Posted on 10/03/2019 11:21:55 AM PDT by karpov
One of the most common beliefs about American education is that teaching is an "underpaid" profession. Think tanks purport to calculate the "teacher pay gap." The media run stories about teachers taking second and third jobs to pay the bills. Politicians call for across-the-board raises. They all see raising teacher pay as a matter of simple fairness, as well as a way to attract better teachers and improve educational outcomes.
They are all misguided. The highly publicized "pay gap" that dominates news headlines is the product of a simplistic methodology that, when universally applied, suggests that nurses, firefighters, and other professionals are dramatically overpaid. Furthermore, predictions generated by the underpaid-teacher hypothesis — such as that teachers must have high quit rates, or that a large percentage of their income flows from second jobs — are not supported by the data. Teachers as a group are generally well compensated, and teacher pay and benefits have risen faster over time than compensation in private-sector jobs. Failure to recognize these facts can lead education reform down a blind alley.
Across-the-board raises, the usual solution to closing the teacher pay gap, come with high price tags. West Virginia's teacher walkout ended with the state legislature passing an across-the-board 5% salary increase. Arizona's teacher protests culminated in Governor Doug Ducey agreeing to a 20% salary increase over two years, a policy that will cost the state and schools over $450 million per year, in addition to higher pension costs based on the increased salaries. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has proposed to close the "gap" using federal funds, at an estimated 10-year cost of $315 billion. These are not costs that are incidental to government budgets.
Moreover, focusing on across-the-board raises distracts from less costly but more useful reforms, such as differential pay for hard-to-staff subjects
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalaffairs.com ...
If anything teachers here in PA are overpaid.
Primo benes and virtually unfireable if you don’t become a sex offender with your students.
They get literally thousands of resumes for each opening. They interview dozens. Then the job always goes to some relative of a school board member.
Just another patronage boondoggle like everything else in this state.
Some Canadian I know tried to pull this “US teachers are so underpaid” schtick on me, so I pulled up the stats and showed him that US teachers on average actually are paid more than Canadian, and most European, teachers. That got him sputtering!
The Democrats in my little city kept having school bond votes every summer until they finally got one through.
They built three new elementary schools in a city with a declining elementary age population.
They bought the land for their new schools from their relatives at a price way over the asking prices.
The old schools? They are just sitting there. They won’t sell them for fear that they will become private schools.
And guess what?
They’re crying that they need more money for their teachers.
What are the criteria to determine whether a profession is “underpaid”?
Do we compare teacher pay to pay for other professions, and then make a value judgement as to which “benefits” society better than another? Do we take into account that the structure of teaching provides many with vacation time, such as summer vacation, which is unheard of in the private sector?
Do we take into consideration that teachers may not be able to afford a detached single family house in many areas of the country, and decksre the profession is underpaid for that reason?
In WV the average teacher makes $45K (Figure more then a year old!) for 9-ish months of work.
Average family of four in WV $39.5K. (Note this could be both parents working and 2 kids!) for 12
There lies the problem!
Public teachers health benefits in NJ are Very generous. I know a family of four who pays a next to nothing premium for health insurance. They paid Nothing for a C-section!
All very nice, and they do get 60 days vacation. Meanwhile, an E-4, in the dry dusty desert dodging bullets gets ????? I was a teacher way back almost 60 years ago, $100 a week, the same district now is about 85K+ and over 55K retirement. Boo F’n hoo. Unions always cry, the more they get the more they make. Teaching a text book doesn’t require much, just stay one day ahead of the lesson. I know its a lot easier teaching post HS. Its that middle school area that is tough trying to keep the student’s attention. I substituted 7-12th 20 yrs ago.
Here’s the actual facts, some teachers are underpaid, some are overpaid, and some should be fired.
When that gets fixed we’ve taken a step forward, it’s called Merit Pay, you can read about it, search author Eric hanushuk
that plus the tradeoff of these big raises was that the local districts couldn't ask for levies, etc....sure enough, we're all ready being prepped for more taxes......
their education is a big nothing burger and every time they take one class towards their masters they get more money.....
its a scam.....
Math/science teachers are hard to find in rural America.
Teachers in Ohio are paid by contract, so it actually isn’t a salary system or an hourly system. Don’t know about the rest of the nation.
They negotiate their contract with districts as a group. It covers number of days, pay periods, holidays, healthcare, status, rights, etc. When that contract is complete they go on to the next one.
This is a serious question.
Merit Pay
How do you measure it?
What are intuitively apparent standards that both the teaching establishment & parents can agree on?
When I say “..intuitively apparent ..” it doesn’t take “specialized knowledge” to understand it or explain it!
Boy, does that ever sound familiar.
It’s intuitive, if you’re really interested read the book Merit Pay by hanushuk - it’s a whole book that I cannot explain here.
I usually point out that at the twenty year mark as a full time teacher they have actually had over five years of vacation. That’s right. Teachers get paid for twenty years but only actually work about 14.5 yeas. How much vacation time do you get?
I teach and I make right at $54,000 a year. Would I like to make more? Of course I would. So does everyone else. I knew when I chose this profession that I would never be rich. If I really wanted to make more money, I could go into a trade. I don’t because I really enjoy my job. Do I get a lot of days off? Yes. Guess how many of them that I get paid for. Zero. Teachers don’t get paid vacation. We get paid for the days that we work. Then we get to work for free during workshops. Insurance? It sucks so bad that I am on my wife’s insurance from her job. Again, I love my job, but it isn’t perfect. No job is. I’m not in any teacher’s union, and never will be. Don’t lump all teachers into the liberal camp. We are individuals. In my entire school there is only one single employee that voted for Hillary.
Here in So Cal I know a couple of elementary school teachers.
You can look up ludicrous salaries of all state, county, city, and school employees at transparentcalifornia.com. Retirement pay for all of them as well. It’ll make your head spin.
One was paid $91,688.00 plus benefits of $30,950.00 for a total of $122,638.00.
The other was paid $111,289.00 plus benefits of $22,505.00 for a total of $133,794.00.
Not to bad for 9 months work, not to mention the lifetime pension and health insurance.
A highway patrol officer I know made $259,041.38, benefits $98,667.44, total $357,708.82. This can’t be sustained forever. It’s gonna be painful when it collapses.
This is not teaching 1945 where all teachers were underpaid women. A good teacher back in the day could teach a one room 1-12 school to (old)collegiate standards. Today “teaching” is a plumb job with great perks especially if you suk at teaching,are lazy and a leftist tool who has a perversion for his/her students. I love how my property taxes pay for these fidiots (as my property value goes down). Kids actually come out more stupid tan when they went in (as is the case in college).
Teachers are fond of claiming they’re underpaid because engineers make more. After all, both professions require a college degree so both should be paid the same.
There is a way to shut up someone making the argument that if we pay teachers more, then we’ll get better teachers. Ask them what happens to the teachers we have when we get those better teachers? Do we fire them?
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