Thread: How much should public school teachers make?

Originally Posted by fishjoel

I misread the the poll, sorry. I'd got with somwhere around 75% than. I'd also like to see what kind of statistics there is for the average single income for a person with a 4 year degree. I wouldn't mind them being somewhere on par with other 4 year degree people. I also think there are other variables as well. What grades are they teaching in? If it's elementary then they should be paid less because your work load is much less than what would be required of a HS teacher.

Most RN's nowdays are a 4-year degree (there used to be 2-year RNs).

RN's make anywhere from $50k - $100k annually which is higher than 100% of the local average household income, which is ~$35k - $70k depending on region.

http://www.indeed.com/salary/Nurse-RN.html

Just to be clear, that 75% is likely to be too generous as that would put them making as much as 1 1/2 people for the dual income households. Maybe it should be 60%.

I don't think 60% would be on par with other 4 year degree people, ~100-125% would be closer (assuming you ignore stupid degrees which aren't very marketable - like art or poly-sci). RN's, Engineers, and other useful 4-year degree types are generally making more than 100% of average household income.

I'd also disagree that grade school teachers have an easier time than high school teachers. High school teachers teach one subject to several different classes. Grade school teachers have to be part baby-sitter, part teacher, and have to have 6+ hours of material available every day instead of 1 hour which gets repeated 6 times.

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

Most RN's nowdays are a 4-year degree (there used to be 2-year RNs).

RN's make anywhere from $50k - $100k annually which is higher than 100% of the local average household income, which is ~$35k - $70k depending on region.

Nurse RN Salary | Indeed.com

Nurses are only one out of many 4 year degrees. I'd also argue that a Nursing Degree is much more difficult than a degree in education. Additionally, there is a ridiculous shortage in the field of nursing so they are going to get paid more because of it. You can walk into any part of the country and they need nurses. You check for any job openings as a teacher and they are flooded with applicants.

I don't think 60% would be on par with other 4 year degree people, ~100-125% would be closer (assuming you ignore stupid degrees which aren't very marketable - like art or poly-sci). RN's, Engineers, and other useful 4-year degree types are generally making more than 100% of average household income.

I guess that is something that we wouldn't know until all the facts are on the table.

I'd also disagree that grade school teachers have an easier time than high school teachers. High school teachers teach one subject to several different classes. Grade school teachers have to be part baby-sitter, part teacher, and have to have 6+ hours of material available every day instead of 1 hour which gets repeated 6 times.

The baby-sitter effect goes away fairly quickly. I did go to a private school from K to 2 so maybe more was expected out of us than what was expected out of a public school student. Regardless, you really don't need much of an education to teach addition and subtraction.

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

I'm addressing both of you, since both of you think the government can't make fair market valuations and decisions.

Governments can, but they also buy $750 toilet seats, and $400 hammers.

Ultimately, the consumer would most likely make better decisions.

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

Teachers are paid by local governments. Local governments are actually very cost conscious in many/most cases (at least around here they are). Around here they debate the cost of individual stop lights vs stop signs at various intersections and the cost of repairing potholes just once instead of twice per winter. I'm sure that the amount of pay teachers get is heavily scrutinized - at least through the funding that the school system gets which ultimately has to cover the costs of teaching our local children. Ultimately, the teachers even though it is a 'government job' are paid roughly what a free market situation would be paying them. I think the problem is that teaching, for some reason, is expected to have only top-notch people, whereas the reality is that every single profession in the world has plenty of people who suck at their job. Why is teaching inherently expected to be any different?

I disagree.

Local governments have a monopoly, or a near monopoly, on educating K-12 students. At the very least, they have a monopoly on the property tax receipts that go towards funding education. Give families a voucher to be able to freely decide where they will send their children to school, and they (the market) will quickly decide what the best solution is.

Should teachers, who hold a 4-year degree (average income $43,000), get to make as much as a stipper?

Right now teachers make $50,000, only slightly above that of the average 4-year degree holder.

Strippers make $55,000 a year.

Which is more valuable to our society?

The 'market' says it's strippers. In fact, the market places MANY jobs higher on our priority list.

Which is the problem. Our lack of funding education, in comparison to the rest of the world, has given us lack luster results.

We pay our teachers LESS than strippers, and our students are LESS capable than other nations' youth.

The real question should be, "Are we happy with the results our current funding efforts produce, or do we want better or worse results?"

If we are happy with being ranked behind 1/3 of the world, then I suggest we keep funding levels were they are. Given recent revenue shortfalls, this will mean we'll have to to raise taxes a little to maintain our present standard. NOT raising taxes, will mean we lose the ability to afford our present system, thus LOWERING our global position even more.

Personally, I'd like to see us go the other way. I say we raise taxes and FULLY FUND an educational system designed to actually compete with the whole world, as far as student performance goes.

In the end, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING for taxpayers to understand, is that there is a direct correlation between spending and results.

Originally Posted by KingNorthTX

In the end, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING for taxpayers to understand, is that there is a direct correlation between spending and results.

And THE MOST IMPORTANT THING you need to understand is that teachers in the United States are already among the highest paid, if not the highest paid, in the world.

Average US teacher salary is $ 4,055/month.

The salaries of the teachers in three nations consistently ranked in the top five of education systems globally are as follows (adjusted):

Teachers in South Korea earn $ 2,096/month.

Teachers in Finland earn $ 2,311/month

Teachers in Canada earn $ 2,236/month

I have absolutely no idea what strippers earn in those countries.

The issue isn't that teachers need to make more money in order for kids to learn more.

The issue is that mediocre teachers get hired, shitty teachers are retained because they're reliable dues-paying union members, and kids go home from school to unsupportive families and live in communities which are overtly hostile to education generally.

I agree that money needs to be spent, but not to bring teachers' salaries on par with some other arbitrary group.

Originally Posted by smurf

On the contrary, my friend.

The market, while prone to its manias, will ultimately allocate resources in the most efficient manner, if allowed to do so, of course.

What is "shortsighted, selfish, and covetous" is the current government imposed, anti-market system. Certainly, that system "passes problems along as long as possible, and will ignore the greater needs of the nation (an educated population) at the benefit of itself" (a teacher's union backed workforce of mediocre educators).

"Leaving salary up to 'the unions and their market insulated pay schemes' is ultimately condemning the nation to failure".

You assume rationality and efficiency in the market - both of these are false assumptions. And, neither of these will take care of the long-term needs of the nation as a whole, only the short term needs of the investor - maximizing profit. There is no reason to believe otherwise.

Originally Posted by MeadHallPirate

hail oh mighty Pramjockey,

imma torn between Smurf's response and yer own. the one objection i hath to the market decidin', be that our great and powerful land be filled with many "Jviehes"...meanin', folks who have the "its not my problem" philosophy.

perhaps thar children be protected in the warm embrace 'o a fancy private school.

or...

perhaps they have no children at all, and view the whole process 'o educatin' the next generation as a nettlesome headache.

or...

perhaps thar children be outta school, so who cares 'bout school anymore?

or...

perhaps thar finances be so grim, that the idear 'o spendin' one copperpiece on education seems like a quaint fantasy. this issue plagued mainland china fer many years.

i mean, if americans stored a great deal 'bout buildin' to the future, would our pension plans 'cross the land be so horribly underfunded?
would our infrastructure be in such a grim state?
would we gorge ourselves on oil as if it were an endless resource, leavin' the cubbards bare fer the next generation?
would our eldest in the land fight tooth and nail to preserve thar medical entitlements, knowin' full well that future generations would have nothin' when thar own turn came?
would we even contemplate, fer one second, buildin' nuclear reactors? (we would, if we think that nuclear waste be "not my problem")
would countless corporations eat thar seed corn and then jump ship loaded with gold and treasure, while decimatin' the ship's provisions?

i have reservations 'bout the whole "free market" idear, but...

lemme asks ye, matey...if not the market, who shall decide what a teacher's worth be?

- MeadHallPirate

ps - i changed me answer to 200% 'o the average household's earnin' power, after givin' it more thought.

(emphasis added)

As usual, my friend, you ask some very interesting questions, that require much thought. They also require much more writing than time or this forum will allow, and likely an expert with skills and knowledge well beyond my own.

I would say that the part that I bolded in the middle of your text is of key importance to me, and is why I am so concerned about a stance of "let the market decide." We've demonstrated so much shortsightedness that we're allowing our nation to crumble around us, and yet we cover our ears to the sounds of bridges collapsing

4 dead, 79 injured, 20 missing after dozens of vehicles plummet into river | StarTribune.com

and blind our eyes to the reports of our engineers that say that most of our infrastructure is teetering on the edge

Home | Report Card for America's Infrastructure

To take education, which is so critical to the success of business, government, defense, science, and everything else in the nation and hand it off to the crowd that says, "meh, let someone else worry about it?" I can't do it.

But, you do ask a reasonable question - who should decide? That is a difficult question in itself. I think that there is a way to use the market as an index, so the market is deciding, in a way, but not just abandoning the position to the wolves. To take a selection of positions, a survey as it were, that required similar skills and education and then use that as a benchmark seems to be a reasonable way to start. I think that there is also a massive need for the development of real measures for teacher performance evaluation that take into account the other factors involved with student success like poverty, parental involvement, homelessness, etc. Those teachers who are doing excellent work and providing our kids with real advantages as they start their lives should be well rewarded and encouraged to stay on, and those teachers who aren't should be treated like any other underperforming employee - coached, re-trained, and ultimately terminated. But, that requires real methods of evaluation, and those just don't exist.

Originally Posted by fishjoel

No, it's not BS, pram. Those are days off. The military gets a lot of days off as well. Do you know what I do on my days off? Not Army stuff (for the most part). You're comparing apples to oranges. A day off is a day off is a day off. I'm not talking about what they do while they are on the clock.

I'd be willing to see what parts of my post you would like to contend though. Am I wrong that there are 3 mo during the summer that school is out? Do they not get all the holidays? Do they not get a huge break during Christmas and New Years? Please let me know which of these things where I'm in error. Also, do you refute that many house holds are dual income therefor you can't fairly compare a single person's salary to that?

I'm contending those "days off" that you are so fixated on. Do you know what I did during those "holidays," Joel? I worked. I got caught up on grading. I designed lessons and experiments. I attended classes to improve my teaching. I attended school- and district-mandated meetings. I did research on teaching methods and testing methods. I worked. That's why your insinuation that teaching is anything less than a full time job is offensive. I worked far harder during my time as a teacher than I have in any other job, even when I was scheduled for a 56 hour work week.

And, I already brought up the point of comparing a single income to a household.

Originally Posted by fishjoel

We've been throwing money at the education problem for decades to no result. Obviously money isn't the only variable needed to be considred.

While education is important I think sometimes people overplay that importance. I've known many college grads that didn't have a lick of sense and they were stupid a shit to boot. Conversely, there are many jobs that are integral to our society manned by people who generally have nothing beyond HS. Who builds your homes? Who fixes your cars? Who makes the pipes in your house stop leaking? How about farmers? Are you going to feed yourselves? Good luck starving. Seriously, all are parts of a machine and it's pretty biggoted to say one is more important than the other. There are many high level forms of education that we could drop off the face of the planet and we'd be just fine (psychology for one).

Who feeds us? The scientists that develop higher-yield forms of grain. The engineers who develop higher-efficiency engines that allow tractors to sow more seeds per gallon of diesel.

Education is critical to the success of the nation, Joel. It's not bigoted. It's a fact.

Originally Posted by soot

And THE MOST IMPORTANT THING you need to understand is that teachers in the United States are already among the highest paid, if not the highest paid, in the world.

Average US teacher salary is $ 4,055/month.

The salaries of the teachers in three nations consistently ranked in the top five of education systems globally are as follows (adjusted):

Teachers in South Korea earn $ 2,096/month.

Teachers in Finland earn $ 2,311/month

Teachers in Canada earn $ 2,236/month

I have absolutely no idea what strippers earn in those countries.

The issue isn't that teachers need to make more money in order for kids to learn more.

The issue is that mediocre teachers get hired, shitty teachers are retained because they're reliable dues-paying union members, and kids go home from school to unsupportive families and live in communities which are overtly hostile to education generally.

I agree that money needs to be spent, but not to bring teachers' salaries on par with some other arbitrary group.

Taking numbers out of context is meaningless.

It's like saying "Teachers in Zimbabwe make $30/week, so we should be able to pay teachers in the USA $30/week."

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

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

I think right now our system is actually fairly close to what the market will bear. Yes, it is slightly skewed by unions and the contractual seniority issues and the difficulty in properly rewarding merit, but overall teachers are making within -20% to +20% of the local median household income. In most places, that means they are earning what some dual-income households are earning (of presumably non-college educated or non-fulltime working parents).

Average Teacher Salary Compared to Median Household Income



So do you think unions interfere with supplying what the market will bear? I haven't mentioned unions in this thread, but that would seem to be the question since several people have suggested that teachers should make whatever they can negotiate. Should that include collective negotiation?

I think the current system is much higher than the private sector would demand, as shown by the ferocity of the union's protests in Wisconsin. There's a reason they DO NOT want their compensation based on the market. I think this is also self evident based on the whole seniority system.

Unionized public workers are really the only employees in the country whose compensation goes up considerably because of seniority. I'm not talking about a raise to offset inflation or as compensation for doing a better job than those around you. I'm talking about being in a completely different tax bracket from other teachers completely independent on actual performance.

It's hard to take my newspaper too seriously as they're so liberal they make MSNBC look like National Review Online but they've done a remarkable job reporting the facts and figures from public employees. On the first page of the paper a few days ago was an op-ed piece (naturally page 1 is where that belongs :rolleyes with a pretty little 20-something year old girl batting her beautiful brown eyes at the camera and the story of how how she went through college and gave up Facebook just to make $32K/year and how she can't understand why anyone would think she's overpaid.

NO ONE THINKS SHE IS OVERPAID. AGAIN, NO ONE.

It's when you flipped the page past the political rhetoric to the real meat and potatoes of the argument that the argument seems clear. The paper did a fantastic job in listing the salaries of all the teachers and administrators in the various school districts and noted how many years they've been on the job. Indeed little Ms. Brown Eyes was on the bottom as she's currently in her first year of teaching. The problem isn't her. The problem is the several dozen teachers at the top of her district making in excess of $150K/year.

Young people all over the NYC and Long Island area saw the $150K/year salaries and summers off and flocked to colleges to study education. They're fully certified, have their master's degrees, etc., but since no one walks away from a $150K/year job in this economy and the only way you can be let go is if you molest a child, we have an abundance of qualified teachers who would do the exact same job for a fifth of the price.

Both my governor and mayor have weighed into the discussion on keeping GOOD teachers regardless of seniority but the unions shot back and have flooded the airwaves with why the seniority system must stay. There's evidently no possibly way to evaluate a teacher's ability in their opinion so naturally the only realistic approach seems to be to just keep their $150K/year members on ... but give them a raise. :rolleyes:

Things may be fine by you but it's not fine here. Schools in the NYC and Long Island area are cutting extra curricular programs and struggling to purchase books and that's in large part due to the exuberant salaries. Unions recently went ballistic when Gov. Cuomo threated to cut some of the administrators salaries in half and cap them at $175K/year. The women leading the charge against Gov. Cuomo is making well in excess of $400K/year and her school district can't afford books. She's lead the charge against a 2% property tax cap on the grounds that her district won't be able to supply text books, etc. but how many text books could be saved if her gigantic salary was pushed down to $175K/year and all her teachers were capped at $75K/year? Yet you read some of the responses from the likes of Dick Martin and ConLib make it sound like we're talking slavery here. $175K/year, pension, and full benefits for life is akin to slavery??? Maybe we whites are the ones who need reparations!

Problems are very serious when unions oppose a cap of $175K/year because it will cut some members salaries in half. Those numbers could only happen in the public sector and it will only be sustainable for so long. Our local government is quickly pricing its constituents out of the area. It won't be too long before the only people who can live here are public employees. My children already pay in excess of $25K/year in property taxes on normal, middle class homes.

Originally Posted by soot

...
The issue isn't that teachers need to make more money in order for kids to learn more.

The issue is that mediocre teachers get hired, shitty teachers are retained because they're reliable dues-paying union members, and kids go home from school to unsupportive families and live in communities which are overtly hostile to education generally.

I agree that money needs to be spent, but not to bring teachers' salaries on par with some other arbitrary group.

So the problem is shitty teachers, caused by mediocre hiring.
And the answer is to attract a better quality worker to the job,

by paying less.......

There are shitty workers in every job category in the US.
There are shitty doctors, shitty nurses, shitty CEOs.
It's what happens when you staff positions with ... people.

If you want kids to do better in school, address the real issue that lowers test scores, poverty.