Teacher's salaries

[James]

Ok I skimmed through the thread . . I am sure someone mentioned this already .. . maybe Rudey.

The context isn't as simple as teacher salaries being too high or even too low.

The context is that public school teachers are basically government employees. That means they are not part of a system that creates tangible wealth. So all the salaries and bennies that teachers get, at whatever level, is paid for by tax-payers.

When teacher salaries go up, taxes go up to pay them.

So the question becomes, how much do we want to compensate government employees that exist outside a normal market system. There has been a backlash in the NE as police salaries approach 100 thousand a year for patrolman.

In the distant past, civil service positions, teachers etc, were generally not considered to be very well paid, but had a lot of benefits.

There was near perfect job security, more time and holidays off than the average person, and ususally excellent health packagaes and stuff.

In recent years, compensation for civil servants and teachers has gone up enormously. Mostly for two visible reasons, they are allowed to have unions and they are exempt from the normal free markets.

Now teachers and civil servants make relatively high salaries in a lot of areas and have great benefit packages as well as a great deal of time off.

So the issue is less, what are you worth based on intangible rhetorical factors, but what we as tax payers want to and can afford to pay you.

[James]

Oh and 14 hour days? A lot of people work them, especially salaried people.

[Rudey]

Originally posted by WhiteDaisy128
Go do it...then tell me you can. You KNOW you can't be a PhD candidate for a ChemE program, and you KNOW that you can't run in the olympics...but what makes you KNOW you would be able to be a teacher? Something like 80% of teachers quit with in the first 2 years because it's so friggin' hard with such little compensation.

And in what state does a first year teacher make 39k?

What makes me KNOW is that it's an actual physical thing. You CAN work in a sweat shop. You CAN drink urine for $5 a day. You CAN'T do certain other things.

If your statistic about 80% is true, which I doubt, that shows you they CAN do it and do it for 2 years.

-Rudey

[Rudey]

Originally posted by Munchkin03
What you just mentioned is the same for a lot of other professions.

$39K for a first-year teacher is pretty good when you consider that a first-year architect in NYC makes about $32K. You can add about $10K with a Master's...but with the average architecture Master's program in the area being around $800/credit, the loans start adding up. Also, unlike a M.Ed, a M.Arch is full-time and it's pretty damned hard to work even part-time while working on that degree.

But, my friends and I aren't complaining...because we knew what we were getting ourselves into.

Supposedly teachers in long island are entitled to expensive houses in long island. This only applies to teachers though. The cab driver aren't allowed to have houses.

Now again. The market determines how much you're worth. If you have a union that value of worth is inflated. And if you are working in a sweatshop or somewhere that you don't have full rights, then your value is deflated. If anything, people that work in sweatshops can say they deserve more.

-Rudey

[AWJDZ]

Originally posted by Rudey
Listen, I didn't belittle anything or anyone. But there are things I don't understand. I can never go get a PhD in chemical engineering at a top school because I'm just not able to. I can't ever run a sprint in the olympics because my lungs, legs, and musculature are not made for it. I can however deal with 30 nasty kids, with nasty parents and teach. I won't like it. I will hate it possibly. But I can do it. -Rudey

Please come teach my class for the next 2 months while I finish up my National Boards. Better yet, please come teach my class, coach my soccer team, serve on the leadership and school improvement commitees, finish planning hoops for heart and field day (with an international flair this year), drive the bus, and finish up my National Boards for me. I would love to have a social life for a change! Maybe then I can get my house organized, finish up on some reading, and catch up with all of my friends who live elsewhere. Thanks! (oh yeah, the grading period is almost over....427 grades are due to the SIMS operator by 9 AM that morning and parents need to be contacted for conferences. At risk charts also need to be updated and IEP's need to be revised. State laws says you must have them completed in full, and since we do not have an EC specialist anymore, you need to track down the APE lady and have her sign off on them)

[Rudey]

Originally posted by AWJDZ
Please come teach my class for the next 2 months while I finish up my National Boards. Better yet, please come teach my class, coach my soccer team, serve on the leadership and school improvement commitees, finish planning hoops for heart and field day (with an international flair this year), drive the bus, and finish up my National Boards for me. I would love to have a social life for a change! Maybe then I can get my house organized, finish up on some reading, and catch up with all of my friends who live elsewhere. Thanks! (oh yeah, the grading period is almost over....427 grades are due to the SIMS operator by 9 AM that morning and parents need to be contacted for conferences. At risk charts also need to be updated and IEP's need to be revised. State laws says you must have them completed in full, and since we do not have an EC specialist anymore, you need to track down the APE lady and have her sign off on them)

I work 80 hours on average every week. Often I push 100 if there is something nasty to do. On a good week around Christmas my hours go down to 40-60.

And aside from the hours, come show me how good you are with financial math and client presentations. I'm sure you can try explaining to me how to create this model that I haven't been able to work the kinks out of for a few months.

In exchange, I will do what you do. I will physically do it because I can. You will sit in my seat and not do it because you can't.

-Rudey

[starang21]

one of my prophytes is a teacher, i highly doubt the people who are saying that they can handle 25 bad ass kids for 8 hours a day can actually do it. i've dated a couple, and i don't have the patience. some of them would come up missing.

should they be rewarded?

yea...no matter how easy people think the job is, none of us would be anywhere without them.

[James]

ITs not a matter of fair, its a matter of what we want to pay a public servant. Or to change it around, its a matter of whats fair to the tax payer.

Basketball players direct create monetary value, and they get a share of the value they create.

Teachers, unless they are part of a private school, exist off part of the incomes of other people.

As far as masters and Ph.D., I am not sure they have that much to do with teaching. A person's Doctorate in quantum physics is unlikely to directly make them better able to teach 3rd grade math.

Even higher degrees in eduation in general seem unlikely to translate to greated efficacy in the classroom versus the amount of time and money the teacher has to outlay.

Especially given that teaching heavily uses a people-centered skills set. Direct interpersonal communication.

A superlative salesperson would likely make an excellent teacher because of superlative people skills.

The proliferation of higher degrees in education is response to the artifical market. There are is a tremendous amount of people going to school for teaching. Requiring amasters operates as a barier to entry and provides a way to rate people in a non-competitive system for salary rewards.

Think, in a normal system sheer excellence would be rewarded with better pay. In artifical systems like teaching, seniority and "Ticket punching," such as taking more credits, is what is awarded.

Originally posted by CarolinaDG
That's not what makes me mad. What makes me mad is that people seem to think that a teacher with a masters should be making much less than someone else with a masters. That's insane. Or that a teacher with a bachelors should be making $17,000. That also is insane.


And I said it SEEMS unfair that basketball players make that much. I understand WHY it is.

And I don't know how many Wachovia bankers you know, but I know a lot since I'm from Charlotte. And trust me, they're FINE on money. And they earn every penny of it, too.

[James]

I read a study a while ago that said that the distibution of IQs for Doctors and lawyers is the same as the general population. Meaning the averges are the same, not "smarter."

In fact doctors and lawyers draw from the same categories of people.

Not knocking doctors or lawyers. PhDd had IQ's above the normal distribution. They were "smarter" on average.

Originally posted by kddani
1)

3) There are many more barriers to being a lawyer. You have to do well in college. You have to score well enough on the LSAT. You have to get through law school. You have to pass the bar. So while I agree there are many lawyers out there that have the common sense of a doorknob, you have to be of a reasonable intelligence level to be a lawyer.

I never said I hated teachers or that they had no value. But my high school teachers, and I can reasonably deduct which ones are making the $75K, are NOT worth that, especially when there are many thing that they did not prepare me for.

[AchtungBaby80]

The sad thing is, when I start teaching, I will probably think my salary is HUGE because it's such a helluva lot more than I'm making now.

[starang21]

Originally posted by James
Teachers, unless they are part of a private school, exist off part of the incomes of other people.

don't all government employees? like the president?

[ADPiSAI]

Originally posted by James
Teachers, unless they are part of a private school, exist off part of the incomes of other people.

And it is because of teachers that those people were able to gain the knowledge they needed to get the job that makes them that income.

[trojangal]

Okay, I have been on both sides of the fence as a private school employee and a public school employee.

As a private school employee, the pay was very low. My first teaching job was $14,500 for a MASTER's degree. They offered insurance, but it was so expensive that I couldn't afford it! The other private schools were better, at above the $20K mark, with health insurance and slightly better benefits.

As a public school employee, I am earning a significantly higher salary and I have better benefits. I am thankful every day that I have this position.

Most Masters and PhDs in Education are designed to help the teacher become familiar with the most current practices in education and learn about other areas of education ( administration), and to provide teachers with classes that will help them become highly qualified.

This is especially important now under the No Child Left Behind legislation. Schools in Alabama will not hire a new teacher/experienced teacher unless he/she is "highly" qualified according to those guidelines.

[KSigkid]

A couple of things after reading through this thread.

I don't see anywhere where Rudey has said that teachers are bad people, that teaching isn't a worthwhile profession, etc. He simply stated a fact that it's more difficult to step into his field without experience than it is to step into a classroom. If you're at all familiar with finance, markets and the industry, you would agree.

I doubt any of us could go in and perform a surgery. Very few of us could build a case for court, create financial models or write a novel. That's just the way it is.

I'll say again I'm speaking from experience; as I've said, I've had experience teaching, from preschool to early elementary school. This was while taking classes full-time in college. It's just a fact of life, more people could step into a classroom and do the job than in other jobs. That doesn't mean that it won't be hard, and it doesn't mean that teachers don't earn their money.

Secondly; I'd venture to say that we all knew what our financial outlook was when we took our current positions or decided to go a certain career path. I knew going into my current job that I wasn't going to make a ton of money, and that it would be after an advanced degree in another industry that I would be making a sizable income. As such, if you're going into teaching, you're not doing it to become rich.

Does this mean that teacher's don't deserve more salary? It depends on the teacher, the school district and a variety of other factors. There is a financial burden associated with the profession, though, and I think everyone who goes into the field knows that.

After the first couple of pages of the thread, I think people on the most part have been respectful of the teaching profession as a whole. I think we've pushed this thread into something very different, and that's where people are becoming heated.

[texas*princess]

Originally posted by ForeverDiamond
And it is because of teachers that those people were able to gain the knowledge they needed to get the job that makes them that income.

sing it, sister!