No… There is an over-supply of bad teachers.
Ask any school administrator - there is a shortage of good teachers.
To drag this thread back to the OP, this shortage is the problem. Pretty much everyone agrees that good teachers do an important job and deserve more money.
But, who gets to decide who the good ones are?
jayron32 said:
And that’s why teachers will never get paid much. Anybody who says they love their job so much they’d do it for free (or for cheap) quickly guarantees themselves lousy pay.
I call it “High School Teacher Syndrome”. It has rules (as in Systemantics):[ul][]Anybody who would do their job for free eventually will. []Any institution that portrays its employees as following a “profession” or “calling” is probably underpaying them.[/ul]
You got that right terminator. The same thing happens with nurses. When My wife graduated, her teachers kept telling the class to not accept less than $x. But they all “loved their job” and so took substantially less. The result is a drop in overall pay.
But there is nobody to blame except for the nurses themselves.
I would argue that there are not enough “good” s in any field, only 10% can be the top ten percent. The difference is that in private industry, you can lure the good ones in. In the public sector you can’t.
Anyone for privatizing the schools?
Sure, if you can guarantee that private funding will be sufficient to educate every child, at or above the level at which they’re now being educated…rather than further depleting the quality of urban and lower-income districts.
Didn’t think so. 
**jayron ** Please do me a big favor and go back and reread my post. You’re taking my comments out of context and attacking them as “shortsighted” when we’re both on the same side of the argument.
From an accounting standpoint, the product that a teacher puts on the street - or any public servant or government entity - doesn’t produce any cash inflows. Ergo, the person paying the taxes, especially if he doesn’t have children of his own in school, sees nothing but his tax payment going out every month. He doesn’t feel as if he’s getting a return on his investment so he’s reluctant to pay more money even if the system needs it desparately.
Look - my parents were both high school teachers and whenever someone asks me about my “dream job” I always answer that I would be high school economics. In fact I volunteer once a week in a local high school because I enjoy working with students so much. It’s hard work keeping up with those kids and I don’t see how my parents - or any teacher - can do it for the ridiculously low pay. When I graduated from college, my starting salary with my firm was $2,000 higher than my dad’s was when he retired after 30 years of coaching and teaching. And I thought I was being underpaid. My mom is still teaching, and has been teaching now for almost 30 years herself, and I now make almost $20,000 more than she does only 4 years out of college. It’s ridiculously unfair.
Teachers are incredibly underpaid!
I also want to make one more point about lesson plans - I have doing my volunteer work for six semesters now, and I still don’t have it right. I try and do the same thing, with improvements and enhancements added, each semester, and every time I do a certain lesson, some kid will come up with some way to throw a wrench in my “foolproof” lesson - they always seem to ask the one question that I never considered. I can completely understand how teachers end up doing the same lesson plan every year… Regardless of whatever the “official” currciculum might dictate - teaching is definitely a profession of learning as you go.
God, it just kills me when I hear people complain that teachers only have a 7 or 8 hour work day.
HA!
Sledman, just because you get to jump into your car in the high school parking lot and go home at 3:15 doesn’t mean the teachers do. Most teachers are on contract to stay in their room, office, department until at least 4:00, possibly later.
I’d like any corporate suit to raise their hand if they are unable to blow off 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there. That’s right. That’s why minesweeper and this message board are so popular - office workers. You won’t hear of many teachers talking about their Free Cell record.
Teachers are in the spotlight, front and center the ENTIRE day. There is no escape from a classroom when you are in the middle of a lesson. There is no escape from the phone at 10:00pm when that teacher calls to double check what Johnny’s homework is (even though he should have been in bed an hour ago).
100 hours a week is not an exageration. At all. And if you want to justify your argument with “the play supervisor gets a little extra”, you need to rethink.
I did it for a year and sucked. I knew better and got out. I thank God everyday for the good teachers out there who stick with it. They deserve nothing short of palaces to work in.
Connor
Hell yes, teachers are underpaid. And don’t only use the number of hours worked as a measure. Use the value to society measure too. Michael Jordan’s pay wasn’t based on working hours per day - it was on value to the system. Teachers are extremely valuable to society for what they supposedly do - teach. And they are even MORE valuable as baby sitters. If I got baby sitting wages from the parents of my students, at the going rate, my salary would more than double, and I’m way up on the salary scale. But, there’s also this: I wonder how committed I would be, or my colleagues, if I were paid, say, $150,000 per year, or more. There is something about being underpaid that makes my commitment to my kids seem more sincere, and keeps me going back. And so guys like me, who have been in the business for many years, and who are good teachers, get our real rewards from seeing our kids grow, and getting cards or letters every so often thanking us. So, maybe we are underpaid, but maybe it’s a good thing.
Not that I’m saying anything that hasn’t already been said (espescially by sdimbert), but teachers are WAY underpaid. I can think of few Master’s degree-level professions that are paid less, and no profession that works more. 44 hour week? Ha! I imagine that even a bad teacher puts in at least 70. As for teachers complaining and striking, etc., the last time my mother (an elementary school teacher for 40 years) striked, the deal offered by the school board was elimination of medical benefits, a 10% pay cut, elimination of all job security, larger class sizes, and an extra hour in school each day. Yeah, I can see how teachers might complain about that. And yes, I’d be more than willing to pay more taxes for teacher’s salaries, provided that I could be sure that the money would go to teacher’s salaries, and not the pockets of some administrator.
Of course, I admit to some bias on the subject. Go ahead and flame me, if it’ll make you feel better.
Conner reminds me of another aspect of teaching that I forgot.
Imagine this - you’re sitting at your desk, working productively, when a bell rings. You pick up all of your materials, mid-project, and move (in less than 5 minutes) to another, similar room, across the building. Once there, you must perform a different task, with different expected behaviors and rules, with different people, for 40 minutes, before the bell rings, and you must move again, mid-project…
Get it?
Ask any committed teacher what he or she wants more, time or money. You’ll be surprised, if you expect that all teaches are griping, money-hungry (ends in “gry” 
) strikers - time is the most precious commondity a teacher deal is.
Most teachers want 5 more minutes to talk with a student after class - 5 minutes to talk! Forget about going to the bathroom; that’s what your 25-mintue lunch “hour” is for.
Teaching has all the stresses you remember from being a high-school student (not enough time, too much homework, bells running your life, inane busywork to do, etc) and you never get to look forward to graduation.
(Now that I’ve re-read this thread, I am amazed to find myself say that I miss it all terribly.)
Teachers today have to face your kids in school, which is an unenviable task as of about 10 years ago.
Garbagemen can make more money mindlessly hauling away trash than the average teacher makes attempting to prepare Joe Citizen’s little darlings to face the real world. Plus, garbagemen won’t face the stress and hazards a teacher will.
Thanks to many of you – though not all, teachers have little authority in disciplining their classes and face dangers never before allowed to go on within the sacred halls of a school. Plus they get to be the ping-pong ball used between the politicians and the school board.
I live in Florida, where the Florida Lottery draws in millions per year and was voted in because the funds were to go into our school system, updating it, paying teachers better and lifting us back up to one of the best school systems in the US, like in the 60s.
Funny – we have one of the worst school systems in the States, the State government promptly stopped budgeting money for the schools or cut it back and then promptly raided the lottery funds for other uses, leaving little to go to the schools.
What your kid gets out of school is what he or she will become in the future. A good, happy, well paid teacher can work magic with a not over crowded class room. I still recall those certain wonderful teachers of my youth – in a time where teachers were well paid and well respected.
NO ONE EVER STRUCK OR INJURED A TEACHER! IT WAS NOT DONE! Nor would any lawyer be able to easily ‘excuse’ the offending student and a lawsuit against the school, unless actually major – like the teacher breaking a student’s arm maliciously – would never reach court.
Teaching is NOT a job I would willingly do. In some local schools, with the lack of allowed discipline, I would not teach unless I could carry in a baseball bat, wear body armor and have blanket immunity from prosecution.
Hey! At least soldiers are allowed to shoot back. Teachers aren’t. Plus, if we could not do the work, we were held back – not passed because the teachers could not teach a disruptive student because the student knew they could not touch him or her and the BOARD wanted RESULTS on paper to justify THEIR jobs to their bosses.
I watched a school board meeting once and came to the conclusion that the board members were not all that interested in education. In fact, most made more money than the teachers! MUCH more money and they did not have to face the ravening hoard of little (bastards) darlings every day.
OK, folks I’m tired of teachers claiming that they work 100 hour weeks, as they got Unions & Contracts. I have reviewed several of these Contracts. The Contracted work week is around 36hours. I’m talking Public Schools of course. So, show me Contracts that say you have to wokd triple that. you can’t-- they don’t exist. Every professional spends some off line time reading prof journals, conventions, sites, etc, etc, etc. I put in a straight 40 hour week by contract. If I want to keep up, I us spent a few hours, late at nite, or when I’m bored, catching up. So do all Prof. Oh, and I am a Certified Govt Instructor, and i have taught lots of classes, so don’t tell me how bad it is.
Public school Teachers make about what I do, as I said before, but the work is nastier, and they spend a few more hours off line. They also have more Holidays, better bennies, Tenure, and 2 &1/2 months “off”. Yeah sure, they gotta spend a few hours a week in summer keeping up with things, but I know a lot of Teachers, and none of them are very busy, in fact, over half teach summer school for extra $$. In other words, by giving up that extra time, they can add 10%+ to their salaries. I can’t. I’m underpaid too, but job security adds a lot. If I thought it was THAT bad, I’d get a job in the Private sector.
Teachers: If you think you are so underpaid & overworked, there are LOTS of other jobs-- get one. No takers? I thought not…
Daniel, did those contracts you read say that teachers don’t have to grade papers? Or that they don’t need lesson plans? Or that they don’t need to prepare assignments? This is not a matter of finishing up a project at home because it ran a little late, this is a matter of being assigned duties that teachers are required to do, and must do off the clock, because they have literally no time during the day when they are not giving the students their undivided attention.
Yes, there are other jobs available that pay better. Why don’t teachers take them? Maybe because some teachers actually realize that the job they do is vitally necessary, and that if they don’t do it, nobody will. Maybe they care about some things more than money. Does this mean that we shouldn’t do our best to reward them adequately for their dedication, just because money isn’t the most important thing to them?
Uh…yeah I do leave at 3:15 when I am onsite but I am not going to apologize for that. I chose my job they chose their job. I also am going to a motel at that point so I can come back the next morning. Teachers don’t really put in a lot of road time away from their loved ones. You can also factor in a 6 1/2 hour training day followed by a three hour drive back to the office or a flight with connections that takes 4-5 hours. How about the hours spent in an airport looking at a canceled flight. Guess what I am salary, I don’t see any extra cash for that. However, I chose this job and I like this job. I knew going in what it entailed.
Teachers leave at 4pm…I’ll give you that, in a lot of cases they leave later with meetings. All true. 100 hours a week though is a crock. That is a nice number to throw out there for effect but be realistic. So you work 8 hours and then go home and work another 12? I’ll give you 10, maybe even 20 extra hours a week, but not 60.
The school play does not count. It is either an extra duty that is paid separately (all be it not for a lot of money) or is volunteer work. Either way it has nothing to do with this discussion of what teachers are paid to TEACH. As far as it being done to supplement income, there are a lot of other jobs available that can serve that purpose.
My point is I would work harder for 9 months so I got three months off and make the same for the year. I also would not mind having a job that says when I have X number of credits in addition to my Bachelor’s Degree meant I got a raise, automatically. All be it the credits must be approved in relation to your job but a lot of these seminars and classes teachers are taking to “better” themselves provide them with credits to “better” their financial position. Oh yeah, last I checked I will be dropping my benefits package for my Fiancée’s once we are married because her package from the school district ROCKS!!
I agree good teachers deserve more, but I also agree that there is no realistic way to measure who is a good teacher. I wish there was, but the politics of the game are stacked against this ever happening. Why do we even need to give teacher’s tenure? Isn’t that contrary to keeping the best of the best.
As for the guy who doesn’t see a return on what he invests in schools because he doesn’t have kids. He needs to realize he can pay for the kids in school for 13 years or he can pay for them for the rest of their life. If they don’t come away with an education odds are they will become nothing more than a tax burden who is unable to contribute to society and will need some type of state and federal aid to supplement their income. That is why we have schools and that is why we need good teachers.
How about we pay teachers minimum wage?
This is not a troll – follow along with me for a moment. To make the math easier, let’s call minimum wage five bucks an hour.
Okay. How many hours worked in a week? Lots of numbers have been thrown around. I’ll stay on the conservative side – 60 hours. That’s $300 per week. Stay with me here.
Extrapolate that to a year, minus two months. Again, this is a conservative-side estimate. $300 per week times 44 weeks = $13,200 annually.
Now, multiply that by the number of students in class. Say, 30, again as an estimate. This number varies widely, of course; it’s also a bit misleading for junior-high and high-school level classes, given that you’ve got a different math teacher, English teacher, biology teacher, etc., unlike in grade school when it’s one person, and the same bunch of kids, all day.
So for grade-school teachers: $13,200 times 30 = $396,000. Upper-class teachers would be paid commensurately more.
Alternative solution. Eliminate the part of state and federal taxes that cover education. Replace them with a flat 5% tax on what you earn, spread over every public (or public-subsidized) teacher you’ve ever had. (The flat 5% would have a progressive minimum cutoff for low-income, blah blah blah.) That internalizes the eventual revenue of a teacher’s efforts. Yeah, yeah, I know, this is just wild-assed hand-waving, and would never actually work. I couldn’t resist, though.
Either that, or cancel one bomber, one tank, one battleship, one missile, every year, and move that money into the education budget. It adds up.
Hijack for semi-related rant. It kills me to see how parents misidentify the teacher’s job. It is not the teacher’s responsibility to teach the child good behavior, or morals, or anything like that. That comes from the home. If the kid is fucked up, it’s either a random fluctuation in biology, in which case it’s medical, or it’s the parent’s fault. Period. I can’t tell you how pissed off I get when I hear parents complaining about kids not being taught right from wrong, or anything else “useful,” in the public classroom. To all of those parents: THAT ISN’T THE PUBLIC SCHOOL’S JOB, DUMBASS. Education is only truly effective if the parent is a collaborator, a cooperating team member. Unfortunately, our social dynamic is changing; when both parents work, and come home too tired to do anything but get dinner from McDonald’s, and let the television babysit their children, of course the kids’ education will suffer. Duh. [/rant]
Teachers are drastically underpaid. But as someone said above, many teachers do it because they love it. And if you love something enough to do it for less money, the market will adjust to compensate.
Sigh…
Cervaise, your suggestion was a variant of something that I referred to above, and which surfaced many years ago at THE Ohio State University when a colleage saw in the local paper a rant from a parent about the local teacher’s union request for a raise. The parent suggested in a letter to the local paper that teachers simply be paid baby sitting wages, since “that’s all they are - glorified baby sitters.” And my friend wrote back that he wanted to take the parent up on the offeer, as he had calculated that at the current wage scales, such a suggestion would gain the average teacher about a 150% raise. Friends of ours pay baby sitters $5.00 per hour. If the parent of each of my 105 students paid me only $1.00 per hour; if I only worked 6 hours per day; if I worked 180 days; I would make about $113,000. At current baby sitting wages, I’d make over a half a million a year. I’ll say again, teachers are, indeed, underpaid - but it is based on their value to society, not merely on hours worked. Of what value is a well educated populace to a civilization?
Would better pay result in better teachers?
Up to a point, I think so. I think there are a lot of talented people who would go into teaching if they couldn’t start out in industry making far more than they’ll ever make as teachers. Then again, I wouldn’t want teachers to make so much that a lot of people go into it just for the money–we’ve got a lot of really crappy doctors out there for that reason. I don’t believe that will ever be a problem in education, though.
My mother–who is currently in her 25th year of teaching sixth grade–says that the best thing we could do to improve teacher quality is revamp the requirements for certification. In this state, anyway, you almost have to have a degree in education just to teach, and it would certainly take you an extra year or two to get a teaching certification in addition to a bachelor’s in anything else. While that sounds like a good idea in theory, Mom also says that damn near every education class she ever took was a complete waste of time. (There’s a book called A Conspiracy of Ignorance that makes this very point. I can’t remember the author’s name.)
Dr. J
re: Dr. J’s comment on doctors: statistically, 50% of all surgeons finished in the bottom half of their class. or - a variant: What do you call a person who graduated at the bottom of his class in medical school? Doctor.
If I hear one more person try to make the arguement that compares atheletes to teachers I’m gonna scream. It does a disservice to getting teachers paid more because it is ludicrously non-sequitue. There IS NO SYSTEM that decides how much Michael Jordan got paid. The Chicago Bulls decided how much he should get paid. That’s it.
do YOU want a teacher who only works to the letter of their contract? Think carefully before you answer.
First off, I need to mention that today is National Teacher Appreciation Day. If you’re a parent, make an effort to express your gratitude to your child’s educator.
Secondly, having to endure a 4 1/2 hour plane trip is nothing compared to enduring a 4 1/2 hour field trip.
A 6 1/2 hour training day would be like a day at the spa for any kindergarten teacher.
The hours spent in an airport looking at a cancelled flight (whatever THAT means) would be gladly traded for the hours looking for a new and exciting lesson plan.
Fine 100 hours is too much. For a good teacher who is dedicated, I will INSIST that 80 is realistic. 40 in school. At least 20 on the weekend. At LEAST 10 spent planning. And 10 more with extra-curriculars.
This is not a discussion of what teachers should be paid to TEACH. It is a discussion of what teachers should be paid for EDUCATING. Being in front of a chalkboard is not a requirement to educate. Being in front of students is.
If anyone tries to pull out the “extra-curriculars don’t count”, talk to a teacher. Every single teacher I know (and the count right now for me is close to 150), is required by their school to participate in some other sort of way - teach a sport, run the play, organize the PTA, etc. This is NOT an exaggeration.
And the “Ooooh! I’d love to get three months off too!” argument is a little too thin. Do you honestly think those teachers aren’t doing anything? Fine, there are some teachers so well established and familiar with their material that they don’t need to plan, and they may already have their master’s, so they don’t need to take classes. But, and this needs to be emphasized, THEY AREN’T GETTING PAID FOR THESE THREE MONTHS, AND WOULD STARVE TO DEATH IF THEY DON’T GET A PART-TIME JOB!!! Sorry 'bout that. But the fact is, many teachers find a summer job to make ends meet.
I would like to see a discussion of privatizing education. Its something I haven’t put a lot of thought into, and can, right off the top of my head, think of why it would be a good idea. Right now, I can’t think of the cons. Anyone?
Connor