Randi Weingarten, the affluent, fancypants president of the American Federation of Teachers, issued a statement on Wednesday expressing her deep concern about the salaries of American teachers.
Weingarten’s lamentation — about the plight of people who make, on average, about $300,000 less per year than she does — came in response to a report by the National Council on Teacher Quality entitled “Smart Money: What Teachers Make, How Long It Takes and What It Buys Them.”
The 25-page report compares and details teacher salaries across the country.
“We know that teachers and their families, like other workers, are feeling squeezed for many reasons: stagnant wages, increasing student debt and retirement insecurity, to name a few,” Weingarten declared in a press release sent to The Daily Caller.
Certainly, Weingarten is not feeling squeezed. The teachers union honcho’s salary of $360,000 per year puts her squarely in the top one percent of all Americans. It is 641 percent higher than the $56,130 annual income of an average elementary school teacher.
The amount of money Weingarten makes in just two weeks is roughly equal to the amount an average grade school teacher makes over three months. (RELATED: Randi Weingarten Is Really Sad She Makes $326,300 More Than A Typical Preschool Teacher, You Guys)
“[T]eachers are especially undervalued, given their importance to society as well as the skills and knowledge their jobs demand,” Weingarten sermonized in her remarks concerning the teacher pay report.
“Teachers — the very people seeding the minds of future generations — deserve more competitive pay, a predictable and stable income, and a middle-class career path. That means competitive salaries that are predictable and stable and are not based on students’ test scores or administrators’ favoritism. Of course, pay is only one part of the equation; supporting teachers requires so much more.”
Back in November 2011, Weingarten, the wealthy, top-one-percenter, harshly criticized a New York state court for upholding the eviction of Occupy Wall Street protesters from Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park.
“We owe it to ourselves and our country to continue this conversation, and to fight for an agenda that will reduce income inequality and create greater economic opportunity for the 99 percent,” the $360,000-per-year, top-one-percent-earning union big wig lectured with no hint of irony at the time.
“This is much bigger than tarps, tents and protesters in the park—this is the beginning of a movement for economic equity, and to hold the 1 percent accountable for the ever-growing chasm between this country’s haves and have-nots,” the well-heeled union leader sternly promised in 2011.
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