Since when is 3% considered a healthy increase?

Three percent is nothing. It is pennies, coins. It is not enough to cover anything and with the cost of everything rising, including taxes, three percent rapidly disappears into nothing.

I'm listening to the news going on in New Jersey, how the governor is complaining that despite other people not getting any increases in the past five years, that teachers have gotten a three percent increase every year for those five. And I'm like, yeah, and the classes have gotten bigger, and we just got through a three year recession, still feeling the aftereffects.

Kids still need to be taught, and classes still have to go on. Yet the elephant in the room is getting rid of those teachers who sit in limbo in those rubber rooms for years and get a check but don't get to teach. Those should simply be laid off. Of course there are union rules, but honestly, you also pay for a service and these teachers aren't being given the opportunity to provide that service, or have messed up their chances for some reason -- interesting, when the news reports on these things, they don't find out the individual reasons as to why these people are languishing in these rubber rooms.

I'm sure if they found out, they could easily flush out fifty percent of the languishers and save some major money. Otherwise, this cut in teachers the teacher union is protesting is utter bullshit. They have more than enough teachers who are qualified sitting in the rubber rooms that can then be utilized and earn their paycheck legitimately.