Teachers' poor pay just myth

Scottsdale Republic ^ | Craig J. Cantoni

[hsmomx3]

Contrary to union propaganda, teachers are not underpaid. I say this as someone with 28 years of experience in conducting salary surveys and designing pay plans.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, local elementary school teachers earn about the same average pay on an hourly basis as local reporters ($23.74). They also earn more than microbiologists ($20.60), zoologists ($17.36) and accountants ($22.49). Secondary school teachers even earn more per hour than civil engineers.

[glory]

Besides, watching parents at Little League or at those sicko kid beauty pageants....heck even that new show American Junior, isn't it conceivable that some parents should not be home-schooling their kids?

With more and more parents trying to fulfill their shattered dreams through their children you have to admit that it is a possibility.

---

Oh, LMAO, friend...we homeschool our children and they also participate in the community sports leagues and all of that(in my state we have a physical fitness requirement, so no, this is not some dream we are living through our kids). You certainly are right many people are tied up in their dreams and are pushing their children into that mold. I never saw that represented so well as the VERY BRIEF time we thought about cheerleading(really it was for fun, I never had an interest in cheerleading, EVER!). But where you are messed up, is that ALL of the other parents I know in these leagues are public school parents! The ones who seem to treat their children the pushiest(and imo the worse) are the DUAL income families(that means both parents working out of the home), particularly the mothers. It is as if they are saying, don't you dare screw up and make me look bad--it's part of their character and everything is a reflection on them and revolves around them, forget about the kid's feelings. I think if you actually sat in on a homeschool support meeting or watched homeschoolers(the majority) interact with their children, you would find most of them are the antithesis of the parent you seem to despise. For the life of me, I don't know how you got the notion that homeschoolers were the worst offenders in this regard. In my experience, they most certainly are not.

And yes, not everyone should homeschool, but so what, nobody here was suggesting that they should. Some folks shouldn't put their kids in sports(because of reasons you stated), yet I don't here you berating those parents that do for the wrong reasons. Some parents shouldn't put their kids in daycare either, do you turn your righteous indignation on them? Look, you have nothing to worry about. Most of the people who start homeschooling and are overwhelmed and realize it isn't for them have no qualms with reentering their children in school, none at all, so you aren't likely to find some vast segment of the homeschooling community that has children who "shouldn't have been homeschooled". Those parents usually get weeded out by the time their kids start 1st grade, or they pull a kid out for a year and realize the lifestyle is not for them and reenter them.

Oh and as for geography and spelling, this is one of the beauties of homeschooling. Children who are particularly talented in something can pursue it with zest. What is it to you if a child that is reading at college level already devotes a couple months to studying spelling and vocabulary?
And if it's not spelling, but it's 4-H? Or what if a child in their teens is particularly talented at music--if the child knows his basics and then some, where does it say they have to be pigeon-holed to only spend X number of minutes on music? Really friend, you have a very typical public school mind. It is impossible for you to think outside of that very tiny little box and imagine a world of learning beyond the walls you were "educated" in. I'm not insulting you here, many of us had to "deschool" before we even considered doing this. It's a mindset that is hard to shake since most of us in this day and age have not learned any other way.

[glory]

Absolutely agree!

[Amelia]

They never had to explain how a child with IQ of 110( now 135) was being sent for special ed classes, could it be they could not keep up?

Not all special education students are mentally retarded. Some have physical disabilities, some have learning disabilities such as dyslexia, and some have behavior problems that interfere with learning.

[glory]

LOL--I'm sorry but I just spit pepsi all over my keyboard. What exactly about a college degree qualifies you to teach your own children? Are you sure I'm qualified to even change a diaper since I haven't had "early childhood education" classes? I mean geez, really, what is the next step in this?
I'm laughing only because I nearly registered my daughter in kinder. I sat there during a round table with folks with ADVANCED degrees, other parents! They were the least creative, most boxed in thinkers I have ever met in my life. They were so totally dependent on the schools to provide EVERYTHING for their children in regards to when, how, what they learn. Is this what a college degree is good for? To box in your thinking? No thanks!
BTW, besides this banter there is EVIDENCE to back up the fact that even those without a high school diploma do at least as well as public schools in educating their children on standardized tests. Perhaps someone will be kind enough to provide the link with those scores-I know I have seen them before.
With all due respect, you are not qualified to have this discussion until you do a little research on the topic(other than the NEA site and your folks who have as much bias as any homeschooler here).

[glory]

Yes, but since they are so obviously not effective in these areas, they have no business making well over 75k(quoted by another poster) either and they don't have a need for layers and layers of administration. Kick out the kids who don't want to learn and the parents using is only as a free babysitting service, bring the "warzone" pay down and teach! Until the NEA and their members show that they are getting serious about this stuff instead of lining their pockets, they will not get my respect or admiration, nor my pity. Police officers work a rougher beat than inner city teachers and they sure as hell are not getting paid anywhere near 75K PLUS a year.

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Yes, but in my case I was a shy kid with no physical disabilities and no leaning disabilities. I never once had a behavior issue in school.

[laredo44]

At the school where you "work" perhaps. Our school doesn't even have a teacher lounge. We spend our planning periods planning lessons & setting up labs, grading papers, calling parents, having parent conferences and other meetings, going to training classes on various things the school board thinks we need to learn about....

I guess you can try floating this mismash if it makes you feel good but to me, it reads like the descriptions of swordfishing in "The Perfect Storm." In that novel-based-on-real-events, every mishap in swordboat history happened to the crew of the "Andrea Gail" on that single trip. Your description of "planning" periods sounds like every activity that ever happened in any planning period at any time are all crammed in every day for every teacher. My credulity does not extend that far.

I was a teacher for nearly ten years. I taught in both the United States and Australia. Teachers weren't so much different in either place. Yes, sometimes we spent planning time doing actual teaching work, but not always -- hence the ping-pong table in the teacher area in Australia. When I taught, teachers arrived about a half hour before students and spent most of that time chatting with peers. Almost all left within fifteen minutes of the students.

In private industry, my average starting time is 6:30 am and quitting time is around 7:00pm. I eat lunch at my desk. Since May 12, I have been away from home on a project. I will return home on June 20. Work is seven days a week. I was at my post this morning at 6am. It is now 10:40 and I won't be in bed until after midnight. Yesterday my schedule was the same. Monday, my day was 5am to 2am.

My main activity on this project is the create, validate, execute, and communicate the results of computer simulations of the activity we are charged with completing. The value of this activity to the company is more than $7 billion dollars. I have two master's degrees and, if you believe the teacher salaries I saw posted here, make much less than at least some teachers.

I am not here to teacher bash, but neither am I interested in this woe is us crap teachers seem to spin every time their pay or hours are brought up. I left teaching in the late seventies for one reason. The collectivists in the NEA and their cohorts at Columbia Teachers College and other graduate schools of education were executing a plan that has gotten us just where we are today. Schools with little hope of educating students because they consist of an environment hostile to learning.

I am, in principle, in favor of public school education. There is something quintessentially American about all of us having the same opportunity, no special breaks for some, no crappy end of the stick for others.

If I were put in charge, the best teacher would be the highest paid individual in the system. Guidance counselors, because they are essentially useless, would be paid the least. About 75% of the non-classroom staff would be eliminated.

[Amelia]

I can't explain that, then. Did your parents have to sign the papers making you eligible for special ed?

[Amelia]

I can't explain that, then. Did your parents have to sign the papers making you eligible for special ed?

[laredo44]

If their spouse worked for 35 years and paid to SS all that time and then dies, the teacher does not get SS.

I don't believe your statement is true. Spouses do get to collect SS.

What about the $2000-$3000 I've spent on teacher supplies each year?

Another statement I don't believe. Why don't you detail for us the supplies you bought this past year that cost $2000-$3000.

[glory]

I think you REALLY missed the point(restricted in your box once again). The point was that a person who would expend their own resources and time to either send their child to private school or homeschool BY THE NATURE OF THAT DECISION AUTOMATICALLY has a great interest in and cares for their children. That does not mean that public schooled children are not cared for, but that what you get there is a mixed bag since it is the default option for most parents with little time, effort, or resources on their part, you can not be sure that ALL parents who use that option care for their children--for many it is a "free" babysitting service and they could care less about the outcome of their children, so long as they are just out of their house by the time they hit their teens. You will be hard pressed to find someone who would invest so much of their time and money via a homeschool or private school with that same "easy come, easy go" attitude in regards to their children. AGAIN, it does not mean all parents with children in ps don't care about their kids, but you certainly are going to find many who don't because of the nature of public schools.

[PatrioticAmerican]

"They have summers off, but they also have to put up with other people's OBNOXIOUS kids!"

As a working professional, I have to put up with the kid's OBNOXIOUS parents!!

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Yes, my mother was a teacher. and and alchololic. Which has everything to do with my shyness. I was done with assignments and would just sit there. The teachers I had hated that. My report cards talk about me not coloring in the lines, not following directions in 1st grade art class where I thought the teacher said "be creative". I got picked on by girls for being too prettty and by boys for being able to read. The teachers thought it was a distraction. I later asked one about it, this was her story , not mine. She thought I would be just fine. I was not.

[honeygrl]

Most of my high school teachers had big beautiful homes with new cars. You don't get that with low income.

[Amelia]

Your description of "planning" periods sounds like every activity that ever happened in any planning period at any time are all crammed in every day for every teacher. My credulity does not extend that far.

Get real, I didn't say everyone did all those things every day. And, I'll bet the gym teachers don't grade many papers.

Work is seven days a week. I was at my post this morning at 6am. It is now 10:40 and I won't be in bed until after midnight.

But you're spending part of that time FReeping, not working. ;-)

I have two master's degrees and, if you believe the teacher salaries I saw posted here, make much less than at least some teachers.

I have only one master's degree, but if you believe the teacher salaries posted here, I make less than half what some teachers make. I must be in the wrong state, huh?

If I were put in charge, the best teacher would be the highest paid individual in the system. Guidance counselors, because they are essentially useless, would be paid the least. About 75% of the non-classroom staff would be eliminated.

I can't argue with any of that.