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.

[Amelia]

homeschoolers make far less in pay, benefits and perks than teachers do ,and we usually have the same education , hours to work and papers to grade.

Oh geez. Now who's whining?

By the way, I don't know any homeschooling parents who grade papers for 130 students a night.

[Howlin]

I think I am done now.

I think you just about finished yourself off.

[Howlin]

BTW, I'm not buying the wireless laptop spiel.

[Xenalyte]

Of COURSE you're on the rag.

You get rag days? As a private-sector employee, I don't get rag days. Yet another reason why y'all obviously suck! :)

[rwfromkansas]

Oh certainly I don't have it near as difficult as many other people. That's for sure. It is just that at least at my school, ed classes are not pud courses.

[Amelia]

It is just that at least at my school, ed classes are not pud courses.

That's probably a blessing. Some of them are a tremendous waste of time...but you still have to put in the time.

[ReagansShinyHair]

"What random sample. Do you mean working and volunteering in schools, health clinics with school students, and teachers. That is random to you about that when talking about school system and teachers? I would be ashamed to be as closed mind ( proof is in earlier posts) and manipulative( proof is how you ahve twisted and attacked and palced balme) as you are. So, I would be ashamed to be a liberal like you."

No, you missed the point entirely. You claimed your sample size of personal experience was adequate to make a generalization about the population at whole. I stated why it was not, point one being that it is too small, and point two being that it is NOT random. I do not believe my own experiences are enough to make a generalization of the whole, either, which is why I do not rely on them.


"Oh, I must be a bigot then, huh? Because I have never met you."

No, someone is not a bigot because they don't like someone. I suppose you did not even bother to read the defination, or find another. Again, you admitted to hating a large group of people, most of whom you have never met.

You have consitently stated or supported opinions about teachers, such as their lack of higher education and short work hours, without any sort of support. I provided evidence that teachers on average work many more hours than previously mentioned, and that they attain graduate degrees with a much higher frequency than the general public.

By your logic, I guess it would be ok if I took care of my class and posted on the internet all day, since I can multitask, too. If a teacher you knew did that, you would be all over the place generalizing about how teachers don't even pay attention to their classrooms.

I just love all that time I get to spend on personal things while I'm teaching. Oh, wait, I give 100% of myself to my job while I'm working on it. It demands all of my attention, and I love it. It is not like my jobs in business, where I actually DID have time to websurf and drink coffee, all the while maintaining A+ productivity according to my bosses.

[ReagansShinyHair]

I did not take traditional ed classes to get my credential. I had a professor assigned to me. He was an ex-principal, and he knew what he was doing. I am so glad he was in teacher training. In the program he had 8 students to take care of from beginning of their teacher credential course to the end. They push you through in 1.5 years instead of the normal 2 in California. It's full time, and it's not exactly easy. I'm not pretending it's rocket science, though. I had books to read and courses to take, but the tough part was that I was expect to teach lessons to real elementary school classes several times a week like a pro teacher, and my prof really nailed us to the wall for any mistakes. We had in person observations about twice a month, and had to videotape and review a few more on top of that. It is not like student teaching, where you really do not usually (in my small experience) get much feedback, because the teacher wants to be your friend and nice so they just give you an A. The individual attention from a tough, impartial prof weeded out some of the lame-o future teachers and made it so they couldn't slip through. IMO, even though it still had its flaws, the progam is a big step in the right direction as far as training new teachers. I was one of the first few groups to go through, too, so it's getting even better now years later. I'm still on contact with my prof and he is really a good person with a heart for kids. I don't think he is an "enabler", I think he is just making the best of a bad situation and trying to get new teachers better trained. I hope to have a hand in completely revamping teacher training in the future. It's got to be done.

Anyway, I don't really think teacher training can be compared the same way to getting a Master's degree in terms of the rigorousness of the training. It's not about the material, since it's just memorizing, and you really learn more in your first year in the classroom than you do in normal training.

It all depends on how much the teacher training puts you in the classroom, and that is where you will either succeed or fall flat on your face, big time. I remember one time a lesson that I had planned just didn't work at all, and I had to just tell the kids that it was my fault they didn't learn the concept, and that I would come back and teach it to them a better way. I thought I was dead meat gradewise for sure, and I felt about one inch tall. I would have rather had some quantitative test to study for and pass, since kids are just so unpredictable when you are not used to teaching every day. It ended up ok, my prof said that was good that I took responsibility instead of letting the kids feel bad, and that everybody does make mistakes. I think it was really important to have the experience of failing, but then being able to come back up and be a better teacher because of it.

Masters degree programs are more a straightforward case of book-learning, which is easier for some than others it's true. I remember facts and details very well and can ace most tests easily. Not in all subjects, though. If you're going to be a rocket scientist, then that's hard. I know a guy who is one, and there is just no way I would last 10 minutes in that coursework. Now, law coursework, I can do. If you're getting an MBA, then I've looked at your coursework and texts, and I could have completed those courses with less studying than I did to become a teacher. You don't need to be so creative, and you don't need to be so patient and persistent.

But, I did go through an intensive non-traditional program, so I really can't say about everyone else's program. I *have* read what Thomas Sowell has to say about ed classes in his book "Inside American Education", and I have to say that from what I saw in different programs (I started in the one LAUSD puts on), I would have to tentatively agree with his conclusions about many of them (that they suck and are a joke). That doesn't, however, mean that they all do.

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Yep. Laptop is called a Sony vaio ,and I have a high speed modem. Wireless power is great.. I can even nurse one guy and then just continue on. I have brought it up on other threads in the past. Look it up. I can usually get about 150 feet from source with little problem. Sometimes you can connect to a cell out in public.

You aren't jealous are you? Why would I lie about that? You are so funny!!! Since you already know so much about me why don't you just read my mind from now on.

You are an idot, you have proven my point by making a declarative point about what you don't know and can not ever know. Typical of what I have seen from you. I highly recommend when you ask your husband about this technology, you ask hime if there is anyway to detect if a post has come from a laptop or not. Then you can try and bust someone else Sherlock. ROTFLMAOAY. GO wireless or go home!

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Just wanted to hear some more hysterical cackling from the hen house. Yep, I knew I could find some on this thread. All of the talk of the "rag" makes you all sound so grown up. Peggy Noonan should take lessons. Conservative women everywhere should sit up and take notice of the new girls on the block.

[Howlin]

Believe me, I'd never be jealous of you; I was just wondering about the kind of care your kids get while you're surfing the internet, regardless of how close you are to them.

And, no, I'm not jealous of you at all; you seem obsessed with yourself and your stuff though, which is pretty shallow, IMO.

And it looks like you missed your medication. Maybe you've been in the house too long with the kids.

[ReagansShinyHair]

Since quotes are nice:

"Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish."
Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC), The Bacchae, circa 407 B.C.


"Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid."
Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856)


"He only profits from praise who values criticism."
Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856)

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Honey, you don't pay my salary. I pay yours. That is how it goes in the real world, get used to it. I can do what I want because I don't live off the taxpayer. I pay for my own children , and pay taxes into the school district and you have no say over that either.

The guy who pays the bills gets to make the rules. Well except for in public education, but I still pay for you and you do not pay for me. You are an employee of the taxpayer. That is why you need to have your product ( student) tested and I do not. I owe nothing to the taxpayer, you do.

Besides don't you think anyone else is entitled to suumers off. Or are you the only special breed?

So you have a photograpic memory. That does not make you a great teacher, it makes you able to reguratate facts. It does not make you a great thinker, in fact in inhibits you. Big deal.

I see no link to your refrence of A+ productivity. I see no link to your refrence to being in the business world. In fact I see no link that provides me the proof you are a teacher at all. When you have as much experience working and living as I have you will be better able to make gerneralizations. Right now you ahve little life's experience other than your suburan lifestyle and hanging out with other education students. Including those firmly dependant upon the public school model. Pretty soon you will need more than your photographic memory to reach children. I pray you figure it out before you have many children in your charge.

[Amelia]

Getting a bit catty here, aren't we?

[Carolinamom]

Any chance of your answering my question in post #329?

[ReagansShinyHair]

That does not make you a great teacher, it makes you able to reguratate facts. It does not make you a great thinker, in fact in inhibits you. Big deal.

Please, you did not even read my post. I said the opposite of what you just claimed I said.

Gee, I've never heard the "I pay your salary!" rant before. That's a new one. It's funny, because a few posts ago you were telling me I was stupid for spending my own money on extra supplies for the classroom so that my kids would learn. In your profile you yourself have a link to a thread about how a certain adopted math curriculum doesn't work. What you are telling me now is that you pay my salary and I should do a good job, yet you also insist that I am stupid for spending my own money to replace the ineffective curriculum that I am supplied with. Well, boss, which is it? Do I let kids not learn because I have no materials to teach them with, or do I spend my own money?

You have consistently failed to follow a logical train of thought in this thread. Your arguments are in contradiction with themselves.

[ReagansShinyHair]

Also, the personal attacks need to stop. They are against Freerepublic's policy, and I hope that I myself have crossed no lines in personal attacks. I have tried to stick to commenting only on what you have posted in this thread, based on your own words, to point out that you have discredited yourself as a fair-minded individual in your admission of your hatred for a large population of people.

You, however, are making personal attacks all over the place on many people in this thread, and the attacks seem to have little to do with the argument at hand.

You don't know what kind of a teacher I am, and you have no business commenting on it in this thread. I have my own bosses in my own school district, and I'm very comfortable with my performance as a teacher. I do have several of my past performance reports, but I do not need to scan them and show them to you. You know why? It's entirely irrelevent to the discussion, and I have not based my teaching opinions on my personal experiences.

[Lady Eileen]

You are an idot, you have proven my point by making a declarative point about what you don't know and can not ever know.

No More Gore Anymore...I said earlier that I think many of your points are valid and many are excellent...but I think you should show respect to Freepers and Lurkers and not name call please : )

[rwfromkansas]

I have already been in the classroom for observation this year (and I did a little bit of interaction with the kids, but not a lot). Next year, more observation. After that, no classroom experience until I student teach my last semester.

I would say that is the one problem with many ed programs.

Next summer I will be helping to teach the history summer school at my high school, so I will get some experience on my own at least. That will be a goldmine for my professional portfolio.

[rwfromkansas]

well, the one major problem