Posted on 01/31/2007 7:42:22 AM PST by RicocheT
...systematic data on how much public school teachers are paid, relative to other white-collar professionals. [snip] Among the key findings of this report:
According to the BLS, the average public school teacher in the United States earned $34.06 per hour in 2005.
The average public school teacher was paid 36% more per hour than the average non-sales white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty and technical worker.
Full-time public school teachers work on average 36.5 hours per week during weeks that they are working. By comparison, white-collar workers (excluding sales) work 39.4 hours, and professional specialty and technical workers work 39.0 hours per week. Private school teachers work 38.3 hours per week.
Compared with public school teachers, editors and reporters earn 24% less; architects, 11% less; psychologists, 9% less; chemists, 5% less; mechanical engineers, 6% less; and economists, 1% less.
Compared with public school teachers, airplane pilots earn 186% more; physicians, 80% more; lawyers, 49% more; nuclear engineers, 17% more; actuaries, 9% more; and physicists, 3% more.
Public school teachers are paid 61% more per hour than private school teachers, on average nationwide.
The Detroit metropolitan area has the highest average public school teacher pay among metropolitan areas for which data are available, at $47.28 per hour, followed by the San Francisco metropolitan area at $46.70 per hour, and the New York metropolitan area at $45.79 per hour.
We find no evidence that average teacher pay relative to that of other white-collar or professional specialty workers is related to high school graduation rates in the metropolitan area.
(Excerpt) Read more at manhattan-institute.org ...
This can't be, public school teachers are the underpaid slaves to their noble calling. If only they made more, if only classes were smaller, if only there were more computers, and if only there were more administrators, THEN - the schools would improve.
I did the hourly wage comparison with what my salary comes down to per hour - I certainly would not want that big a pay cut, to be a teacher! =:O
No, I'm not ready. I live near Chicago, and I've heard of many teachers, in this area, who are paid about $80,000 per year and complain that they need large raises every year.
I'm in the Philadelphia area and teachers in the wealthier suburbs can approach 100K with a master's degree and 10 years experience.
That's still too much for editors and reporters.
The article doesn't mention time spent at home preparing and grading, etc. This is just as much a part of a teacher's job as bookkeeping and form-filing is part of an accountant's job.
I'm the first to argue that teachers already earn what they deserve now ... but I think if standards were higher and tenure were eliminated in exchange for increased salaries, it would be a good trade-off.
In our area, the average salary is $57k.
Callers to WRKO who defend teachers complain that they start at $21,000. According to the Boston Teachers Union Web-Site starting pay for a teacher with a Bachelor's is $42K, with a Masters is $45K and with a PHD $52K
How are they determining hours of work? My wife taught in the public schools for many years and did a substantial amount of work beyond normal school hours.
That's pretty sad, especially for the advanced degrees.
Let me begin by saying that I was a homeschool mom for 30 years. I have no great love for the PS system.
But that line is total crap. When I was in high-school I worked with teachers and mom mom married one when I was in college. Yes, they are *at the school* for 36 hours a week. But then they take home reams of paperwork to grade every night. The English teacher I worked with spent 5-7 hours every night grading papers. They spent their Sundays preparing for the next week's lesson plans. They took calls at home from students with questions. This didn't include coaching, directing theater productions, and supporting clubs.
My FIL is a teacher at a small rural school and he comes closest to the 35 hour a week mark. He also drives 45 minutes one way to his job and gets paid half of what his counterparts make. (He loves the job, though.)
This is like someone looking at my soldier-husband, dividing his pay by 40 and declaring that he makes $x.xx an hour. It just doesn't work that way.
Some teachers may work 36.5 hours a week. Conscientious one routinely work more. Planning lessons, reading and correcting homework, giving extra help, coaching or managing a club (some schools require that). Required continuing education. Any teacher worth anything at all is not working from 8am to 3:15, okay done for the day.
Mrs VS
We all do that.
They had a big article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Teachers make substantially more than nurses (these are averages I know), which really sticks in my craw. And they forget to factor in the 9 months vs. 12. If you do that, there rate would skyrocket. They bring home homework but I'd love to have a few teachers show me how much time they ACTUALLY spend each evening on homework. My brother's been teaching in the inner city for years and as far as I've ever seen, he spends very little time on homework. Besides, on many days he's home by 2:00 in the afternoon so even if he spent 3 hours on homework, he'd still be just reaching the normal workday that most of us work.
Considering the shoddy quality of their "output", public school teachers are the most grossly overpaid people in America. Yet they constantly complain about how little they earn.
They're unionized, whadda you expect?
(By the by, how come those same folks who wring their hands and moan about how poorly "educators" are paid are no where to be found when it come to military salaries?)
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