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 ...
Newsflash: The day doesn't end for many of us in other fields after we 'clock out' either. I sometimes get called at 4am because of network issues I have to assist with. I'd LOVE to have 3 months a year off, as well as almost every federal holiday, and 2 weeks for Christmas.
“And at the end of the day the system blames the teacher.”
Oh, absolutely. Uninvolved, uneducated parents, no fathers, chaotic home life, no discipline either at home or school, cultural distractions, but it’s the teacher’s fault.
Add to it that some teachers really aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit.
Those arguments exist ONLY because government schools are run by the government. You want to see what teachers REALLY should be paid? Privatize education. Entirely. Get government out of the business. Entirely.
The free market will show what education should look like, what it should cost, and what teachers should be paid.
$300
Massive?
BWAHAHAhahahahahahahaha!!!
Yes but is there a connection between effort and reward? My wife could do nothing performance wise that would better herself. She was on the same pay scale as every other teacher. It paid the same for the excellent and terrible ones.
Your wife must have been represented by the wrong teachers union. No teacher in my area does any work for free — including meetings — unless they want to work for free, and most of them don’t and won’t.
With that said, according to your post, your wife worked an extra 2.5 hours per week to attend meetings and perform other non-teaching tasks, without compensation. That adds up to a 7.5 hour work day, even though teachers don’t actually work the entire 7.5 hours. BFD. Although teachers want us to believe that they are professionals on the same plane as medical doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants and engineers, they are not even close. Their training is not as rigorous, and I don’t know any medical doctor, lawyer, or CPA who worked less than sixty to eighty hours per week or more during the first 15 to 20 years of their professional careers. Even now, near the end of my professional career (10 years after most teachers have retired to the public dole), I still work fifty hours per week or more. Vacations? Sure, we take them, but I can’t recall ever taking a real vacation where I did not work at all, particularly with the advent of notebook computers, email and cell phones. Indeed, anyone who owns their own business with or without a professional degree, probably works more than a tenured teacher for a lot less money based upon the hours worked per year. You can spin the teaching profession any way our want, but the reality is that tenured teachers are part-time employees, who earn full-time wages and benefits, in a system that rewards mediocracy.
My girls were Home Schooled K thru 12.
They are both very productive.....Both in their 30's now.
We lived in Hawaii in the early 70s, while my Dad was stationed there.
The teachers went on strike for a whole month. Now of course, we loved it! Most of my teachers were women of Japanese heritage (had the biggest schoolboy crush on one of them).
k-12 Public education is one of the biggest failures of government and it receives almost no attention.
As with everywhere, the teachers union only gets involved to carry out the will of the Democratic party.
No teacher in my area does any work for free — including meetings — unless they want to work for free, and most of them don’t and won’t.
Good for them.
With that said, according to your post, your wife worked an extra 2.5 hours per week to attend meetings and perform other non-teaching tasks, without compensation. That adds up to a 7.5 hour work day, even though teachers don’t actually work the entire 7.5 hours. BFD.
You don't know about what you write. She worked on an 8 hour per-day 10 month contract.
There was time each week outside her 8-hrs-per-day contract that she and every other teacher were required to work without pay.
Although teachers want us to believe that they are professionals on the same plane as medical doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants and engineers, they are not even close. Their training is not as rigorous,
My wife is a nurse practitioner. She holds a masters degree in nursing. Like you.. and me at the time, she thought teaching would be an easy, low stress job during the children's teen years.
and I don’t know any medical doctor, lawyer, or CPA who worked less than sixty to eighty hours per week or more during the first 15 to 20 years of their professional careers.
And in most cases, there is a connection between effort and reward. Not so with teaching.
Even now, near the end of my professional career (10 years after most teachers have retired to the public dole), I still work fifty hours per week or more. Vacations? Sure, we take them, but I can’t recall ever taking a real vacation where I did not work at all, particularly with the advent of notebook computers, email and cell phones.
During the school year, my wife worked pretty much every waking moment for five years. The children and I had to take over her household duties during that time.
Indeed, anyone who owns their own business with or without a professional degree, probably works more than a tenured teacher for a lot less money based upon the hours worked per year.
Now you inject tenure. There was no tenure.
You can spin the teaching profession any way our want, but the reality is that tenured teachers are part-time employees, who earn full-time wages and benefits, in a system that rewards mediocracy.
Perhaps your view is based on limited exposure to your local system. Don't take that and use it as a broad brush everywhere.
Furthermore, if what you describe about your local public education system is accurate, aren't teachers from across the nation beating at the door to get in?
Where I live, those half days are used to go to COSTCO. it is a good place to go if you want to speak to your kids’ teachers. They may be required to spend some of the time at their desks now, but in the beginning, that was all that happened.
The schools (and the town) ow use Facebook for communication, so you cannot ask any questions or have any communication with members of the school board or city council without the threat of Facebook canceling. WA residents are facing an initiative vote on teachers refusing to notify parents about their child’s efforts to change gender pronouns or name at school. So, what did Ferndale do? They shut down the email accounts of candidates for the school board. You have to contact them through Facebook.
Did she know that before taking the job?
If I end up having to deal with the aftermath of someone with a backhoe who cuts a fiber trunk for 20+ hours. I make not one thin dime for my time because I'm salary. It's all just a part of the job, much the same way as it is for teachers. I don't go around complaining to people about having to spend 36 hours in a computer room because we lost the boot disk on a rather large system that died because of a failure of an air-conditioning unit. It's a part of the job. I might grumble about it privately occasionally, but even when I do, I know that it's just a part of the job and I don't expect people to pity me and demand I be better compensated because of it.
Teachers should know what they are getting into given that most of them have spent a considerable amount of time in the crapholes we call our public schools.I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them at all.
Sorry, but my Give-A-Damn is busted,
Nope. She didn't do it for career. She did it thinking she would have a relatively easy job enabling her to spend more time with family during the children's teen years. How naive we all were.
If I end up having to deal with the aftermath of someone with a backhoe who cuts a fiber trunk for 20+ hours. I make not one thin dime for my time because I'm salary.
That's called poor quality control on someone's part. The sort of thing that if not dealt with kills companies.
It's all just a part of the job,
Yes but you factor these sort of things into your bid price.
I don't go around complaining to people about having to spend 36 hours in a computer room because we lost the boot disk on a rather large system that died because of a failure of an air-conditioning unit.
No backups, no redundancy, no alarms, no pity from me.
It's a part of the job. I might grumble about it privately occasionally, but even when I do, I know that it's just a part of the job and I don't expect people to pity me and demand I be better compensated because of it.
Yes but you can increase your compensation in these examples through improved quality. Teachers can't do that.
I am looking at the "daily bell schedule" for the local high school in my district. There are eight periods a day starting at 7:30 am and ending at 2:15 pm. Each period is 46 minutes and the students have four minutes between each period. That's a 6:45 hours per day. But tenured teachers in my school district don't actually work 6:45 hours per day. They only required to work five teaching periods, plus one non-teaching period (lunchroom supervision, hall monitor, etc.) for a total of 5:04 hours of actual work per day. They can use the two, paid "free periods" to do anything they want or nothing at all. I assume that most use the free periods to grade papers review lesson plans, etc., but I also know teachers who use the time for themselves. Indeed, my neighbor -- a tenured math teacher with seniority -- is able to arrange her schedule so that her two free periods are usually the last two period of the day, which means she is back home by 12:45 pm unless she goes shopping, to the gym, or to get a pedicure.
Perhaps your view is based on limited exposure to your local system. Don't take that and use it as a broad brush everywhere.
My view is based upon a lifetime of observation living in one of the largest non-city schools districts in the state, with ~8,000 students and ~670 teachers with an average salary of $102,000 per year. Three of my near neighbors are teachers, two close family members are teachers, three of my "pub buddies" are teachers, and my former paralegal is now a teacher.
Furthermore, if what you describe about your local public education system is accurate, aren't teachers from across the nation beating at the door to get in?
Perhaps not across the nation, but certainly across the region.
But teachers have to be present 30 minutes before the opening bell plus 30 minutes after. That makes 7:45 which is close enough to 8.
They only required to work five teaching periods, plus one non-teaching period (lunchroom supervision, hall monitor, etc.)
Forced into what are officially called planning periods are substitute teacher duty, participation in Federally required meetings for students having various disabilities, occasional mandatory training and standardized testing coverage.
for a total of 5:04 hours of actual work per day.
They can use the two, paid "free periods" to do anything they want or nothing at all.
But you originally said they had one planning period per day, now you claim two.
I assume that most use the free periods to grade papers review lesson plans, etc., but I also know teachers who use the time for themselves. Indeed, my neighbor -- a tenured math teacher with seniority -- is able to arrange her schedule so that her two free periods are usually the last two period of the day, which means she is back home by 12:45 pm unless she goes shopping, to the gym, or to get a pedicure.
There are great disparities. Some teachers have classes with 6-7 students while others have over 30. My wife always had large classes. Normally 90-100 students per semester.
Think about the logistics of just grading assignments for 90-100 students. Three minutes per student per day and you are looking at 4.5-5 hours per day just for grading. You still have to prepare multiple different lessons for tomorrow
But it is still an issue. It is a moving target with very few good solutions.
Thank God we had backups.The boot disk was the size of a dishwasher. Not many computers back in the day could survive catastrophic failure of the boot disk. They had to put one on an airplane and fly it in.
I worked on some Stratus hardware years later that was absolutely amazing in it's hardiness and fault tolerance. I yanked power supply from a running box, that basically dropped power to fully HALF of the hardware. The only thing that happened was a little red light came up, and it logged the error. I put it back in a few minutes later and the users of the system had no clue at all that anything had happened. Beautifully designed, but astoundingly expensive systems.
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