Two questions for you Kmarx; #1) What do you know of the points of arbitration and #2) In those nine months, how many hours do you think they average per day at home or in the class room?
Maybe we should cut the pay of the average oil field worker (who works less than six months a year) to match that of the school teacher.

One should find it odd that we fund prisons more than schools.
We dare not cut spending for national defense, but we find it very easy to cut spending for education. What's the point? If we don't educate the young, we will have nothing left but a citizenry that is capable of performing only the most mundane and mindless of jobs ... if they don't end up in prison first! If you don't educate the masses, you will have nothing left to defend and nothing left to defend with.
The earliest civilizations knew that education was the root of success. At one time, our country followed that montra. Do we now?

1786 August 13. (to George Wythe) "I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness...Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."

-Thomas Jefferson-

Federal programs such as "No Child Left Behind" actually hindered the progress of those students who were advanced. While in theory, NCLB was a good idea, in reality it failed miserably. While providing more aid for the slower less gifted student, those that could progress were often left waiting on those that weren't going to be left behind, thus handcuffing school systems nationally and in effect lowering test scores rather than raising them. Again, we tried to legislate smarter kids and again we failed to achieve positive results.Maybe that's why 33 states have saught and were granted a waiver from NCLB.
As for funding, since the 80's classroom sizes have increased on average nationally. That means a higher student to teacher ratio. More students, fewer teachers. And we expect greater results? Administrative costs have increased by nearly 40% over the past 15 years nationally while teacher wages have remained basically stagnant.You may be inclined to say "well, they have a benefits package that is above and beyond anything in the private sector." This is, for the most part, true. However, teachers generally sacrifice higher wages for better benefits and this was in fact used as a bargaining tool by many school districts nationally to reduce todays spending in order to pay the piper tomorrow. We made the school budgets look good for the near term, but when it came time to pay up, we dodged the real issue and assigned blame on anyone but ourselves.
Parent participation not only in extra-curicular activities, but in acedemics as well has decreased. Could this be related to the fact that both parents are twice as likely to be employed as they were in the 80's and three times as likely as the 70's and nearly six times as likely as it was in the 60's? Education and test scores are multi pronged. Teachers are not fully responsible for a students education. They can't make the student attend school daily. They can't force a student to complete homework. They can't see to it that the student gets to bed at a decent hour or is properly fed prior to attending. But when you have more and more children fitting in to that parental mold, obviously it's that over paid teacher that is at fault!!!
The easy way out for society is to blame the teacher for their childrens poor performance when we really need to be looking in more than one direction for the real cause.
Finally Kmarx, I had asked you two questions in a previous post and you failed to address either of them. Still waiting!
And no, I am not a teacher. But I am grateful I had some damn good ones to not only help me attain a better living wage, but also to help me make better life decisions! A good teacher is worth their weight in gold. A good parent is worth much much more.