Are teachers underpaid?

Great Debates
21

“The fact of the matter is that beuarocrats get to decide what should be taught in public schools. And, since a good teacher understands that he or she should teach respect for proper authority as well as his or her specific
subject matter”

I cannot agree with this claim. I believe in respect for all people until such point as they have shown that they don’t deserve it; I don’t believe in “respect for authority” for its own sake. Neil Postman argues in “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” that “respect for authority” often means “don’t think for yourselves.” Now if we’re talking “proper authority” then we have

“there should be no conflict between what school boards say should be taught and what the teacher teaches.”

In what way, other than legal, do school boards constitute “proper authority”? They do not have the authority of expertise. Teachers must have BAs and continue their studies and know what they’re doing; school board members must win an election. They do not have to know what should be on a test, what subjects should be studied, how to create a test, or anything else.

Are teachers underpaid by the hours they work? That’s been debated here, but it’s not the only way to measure payment, nor is looking at what the market will bear. “Cherished Lies, Myths, and Legends of American History” claims that in the 19th Century, teachers were paid about the same as doctors and lawuers, and so one could expect a more select pool of teachers. If we were to look at the good that a good teacher can do and the bad that a bad teacher can do, I think that we may be underpaying teachers. I know, from my students, that I have saved a few lives and kept a few people out of jail. Isn’t that worth a great deal?

BTW, I am also against tenure as it currently exists. It doesn’t really protect free thinkers and it does protect the entrenched.

Bucky

22

Yes, teachers are underpaid, the same way that cops, firefighters, and paramedics are underpaid. There isn’t enough money in the world to pay these people what they’re worth.

My parents are both retired teachers. If my dad hadn’t been so foolish as to never use any of his sick leave for 30 years, he wouldn’t have been given a handsome payback bonus upon retirement, which, sensibly invested, is what is enabling them to live in modest decency rather than borderline poverty.

23

You guys failed to realize that the pay you saw on the website earlier provided showed teachers pay but not what the cost of living is in those areas. Nor did it say how much experience (how many years the teacher has been working as a teacher) teachers in those areas have been working. It just listed an average pay. For those of you that don’t know, teacher’s pay is increased slightly every year. Most of the time it doesn’t cover the cost of living increase. My ex was a teacher and I was with him for over 5 years. During that time we had to move to some cheaper apartments because after the rent at the apartments was increased it raising it only about $50 we jointly could not afford living there. This was after the yearly raise.

Many moons ago, I received an email basically saying that teachers should get paid like a day care system. They took out tons of money to pay the administrators, only paid them for the time they work… ie no vacation(incidently teachers do not get paid for vacation. They typically have their pay amortized for the entire year rather than getting paid for the nine-ish months that they traditionally work), and many other things. In the end it came out to be around $60,000. Which is a decent salary most anywhere other than New York City, San Francisco, and perhaps Seattle.

Personally, I think teachers are worth way more than that. I believe that even sven had a really good solution when he said, “The solution? I think we need to institute military recruitment tactics toward teaching. We have to offer incentives for people to go to college to become teachers. We should focus on teaching as an oppertunity for the poor. This would provide a chance at college and a better llife for some people, and presumably they would henceforth value education, and they would pass that on to their children, so instead of slum bait they’d grow up to be productive people.” but it should be extended a little so the teachers to be actually have more incentive to perform well. Let’s face it, the only problem with this is that a lot of the very poor, welfare parents simply don’t want to work. My ex and I would talk about this since he worked primarily in a lower class neighborhood serving two housing projects and a couple of run-down neighborhoods. When he would have a parent-teacher conference most of the parents would tell him about a)their drug addiction and how they just got their kids back (many true stories) b)that they didn’t work because they lived alright on welfare and could stay home and watch tv c)weren’t qualified to do anytype of job but wouldn’t do it anyway because their friends on the corner are drinking and they wanted to be with them. The list goes on. That is not to say all the parents did not work. Some did. I personally know of two who were prostitutes, some others were drug dealers (which pays much more than teaching on average), some even had real jobs that simply didn’t pay well. It is unfortunate. Sorry for the bit of off topic. I don’t know what the solution would be for the teacher job-training that sven advocates to keep people motivated but I do know it is the beginning of a very good idea.

HUGS!
Sqrl

24

Well, except that teachers don’t actually get two and a half months off in the summer. Well, I suppose they could take it, and there’s no one to object, but in reality , good teachers DON’T go 2 1/2 months without doing job-related work. They have 2 1/2 months when they aren’t standing in front of a classroom teaching.

But those two and a half months are not spent staring at the TV or getting suntans on the beach. They are spent doing things like lesson planning, job-related research (“how can I teach this material better”), curriculum development, etc.

Plus, most teachers don’t spend only 36 hours a week doing job-related activities, they probably spend 44 hours a week (if you include the two hours per nite spent doing school work) that’s four hours OVER the standard 40 hour week. In a 30 week school year, that’s three extra weeks…

All that I am saying is that people try to compare teaching to another job like computer programming or engineering. These comparisons cannot be made because the nature of the work is so radically different. It’s not a job that you can be competent at if you only work during your “clock hours” No competent teacher does nothing at all during the summers, and no competent teacher does no work at home at night.

25

Teachers? Underpaid?

Does a bear shit in the woods? Is a mountain made of rock?

Along with law enforcement people, teachers have my great respect for they do a job that I would not want to do, especially today. From what they have to labor under and the ridiculous laws they have to struggle with plus the current hazards, I’m surprised that A: we have teachers at all and B: that they do not have the highest rate of suicide.

They are so underpaid that I can’t believe that State and County governments get away with this form of legalized rape! (West Palm Beach, in Florida, just announced that it was trimming 1 million from it’s school budget as unnecessary, which would not affect school programs but there was no mention in increasing the salaries of their laboring teachers even by 10 cents a year!)

Anyone complaining about our children’s poor education might want to consider increasing school budgets so teachers can actually get paid to do good work.

26

[QUOTE]
**

Let’s do the math:
[ul]
[li]As a teacher, my school day began at 7:30am (at least an hour earlier than most other workers’).[/li][li]I taught 6 periods a day and spent the time between preparing, marking papers, or supervising students.[/li][li]School let out at 5:45.[/li][li]I directed the school play, which meant that I was at rehearsals for 3 hours 2 nights a week and 4-6 hours on Sundays.[/li][li]Once I got home, I routinely spent my time marking papers and preparing lesson-plans. I would head down to the basement after dinner (8ish) and come up between 1 and 2 am. Call it 5 hours a night (By the way, that includes Sundays).[/li][li]That comes out to a 15-hour workday (at school and home), plus about 10 hours a week at rehersals.[/li][li](15 x 6) + 10 = 100 hours.[/li][/ul]
Of course, I was an English teacher - it takes a loooong time to mark essays; I often spent more time marking an essay than a student did writing it! Teachers of other subject areas might have had to spend less time marking student work.

On the other hand, if I had less student work to mark, I would have used that time to prepare - I never met a teacher who didn’t want more time to polish a lesson plan.

I don’t think my workload was unusual - 6 periods a day, roughly 85 students a year. If anything, my classes were smaller than your average public school class, which comes in close to 30 students!

My point is only that any estimate that puts a teacher’s workweek in the vicinity of 40 hours is grossly mistaken.

I’ll begrudgingly admit :wink: that Sentinel is on the money when he says:

**

27

So, where’s the great hue and cry from all of you to have your state and municipal taxes hiked to pay the teachers and firefighters more?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

28

Paul, I don’t make a hue and cry to have teachers’ salaries raised because it would be awfully self-serving. But, if you like, I’ll do it. Of course my taxes would go up, but if you think that my salary should be raised (along with my siblings’), then I’ll have more income anyway, so I can afford it.

So,here goes:

I DEMAND THAT TEACHERS (ESPECIALLY BUCKY) START GETTING PAID LIKE MOVIE STARS AND ATHLETES. I DEMAND THAT TAXES BE RAISED SO THAT TEACHERS (ESPECIALLY BUCKY) CAN GET STINKING RICH!!
Happy now?

29

Lets look at some facts.

1.) Teachers work approximately 190 days based on their contract.
2.) Of those 190 days there are at least a couple days, the number depends on the union, that are inservice days (no kids).
3.) A 7 ½ hour day is full time.
4.) Those 7 ½ hours include prep time, study halls…etc.(Generally 5 hours of classroom teaching)
5.) Most subject matter does not change that drastically from year to year so once you have a good base of lesson plans you only need to tweak it a little each year.
6.) It is easier for a teacher to get a raise than it is for most people. They have concrete goals that will allow them to increase their pay. The Salary matrix for teachers is based on credits. As a teacher you can be content with getting your 1 step increase every year or you can show some initiative and take some credits at the local college so you jump lanes. One of the better examples of “It takes money to make money”. Basically, get your Masters!! See actual example below. This is not from a large metro area.

DIST: 28,844.00
MATRIX AMOUNTS
STEP BA00 BA08 BA16 BA24 MA00
0.00 28844.00 29709.00 30575.00 31440.00 32306.00
1.00 29998.00 30863.00 31728.00 32594.00 33459.00
2.00 31152.00 32017.00 32882.00 33747.00 34613.00
3.00 32882.00 33747.00 34613.00 35478.00 36343.00
4.00 34613.00 35478.00 36343.00 37209.00 38074.00
5.00 36343.00 37209.00 38074.00 38939.00 39805.00
6.00 38074.00 38939.00 39805.00 40670.00 41535.00
7.00 39228.00 40670.00 41535.00 42401.00 43266.00
8.00 40382.00 41824.00 43266.00 44131.00 44997.00
9.00 41535.00 42978.00 44420.00 45862.00 46727.00
10.00 42689.00 44131.00 45574.00 47016.00 47881.00
11.00 43843.00 45285.00 46727.00 48169.00 49035.00
12.00 44997.00 46439.00 47881.00 49323.00 50189.00

Ok the steps go down the right side and the lanes run left to right(BA00, BA08 etc.) God knows it won’t line up in the post!

Hell, if the three months you didn’t work were Sept, Oct, and Nov I would do it in a heartbeat.

That being said I also realize full well that teaching is not a picnic. I hear about it every day from my fiancee who teaches locally. Are they underpaid…maybe in some areas of the country or in the Catholic school system but that starts to involve choice on the teacher’s part.

Hell, I think I am underpaid. Anyone want to start a crusade for me!!! Actually I’ll take the same wage if you give me Sept, Oct and November off.

The real screw job is the whole student teaching farce. You get to pay to be essentially slave labor.

30

There is about a million miles between saying “we should pay teachers more” and saying “we should raise taxes and give more money to the education establishment”.

31

Facts? Heh…

You said:

Not for all teachers (Did you even read the earlier posts in this thread?).

**

OK - I can forgive this, because you are not, never were, and (hopefully) never will be a teacher.

True Story:

Every school has one of those teachers that needs to do everything he can to make ends meet. In my case, he was the guy that coached track, taught full-time, ran the College Bowl and Debate Clubs, drove the bus on field trips, etc, etc, etc.

We were on a field trip during my first month teaching and this guy was driving. To pass the time, he was sharing some of the lessons he had learned about teaching in his 15 years of experience with me.

He said, “The biggest lesson I can share with you? Don’t write your lecture notes on both sides of the page; those things bleed through after 7 or 8 years.”

Ha ha. He must have been joking. I hope. :frowning: (He wasn’t.)

Teaching (well, good teaching, anyway) is far less about content and far more about students. Any idiot could stand in front of a group and read things to them. I am sure that you were in classes taught by people that irresponsible.

But any, any teacher that “only tweaks their lesson plans a little each year,” is a shitty teacher.

Period.

Every year I taught, my students were different. How could my re-use the lesson-plans I designed for the class I taught the year before?

32

Wow, interesting but,

Most teachers use the same lesson plans but they do change them to meet the needs of their new group of students. But it is still the same lesson plan. They add some new lesson plans each year but hey if you have a GOOD ONE why not use it again and just weed out the garbage lesson plans each year. There are a lot of lesson plans available on the net now so it does not take as much time to write a lesson plan as it once did when you taught.

7.5 hours is a standard day…in most districts.

5 classes are standard… in most districts.

Last time I checked the school play counted as an extra duty and was paid seperate from your regular contract like coaching.

What school let out at 5:45pm? They let out between 3pm and 3:15 pm in my world.

I work with the HR/Fin departments in school districts. We work on entering your positions and assignments and all needed matrices into their software. We therefore set up calendars based on the number of active days you have in a year. We set your fulltime equivalency based on how many class hours you teach. We work with the retro pay when your union decides to settle a contract 2 years down the line. I am not talking out of my ass, this is at least the way things are done in the Midwest!

33

Sledman:

OK - you make some good points. Let’s take a look:

**

You’re right. I taught at a private, religious school. Our schoolday was longer than the public schools’.

I also nod to your obvious expertise in this area - you handle school payrolls for a living… I just cashed the checks.

But, I still maintain that you’re in error concerning the most important point:

**

A couple of things:
[ul]
[li]When a teacher changes a lesson-plan to “meet the needs of a new group of students,” he or she has written a new plan. It has to be this way - When the students are different, the plan’s objectives must be as well, as do the procedures, methods of assessment and follow-up.[/li][li]When you say “GOOD ONE,” I assume you mean a plan that met its objectives in a measurable way. Sure, teachers write lots and lots of successful lesson-plans, but they can’t be reused; it’s axiomatic (see first point).[/li][li]Ever read those lesson-plans available on the 'net? First of all, they were not written for the students I taught. How could they be? The person who wrote them never met my students! Secondly, they suck. All of them? No. Just the vast, vast, vast majority.[/li][/ul]
These points speak directly to the point of the OP. Teachers are underpaid, but it’s not an issue of hours worked. Teachers are underpaid because (for example) of this lesson-plan issue:

There are many (many, many) teachers that use lousy lesson-plans. Most of them probably think that they are doing a good job. But the fact of the matter is that they are not. Lazy teachers do a disservice to their students and, by extension, to society.

I had it drummed into me while studying for my MAT: TIARA - Teaching is a Reflective Activity. No teacher worth a hill of beans ever did anything in a class without spending time critiquing it afterwords.
Teachers must shift their tactics.
Teachers must evolve their lesson-plans.
Teachers must change the methods they use to reach their students, because their students change.

There is no other calling as demanding as teaching. No other profession requires as much class, wisdom, street-smarts and chutzpa.

Tax me as much as you need to.
Charge whatever you want for private education.
I’ll pay it as long as my children have teachers as good as they deserve.

Whew [/RANT] :slight_smile:

34

Yes, I know-it is off the topic-but what comes across here is a lot of dissatisfaction on the part of many teachers, based (not only) on low pay but also the fact that many of them are teaching to kids who don’t want to learn. I believe that there are all sorts of trade-offs in selecting a profession-and teachers have opted for the (comparitively low pay) because there are usually excellent pensions awaiting them upon retirement. That (along with summers off) makes teaching attractive to many people. However, it is tremendously un-satisfying to be in a classroom with a bunch of dolts, who don’t want to learn-this the root of the problem. I don’t know why we insist that children stay in school, even past the time (by which they SHOULD have acquired a basic education). I really believe that attendence till age 14 is enough-by that time everybody can:
(a) read and write (One would think)
(b) understand simple mathematics (sufficient to balance a checking account)
© have some inkling about how science works (i.e. know enough chemistry to know that homeopathy is a fraud)

35

Teachers are incredibly underpaid. I would argue that as educators and guardians of our youth, they have the absolute single most important job in our community. Yes, doctors and policeman and some others might be argued as being just as important, but I think you get my point. From a philosophical point of view, a high school English teacher contributes much more to society than some engineer in a lab somewhere.

From an hours standpoint - yes teachers get a lot of holidays and summer off, but they work incredibly long hours during the week - at school and at home - and have an incredibly stressful job. Teachers in public schools work in a huge beauracracy and are asked to not only teach but play policeman against drugs, gangs, and weapons at the same time. They also have to contend with disinterested parents who don’t participate at all in the educational process except to blame the teacher when the child screws up.

pldennison cut right to the point about the problem with pay, though. Teachers don’t generate revenue and it’s difficult to quantify their success monetarily, so schools become a pure cost center that relies on tax dollars to function. Most people don’t want to pay higher taxes and can’t really see the immediate benefits of good teaching, so schools don’t have the funds to pay teachers a salary commensurate with the importance of their job. Accordingly, the persons who would be great teachers - our best and brightest minds - are scared off by the salary, so less qualified people take the job and the cycle spirals downward.

Another problem too, is the outrageous salaries paid to administrators and coaches and other types. In many districts in Texas, these folks are paid 3-4 times more than the rank and file teachers. I know that they have important jobs, but how can their jobs be that much more important?

It’s all a chicken or the egg type argument. If we could guarantee large salaries to very bright persons coming out of college and somehow convince them to teach, the quality of our students would increase and people might begin to see the value that good teachers provide. Instead, we get crappy people who produce crappy students and no one is willing to pay to get improvements in the system.

36

Don’t anyone even TRY to drag athletes and movie stars into this. No teacher in the entire United States has ever lost one red cent in revenue because John Travolta gets $20 million per picture. The two absolutely have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. If teachers got paid by Universal Studios, maybe. But they don’t. They get paid with your tax dollars.

37

egkelly:

**

Watch it - kids want to learn. All kids want to learn. You can’t be a good teacher without this belief. Repeat it. Often. All kids can, and want to learn.

Then you said:

You’re kidding, right?

First of all, students are not dolts. Again, All kids can, and want to learn. Whether or not they want to learn what a particular teacher or school board is peddling is another matter. Maybe they don’t want to learn in a certain language, from a certain person, in a certain room, place, situation, etc. But, down at the root, all kids can, and want to learn.

Regarding your “stay in school until you’re 14” idea:
[ul]
[li]All 14 year-olds can read and write? Something like 15% of NYC Public School Teachers can’t read or write.[/li][li]You think all 14 year-olds can balance a checkbook? Check out Shut up and Let the Lady Teach, by Emily Sachar. She discusses this issue.[/li][li]I’m not even going to touch your Chemistry remark.[/li][/ul]
Look, there exists an educational crisis in this country, and not educating the uneducated is the most asinine solution I’ve ever heard.

Your premise is false - you believe that non-motivated = not interested. That’s not true. You insult the very students we’re trying to save. Shame on you.

Good teachers motivate their unmotivated students. I spent much more time coaching my students than I did teaching them English. English is easy, for God’s sake. It’s all in the book. How to Succeed in Life was the tough part of my curriculum.

johnnyharvard, you’ve hit the nail on the head. It is because teachers’ “products” take 15 years to show value that they are underpaid.

38

Well, except for being the only means by which society as a whole raises its standard of living, teachers don;t generate revenue. Aside from raising the employability of their students, so that their students may have better jobs, make more money, and pay more taxes, teachers don’t generate revenue. Aside from increasing the number of people who themselves will go on to create jobs for others (form new companies, invent new things and processes, etc. etc.) teachers don’t generate revenue. So aside from supporting the entire revenue making system in the country by creating a smarter and better educated populace, what revenue generating function do teachers provide?

Such a statement is dangerously short sighted. Like other aspects of the public sector, revenue generating parts of the private sector would cease to function without them. Do teachers produce a product that is availible for immediate sale and generation of revenue as such. No. But without a well educated populace, we could not be the economic force we are today. It’s not that education is the * only * source of our prosperity, but it is definately a * required * source.

39

jayron:

Hear, hear!

40

Let’s not get the value of things mixed up with the cost. I may lOOOOVE Circus Peanuts, but that doesn’t mean that they should cost $15/lb.

Teachers maybe very, very important to our society, but that doesn’t mean that they should have their salary doubled.

As with all other things on the market, there is an oversupply of teachers (why they would go into this profession for the pay is beyond me, but it takes all kinds.) When the supply dwindles, prices will go up (as will tuition and taxes.)

If someone is willing to do a given job for $X, why must we artificially raise the price?