Posted on 02/02/2007 8:55:08 AM PST by dashing doofus
Any teacher who only works during school hours is not a good teacher. Any reasonably decent teacher is grading papers/tests and working on lesson plans in the evening and on the weekends. My guess is that the hourly rate quoted in the article is based only on time spent "on the clock" so to speak (while working in the building).
Also remember, the next time your school district talks about running low on funds, their teacher salaries may be well below the national average.
Then of course don't forget that many communities are looking at year round schools. Does teaching pay off? In NC it begins to after you've gotten a MBA and 30 years in the system. But then compare what teachers in my state make to someone that's been in the corporate world for 30 years and it's relatively low.
How is that different than any other degree?
I wonder if that $34.06 includes the public sector pension plans? If you look at the total compensation package I suspect the picture shows the disparity even higher.
I didn't pay nearly that much for my son's degree. A lot depends on where you live.
I see nothing in this article that even hints at what they are basing their claims on. Are they saying teachers are making more than $34.00 an hour for the actual number of hours a typical teacher works, or the contracted hours for which the school district pays them for? In the several districts for which I have worked over the past 12 years, teachers are contracted for about 6.5 hours per day for 184 or more days per year (dependent upon the district for whom they work). A typical teacher works between 7.5 and 9.0 hours per day on average (which is at least one hour each day over their contract hours). If this "expert" is only counting the contract hours in the breakdown of how much the average teacher is paid hourly, then the $34.00 figure is grossly incorrect. As a School Psychologist I make considerably more than the average teacher with the same number of years of experience I have. I am contracted for one hour more each day than what the teachers work. That means I'm contracted (and paid) for 37.5 hours per week. The number of hours I work each week is actually between 45 and 60 depending upon my work load for any given week. I never work less than 45 hours in a given week, and on occasion more than 60 hours in a week. Add in those hours to the equation and then tell me I'm overpaid. Oh, and I work 204 days per year compared to the 184 that the teachers work.
Oh, and for your edification, our benefits (which costs me more than $700.00 a month from my paycheck) are not the best in the world (actually they rather suck), and are not lifetime for teachers and support personnel, but only for administrators). Whether you accept this or not, I'm going broke working for the public school district; working from paycheck to paycheck - and only one month away from financial disaster. Compare that to those corporate EX-O's who are raking in tens of (if not hundreds of) millions of dollars for sitting on their fat arses watching others do the real work. Or, our sports "heroes" who get to play a game to earn their millions. Or those in Hollyweird who are told what to say, where to stand, how to sit, etc. in earning the millions they are paid.
Why, if I'm going broke, do I do this job? Because I enjoy helping children to learn. I earn much more satisfaction in watching a child learn, grow, and achieve than any amount I could get working in the private sector where dog-eat-dog is the rule of each and every day, and everyone is out to just get theirs while cheating out someone else (or lying, or stealing, or whatever). When I leave this world I will have a lifetime of having helped others along the way. What do those in the private sector take with them? I don't know and I don't want to know. All the money in the world can't compare to the look on a child's face when the realize how much they can really accomplish. This is why we do this job. Yes, we love what we do. Yes, we are willing to make financial sacrifices to do this job. and Yes, we are underpaid. What are your children's futures worth to you? Ponder that question a while as you digest this post.
$20,000 a year? Instate tuition if FL is probably around $2500 - $3000 per year these days.
Boo hoo. Here's a startling revelation-
Nurses aids have to pay for certification too, and they only make $10-15 an hour. Plus they have to work hard. Most other prefessions require post secondary education as well. It's a fact of life. What makes teachers so special?
All a teacher has to do is look at the answer key. Plus they don't have to work a whole year. If Jay Leno's "Jay- Walk" is any indication of how smart teachers are, It's no wonder kids coming out of high school don't know how many dimes there are in a dollar, or in which direction Canada is located.
Uhm, I don't know many professionals who work 9-5. It goes without saying that the salary isn't really for a 40 hr week.
Another thought....that may be the hourly wage, but teacher do not get paid in the summer and very few good paying jobs will hire someone for only 6 weeks. So, to a degree, you DO have to look at their yearly salary and not just the hourly.
And, if you pay these people poorly, then you will attract only poor candidates for the positions. I have several friends who have left the profession due, in part, to salary issues.
Benefits packages vary by school district. Mine is good for me, but not for my dependants. So they are on my husband's insurance.
Another way you can look at it is babysitting. If that is all that we are doing (and some people really believe that), then I should get paid an equivilant amount. My son's daycare is 128 a week. So lets go by that. On average, I have 25 students in each class @ 128$ each, that comes to $3200 per week. times that by 36 (weeks in the school year) and you end up with a yearly salary of $115200. A far cry from th $43,000 I am making now.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about my salary, the point is that there are so many different ways to figure out whether teachers get paid enough of not. The question is, how much is a community willing to pay for quality educators. If a community offers an average or below average salary, then they will attract only average or below average teachers.
Thank you. You managed to nail the point I was trying to make...
I currently live with a teacher who, from the end of August till the end of June works, typically, 50-60+ hours a week. His week nights are spent at the kitchen table marking quizzes and tests. His weekends are spent revising lesson plans and marking papers and projects. He gets treated like dirty by the students, yelled at by the parents, and takes an incredible amount of crap from the administration. He doesn't make nearly as much as he should.
I would suspect that if ALL benefit costs are taken into account, teachers cost well over $100 an hour, just to watch over your kid (hopefully) while they get their education from a computer program.
Not all teachers and schools are bad, a good many are, and it shows in the student when they "graduate" high school (whether they can read and add or not)
This is hogwash. It costs about 5000.00 a year at a State University in my State. I went there and on to Medical School. I have 5 other family members who are teachers. They do not fill underpaid anymore than everyone else does. And yes they love the summers off. Something I have not had since college.
Probably not. For the few night courses necessary to meet requirements it will mostly be a few hours of total boredom.
"It's no wonder kids coming out of high school don't know how many dimes there are in a dollar, or in which direction Canada is located.'
Today it is how many "dimes" are in an ounce and as far as where Canada is located it depends on which way the ICBM is flying.
Oh yes they do.
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