The summer holiday reasoning a lot of people have is so far off base I don't even know where to start.
Teachers are paid for what they do, just like any other profession. The holidays are there for the kids, not the teachers. It's not like someone up and said, 'hey, we should give these people a bunch of extra time off', that's just what the job is.
All sorts of jobs have perks and challenges that go with the job. One of the perks of teaching is that you get extra time off, but that isn't an excuse to pay them less. The job is what it is. Besides the reasoning would be the same if you did pay them less.
Say you cut their salaries by 25% (rounding here, as an example) because they work 25% less hours (again a misnomer, but to go with the example) than the rest of 'normal society'. The next year they'd still have 100% of their new salary and people would still complain they're getting 25% too much because their hours are still 25% less. It never ends.
The job is what it is. It comes with some extra time off, get over it. Some people decide to become a teacher because of that, some it doesn't factor in at all. But it is a perk of the job and all jobs have perks of one kind or another. The argument is ludicrous and makes no sense.
Lastly, there are so many other jobs that are just like this. IE you work only at certain times but have balanced yearly pay. Why do teachers get singled out? Why doesn't anyone complain that firefighters get paid when they aren't fighting fires?
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