Posted on 02/02/2007 5:20:28 AM PST by Zakeet
Who, on average, is better paid--public school teachers or architects? How about teachers or economists? You might be surprised to learn that public school teachers are better paid than these and many other professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public school teachers earned $34.06 per hour in 2005, 36% more than the hourly wage of the average white-collar worker and 11% more than the average professional specialty or technical worker.
In the popular imagination, however, public school teachers are underpaid. "Salaries are too low. We all know that," noted First Lady Laura Bush, expressing the consensus view. "We need to figure out a way to pay teachers more." Indeed, our efforts to hire more teachers and raise their salaries account for the bulk of public school spending increases over the last four decades. During that time per-pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, has more than doubled; overall we now annually spend more than $500 billion on public education.
The perception that we underpay teachers is likely to play a significant role in the debate to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. The new Democratic majority intends to push for greater education funding, much of which would likely to go toward increasing teacher compensation. It would be beneficial if the debate focused on the actual salaries teachers are already paid.
It would also be beneficial if the debate touched on the correlation between teacher pay and actual results. To wit, higher teacher pay seems to have no effect on raising student achievement. Metropolitan areas with higher teacher pay do not graduate a higher percentage of their students than areas with lower teacher pay.
In fact, the urban areas with the highest teacher pay are famous for their abysmal outcomes.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Maybe some of us are just frustrated because of all the teachers we've met who insist it's so hard to teach kids that only a trained professional could do it and any parent who dares try to educate their own kid is going to handicap them. Or paying for a worthless, failing system and then paying double to make sure our kids actually get educated.
Yeah it's a cakewalk, I plan to be a teacher one of these days. When I have kids and homeschool them. And we won't take all summer off either.
School years are typically 180 days. That's how I calculated it.
I multiplied 34*8*180. That comes out to be around $50K.
That seems okay, but not great. In San Jose where I live, it would be hard to live on that much.
Most school do not have 3 months off in the summer. They typically have about 8 weeks off. They have to stay a week after the kids get out and come in a week early.
Greene has been peddling this simplistic garbage for the past few years and I'm tired of explaining his errors to the uninformed.
You forgot to add the problems with over-paid administrators and just lots of over-head in general.
In California, we also have all sorts of bond money going to "fix" the schools. Our district spent tons of money fixing up my daughters old school: painting it, putting in new carpet, putting in a new black top, and putting in a new play ground. They used that school for another year, an closed it.
There was a middle school in our district that they spent money on putting in wireless connections so that all of the students could have laptop computers. They painted it, put in new carpet, and spent millions on this school to "fix it up". They closed it after a year, and then they spent $10 million to convert it into an elementary school.
I don't think teacher salaries are the problems. I think school administration is a big huge problem.
I shoulda been a teacher. Dang.
I don't think anyone is free of criticism. No one. But there is a difference between generalized statements on salary (different regions in the country vary widely) and teacher competence (that varies widely too). There is very legitimate criticism to be made about teachers and the education system, but I think that it needs to be carefully made. There are general trends in education that are troubling, but individual teachers and districts address them (or not) in different ways.
All you people whining about teachers getting paid too much, become a teacher. If I saw a job that I thought was overcompensated, I would jump at it. Seriously. In some states you can, if you have a science degree, simply take a test and start teaching older kids.
I think teachers would make more if vouchers were widespread, and the overall quality would be better. Private school teacher pay is lower now, but it is forced down by trying to keep costs low. Kids going to private school have parents willing to pay for what they could be getting for free.
You forgot to include those kids who are out of control. This kids can disrupt a class and the teacher gets no support from the principal or the kids family.
We need to bring back reform schools for these troublemakers or some other method to expell kids.
The Rocky Mountain News did an article on the steps needed to expell a kid. It was ridiculous, long and hard process.
Part of the "issue" with teachers pay is the retirement. A teachers deferred compensation is rarely discussed. If your wife teaches for 30 years, what is her retirement pay? If I do 20 years in the army, i get 50% of my base pay. If I do 30 years, I get 75%.
How many white collar jobs do you think pay someone over 50% of their retirement pay?
I also understand that this does not apply to every teacher in every school district. Some teachers are not compensated well and have to pay for their health benefits. However, there are some teachers who are paid well, pay little for health benefits and get a great retiremet (say 90%) of their what they earned when they were teaching.
Because one has a college education does not mean someone should get a high salary. What was the major of the person who received their degree? A math, engineering or other science degree is different than a degree in Radio, Television and Film, Political Science, women's studies or Hispanice studies.
Sidenote off topic. As a person with a Hispanic background, I told my wife I will not help our kids with their college cost is they get a dgree in Hispanic studies.
payed=paid
Or money for lawyers when you're slapped with a well deserved lawsuit for supplying minors with alcohol and or marijuana, or get caught having sex with students. No one has even mentioned tenure yet and how its almost impossible to fire bad teachers. Talk about job security.
It's always interesting for me to read the "teacher pay" things and find out how "highly paid" I am. :)
The teacher may "work" 9 months out of the year, but does other outside work for his/her job that isn't figured into it. My hourly wage after my "extra" time is figured in is about $8 an hour.
You'd be willing to bet? HEHE. Yes, we do get the "time off" which is unpaid of course. I don't mind that. I teach at a year-round school so we get the periodic vacations every couple of months. Even then, I often work full days getting things done. I spend more hours OUTSIDE of my job working for my job than classroom hours, almost twice as much.
It's easy to paint all of us with one brush stroke, but the truth is there are all sorts of situations and each one is different.
The real problem I see is the attitude of LOTS of people, teachers of course included.
I'm definitely not on the "teachers don't get paid enough" bandwagon, but I don't think they get paid too much either--particularly given how difficult it has become to teach, given that most are handcuffed by lawsuit-paranoid administration and uncaring parents.
Instead of talking about just throwing more money at the problem, how about if we talk about giving the teachers more tools to deal with disciplinary problems, which is what the ones I talk to really want.
Teachers shouldn't be paid as high as other professions--it doesn't involve as technical of work, but that doesn't mean we don't work as hard. I get home often around 8 or so and still have 3 hours worth of correcting or other stuff. Often, I'm up at 2 or 3 working. Not to mention many MORE hours on weekends and such. Nonetheless, I enjoy it and love the kids I teach.
"In your profession, have you ever had a student stand up, yell directly down at you (he is the size of a man at 16), and threaten to hit you (I am a 5'5" woman)?"
Perhaps you should consider a career change. Loggers do not have students come up to them and threaten to hit them. Possibly that is a career for you to consider. Neither do those in commercial fishing. Or agricultural workers. You could become a closed shaft miner. Maybe a start a career managing a convenience store.
Admittedly all of those careers require longer hours than teaching. They also pay much less than teaching -- and all have a much, much, higher mortality rate. In fact, of the ten most dangerous professions in the United States only one -- airline pilot -- pays more than teaching.
And please, no intellectual superiority stuff either. Dummies don't last long in those careers. Do something stupid and you are unable to continue your career. Do something sufficiently stupid and you do not get an opportunity to pursue any other careers -- think of it as evolution in action.
You may not have to be a brain surgeon to be a logger or a fisherman, but frankly there are a lot of teachers that are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer.
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