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OK - $43K is significantly more than I make as a band director - and I am on an extended contract...

But that being said, are you saying that $43K is too much for a teacher to get paid?

I don’t know about the specific teacher you may or may not be referring to, but - think about this (and this is true for the majority of teachers I know):

* 9 months of the year (actually, most teacher contracts are for a specific number of contracted days).

* How many teachers actually work “only” from the AM bell to the PM bell? I certainly do not. I typically work 9.5-10 hours per day - with some days going from 7AM-midnight (band trips/ball games/etc.)

* Don’t forget the paperwork, grading, reporting, gradebooks, lesson planning, material assembly, etc.

* What about required workshops, teacher-training, college loans, and experience? Are they worth anything?

I once calculated what my time as a band director was “worth” by the hour - I promised I would not do that again, as I was seriously upset by the figure. Let’s just say that when I did the math, it came out to about $9-9.50 per hour -for someone with a degree and years of experience. I would guess that my time is up to almost $14 per hour now.... with 14 years experience. And this is based on the time I work on my contracted days - I put in quite a few unpaid days as well that I do not count - because it would bring the theoretical hourly pay down even further.

Am I paid too much?

People pay $40 per hour to hire someone to remove viruses and worm from computers because they are too dense to use protective software and firewalls - and the person they hire may have nothing more than a high-school education plus maybe a few training courses....

Yet you would pay teachers a bunch less for something as important as educating your children?

I dislike the trends in curriculum and brainwashing going on in schools -but don’t punish those teachers who teach because they really care about the kids.

I teach in the inner city. In the last several years we've had gun incidents, teachers AND cops assaulted by students, teachers getting carjacked in the parking lot, knife fights, and that's just during the school day.

Consider this, a huge number of teachers take their work home. Do that and it has the effect of lowering your pay, but we do it all the time. We also pour money into classroom supplies because it's not part of the budget. My school hasn't given me a single overhead transparency this year. Nor have they given me any printer paper. I buy all of that.

I used to consider elementary school teachers nothing more than glorified babysitters (I teach seniors). Then I took some courses with my wife when she went to get her endorsement to teach reading. WHEW. We learn to read in elementary school. The ability to read well and write well is formed there. Screw that up and you'll have a socially handicapped and perhaps professionally handicapped adult that is a burden on society. Now add to that a culturally diverse population. Many schools in my area are represented by over thirty different nationalities in the student population and a large chunk of those may be in high school without EVER having been in school at any level ever before. Now try to teach these kids something concrete while their attention is distracted by their iPod or Game Boy.