Teacher Salaries: More Attention Needed to Specifics ( The Millionaire Next Door)

EducationNews.org ^ | June 16, 2006 | David W. Kirkpatrick

[Erik Latranyi]

I'll grant that it's much harder with people who have been in the system for years...

OK, minor point.

Do you know a teacher with tenure that has ever been fired?!

Where does the concept of tenure even come from?! How do people with such an important job (as they describe it) get something called tenure when nobody else does!?

[9999lakes]

Zon -- take a look at the very lines you quoted. I mentioned tax subsidies. Look, I favor the free market. I suspect a free market education system {Vouchers} would set teacher salaries appropriately, but Teachers Unions prevent that option. I also suspect that a free market big business climate would set appropriate CEO salaries.

What IS an appropriate salary for either? I don't know. Neither does anyone else. The free market isn't working.

[wintertime]

So....you failed at private practice. You then got a state job as a prosecutor and failed at that and now you are in teaching? Children?

Huh? Is this what teaching attracts?

Well, I hope you don't fail at this, since the children are required by law to be in your classroom. If they don't show up armed police will soon be looking for them. ( Real bullets in those guns on the hip)

[Wuli]

As a public employee he makes it at my expense and politics had more to do with how his salary and benefits got set.

The greedy CEO is in a workplace market where free choices of free people agreed to his salary, and free people making free choices bought the products that paid for that salary; not your politically parceled out tax dollars that were taken from your pocket by the force of law.

I would like to see state and federal laws that limit pension and health benefits of ALL public employees to no greater than the average of the citizens in their jurisdiction. Citizens' taxes should not be confiscated to pay greater benefits to the people the citizens hire than the average citizen themself can obtain.

[diggerwillow]

"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."

Your tax dollars are paying for the city crews who lean are their shovels, the government officials who hang out at the water coolers, the TSA folks who sit on their fat asses and act important not to mention your congresspeople and senators who have been less than stellar.

One teacher can impact a child's life substantially. You obviously missed out.

[T. P. Pole]

However, I am the one, along with every other taxpayer in the US, that is paying the teachers salary and I am not satisfied with the results for the money paid out. Not only do I get pissed about their salary and the poor job performance that I am paying for in regards to teachers, I get extremely burned about the administrators in schools systems that rip the taxpayer even more than the teachers do. The whole public school system sucks, and I, and every other taxpayer, have a perfect right to complain and to do something about it.

Amen

[wintertime]

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.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I met one last week. ( Really!) She was a teacher at one of the Challenger schools. A PRIVATE school.

This really happened.

[alvindsv]

Erik, even as a teacher I will agree with you that tenure is a stupid idea. The concept that it is nearly impossible to fire someone simply because they have been at a job for certain amount of time is ludicrous.

If I preform poorly and my students are not learning then I EXPECT to be fired, regardless if it's year 1 or year 21.

[JLGALT]

"But in other professions, there is accountability. In teaching there is very little accountability because performance is never measured and standards are always discounted."

Well said! I have a siste-in-law who is a grade school teacher in California. She consistently brags about the days she takes off to go shopping and how she hasn't changed her lesson plans since she graduated from college (1972).

A few years ago she moved to California. She actually told me that at the interview for the teaching job that she now has she asked the interviewer "Whats the very least I can do in the job so as to not get fired"! And even with that stupid statement they hired her!

[Zon]

The free market isn't working.

Because their isn't a free market. Save for the black market. Bring the black market to the surface and it would self regulate as a free market.

[Clara Lou]

So....you failed at private practice.
Tell us. Do you feel more manly when you're rude?

[Amelia]

Don't assume that all teachers are poor preformers, and that they whine about their salaries. I gave up a legal career to become a teacher, and took an enormous cut in pay. Why? Because, like many of you I felt there was a problem in the public school system. So, instead of coming onto some board and complaining about it, I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and am attempting to do something about it, one student at a time. Believe, me I didn't get into this profession for the money.

I did the same thing, although from a different profession.

[Scarchin]

Sorry - this just appeals to the anti-teacher garbage that, unfortunately, originates from the Right. Be anti-union - but not anti-teacher.

I'm a former US Naval officer with a masters degree and outstanding track record as a teacher. After 25 years I'll top out at...drum roll...around 65,000. Overpaid? - not true.

HOWEVER - did I know what I was getting into? Absolutely - so I don't complain. But don't you complain about crappy teachers when the best and brightest out of college often START at 65,000. You have to love your subject and kids in order to put up with PC nonsense, obnoxious parents who treat teachers like yard help, and some f'd-up kids from prominent families.

[Amelia]

2. Now make them pay for health care like everyone else in private industry.

I know several teachers whose husbands work in private industry who choose to be covered by their husband's insurance rather than by the teacher insurance because the industry insurance is cheaper and/or covers more.

[alvindsv]

Well, Wintertime, there you go again assuming, and making an ass out of yourself.

First off I was a prosecutor for an elected District Attorney. When she lost her re-election bid, I found myself out of a job.

Then again, your assuming that I failed at private practice. Not so. I made a very good living practicing law. I simply got fed up with judges that disregarded the law and did whatever they pleased, with little or no accountablity. But more importantly I was tired of representing juvenile criminals, and felt deep down that if I could reach them before they saw the inside of a courtroom then perhaps I could have a more profound impact on their lives.

I'm curious as to what school you graduated from where they teach you to embarass yourself on public forums by making wrong assumptions. You assume that if someone has a law degree and decides to put aside the practice of law to become a teacher in the hopes of making a positive impact on a child's life that they have somehow failed.

How small minded you must be.

[yankeedame]

Amen, brother, and preach on!

[raybbr]

The first $1 million in compensation can be expensed normally. Anything over $1 million must come from after-tax income.

It's not limited by legislation. The company can pay the CEO whatever they want.

[RobbyS]

Well, it does ignore the fact that half of all teachers quit after serving less than five years. Teachers in many states earn far less than what is posted above. ( It also ignores the fact that the real money is in administration. It is not unusual for an asst. superintendent to earn more than a congressmen--and they are both politicians. A big city superintendent, whose job is mainly ceremonial and political, typically is among the highest paid officials in the United States. )

But in another way, he understates his case. Most teachers are married and are not the only breadwinners in their families. The average family income of a family with a teacher in it is above 75G a year on the average. Not exactly the genteel poverty of fifty years ago.

[Amelia]

Do you know a teacher with tenure that has ever been fired?!

Yes, several. It is more difficult, but it can be done.

Where does the concept of tenure even come from?!

As I understand it, it came from the concept of taking politics out of the educational process to some extent - for instance, if the teacher doesn't give the school board president's child an "A", deserved or not, or if a school board member needs an opening so his son-in-law can get a job...

[Zon]

So....you failed at private practice.

So... you failed at every previous job/business you've had!? According to your "logic" when a person changes jobs/businesses it is because they failed at the previous job/business. Actually, that is likely just your experience and not how it is with other people.

Can you please quote where alvindsv said they failed if in fact it is not just you making erroneous assertions?