Thread: How much should public school teachers make?

Originally Posted by 9aces

Breaking it involves the parents getting involved. Not inserting a weak substitute for them.

One of these days you'll figure out you can't do something for someone they don't value.

Gee, thank you so much for yet one more fucking post that has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote (and that you quoted).

What the fuck with the average household income?

A person works as an individual.

As for how they should be paid, that has nothing to do with the fact that they are public employees. The pay of a worker has something to do with the skills required and the need for teachers.

Since teachers require higher education an entrance income that is average for university graduates is a good starting point. Add some tweaks about local demand and you got your teachers income.

The average income of people with higher education being somewhere between 45-75k dollar a year... that's what you have to pay them.

Going for the average income of all americans is total bullshit.
The average american doesn't spend several years in higher education and has to take on thousands in student loans.

If you start going all communist on public workers and pay them far below what they are worth, (average income: 30k/yr) then you end up with no teachers....

Originally Posted by Ernie S.

Teachers, individual teachers, should make what they are worth. Tenure should be eliminated and replaced by individual contracts with pay based on performance reviews.

You are assuming that you can quantify performance fairly and accurately.

This is impossible in any profession, in teaching where the results will not really be known until the child is an adult it is impossible.

Peer based performance is really a popularity contest.

Originally Posted by El_Zoido

What the fuck with the average household income?

ahoy El_Zoido,

because matey, teacher's salaries be drawn by the tax base 'o each individual municipality. the tax bases vary greatly from area to area.

aye.

- MeadHallPirate

The real question IMHO is not how much teachers should be paid in absolute terms, but how much they should be paid relative to other professionals.

This would have to take into account the other benefits of a job place. As a construction professional I work in a brutal environment. There is no such thing as job security. Anyone on a job site can and it is common for this toi happen, be removed at the whim of a large number of people. Usually there is no recourse or appeal, the project manager decides that you are gone and you are out that day. Teachers have it relatively easy in this regard, they can count on numerous appeals, warnings and reviews of their case.

On the other hand teachers have it tough in class. They have to be up all day with little or no down time. When it is class time they have to ber ready and able to perform. No showing up sick or not on top of their game. Some teachers put in a lot of additional hours, especially high school level teachers. Elemembtry school teachers after they have taught for a number of years have the lessons down pat and know the shortcuts to doing everything in their classes. No marking long essays for a 2nd grade teacher.

Outside of class teachers have it relatively easy, they can pick their own time for the extra work that they may or may not do. I have known dedicated teachers who put in a lot of additional time and I have known high school teachers who when they had young children, used their paid work time in service training to take courses related to the age of their kids, not their students.

IMHO teachers should be in the lower portion of professionals. They have a lot of freedom at work and they have a lot of job security. A teacher salary should be close to that of a nurse or a junior to journeyman engineer.

Originally Posted by MeadHallPirate

hail 9aces,

a question if i may...i have no idear how many teachers ye know on a professional basis and know well....3? 5? 7?

the reason i ask, be that the number 'o teachers in our land be legion, and be it not fair to say that yer teeny tiny samplin' be kind 'o an odd way fer ye to draw yer overreachin' conclusions?

at any rate, these teachers ye know...be they excellent teachers in yer own view? be they highly skilled and highly motivated professionals who give thar all in promotin' excellence in the classroom?

- MeadHallPirate

ps - by the way, i'd do away with the idear 'o summer break fer students. id have school 12 months a year fer our youngins.

3 that live close enough to hit their house with decent 5 iron shot, 2 sisters who are teachers, 3 cousins who are teachers or administrators. Between the teachers, and the administrators that I know well, 26 that I can come up with offhand (6 of them are in my Sunday School class). That's a fair percentage of the ones teaching at the school in town.

Most of them are decent, and do about as good a job as the guidelines that are imposed on them allow. Of course the school is one of the better schools in the state as well. Some are terrible, and because of tenure rules, it's virtually impossible to get rid of them.

Do they promote excellence? No of course not, promoting excellence is frowned upon, because it doesn't take into account the damage done to the self-esteem of those who are poor students.

I've got 2 sisters who are teachers, and I'm well versed with the limitations placed on them.

Ever hear the phrase "no child left behind?" Sounds great right, read the stuff about how it was implemented, and what it was supposed to do it sounds like the ticket.

Yet...why is it, that it doesn't work?

Originally Posted by pramjockey

Gee, thank you so much for yet one more fucking post that has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote (and that you quoted).

Has a lot to do with it. But you just don't see it, because you're blinded by what you want, instead of seeing what is.

Originally Posted by 9aces

Has a lot to do with it. But you just don't see it, because you're blinded by what you want, instead of seeing what is.

No, it doesn't.

We can't just magically make disinterested parents start interacting with their children, can we? There's no magic wand to say "here single mother of three, you don't have to work 2 jobs any more just to make ends meet, so you can instead support your kids as they go through school and make sure that they get the best start to life."

So, it's nice to say "the parents need to get involved." I've already said that more times than you can count. But at some point, something else has to be done to break that cycle. But, you ignored all of that, didn't you?

Originally Posted by fishjoel

It's not intelectually dishonest because who doesn't work 50-60 hrs a week, at least?

LOTS of people I presume, but they get paid overtime...

Originally Posted by MeadHallPirate

ahoy El_Zoido,

because matey, teacher's salaries be drawn by the tax base 'o each individual municipality. the tax bases vary greatly from area to area.

aye.

- MeadHallPirate

But what relevance does that have for the teachers sallery?
At the end, the teaching profession has to be attractive enough, so that a young person decides to make a career out of it, go to university and get a Bachelor/Master degree.

I am pretty sure that this very heated and ugly discussion doesn't makes the job look alot more attractive So I hope you got too much teachers in the US right now or be ready to pay them more.

I just don't see somebody spend 4-6 years of their live at university, paying tuition fees in order to get into a profession that does pay a mediocre sallery.

Just put yourself in the position of somebody who thinks about becoming a teacher.
So in order to become a teacher you have to spend about 40.000 Dollars in tuition fees for your education... then you are supposed to work for the same cash as Joe Average who earned money for the last few years because he could start looking for work right after high school.

Sure you have to keep it somehow in check, with reality.
But don't compare it to the averege workers income... compare their income to the average income of people with higher education.

As for a little international comparison:
In Germany people starting their civil service career as a teacher earn about 2900-3300€ a month... depending on the state. That would translate to about $46.000 Dollar.
After a 20year career a teacher earns an average of 4000€ ($5200) a month. => $62.000 / yr.

The exact situation can differ of course depending on the actual teaching profession, and so on.
We don't have killer tuition fees in Germany.
If teachers are civil servants, they can't be fired. They can be ordered on a assignment somewhere in their state though and they traditionally are not allowed to go on strike.

Originally Posted by pramjockey

You're either being dishonest about the teachers you know, or you know some really shitty teachers.

I taught for 32 years and that wasn't my experience.
I sometimes wondered if some of the people
I worked with ever went home. I remember going back ro school at 10 PM to get my wallet and running into teachers still in the building. spending a lot of time on the job isn't always an indicator of effective teaching. One of our less able teachers could be found evry Saturday at school working in her room.

Originally Posted by redrover

I taught for 32 years and that wasn't my experience.
I sometimes wondered if some of the people
I worked with ever went home. I remember going back ro school at 10 PM to get my wallet and running into teachers still in the building. spending a lot of time on the job isn't always an indicator of effective teaching. One of our less able teachers could be found evry Saturday at school working in her room.

Oh, I know. It isn't just about time spent. However, there is absolutely a time commitment required beyond the classroom. But, the teacher that spends the most time at school/working isn't necessarily the best teacher, either.

Originally Posted by pramjockey

No, it doesn't.

We can't just magically make disinterested parents start interacting with their children, can we? There's no magic wand to say "here single mother of three, you don't have to work 2 jobs any more just to make ends meet, so you can instead support your kids as they go through school and make sure that they get the best start to life."

So, it's nice to say "the parents need to get involved." I've already said that more times than you can count. But at some point, something else has to be done to break that cycle. But, you ignored all of that, didn't you?

That's right, you can't.

You also can't have the government take the place of the parents. You've said you were a teacher, with a nice statement to start your class off with. But honestly, did the system LET you teach them the way you believed was best for them?

Something indeed has to break the cycle, but it has to stop, and start with the parents themselves. If they aren't involved, very little you do will have any impact at all.

Stop making excuses for people, have them own up to their own actions and responsibilities.