First, no need to get nasty, seems like this is always a touchy subject, and speaking out against teachers is frowned upon by many, which is clearly ridiculous. I am not saying teachers are overpaid, but I certainly don't feel they are underpaid. According to google the average wage for a teacher is 44,000 a year, as of June 2013. They apparently work 180-190 days a year counting vacation days. That puts them at about 30 dollars an hours. Now I can only go off the teachers I have had in the past, but 30 an hour seems pretty fair to me. I am not counting any additional work they may do at home, as this is the real world, and those of us with careers all put in extra time without any additional compensation. You also have to consider that the average american with a career works about 260 days a year, so if a teacher did work that many days a year their salary would be 62,400 a year, again seems like a reasonable amount to me, and is higher than the overall median personal income of 28,000 for Americans over 15 years old in 2005 The overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $24,062 To address the additional take home work argument, I found this. I can't vouch for this site, but it claims that a study found teachers work an average of 3 hours a week less than people in other professions. It is from this study I believe, "Teachers self report working less...." I am sick of teachers not only complaining that they are underpaid, but the fact that it is taboo to disagree with this. I am not trying to attack teachers in general, I personally feel most people are overpaid for their jobs, and will be the 1st to say I myself am overpaid for mine. Also, if there are any errors in the math above don't blame me, blame my previous teachers Please explain to me why you feel I am mistaken and they deserve more. Thanks
I can only go off of the one experience I know of personally, but I know a teacher and he regularly has to come home and spend half the night grading papers or preparing lessons or what not. He works more than 40 hours a week during the school year for sure. Don't know how much he makes, but with a decent sized family to provide for, he rents a small house and drives a 20+ year old car. To me, these are the people responsible for teaching our children. When it comes to calling out people who get paid too much, teachers aren't even on the list for me.
I feel that many of public school teachers do not put forth their best effort. For me, if you are passing out worksheets and giving boring lectures you are not underpaid. The other half or so that are constantly trying to better their teaching with innovative assignments, student run activities, freedom with assignments, have a very strong argument for being underpaid.
That is very true. Though when I was in school, I'd say 90% of my teachers were more like the latter than the former. I had very few teachers who only passed out worksheets and never bothered to actually get involved in teaching. Most of my teachers were actually pretty fucking awesome, even if I didn't always think so at the time.
It might not be a bad salary for someone towards the beginning of their career, but you have to understand that just about every other career has much more room for advancement. 44k (after working quite a bit to even attain that) is alright, but it is not what any professional wants to be stuck with for their whole life...there is a very high turnover rate for teachers for this reason...if you want to keep the experienced and talented teachers teaching, you need to offer them more opportunity for career development within their field. You can move to special ed. and after 15 years or so, you might be making around 70k if you're lucky....but that's about it...and we don't only need good special ed. teachers....
Also, who gives a shit what the "overall median personal income of 28,000 for Americans over 15 years old" was in 2005? We are talking about educated professionals, with college degrees (and almost always, quite a bit more, in terms of certification and education)...not just any random person over 15 lmao...
Exactly. Any room for "advancement" basically means not being a teacher anymore, doesn't it? I mean, you can advance to being a principal or some district shmuck and get more pay, but then you aren't actually teaching anymore. I think good teachers probably deserve more than what most of them are getting. Do they get raises over the years based on their efficacy as a teacher? Honest question, I really don't know. Guess it might depend on the state and even the school district, huh?
Ive noticed that teachers in my advanced classes were better (more engaging, dynamic, fired up) than teachers who taught the normal classes. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that in my AP classes, the students were more willing to learn and participate and put effort into the class. In my regular classes, most of the kids didnt do the homework, didnt participate in discussions, didnt read the material, and the teachers had to discipline multiple students in one period. Its easy to blame teachers and say that they suck but they have to deal with a lot more in their classrooms than just teaching. It probably gets frusturating to try and teach a lesson that 70% of your students dont give a shit about. They took the job but how much can you give if the kids dont even want to recieve it?
Just providing something to get perspective, the median I provided starts with 15 year olds and older. Like I said, 60K for a years work doesnt seem like something to bitch about. Just prospective. I had skimmed the wiki and missed this, the line before the one I typed is for all 18 year olds and older which I agree is more relevant: "The overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $24,062". I have updated the original post to reflect this I dont know either, which is why I started the thread. I assume its like any job, as you gain experience, you then can get a job at a college or private school...I dont know how much additional education is required, or how available such jobs are, but seems similar to working your way up a corporate ladder to me, again i have no idea.
Why should we just compare teachers salaries to the median income instead of considering how much they get paid vs the importance of the job they do?
Who gets to decide what is important? I am providing general information, I am sure there are plenty of professions that can complain about being underpaid. Yes it is important to teach our future generations, but does simply regurgitating information make it important? As I stated I feel that most professionals are overpaid, so I am showing the average income to put what teachers make into prospective with all other professions. I dont think there is any easy way to really do it to be honest, it just opens another can of worms. With information being readily available today I would argue that would decrease the value of a teacher. EMTs start at what, 25-30K and save lives, cops dont make shit but they protect us. That question just becomes to personal to peoples opinions. I am not saying teachers suck btw.
I'm thinking like "we, the people" decide how important a job is. And teaching our children seems pretty important to me. If your teachers were just "regurgitating information" then I'm sorry, that sucks, but most of my teachers were great and taught me a lot. If you think most professionals are overpaid, then why are you specifically targeting teachers here? What makes you choose teachers over every other profession that you could call out for being overpaid in your opinion?
I was editing my post before seeing yours, it may answer some of your questions. I chose this topic because it is always a hot debate, and chose teachers because I personally always hear about them complaining they are underpaid, and anyone who says otherswise gets attacked....so pandoras box seems like a great place to open the debatre. Maybe its because I am friends with teachers, I suppose if I knew a bunch of cops it would be a cop thread. I personally believe what they are paid is fair for the amount of work they put in (be it months a year or hours a day)/importance of their job
I know that in AZ a teacher's pay and potential raise is based on how many students pass a "benchmark" exam. It basically compares their students to all the other students throughout the state based on the exam scores. If the student's don't do so hot, they may be passed by for a raise. You also have to look at the education standards for entry and how much they are paid. Typically, education level is reflective of pay. It's really not for teachers, which isn't 100% fair. You also have to look at the supply/ demand of teachers, though. Almost all groupings (i.e. social studies, sciences) of teachers are looking for employment in a saturated field. There's too many, so they can effectively lower wages and if the teacher doesn't like it, tough shit, we can replace you for cheaper.
To even make such a blanket claim about all teachers is pointless. School districts are run in incredibly different ways even within the same state and both pay rates and quality of work vary quite a bit. Even schools within the same district offer different rates. Also, talking about gross income in a population spread out over such a large area can be misleading because the cost of living is different everywhere.
My worthless 2 cents is I think the system needs to be streamlined.I have seen my friends kids on what they bring home for homework,and it looks like art class instead of learning.I am talking 8th-9th grade social studies,and science.It is ridiculous B.S. what kids have to go thru these days.It looks like it is designed to be a consumer for the arts/crafts,hardware stores etc... They are forced to learn B.S.,and it looks like the trend was starting to ramp up as I was finishing school years ago.I feel there should be a base education,and personal choice as the student moves on from that. With todays technologies there is actually less need for teachers in my opinion.They act more like babysitters,and conditioners to the group mentality to me. I had only two teachers in my life that made things interesting. In High school I dropped out of regents back to regular classes,because of one arrogent social studies teacher.He would be pissed at me,because I did not raise my hand like the ass kissers.He would call on me to answer the question anyway,and would be even more pissed that I knew it.He would come up with obscure stuff not part of the lesson,and would be more pissed that I knew that too.He threw me out of class when I laughed at what another student said.I knew he would keep on a witch hunt for me so I dropped his,and other classes,and was like not worth it. I just think as crasy as it may sound the entire system overall is sheeple herding from the education right on up thru government.A system that fleeces your wallet,and mind.That's my 2 zinc infused cents.
True, but it is impossible for me to break down everything by county, so its pretty obvious why I provided what I provided. I think your argument can be used for just about any profession, not just teachers. Here is a state by state comparison showing both starting salaries and average salaries. This shows that the teachers in the more expensive states earn more money, as well as shows the possible advancement opportunities teachers have. For example A teacher in Ct, a rather expensive state starts at 42,000 vs a teacher in michigan where cost of living is significantly less starts at 35,000. It also shows that the teacher in ct has the potential to earn an average (so obviously more, or less) of 69,000....so the argument others have made that there is no advancement seems moot according to this site. Is the site valid, I dont know, but this shows a reasonable account of the differences in cost of living, as well as opportunities for advancement. Certainly not perfect, Ca for example starts at 41,000 but being such a huge state with both very expensive and very reasonable areas for costs of living it can only be used as a starting point.
I don't think teachers get paid enough just for the fact that they devote their lives to teaching a bunch of little heathens to hopefully become greater than themselves in their area of study.
I worked in special ed this past year, Whew..... takes alot of energy working with kids. I can imagine how middle/high school teachers can get away with not doing tooo much. I dont have any experience first hand though. But then if we increased the pay for teachers, it would be a more appealing field and bring in more competition/qualified job applicants.