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I've been on social media since before it was called social media.
What began as a friendly way to communicate over the transom (called IRC, or internet relay chat) soon became a seriously laughable research study into the mindsets of people far and wide.
You could never know if someone typing on the other end was actually who they said they were or located where they said they were located, so you would just have to take them at their word and assume they meant exactly what they said.
Often, I'd just take a tally and then sit back and calculate when the next shoe was going to drop on a debate, and all of this was when the Hot Go-To Spot of the Internet was DelphiForums, not Facebook or Twitter.
Sometimes, I would troll the heck out of chatrooms and start a fight just to gauge responses. My ex and I used to think it was funny ... just say "stuff" to rile people up, grab the popcorn bucket and then do this ... 👀.
So ...
What began as a Ledger-Enquirer news report by newswriter Mark Rice about salaries for school administrators and educators ended up in a typographical shshow about anything and everything from who should "homeschool" their kids to a demand that Mark Rice show them his salary since he seemed to be so interested in exposing everyone else's.
Forget the Georgia Open Records Act on employees who are paid by taxpayer money, they seemed to think an employee for a private corporation was obligated to do the same.
"I'll show you mines if you show me yours."
You can't make this stuff up ... and here's another cliché for you "This stuff just writes itself." LOL!
But Seriously Though
Everybody is already well aware that teachers making the same money I was making in the early 1990s without a teacher's certificate or even a college degree to my name at the time is no laughing matter.
Teachers truly are not paid enough for the kind of crap they put up with from admin, parents, guardians, and even the public court of opinion that wants to blame them for Johnny not being able to read when Johnny's parents probably can't help him at home because they can't read either.
But then how much is "enough" money when it comes to salaries?
A former boss of mine -honest lawyers that they are- said "There is no magic number that is going to be enough, and besides that ... mo money mo problems." He suggested that the more money you make the more you spend and even then 'enough is never enough'.
Yeah, he was being El Cheapo, but more than 90-percent of my acquaintances at the time weren't anywhere close to $45k.
In June of 2021, Bloomberg.com wrote that a 2020 "Modern Wealth Survey" said it took $2.6M to be wealthy - $1.7M was needed for financial happiness - and $934K was enough to be financially comfortable - and it takes $624K to be comfortable.
COMFORTABLE WITH WHAT? Beluga caviar and Wings 'n' 24-karat Gold Dip for lunch every day?
Circumstances and Values
Forget the social media research projects ... who in the holy fugazi answers these surveys for Bloomberg? John D. Rockefeller's relatives-the broke ones with the lowball allowances?
Inc.com put it like this (February 28, 2020):
Q: "At what point is enough money enough?"
A: "That number will be different for everyone, depending on your circumstances and values, but science can give us some sense of how much money might be 'enough'. Research shows that up to a certain threshold (studies consistently put it at about $75,000 a year, give or take...depending on the cost of living) ...
Yeah, you read it right. SEVENTY FIVE LARGE A YEAR ...
All things considered, that $75K should really be a starting entry-level salary for ALL teachers; but then all the taxpayers would want to know is who died and made them Rockefeller?
Circumstances.
Values.
The $64,000 Question: Do you think Muscogee County's children and their futures and education are worth the 21st century teacher expense?
Please don't ask the person who said their child knows more about their teacher's home life than they do about what they came to school to learn.
That's what happens when personal cellphones are allowed inside of a classroom and class time is spent downloading the latest apps and calling everybody but the National Homework Helpline.
Note: Business.org lists teacher salaries by state
_Mississippi rolls in with a low of just over $45k, followed by Arkansas in the high 40s; and New York tops the charts at $87K, followed by California in the mid-80s. Oh look! MCSD is pretty much down there with the two biggest Podunk capitals of the U.S.A.: Mississippi and Arkansas...
