Posted on 08/14/2023 6:29:35 AM PDT by Rummyfan
There are so many arguments about teacher pay. Everywhere in the country, Democrats are shilling for more teacher pay which is really a sell-out to the Teacher’s Union. Democrats fight school choice at every single turn. They hurt underprivileged and poor kids when they do. Yet, many of those same people active in killing school choice send their kids to private schools.
No one is saying teachers do not provide a service. The reason they are paid what they are paid is that they are unionized, and it’s simply not that difficult to become a teacher compared to say a lawyer, accountant, or doctor. Other professions that make a lot of money have significantly higher degrees of risk. There is no risk of losing your entire year’s worth of salary if you are a teacher. There is one on Wall Street. Salespeople can work years on one sale that will bring them a big commission and it can fall through.
The other thing to remember about salaries is that the higher you go in a public company, the more influence you have over the bottom line. Doesn’t it make sense that someone who is a C-Suite executive that has responsibility for billions in assets makes more than a teacher?
(Excerpt) Read more at jeffreycarter.substack.com ...
Why pay Rolls Royce money for a Yugo?
I was very lucky to have had several teachers along the way whose hearts were truly into their vocation. I can remember each by name to this day, at 62.
A reasonable question in a real marketplace.
But look at the Baltimore schools. I’d say that’s a Yugo, right? How do you make it “not a Yugo”?
There may be good ideas out there that could really help Baltimore and other school systems. But I think it’s pretty obvious is that most likely “solution” is going to be “throw Rolls Royce money at that Yugo”.
My wife is a retired teacher, and by her contract she was obliged to be in the school from 1/2 hour before classes started until 1/2 hour after classes were dismissed for the day.
Of course, teachers argue "but we work additional hours correcting papers, etc." Well yes, but not for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, for all of the 187 days.
> Divide their salary by 185 and you’ll see how much they make per day. <
It’s a bit more complicated than that. I taught chemistry and physics. Most of my Saturdays were spent grading lab reports. And my work day didn’t end when the last bell rang. I’d stay after school checking collected homework and helping students who needed it.
English teachers had it worse. They had much more to grade. Grading a chemistry lab is rather straightforward. An English composition is much more labor intensive. And the coaches…they get paid extra for coaching. It works out to about $2 an hour (not kidding).
All teachers have one prep (preparation) period during the day. I spent mine setting up or breaking down labs. Others would be trying to call home regarding a problem student, etc. Some loafed, but not many.
Having said all that, are their teachers who skirt their responsibilities, and do essentially nothing? You betcha. About 15% of the teachers I taught with fit that description.
Oh, and one more thing. Do public schools need reform? Yes, desperately. But it’s not the unions (as corrupt as the are) who are standing in the way. It’s the arrogant and clueless central administrators. Those folks are insulated from reality in their offices. Yet they issue the most insane directives.
Exactly right
Why pay Rolls Royce money for a Yugo that doesn’t even run?
There are different angles to all of this.
The students and their education should come first, in my opinion.
Then again, any job, teaching or any other, needs to pay enough to hire the best people they can find, to do the job.
How do we measure the productivity of teachers? Test scores? Based on test scores in many places, teachers are failing miserably. Then again, in school districts where certain groups deride doing well in school as “acting white”, the best teachers in the world will not be productive in student achievement.
I know some people in some different metropolitan areas around the country. From what I hear, some school districts within those metro areas pay more and have some better benefits than others. Teachers from the lower paid districts tend to be newer teachers, who work for a couple of years, then move on to the better paying districts. The lower paid districts are always having to recruit new teachers, and have a lack of more experienced teachers. Which in turn would affect teacher’s productivity in those school districts. The short answer would be, that you get what you pay for.
But then again, if students are ready to go to school and learn, the best teachers in the world won’t be able to do much with such students. If there isn’t good parental support, the best teachers won’t be able to do much.
Another article about teachers’ pay that left out the most important part: RESULTS.
Before the covid hoax, less than 40% of American students were proficient in English and less than 35% were proficient in mathematics. They have since changed the metrics and the way proficiency is reported to make it impossible to gauge what is going on. They have hidden the huge drops in doublespeak and to free up the little time they did teach for more indoctrination.
If you paid an airline to go from New York City to Los Angeles and they dropped you off in Cincinnati would you accept that? Taxpayers pay these teachers outrageous sums even though they are not doing the job they are paid being paid to do. Where are the Congressional investigations? If your FedEx or UPS driver started out every morning to deliver 100 packages and only 35 were delivered would they be fired? Time to either terminate every teacher not providing the results we pay for or cut their pay and benefits by 65%.
Yep, in NYS those salaries are $75k and up for 185 days. AND, great retirement benefits AND huge payouts at 55 to retire WITH subsidized health insurance..
Error, I meant to say, “if students AREN’T ready to go to school and learn”.
Perhaps most college students should be offered and take teacher certification qualifying courses. Such a practice would ensure most college graduates could make as much as a teacher and that teachers would not make much more than other college graduates.
“A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turning out primary school teachers. Many such schools are now called teacher training colleges or teachers’ colleges, but in Mexico, continue to be called normal schools, with student-teachers being known as normalistas.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_school
“In 1685, St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, established the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, founded what is generally considered the first normal school, the École Normale, in Reims, Champagne, France. The term “normal” in this context refers to the goal of these institutions to instill and reinforce particular norms within students. “Norms” included historical behavioral norms of the time, as well as norms that reinforced targeted societal values, ideologies and dominant narratives in the form of curriculum.”
> Before the covid hoax, less than 40% of American students were proficient in English and less than 35% were proficient in mathematics. <
I taught in an urban public school. Our general course (NOT honors) numbers were even worse. And here’s why.
1. It was rare for a student to attend a full school week. Most attended three or four days. You can’t learn much when you’re absent that often.
2. Parental involvement was almost nonexistent.
3. No one did much homework. You could penalize them for that, but see #4.
4. The administration made rules such that it was almost impossible to fail a student. And the students knew it. Why bother studying when you’ll pass anyway? Crazy.
Destroy the teachers’ unions and you restore the Republic.
Teachers, unlike other professionals, are government emplpyees. Government employees should NEVER be allowed to unionize.
—
Wisconsin’s Act 10 did just that.
Teacher’s Unions were demanding more every year for this and that, including new school buildings and additions. Outside consultants, hired by the Unions, would come in and tell local school districts how much they need to raise to accomplish their building projects.
All of that money came out of property taxes, which meant that some people were being taxed pout of their homes so a few could live in the life style they had become accustomed to.
The teachers who had no choice but to join the Unions got free health, dental, eye care - $0 deductible.
Once the Act passed, property taxes fell dramatically, and many districts were able to raise teachers’ salaries without increasing taxes, such that in rural areas the starting salary rose to $40K. The downside is teachers now had the same healthcare deductibles as everyone else.
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Read later.
185d days a year... and often that’s a 6 hour day...
You left out the teachers lounge with free martini’s and champagne!
The unions have rigged the rules. For example, there are tens of thousands of retirees/professionals who clearly have the academic background to teach virtually any subject in any grade. A college degree should allow anyone to apply to teach most subjects in elementary thru high school. A high school degree should qualify a person to teach K-3rd grade. There are blue collar workers who could teach Vo-Tech classes. Instead, the “teachers” are all “education majors,” which are the easiest degrees to obtain in college. Without this major, it is virtually impossible to become a teacher in most states. Open up teacher positions to the general public and the salaries/benefits would drop, while the qualitiy of the teaching would increase.
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