# Fed up with Teacher Hate and Disrespect in this Country **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 30, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653 "2011-08-30T18:03:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/201 "2011-08-31T12:55:24Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Ok, so I’m pretty new to the SD forums, so I hope I am putting this in the right place. If not, my apologies. > > I would really like to know how people get off hating and disrespecting teachers so much. If you are someone who feels like teachers complain too much, are overpaid, have it easy, etc, please respond to my following story and questions. I’m going to try to be as civil as possible, but this is a topic that I feel very strongly about and causes a great deal of RAGE for me. > > First, a bit of background. I am a 25 year old who spent his first 2 years after earning his Bachelors in Physics and Masters of Science in Science Education teaching high school physics. I quit this summer to persue a different career outside of teaching, even though that was my passion. It was a difficult decision, but I just couldn’t live with the complete lack of disrespect certain people have for teachers. > > Some teachers get out of the profession because they can’t control their classroom, connect with their students, or just don’t like working with kids. That’s completely understandable, and I commend those teachers for getting out of the workforce after realizing they were never going to love working with the kids. This was NOT the case for me. I loved the students, and I am going to miss working with them greatly. > > What DID kill teaching for me was the fact that no one was ever on my side (except for the other teachers, most of the time, who had no power to really help me). If a student was failing my class, I was the one to blame. The students blamed me for unfair grading, tests, etc. The parents blamed me for not teaching well enough or other things. The administration blamed me for not having enough experience, not being prepared enough, too many mistakes. In my two years of teaching, I had only one parent and one student who accepted responsibility and didn’t try to pawn the blame off onto me. > > To compound this fact, I was pretty much told by my principle that he would not “support” a grade a student had earned at the end of last school year. When pressed, he told me not much would happen, but as everyone in education knows, you do NOT want to make enemies with your administration, as they can make life very difficult for you. > > No one had ever asked me how hard I had worked with my students to make sure they understood the material. How many hours I spent after school tutoring. How many nights I actually went home and cried because I felt like a failure when students would do poorly on a test, and then went back to help them learn it again and again. How much time I spent uploading resources for them online, finding extra guides, visual aids, demonstrations, etc to help them study. No one cared about how much I cared. They just saw that failing grade as MY problem that I needed to fix for them, by any means possible. > > At the end of the school year, I knew that I had done a great job in a difficult situation. My colleagues who also taught physics continually told me I was doing great, and that I was going to be a phenomenal physics teacher. I loved the subject matter, knew it well, and loved working with the kids. I was constantly implementing actively engaging techniques in my classroom (working in groups, small white boards, interactive response remotes, smart boards, etc), doing the things that administration wanted to see and that I was taught in graduate school to do in order to be an effective educator. > > And what did I get for all this work? Constant and unrelenting dissaproval. From parents. From students. From administration. From politicians. It is just ridiculous, and I couldn’t take it. I knew that I was going to become very apathetic if I stayed in teaching. So I had to get out. And fortunately because I have a physics degree, I was able to get a better paying job where I will only work half the year in the private sector, with better benefits and much, much less stress. > > This is the case with many science and math teachers. There are far better jobs in the private sector, and the toxic attitude towards teachers drives them out of the profession. Teachers in other departments are almost forced to stay in teaching (English, History, Health, etc has limited private industry opportunities that allow them to persue their passion), and I feel bad for them. > > In my 2 years of teaching, I didn’t meet a single teacher who loved going to work every day. In the faculty lounge, they would constantly complain about the lack of support and respect, and how they wished they could quit and do something else. Our school lost 3 physics teachers who all had to be replaced last year; I was one of those three. > > This country needs to wake up and seriously start supporting teachers. Parents need to make their students accountable for their own actions. Administrators need to start backing up their teachers more. > > We are not facing an epidemic of bad teachers. In my two short years, I can think of maybe 2 or 3 who honestly should have been let go. And they were. There are SOME bad teachers who should be removed, but until teachers start getting the respect and support they deserve, schools will never be able to retain highly motivated and excellent teachers. > > Was I the best physics teacher ever to live? Hardly. Was I even in the top half? I don’t know. I’d like to think I was better than the average high school physics teacher, who probably only took one or two college physics courses and barely understands the material they are trying to teach. My colleagues seemed to believe in me, and were sad to see me go, so I must have been doing something right. I just know that I’m not the only one who was driven out of teaching for similar reasons, and it is very sad that so many students out there are losing potentially great teachers for this reason. You seem to believe that getting shit from all directions is unique to teachers–that teachers are singled out for the treatment you describe while people who do other jobs are living the good life. Well, that’s simply not the case. I’m a lawyer (a partner in a large law firm). If I come up with a brilliant idea or work my ass off to get something done on time, it will often either not be noticed at all or met with a quck thanks while life moves on. If I don’t meet certain people’s expectations (however unreasonable they may be IMHO), I get lots of uncomfortableness and potential for longer-term ramifications. And, in addition to demands from clients, of course there’s always different kinds of shit to deal with from people above me and below me, in my group and out of it. Sometimes those people have different goals–sometimes they are directly opposite–and I have to work within that framework and balance the interests as best I can. So, the problems you are complaining about are really just features of working with other humans, not features of being a teacher. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/202 "2011-08-31T12:55:56Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > While I could certainly be persuaded that **good** teachers should be paid more than they are now, there is little evidence that 22 years of experience makes a teacher much better than someone with much less experience. If someone provides that much value then he should be paid that much because he provides that value, be he a new teacher or an old one. > > Of course, I don’t know how much demand there actually is for good teachers. Good teachers care. Good teachers make kids work. Good teachers don’t just go through the motions and shuttle the kids on to the next grade. If Junior has been skating along this whole time and suddenly is expected to do all the reading in order to master his physics lessons, well it’s probably just a shitty teacher, right? Good teachers stir things up, and parents (and thus administrators) don’t like that. It’s a wonder that I’m sitting here now with Ph.D in chemistry because I had a grand total of one **adequate** science teacher before college. His contract did not get renewed because the principal’s intellectually challenged son struggled too much in his class. How do you expect to get good teachers if you’re unwilling to pay for them? Should they just do it for the love of it? 'Cause if so, why is teaching so different from other professions? I had perhaps four bad teachers in my life. Most were adequate, and six were far better than I deserved. Two, at least, fundamentally shaped my life- I wouldn’t be where I am now if they hadn’t taught. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/203 "2011-08-31T13:02:02Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > How do you expect to get good teachers if you’re unwilling to pay for them? Should they just do it for the love of it? 'Cause if so, why is teaching so different from other professions? I smell straw. Nobody is saying that teachers shouldn’t be paid. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/204 "2011-08-31T13:08:27Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > The five states where unions are illegal have the lowest test scores in America. > “Tenure” is a thing of the past in many of our urban areas, and there’s nothing that says bad teachers **can’t** get fired. Do you really not understand how union/teacher contracts work or is this just spew? Perception =/= reality. There is a perception that tenure means bad teachers can’t get fired. There is a perception that teachers, and their unions, are against having any of their pay being based on their personal performance. It’s a perception that works against teachers getting respect from many people. > [@](#): > > Please do tell me how to create a pay-for-performance model. So far, they pretty much suck, and they don’t raise test scores. How about this, you have a department head regularly review your lesson plans and tests, and provide (with administrative approval) a performance review and performance based bonus at the end of the school year. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/205 "2011-08-31T13:32:24Z")
Perception perception perception, perception. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/206 "2011-08-31T13:54:30Z")
@Rand Rover I’m not trying to imply that teachers are the ONLY profession that have to deal with crap from other people. All I’m saying is that the nature of the crap they have to put up with is inherently going to drive good teachers out of the profession. I don’t expect teachers to ever have an easy job; by definition, teaching is very difficult. But by simply criticizing me for posting my concerns with how to improve education, you aren’t really helping the issue. Besides, I’m not a teacher anymore, for the precise reason that it was too much bullshit to deal with, and now I have a much less stressful career with much more support from my superiors. Not ALL careers are as bad as others; I’m sure being a lawyer comes with a lot of stress too. I think teachers should have more support, that’s all, not that they shouldn’t have to field legitimate concerns or criticisms. @Cheesesteak Having your department chair review your work and measure your success against well defined criteria would be a great way to do it. I feel in practice it should also involve an independent review board set up by either the district or the state. It may also be appropriate to allow _some_ level of student achievement to be part of the composite score, as long as the standardized test questions were well defined ahead of time. I agree that managers are at least partially responsible for their employees, but it’s not as clear as you say. If an employee royally fucks up, the manager is not going to get pressure from upper management to keep that employee on and improve them. No, they are going to let them go. Furthermore, though I’ve never worked in management, my sister and others I have known were managers, and while there lives are VERY stressful, the metric which they are held to is usually overall department or store success, not the success of EACH INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEE, as is the case with a teacher. Imagine if you were a manager of good size grocery store, you have 30 employees, who work under you every single day, and unless every single one of them us successful in their job, you get pressure from upper management to spend time outside your day working with them, helping them get better, etc. Now imagine about 3 of those employees NEVER do any work, no matter how much you try to get them to, and upper management tells you to call their parents and schedule a meeting to get them to succeed in their job. It goes on and on. The relationship between a manager and employee is not even remotely the same as between a teacher and student. As long as a manager’s store or department is successful, their job is safe, and they aren’t going to get hell from upper management. Maybe I was stretching a little to say that NO other profession holds you accountable for others, but I don’t think there are many that are anywhere near the level teachers are for their students. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/207 "2011-08-31T13:57:03Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > Perception perception perception, perception. What about Inception? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/208 "2011-08-31T13:57:12Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > I was thinking Japan and Singapore, but it’s always nice when Canada shows up. Well culturally and demographically we’re much more similar to you than you are to Singapore or Japan. So there is that as well as the commonality of our public school system. Besides given the rankings from [Programme for International Student Assessment (2009)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#2009) you might as well shoot to be as good as we seem to be. Japanese ranks in Math/Science/Reading - 9/5/8 Canadian ranks in Math/Science/Reading - 10/8/6 USA ranks in Math/Science/Reading - 30/23/17 ---
**Author:** ![keeganst94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/209 "2011-08-31T14:01:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Sure - Canadian average teacher incomes ~ 40k > > [http://resource.educationcanada.com/salaries.html/](http://resource.educationcanada.com/salaries.html/) 40k minimum, not average, in most provinces, with 6 years education. Around 35k with 4 years. That’s based on your link. I have no idea where you got average from. Plus some really good benefits: very good pension, various types of insurance, and the possibility for differed leave (take a 15-20% pay cut for 3 years, get a semester off). ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/210 "2011-08-31T14:03:13Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Well culturally and demographically we’re much more similar to you than you are to Singapore or Japan. So there is that as well as the commonality of our public school system. Besides given the rankings from [Programme for International Student Assessment (2009)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#2009) you might as well shoot to be as good as we seem to be. > > Japanese ranks in Math/Science/Reading - 9/5/8 > Canadian ranks in Math/Science/Reading - 10/8/6 > USA ranks in Math/Science/Reading - 30/23/17 I suddenly feel a strong urge to move to Canada and teach physics. Are there many American teachers who do that because the situation is so much better up there? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/211 "2011-08-31T14:10:14Z")
> [@keeganst94](#): > > 40k minimum, not average, in most provinces, with 6 years education. Around 35k with 4 years. That’s based on your link. I have no idea where you got average from. Plus some really good benefits: very good pension, various types of insurance, and the possibility for differed leave (take a 15-20% pay cut for 3 years, get a semester off). Must have been from the table’s title - “Average Teacher Salaries by Province” ---
**Author:** ![keeganst94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/212 "2011-08-31T14:12:38Z")
I know two Americans who teach here, but I don’t know why they moved. Depending on the place there can be a huge glut of teachers for a certain subject though, so do some research if you’re serious about it. On the other hand, there’s sometimes a shortage to: we’re missing french teachers at the moment, but overrun with English teachers. Edit: Guess I missed that Grey. Sorry for the snark. But is it just me, or does the chart not at all match the title? I mean it says average salary in the title, then it shows the minimum and maximum salary…average? The average minimum salary? That doesn’t even make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/213 "2011-08-31T14:18:51Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I suddenly feel a strong urge to move to Canada and teach physics. Are there many American teachers who do that because the situation is so much better up there? Why would you think it’s much better? Better test scores don’t necessarily imply better teaching environments. There are lots of excellent teachers that don’t get hired, or they are hired part time and have to act as substitutes until a spot opens up. You’d need to ask someone better positioned to answer that, I’m not associated with teaching in any capacity. Aside from my kids that is. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/214 "2011-08-31T14:22:58Z")
How the fuck to you follow up this: > [@Ruken](#): > > While I could certainly be persuaded that **good** teachers should be paid more than they are now… with this: > [@Lightnin](#): > > How do you expect to get good teachers if you’re unwilling to pay for them? ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/215 "2011-08-31T14:23:32Z")
> [@keeganst94](#): > > I know two Americans who teach here, but I don’t know why they moved. Depending on the place there can be a huge glut of teachers for a certain subject though, so do some research if you’re serious about it. On the other hand, there’s sometimes a shortage to: we’re missing french teachers at the moment, but overrun with English teachers. > > Edit: Guess I missed that Grey. Sorry for the snark. But is it just me, or does the chart not at all match the title? I mean it says average salary in the title, then it shows the minimum and maximum salary…average? The average minimum salary? That doesn’t even make sense. Yeah, I tried to figure that out but opted to assume the table was correct. The numbers certainly fall in the range that I would expect. My best guess? I’d assume that Minimum should really be labeled Entry Salary while Maximum would be the average of the top earning teachers across the province. The StatsCan link at the bottom likely was the original source data. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/216 "2011-08-31T14:28:33Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Pay me like a professional. How much does a professional make? ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/217 "2011-08-31T14:46:15Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > I smell straw. Nobody is saying that teachers shouldn’t be paid. Maybe it’s your own strawman? I didn’t say that anyone is claiming that teachers shouldn’t be paid- but there are plenty of people who think that teachers are _over_paid, with the obvious conclusion that they should be paid less. How do you expect to attract good teachers if they can make more money elsewhere? ---
**Author:** ![Lago\_Ys-Transform](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a587f6/32.png) [@Lago\_Ys-Transform](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lago_Ys-Transform)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/218 "2011-08-31T15:02:57Z")
1. Who was the person who said that the problem with education wasn’t caused exacerbated by right-wing mewling? I wonder if they noticed that the majority of teacher-piling on in this thread is caused by known right-wingers. So much for the ‘they do it equally’ bullshit. 2. What the hell does ‘overpaid’ mean? Do you mean that they’re getting paid more than they deserve/need or more than what’s needed to attract them to the job? If it’s the former, _who the fuck cares_? I don’t give a flying fuck about fairness or need or any of that crap, what I do care about is producing the best damn educational system possible. Look, you don’t need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to professional athletes in order to have a sports league or even to fill up a team for each state. You could probably fill up an entire roster just by offering ‘reasonable’ (to accommodate for injuries and training and crap) salaries in the high five-figures and most of the people on the field would be, if not exceptional, at least competent. However people do it anyway because doing it this way attracts the best and brightest. Now professional sports is a thing where people will pay millions more for a marginal improvement–and while I don’t think that teaching should go THAT far I think it’s pretty clear that the teaching profession is not even close to the point of diminishing returns. So that said, if you want a first-class educational system where Americans can wave their dicks at everyone and brag how much smarter their kids are (which I fully support) you’re going to need to pay for it. And I really don’t care if in order to pull Dr. Thompkins (Professor of the Year for the Computer Science Department at Georgia Tech) away from his job to teach at some nameless rural school you need to offer him 300,000 dollars and give him 4 months paid vacation a year and a blowjob from his favorite celebrity. I don’t care how much the doctors, lawyers, generals, whoever whine about how they’re getting paid out of proportion to the effort, what I care is whether they’re making the educational system the best it can be. ---
**Author:** ![Lago\_Ys-Transform](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a587f6/32.png) [@Lago\_Ys-Transform](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lago_Ys-Transform)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/219 "2011-08-31T15:15:21Z")
Secondly, paying teachers a reasonable salary after determining that they’re good or not is a folly. While you can spot certain kinds of bad ones pretty quickly if you care, good ones take several years to ferret out. So while they’re hovering in good teacher/bad teacher limbo, what the hell is their incentive to sign up for the job in the first place? If I had some sort of advanced qualification I’d rather get paid the money _now_ rather than take a risk on something that might not pan out. I agree that more people will sign up for a chance at future rewards than if you didn’t provide those incentives at all, but not as much as if after determining that they met the minimum requirements you gave them the money first. THEN after that you can wash them out if they don’t meet the standards. You know, like they do for most other high-paying professional jobs. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/220 "2011-08-31T15:31:42Z")
@Lago Great points, but I’m not sure that we actually face a “bad teacher” epidemic in this country. Paying teachers more to get more talented people into the schools certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing… but even the most stellar teachers are only as successful as their administration, students, and parents allow them to be. I think if we can change the attitudes of parents, children and district admins to start putting more responsibility on the students, stress the importance of hard work, and making sure passing grades actually meant something and weren’t just handed out, it would go a lot further than pay increases. Also, in regards to over/underpaid discussion, just to put in my perspective, I was certainly not overpaid as a teacher, even though I was making 46k in my 2nd year. In my opinion, for a person to be “overpaid”, you are making the claim that you could find many equally qualified individuals who would work for less money and perform at similar levels as the original employee. Another component is that an overpaid employee would not be able to easily find another job of equal pay, since they are obviously making more than they should be considering their skills, qualifications, etc. As evidenced by the fact that within a few weeks of deciding to quit teaching I was able to find a job that paid 12k MORE per year, I don’t think I was being overpaid. I think that most teachers (especially math and physical science teachers), could fairly easily find private sector jobs that pay more than what they make as a teacher. If I wouldn’t have been able to find a better or equal paying job, I wouldn’t have quit teaching this year, but fortunately that wasn’t the case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653.md?page=12)