Posted on 06/17/2006 5:15:15 AM PDT by wintertime
One of the ongoing controversies in the public schools is the issue of teacher salaries. Teachers largely claim they are too low while taxpayers are equally vehement that they are more than adequate.
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Then there are the actual salary levels. Statistics in 2005 showed the average teacher salary in the nation was $46,762, ranging from a low of $33,236 in South Dakota to $57,337 in Connecticut. Even this ignores the additional compensation teachers receive as fringe benefits, which may add an additional 33% or more to the costs, primarily for very good retirement and health coverage plans. Further, averages include starting teacher salaries, which may begin at $30,000 or less, which teachers gladly mention, but ignore the high salaries of career teachers at or near the maximum on their salary schedule, important because retirement pensions are often based on the best three or so years.
(snip)
Last year, the New York State Department of Education issued a study that reported maximum teacher salaries in that state of $100,000 or more and median salaries as high as $98,000 per year. That is, there were districts, in Westchester County for example, where half of the teachers earned more than $98,000 a year.
A novel approach a few years ago by Michael Antonucci, director of the Education Intelligence Agency in California, compared teachers average salaries to average salaries all workers state by state. First prize went to Pennsylvania where the teachers received 62.5% more than the average employee. That difference is even greater when it is further considered that teachers average a 185 day work year while most workers put in 235.
(snip) Women who had been educators were 7.4% of the total deceased that year but 20.6% of them, nearly three times the statistical expectation were among the affluent few. Former male educators didn't do quite as well but even they were represented among the wealthy decedents by a ratio nearly 1.5 times the anticipated numerical ratio.
Yes, and most auto workers vote conservative. Unfortunately, you joined a union that takes your money without your consent (unless you are one of the few) and uses it to fight against vouchers and to support liberals across the spectrum.
All that tells me is that it's better to be a departing oil company employee than a teacher. The nice thing about a free market is that one can aspire to the level that they choose.
The CEO's pay comes from the company's customers who can buy from the company or not.
Teachers are paid from tax revenue which is extracted from the unwilling at the point of a gun.
It maybe due to the fact that Teachers' are paid by Tax payer dollars. CEO & Officers of companies payrolls do not come out of taxpayers salary.
Because there aren't that many CEOs, but lots of teachers. The total money paid to the CEOs of the Fortune 500 is much mess than the total compensation of millions of members of the education establishment
i'm with you. the only problem is that some people trying to make a good living do so by claiming that it benefits others i.e. the children. The CEO can't use that logic except when he gets a big reward for sales and profits.
Huh? Where?
I would agree with you, that's why I am one of the few. I refuse to join the teacher's union for the simple fact that I think they do more harm to teachers than good.
I'd agree with you entirely, IF i thought the oil companies were really an example of the free market. I don't, and neither does President Bush. More than a year ago -- maybe longer, I can't remember, but I bet i could find the link -- he said something like "When gasoline is selling for $2 a gallon, there is no need for subsidies of the oil companies."
They're protected monopolies, hiding behind free market camo. While the rest of us are making sacrifices for the good of the country, they're sucking up the largess.
They're the corporate version of Ann Coulter's "Jersey Girls", and principled conservatives need to face the fact.
Only if you choose not to.
Actually I am fully aware of the economics of running a business. I ran a law practice for several years, and had to cover overhead, and payroll, etc.
By the way the name of the big name school was the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Perhaps you have heard of them? I hear they once won a few national championships in sports or something, and have one the best business school in the nation. But, that's just what I hear. JERK!
You're right, teaching is a really plum career.
Why isn't there a glut of teachers? Why isn't everyone hear trying to become one instead of complaining about them?
An influx of conservative teachers into the field could stem the liberal tide in education as well. Looks like a good idea to me.
$70,000 IS a lot of money for a teacher, but $70,000 divided by $400,000,000 = When this teacher has worked 500 years {!!} they still will not have earned as much as the parting gift to one oil company employee.
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They should have bumper stickers that read:
I am an economic illiterate. Thank a government indoctrination camp teacher.
I am a communist. Thank a government indoctrination camp teacher.
The dockworkers, mechanics and general repairmen I deal with daily do not own the monopoly teachers have on eddicashun. OK, dockworkers were a poor example, but if my mechanic charges me a large sum to screw up a job, he will never get any more of my money. If the public schools fail in their job, I at least have the alternatives of private school, home-school, or tack-on tutoring such as Sylvan, BUT the bozos I fired still collect my money for not doing any work at all on my child.
One of my favorite bumper-stickers on this topic read "Teachers Need a Raise, Now!" seen on a Cadillac. Call your next case.
Like just about everyone else here, you have missed my point.
A CEO is in a closed market like teachers. If the teacers negotiate a larger salary they are impeached. If a CEO is handed a large salary everone compliments him on his windfall. There is clearly a double standard of perspective.
If poor performance occurs often enough, why aren't you unemployed yet?!
Because they do not fire teachers for poor performance of the students. I'll bet you do not know one teacher you have worked with that was terminated for poor performance.
bump
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