In response to:
I am a Texas teacher. We pay ALL of our retirement. We have no right to strike or collectively bargin. We have no tenure and have to get a new contract every two years. We are in this for the KIDS. Somehow we manage to do alright day after day. I love my job. They're going to have to carry me out of the classroom to retire.
Union lunacy at its finest. A Michigan teacher, and member of the Michigan Education Association (the teachers' union), has gone on the record protesting an education spending reform bill that would preclude her from collecting health benefits right away when she retires...at age 47.
It's hard to decide what's more galling here: the fact that this woman believes she's entitled to retire so early -- on taxpayer funds, I might add -- or that she's protesting a bill that would require teachers to take marginal responsibility for their own retirements.
The nerve of these insensitive, education-hating politicians!
...
I also applaud you for loving your work. There's not enough of that among people in government service. Too many of them like the pay, the job security, and the benefits rather than the actual duties they are supposed to perform.