry, but this is the way I feel.
My cousin, my friends, and several of my Aunts and Uncles are teachers. but COME on!!
What are the teachers striking over?? CPS wants to increase the school day. A 7 hour school day for elementary students (increase of 75 minutes), and a 7.5 hour day (increase of 30 min) for high school students. All I have to say is omg... these elementary students only had a school day of 5.5 hours?!?!? That's crazy! When I was in elementary school (A LONG time ago) I had a 6.5 hour day. So personally I think 5.5 hours is WAAAAAY too short. And yes, that NEEDS to be increased. And yeah. highschool should be 7.5 hours! I mean wow... Just crazy.
Unfortunately, the teachers want a pay increase for this time. But honestly, the state and city are BROKE! I think that's pretty selfish to demand more money. My father works for the state of Illinois and they are doing layoffs.
Personally I think teachers are spoiled because they do not need to worry about getting laid off or anything after they get tenure. I knew SOOO many High school teachers that would just get lazy in their tenure years because they didn't have to try. Normal people constantly have to worry about job performance and getting fired/laid off. I am very grateful for my aunts and uncles and cousins and friends who get tenure, but there are MANY people who don't deserve it. Personally, I think teachers Tenure should get re-evaluated every 5 years. If a teacher starts to slack, I would put that teacher on "probation" for tenure removal for 3 school year. If they didn't turn it around that first year, they would get tenure removed.
The CPS school system also wants to tie teachers evaluations to performance. Personally this just makes me laugh. I mean seriously, shouldn't this be like a no brainer? lol! But I do understand why the CPS teachers don't want this to pass. The CPS teachers think that student performance is directly linked to home conditions. So, alright. I take the CPS teachers side on this one.
One of the problems is... CPS teachers are among the highest paid in the country. According to CNN "The median base salary for teachers in the Chicago public schools in 2011 was $67,974." I mean that's a pretty good salary! These teachers have 3 weeks of June, all of July, and 3 weeks of August off of work. So... lets do the math. A typical man year is 2088 hours, or approximately 261 work days (including paid holidays) However, teachers have 3 weeks off in June (15 days), All of July (20 days), and 3 weeks in August (15 days). A total of 50 days they have off. (This is conservative considering July this year had 22 work days). So teachers work 211 days.
An elementary teacher has a 7 hour day at school. But they should get at least 30 minutes for lunch off. So that really means they work a 6.5 hour day, because I mean I don't get paid for lunch, do You?
So... lets assume each day the teachers spend 1.5 hours after classes grading papers or preparing for the next day. That's EVERY day some days its more, some days its less. I'm NOT taking into account that teachers get Spring Break and Christmas break off. That's a total of 120 hours they don't work (or approximately an extra half hour of over time a day), so any teacher that argues with me saying they work more than 40 hours a week, please take that into consideration. I'm also taking into consideration that teachers work 1.5 hours on the days they have off for holidays. So, please, on average lets assume that these teachers work 8 hour days.
That means that, if teachers only work 211 days or 1688 man hours, the median hourly rate is $40.27 per hour!!! If you take into account that these teachers used to work 75 minutes per day less, that means they used to get paid - $47.70 / hour... That hourly wage translates to just under a 6 figure salary!!!
All I'm saying is teachers... take the increase in your day and stop arguing.
My cousin, my friends, and several of my Aunts and Uncles are teachers. but COME on!!
What are the teachers striking over?? CPS wants to increase the school day. A 7 hour school day for elementary students (increase of 75 minutes), and a 7.5 hour day (increase of 30 min) for high school students. All I have to say is omg... these elementary students only had a school day of 5.5 hours?!?!? That's crazy! When I was in elementary school (A LONG time ago) I had a 6.5 hour day. So personally I think 5.5 hours is WAAAAAY too short. And yes, that NEEDS to be increased. And yeah. highschool should be 7.5 hours! I mean wow... Just crazy.
Unfortunately, the teachers want a pay increase for this time. But honestly, the state and city are BROKE! I think that's pretty selfish to demand more money. My father works for the state of Illinois and they are doing layoffs.
Personally I think teachers are spoiled because they do not need to worry about getting laid off or anything after they get tenure. I knew SOOO many High school teachers that would just get lazy in their tenure years because they didn't have to try. Normal people constantly have to worry about job performance and getting fired/laid off. I am very grateful for my aunts and uncles and cousins and friends who get tenure, but there are MANY people who don't deserve it. Personally, I think teachers Tenure should get re-evaluated every 5 years. If a teacher starts to slack, I would put that teacher on "probation" for tenure removal for 3 school year. If they didn't turn it around that first year, they would get tenure removed.
The CPS school system also wants to tie teachers evaluations to performance. Personally this just makes me laugh. I mean seriously, shouldn't this be like a no brainer? lol! But I do understand why the CPS teachers don't want this to pass. The CPS teachers think that student performance is directly linked to home conditions. So, alright. I take the CPS teachers side on this one.
One of the problems is... CPS teachers are among the highest paid in the country. According to CNN "The median base salary for teachers in the Chicago public schools in 2011 was $67,974." I mean that's a pretty good salary! These teachers have 3 weeks of June, all of July, and 3 weeks of August off of work. So... lets do the math. A typical man year is 2088 hours, or approximately 261 work days (including paid holidays) However, teachers have 3 weeks off in June (15 days), All of July (20 days), and 3 weeks in August (15 days). A total of 50 days they have off. (This is conservative considering July this year had 22 work days). So teachers work 211 days.
An elementary teacher has a 7 hour day at school. But they should get at least 30 minutes for lunch off. So that really means they work a 6.5 hour day, because I mean I don't get paid for lunch, do You?
So... lets assume each day the teachers spend 1.5 hours after classes grading papers or preparing for the next day. That's EVERY day some days its more, some days its less. I'm NOT taking into account that teachers get Spring Break and Christmas break off. That's a total of 120 hours they don't work (or approximately an extra half hour of over time a day), so any teacher that argues with me saying they work more than 40 hours a week, please take that into consideration. I'm also taking into consideration that teachers work 1.5 hours on the days they have off for holidays. So, please, on average lets assume that these teachers work 8 hour days.
That means that, if teachers only work 211 days or 1688 man hours, the median hourly rate is $40.27 per hour!!! If you take into account that these teachers used to work 75 minutes per day less, that means they used to get paid - $47.70 / hour... That hourly wage translates to just under a 6 figure salary!!!
All I'm saying is teachers... take the increase in your day and stop arguing.
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