Ten Myths in America

The Futurist Blog ^ | August 26, 2008 | The Futurist

[RockinRight]

1. The average teacher makes more than I do at the moment. However, in a few years I’ll far surpass a teacher’s earnings and I also made more in the past.

Granted, I think some teachers deserve more pay than others...but that’s a subject for another day.

2. Women earn less because they tend to choose professions (as a whole) that pay less. More women choose to be day care providers, teachers (see above) while more men gravitate to business, finance, medicine, etc.

3. While I’ll freely admit that there are racist whites in the US, there are racist of all races.

Nobody wants to admit that many of black America’s problems today are their own faults. Well, Bill Cosby did and look what that got him.

4. Healthy foods that are easy to prepare and taste good with little effort are more expensive than unhealthy foods that are easy and quick to prepare. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese tastes better than raw celery to most people, but most people would agree that a well-prepared dish of fresh vegetables and lean meat is better than Mac and Cheese. However, many people don’t have the knowledge, time, or desire to prepare it.

5. Can’t argue at all.

6. Leftists are idiots.

7. Any party whose symbol is an ass raises many doubts about the intelligence of its members. But enough about Obama and the Clintons.

8. Most Klansmen were Democrats.

9. Over the long term, they rise only slightly over inflation for the most part. However, there can be long periods of decline in between.

10. Something will give before that happens.

[oldenuff2no]

Teachers in Ca start at about 38K, work 10 months out of the year and are required to have a bachelors and a year of extra classes and student teaching to get their credentials. Before they get that full time job most of them pay their dues by working as a substitute teacher on call and part time. Most new teachers live at the poverty line waiting to get that first classroom of their own. The only place there is a shortage of teachers is in the inner cities where none of them want to live or work. You need to know a little more about teachers before you start making up facts that are supposed to fit all of them in every state.

[SunTzuWu]

10) High Oil Prices Will Create Permanent Long-Term Poverty : This belief is thoroughly debunked here.

Was this intended to be a link?

[CodeMasterPhilzar]

Honest question here, not trying to be controversial. You stated:

The only place there is a shortage of teachers is in the inner cities where none of them want to live or work.

If becoming a full time teacher is such a pain in the neck and not such a good economic move... Why are there apparently enough people willing to do it that there is no shortage? I would think that if it were all that bad of a career option, it would be difficult to entice people to enter that field and there would be a shortage.

[org.whodat]

This writing has so much spin in it would heat up a good size room.

[oldenuff2no]

I do take it as an honest question. I know of several teachers who openly state that if they had known about the job situation before they spent 5 years getting their credentials they would not have gone the same route.
There is a teacher shortage in the large cities where education takes a back seat to surviving the school environment. The teacher colleges are all putting forth the stats but fail to tell students exactly where that shortage exists.
This should be one of the myths that this author is debunking.

[stcromwell99]

1. School teachers have at times and places been underpaid, but not for a long time, as most are highly unionized... which is why they have high job security, even though some teach poorly. However, how would you support a family without an income for 3 months? Some compensation has to be given to sustain them.
2. Woman earning a bit less are not necessarily poor; my husband lost his job in the late 1980’s because the boss could hire a single woman for a little less than he would have to pay a family man.
3. The truth is that anyone who can pass calculus can have a better paying job. From programming to engineering to entrance requirements to medical and vet school, to get into many better paying jobs, higher math is the requirement. Some races and families put more emphasis on math education than others.
4. Some cheap food might be healthy, but in the DC area many fruits and veggies are still not cheap! It depends on where you live.
5. As in numbers 1,6,7 and 8, a lot of this is publicity. Tell a lie long enough...
6. The liberals pretended to be offended by being labelled liberal, but are truly pleased. They hide Socialism and outright Communism under that label...
7. Republicans are less intelligent if they believe lies 6,7 & 8... Actually, the liberals enjoy being thought of and called intellectuals and intelligentsia. It probably comes from a combination of their infiltration of higher education professorships at many colleges and their arrogance.
8. Liberals have taken over most media, of course, and play their songs over and over again with only slight variation. They don’t mind hypocracy, unless it is from a Republican. I must also admit, we seldom try to make a point of what we do. We just act more fairly.
9. It does not always happen, but historically, both houses and the stock market usually rise sooner or later.
10. High gas prices seem to be orchestrated before this election, and I believe at least one earlier one, to support their claim that times are hard and change would be a good thing. I think that prices are only down now because those who had propped them up don’t really want drilling.

[AndyTheBear]

On point one, we don't know what a free market would pay for teachers. But the private teachers are certainly paid less than a real market would have paid them, considering they are forced to compete against a government that provides a pervasive competing service on the public dime.

[A_perfect_lady]

I am a public school teacher in Los Angeles. My students are gangsters and thugs, some armed. They can scream obscenities at me, push me, grab me, vandalize my car, and very little will happen to them. If, however, I ever once lose my temper and even grab one by the ear, I'll be fired, and perhaps charged with assault.

You have no idea what my stress level is. $100,000 a year might be adequate compensation, given that rent in a decent neighborhood starts at $1700. But even that might not make up for the fact that if I don't burn out in another year and decide I'd rather be a cashier at Petco than continue putting up with this, I'll probably have a stroke or heart attack soon.

I'm serious. The teachers at my school who stay are having strokes and heart attacks in their 40s. It's freaking me out.

I know, I know. I just need to get out.

[fr_freak]

This writing has so much spin in it would heat up a good size room.

Please point out some examples of the spin, because I thought this was pretty well-reasoned.

[swmobuffalo]

“However, how would you support a family without an income for 3 months? Some compensation has to be given to sustain them.”

The yearly salary is divided by 12 months. Not 9 or 10. And if only my husband was making $6000 a month. And I notice that’s probably the BEFORE taxes figure.

And the bulk of rural school teachers are “underpaid” by several thousand dollars as to the figure quoted in the article. Even a Master’s degree and 25 years employment only adds up to maybe 40,000 a year pre tax.

[elmer fudd]

The guy's just plain wrong on point #4. The cheapest foods out there are starches like rice, pasta, white bread and potatoes. Sugar isn't far behind. It's a lot cheaper to buy Koolaid than fruit juice, bologna than fish and canned and frozen vegetables than fresh ones.

I'm not trying to say healthy food has to cost a fortune, just that you can get more calories more cheaply if you don't eat healthy.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[D-fendr]

btt

[TruthFactor]

10) High Oil Prices Will Create Permanent Long-Term Poverty : This belief is thoroughly debunked here. Was this intended to be a link?

Sorry. Yes, there is a link.

http://www.singularity2050.com/2008/03/rebuttal-to-a-f.html

[TruthFactor]

I have a cousin that had to take a teaching job that paid well because her husband was laid off at Ford, here in the Detroit area. She took the job in Detroit because it was the highest paying.

Her experience reflected yours exactly. Reading your post was word for word what she told me she went through every day. She could only take it for 2 years and had to leave and find a position somewhere else.

Kids like that shouldn't be in a classroom, they should be in a delinquency center learning discipline.

[Big Giant Head]

I went to college to get a commercial pilot license, to change careers. Two guys that graduated ahead of me went on to two more years of college in another flight school, before landing a right-seat job on a 19 seat aircraft. Pay? $19k/year. A kindergarten teacher in my town starts at $25k or better. Playing with glue and crayons with small childen, or risking my life day in and day out? Hmmm.

[A_perfect_lady]

Detroit, geez. The one thing I have going for me is that my students are Hispanic. They aren't quite as hostile as black kids. Not quite.

[CSM]

“Most new teachers live at the poverty line waiting to get that first classroom of their own.”

When there is no classroom for the newly hired “teacher” then any wage they draw is well above the market for people in job pools. Unless of course you are talking about individuals who made a poor career choice and earned an undergrad teaching degree for a saturated market.

Either way, your rambling does nothing to dispute the fact made in the article. Every educator that I know who complains about being “under paid” is more than fairly compensated as they couldn’t survive outside of the educational jobs. Just look at how they squawked when asked to be rated and compensated based on performance.