So in WV the median pay is $45K and the median teacher pay is $47K. Then there’s the added insurance and pension, which can’t be redeemed in the form of cash for the former, and won’t be touched for 40 years in the case of the latter. If you want teachers with at least a bachelors degree from college in their subject matter, which I think you do, then an extra $2K per year over average is a lot for that? I doubt many WV-ians even have a college degree, yet the median pay is just $2k less than a teacher who does have one. Even if the med benes are of the cadillac variety, it’s only insurance—never used if one doesn’t need it. Do WV get benes 100% free, or do they have a defined contribution level like 10%-20%-30%-40%-even 50% or more like other states do? Are the teachers’ pensions just too expensive, or did the politicians just not set aside enough money along the way and now are coming-up-short on their pay-as-you-go scheme, as other states are? I think we all know the answers here, but it’s just too fun to bash the public servants who teach our children, because, well, once back in the day you got a detention that you feel you didn’t deserve, or worse, just because teachers, who are quite passive in nature anyway, are easy targets to lash out against in anger, greed, resentment, and jealousy.
I sympathize with the teachers. I don’t blame them for what passes as education these days. May as well have robots teaching.
That's a valid point - the number I saw was 19% of adults in WV have at least a bachelor's degree (lowest in the nation.) There are some other factors other than those discussed that weigh it the other way:
1. Plenty of people are willing to trade a lot of salary to have a schedule that matches that of their kids (including the summer off)
2. There are fewer work days for a teacher than most professions
3. I don't know how many in WV work in the coal industry, but I would guess that it is a significant number, that many of the positions don't require degrees, and that the pay is decent because of the manual labor and danger involved.
4. Teachers do have degrees, but the education field consistently draws students with lower qualifications than technical fields. One would expect them to be at the lower end of the pay scale for workers with degrees and it is normal for there to be some overlap between the pay scales for those with degrees and those without. (Some jobs require training and certification, but not a degree, and can pay well.)
I don't know what the exact situation is in WV, but I generally don't have a lot of sympathy for the teachers' unions because they don't give a fair accounting of the worth of their employees. ("Look how much baseball players make. Look how much teachers make. Which one is more important?" If professional teachers were only the top .001% of their field, and if 85% of that group made less than $25k/year, how many of that top 15% of the top .001% would be people who are teachers right now? It the teaching field was competitive, most current teachers couldn't compete.)