1. The ones I've seen were gold-plated. Nevertheless, omitting it when talking compensation is significantly misleading. Public school teacher unions are famous for getting very generous retirement and health care plans.
2. Professional development - teachers do opt to get "certs", which result in automatic pay raises. Unfortunately, those certs have no correspondence with better outcomes for the kids. Preparing - yes, this is the lesson plan thing. A teacher told me she worked her fingers to the bone all summer preparing lesson plans. I asked her why she didn't just use the ones from last year. She replied that they had to be individualized for each student. I asked how did she know which students she'd have, as they wouldn't be assigned until the fall? Oops!
4: I googled average number of years until full retirement benefits kick in.
2. Professional development - teachers do opt to get "certs", which result in automatic pay raises. Unfortunately, those certs have no correspondence with better outcomes for the kids. Preparing - yes, this is the lesson plan thing. A teacher told me she worked her fingers to the bone all summer preparing lesson plans. I asked her why she didn't just use the ones from last year. She replied that they had to be individualized for each student. I asked how did she know which students she'd have, as they wouldn't be assigned until the fall? Oops!
4: I googled average number of years until full retirement benefits kick in.