6-Figure Salaries? To Many Teachers, a Matter of Course

NY Times ^ | 6/5/05 | FORD FESSENDEN and JOSH BARBANEL

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

...But this noble sensibility ignores a crucial fact about the teaching profession in Westchester County: Teacher pay levels in Scarsdale, and several other districts in the county, are now high enough to constitute an entry ticket to upper-middle-class income and status. In Scarsdale, 166 teachers - nearly half - have base salaries exceeding $100,000; for more than a dozen, base pay tops $120,000.

A study of teacher salaries across New York State found that as administrators and affluent parents compete to give their children every possible advantage, thousands of teachers in the New York suburbs now make six-figure salaries - numbers strongly at variance with the popular stereotype of the poorly paid, altruistic mentor of the young.

The study indicates that only the most experienced teachers, with the most education, earn such salaries - which are the highest in the nation. But the money is arguably substantial enough to affect what it means to be a public school teacher. Consider this, for instance: A family whose parents both teach in Westchester schools can make enough to put it in the top 6 percent of earners in the county.

Teachers say the salaries are justified, even necessary, in a place where the cost of living is high. "You can earn $100,000 and not afford to live here," said Susan Taylor, a longtime Scarsdale teacher who heads the district's teacher training institute...

[Osage Orange]

A good teacher is someone who is a good teacher in spite of his or her education, not as a result of it.

Bravo..!! Couldn't say it better..!!

FRegards,

[mysterio]

I'll help you fathom it. They hate unions, and they believe the media brainwashing that our schools are cesspools. The media goes out and finds one example of teacher incompetence, and then the pundits stretch that to make it look like that's the case everywhere.

[Osage Orange]

My parents, with nothing more than a high school education, taught me to read at age 4. I taught my daughter to read at age 5 (she turned 7 yesterday) with no college diploma and a homeschool curriculum. My aunt, who teaches first grade in a Catholic school, has said that my daughter reads somewhat above her age level and she wishes all her students were that skilled.

Yabut...bet she ain't got no social skills at tall..!

: )

[jpl]

Looks like the notion that teachers don't get paid enough money in America is another tired old left-wing bromide that's been blown out of the water.

[Okies love Dubya 2]

LOL!

This kid will talk to anyone about anything, anytime. And talk...and talk...and talk...

She gets along great with her brother and sister and is great at entertaining them. She is as comfortable around babies as she is around people much older than she. She is definitely not a wallflower :)

[skeeter]

In San Jose, the teachers get paid didly squat (under the state average), and the administrators get paid way over the state average. San Jose is an expensive area, and the teachers should get paid more to work here.

You mean after 25 or 30 years of non-stop school bond measures that show up on ballots year after year - and always pass - teachers are still underpaid?

There's a teacher down the street from us who's always complaining about his salary. Excepting the 9 month work year that makes him just like the rest of us.

[Iron Eagle]

I agree that the criteria should be fair -- to the extent it can be. (I work for a large law firm. I am subject to being fired at any minute -- for any reason. My evaluation process is not perfect, but it tries to balance all criteria to let my partners evaluate my overall contribution and worth -- even in years when I don't bring in the big bucks. No system is perfect -- and job security should not be a guarantee.)

Many in the education industry argue that teachers cannot be properly or fairly evaluated. I do not believe that. Anyone's performance can be evaluated using multiple criterion. Teachers cannot have it both ways, however. They cannot demand market salaries, yet insist on job protection the market affords no one else. The higher the salary, by in large, the more likely one is subject to removal with or without cause -- immediately.

Unfortunately -- that means some teachers will be fired for personality conflicts and other reasons that may not seem fair. Taking that risk, however, is part of being highly compensated.

I will say this, I find it fascinating that the NJEA maintains that teachers cannot be evaluated for merit. Ask any person -- anywhere -- to name the best teacher they ever had. Ask them to name the worst. The answers will come in seconds, often with detailed descriptions.

Why is it that we all know who they are, but the professionals in the industry do not.

Public schools are the last bastion of anticompetitive quasi-socialist entities.

[Oberon]

I agree that the criteria should be fair -- to the extent it can be.

Well, sure. I only mean to say that students shouldn't be allowed to rig the system. If we can narrow the criteria down to things like "How many days were you absent last semester? How many days were you late? Did you have a complete lesson plan written for each class? Were you able to complete your curriculum in the time allotted?" And also things like "How many times did you meet or phone parents?" with concrete numbers for standards.

These criteria are concrete, objective, and measurable. No teacher should be able to reasonably object to them.

Also, unfortunately, a teacher could conceivably meet or exceed all the criteria I mentioned and still be ineffective. However, such standards would at least tend to weed out the poor teachers.

[VeniVidiVici]

4 periods a day? ..WHERE ???? Maybe if they have 80 min block periods ( then an 80 min hall duty on top of that )

6 periods a day - 4 class periods.

Do the math ;-)

[agooga]

I feel you-- my wife is a teacher with 10+ years at one of L.A.'s toughest inner city schools-- so we also know what's really going on.

Many of her friends joined the Dark Side and became administrators-- why wouldn't you when you can double your salary and not have to teach or grade papers? Only downside: 3-4 weeks vacation as opposed to 3 months.

[Outlaw76]

"Teachers deserve every penny..."

B.S. Maybe good teachers do. The great teachers do. The rank and file do not. They have consistently let our children down by; not teaching them, drugging them, pushing socialist nonsense on them, and allowing them to continue to fail. They do this and all the while they cry about how poorly paid they are. Ask them why the education system is failing and they say its because they are underpaid. As if a larger bank account is somehow a panacea for their lack of skill and effort.

The Unions embolden those who want to get more for doing less than any generation of teachers in the past 100 years.

[Outlaw76]

"I got a great idea, we take all the teacher's salaries in the US, get the average and those that make more than that drop and those that make less go up. Then there will be no teachers that feel bad because everyone gets the same."

What an awesome Idea! "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."! (but only for teachers, union bosses, actors, and the other democrats please.)
I bet they'd start teaching about things like the constitution, economics, and capitalism.

[durasell]

Sorry. That doesn't wash. If they hated unions to the degree you say, then they'd go after the cops and firemen as well. I see it -- sadly -- as just another symptom in some kind of perverse war against children. Face it, children are incovenient and expensive. So, a large portion of the population either drugs the heck out of kids with ritalin or prozac to make them less inconvenient and then begins taking apart the educational infrastructure to make them less expensive. Of course, they won't admit this -- not even after their kids are thrown in the pokey for a string a liquor store robberies to feed a meth habit.

[Jewelsetter]

It could happen.......Uh, ya right.

[mysterio]

I don't think the schools are failing. In the old days, academic, college bound kids were sent to school for a classical education, while others went to trade school or stayed home and farmed. But then our pal the gubmint decided that everyone MUST go to school. Hence all kids were treated the same, and the curriculum had to be watered down to meet the influx of students incapable of a classic education. I don't think the teachers got worse. The gubmint stuck its finger in and stirred the pot. And discipline is no longer allowed in schools. The administration won't back up its teachers. That means not as much gets done. The democrats have done nothing about the problem and have made it worse. The republicans (in my state) decided the better approach was to flatline funding and give the extra money to a professional football team.

So do you really want the pubs to save public education? Here's all you have to do.

1. Restore discipline. And I don't mean kick a bunch of kids out of school for life for bringing a pair of nail clippers into school. I mean put the teachers in charge again. And give them the power to stand up to the parents who think little Johnny can do no wrong.

2. Have two routes of education. The parents and kids can choose which one they want. Both with the same fees. One teaches trades. One is for college bound.

Do I think either Democrats or Republicans will ever do anything positive for education? Not really. You both are too slogan driven to ever actually solve a problem.

[latina4dubya]

then again, we wouldn't have nurses, doctors, policemen, or firemen without teachers, would we?

you mean K-12 teachers? why not? i don't agree...

[PigRigger]

"Teachers deserve every penny for what they have to put up with and the importance of the jobs they do...."

And we (tax payers) deserve to have them be made accountable; tenure should be abolished, we should be able to see how individual teachers fair when compared against their colleagues. We deserve to have teachers work year round (with no increase in pay). We deserve to have a choice of where we send our children to be educated.

If teachers want to be paid like they are in the private sector; they should be willing to be treated like they are employed in the private sector.

[Outlaw76]

"Do I think either Democrats or Republicans will ever do anything positive for education? Not really. You both are too slogan driven to ever actually solve a problem."

Tell me something, if the teachers unions never address things in the way that you just did, why in the hell do any teachers belong to unions?

[mysterio]

They joined them to get better pay back when the pay sucked.

I don't think the teachers unions are going to get the problem solved, either. I don't think the population wants the problem solved. Can you imagine the outcry if my plan were actually considered? Democrats and Republicans would be a united front against solving the problem. They would shout all sorts of fun slogans. The dems would call me regressive and say I was punishing the poor. The pubs would undercut the plan for some "common sense" plan that took one aspect of my plan and accomplished nothing. Both sides are afraid to solve the problem, and plus, it makes a great campaign issue. Both sides have continuously blamed the other for the problem. And the news media has exaggerated the problem to sell us the fear that we seem to tune in for.

So I don't think either side wants to fix it. We all just want to complain. Fixing the problem is too politically dangerous.

[Outlaw76]

So, teachers belong to unions because they serve to increase income. Merit doesn't matter. Educating the children doesn't matter. Doing what needs to be done by using the union's influence doesn't matter.

It's all about getting payed more, forget bothering with the little things like educating children.