# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/41 "2011-08-30T19:20:20Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > You’re making my point, idiot. $50K in California is jack shit. It’s a fair salary (and atypical - usually it’s more like $25-30K), but it’s not “well-paid.” They also don’t get three months off for summer. Contrary to popular belief, teachers do not get three months of free time during the summer. They get a few weeks, but they basically work through June and come back aroud the second week of August. Just because school isn’t in session doesn’t mean the staff isn’t working. Ask your friends. You don’t know what you’re talking about. > > And I don’t buy for a second that they could both be tenured already. You’re talking out of your ass. I’d like to see a cite for your salary claims, please. Usually it’s 25-30k? Do you really want to stand by that number? ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/42 "2011-08-30T19:20:49Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Incidentally, why is fair pay (not exorbitant pay) considered by the public to be some kind of gratuity or largesse when paid to public employees? Just for the sake of discussion, and to add to your point about fair pay, I’m going to post some information. Last year as a teacher, my gross pay was about $46,000. As a second year teacher, that is really phenomenal. I had no problem with the money I was making. It supported me and my modest lifestyle well. I worked 188 contract days of “supposedly” 8 hours each. This works out to about $31 dollars an hour. A very respectible wage for someone fresh out of college with a master’s degree. In reality, I worked far more than those 8 hours. No great teacher could ever be great by working within their contract hours. Though I never logged it officially, I would say on average that I really worked closer to 10 hours each contract day, and there were many, many weekends and holidays spent grading, lesson planing, resource gathering, etc. So conservatively, let’s say that added up to 210 days of 8 hours work. Now that comes to about $27 per hour. Not a bad chunk of change. My aunt runs a small daycare out of her house. She charges 8 dollars per hour, and takes care of about 6 kids for the school year, sometimes more, sometimes less. This comes to about $48 per hour. Her main responsiblities include making sure the children were happy and healthy, didn’t hurt eachother, and were fed on time. She works hard and earns every penny she makes. When I was teaching, I didn’t make near the amount of money she does per year, even though I have a master’s degree, and ostensibly have a skill-set and credentials that are rarer and worth more. I also had about 27 students in my classroom for about 6.5 hours a day. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/43 "2011-08-30T19:21:41Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > Well, it seems to me you do. Analogizing teaching to widget-making, and referring to the partners (students and parents) as “customers” is part of the problem. I’m not saying we should be treating them as customers. The comparison is the dealing with angry people. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/44 "2011-08-30T19:23:07Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > That is a myth. No it isn’t. Not at all. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/45 "2011-08-30T19:23:50Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I don’t disagree with your points, but I feel like the problem with education is an American problem, as opposed to a republican vs democrat problem. I would suspect you are right that disrespect comes more from conservatives than democrats… but I live in Texas where we don’t have unions, so I don’t think I encountered too much of that particular sentiment. I agree that this is an AMERICAN problem; there is apathy/hatred from parents regardless of how they vote…and that is IF they vote at all. It’s naive to thing this is a right wing agenda…but you might make a case for those parents who vote that are more responsible vs. those who don’t vote and shuck the responsibility of their kid’s education. > [@](#): > > 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. And unfortunately, there are teachers who need to leave because they are way in over their heads, but do not leave. A math teacher I had in 8th grade 35 years ago who passed out 6 pages of remedial busy work EACH day (so he can read the newspaper) for the entire year, except on test days is the first one who came to my mind. The second one is my autistic son’s teacher from 2 years ago who spent more time talking to her class aids instead of the kids in her class. The aids were essentially doing the teaching while she was reading the newspaper. But these two do not make me see teachers in a negative light, but it does make me realize that any profession has its hard workers and slackers. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/46 "2011-08-30T19:24:10Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Incidentally, why is fair pay (not exorbitant pay) considered by the public to be some kind of gratuity or largesse when paid to public employees? I don’t know that anyone has said that. Anyway, considering that the average _household_ income in Chicago is around $40k and a brand new teacher with a bachelors pulls in around $45k with pension working less than 40 hours a week for the CPS, they’re doing pretty good for only working 38 weeks a year. I sure made the wrong career choice. My MS+12 years of experience would net me a $10k raise easy if I’d chosen teaching instead. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/47 "2011-08-30T19:26:19Z")
Apropos article on Salon yesterday: > **[Confessions of a bad teacher](https://www.salon.com/2011/08/29/confessions_of_a_bad_teacher/)** > > I took a job in the NYC public school system because I wanted to make a difference. I ended up living a nightmare It raises pretty much the same issues, but from a the perspective of a mid-career professional who left the private sector to pursue teaching as a passion, got fed up with the lack of support from any quarter, and quit. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/48 "2011-08-30T19:26:58Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > I’d like to see a cite for your salary claims, please. Usually it’s 25-30k? Do you really want to stand by that number? Fucking A, right I’m going to stand by it. You can look at the average starting salaries for each state [right here](http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state). (It’s a little higher than I was working in public schools 12 years ago, but not that much higher) By the way, one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is how much shit teachers have to shell out of their own pockets for classroom supplies. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/49 "2011-08-30T19:28:43Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Just for the sake of discussion, and to add to your point about fair pay, I’m going to post some information. Last year as a teacher, my gross pay was about $46,000. As a second year teacher, that is really phenomenal. I had no problem with the money I was making. It supported me and my modest lifestyle well. > > I worked 188 contract days of “supposedly” 8 hours each. This works out to about $31 dollars an hour. A very respectible wage for someone fresh out of college with a master’s degree. > > In reality, I worked far more than those 8 hours. No great teacher could ever be great by working within their contract hours. Though I never logged it officially, I would say on average that I really worked closer to 10 hours each contract day, and there were many, many weekends and holidays spent grading, lesson planing, resource gathering, etc. So conservatively, let’s say that added up to 210 days of 8 hours work. Now that comes to about $27 per hour. Not a bad chunk of change. > > My aunt runs a small daycare out of her house. She charges 8 dollars per hour, and takes care of about 6 kids for the school year, sometimes more, sometimes less. This comes to about $48 per hour. Her main responsiblities include making sure the children were happy and healthy, didn’t hurt eachother, and were fed on time. She works hard and earns every penny she makes. > > When I was teaching, I didn’t make near the amount of money she does per year, even though I have a master’s degree, and ostensibly have a skill-set and credentials that are rarer and worth more. I also had about 27 students in my classroom for about 6.5 hours a day. Yikes. Try $35,000/year, 40 students per class (and you’re teaching five or six), 70+hours a week, planning for 4 different subject areas + typical problems that come with urban schools (gangs, drugs, gangbanger drug dealing **parents** , etc…). Some teachers think you had it relatively easy compared to others…but that’s just the thing: it doesn’t matter if you’re in an affluent district or a poor one or if you teach math and science (it’s really not limited to you guys) or whatever: If you’re doing your part and a student isn’t doing theirs, it isn’t your fault. I’m really sorry you had to leave the profession. Why not try alternative schooling? ---
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/50 "2011-08-30T19:30:05Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > Anyway, considering that the average _household_ income in Chicago is around $40k and a brand new teacher with a bachelors pulls in around $45k with pension working less than 40 hours a week for the CPS, they’re doing pretty good for only working 38 weeks a year. Again, teachers are working more than they are in the classroom. It’s unrealistic to compare teachers’ classroom hours and annual days to private sector office hours and annual days. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/51 "2011-08-30T19:30:14Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Fucking A, right I’m going to stand by it. You can look at the average starting salaries for each state [right here](http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state). > > (It’s a little higher than I was working in public schools 12 years ago, but not that much higher) > > By the way, one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is how much shit teachers have to shell out of their own pockets for classroom supplies. Who the fuck said anything about starting salaries? ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/52 "2011-08-30T19:30:15Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > I’d like to see a cite for your salary claims, please. Usually it’s 25-30k? Do you really want to stand by that number? [These guys](http://teacherportal.com/salary/California-teacher-salary) say starting around $35k and an average of near $60k, but I don’t think they are ‘experts’. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/53 "2011-08-30T19:30:52Z")
> [@treis](#): > > If you can’t deal with that, you can’t deal with a significant portion of your job. > > If a Principal can’t understand your teaching well enough to evaluate, what do you expect a high school kid to do with it? > > But I don’t seem to see a lot of introspection. > > . I agree once again. I COULDN’T deal with it, and I got out. What I’m saying is that it SHOULDN’T be a part of the job to constantly have to defend yourself. Yes, teachers should be held accountible. Dealing with complaints is one thing. Being told to change a student’s grade is another. It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand my teaching. It is that he hadn’t had a lot of teaching experience (only one more year than I had), and in a completely unrelated subject. If I had spent a few years in a McDonald’s flipping burgers years ago, and then tried to go around telling Applebee’s how to manage their chain, I don’t think many of them would take me seriously. It’s a similar problem. I was very introspective of my work, each and every day. As I have laid out many, many times, I constantly adapted my work and implemented new techniques to reach students, motivate them, and challenge them. What you seem to be missing is that NONE of this matters to parents, students or admins. Literally nothing. It doesn’t matter how introspective a teacher is, they will never get that support. Even the best teachers have to put up with this kind of crap, as I witnessed in my short teaching career. I was certainly not the best physics teacher, but I did a good job in implementing the techniques educational research said was best. Eventually, I was introspective enough to realize my talents would be better suited (and rewarded) elsewhere, so I got out. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/54 "2011-08-30T19:32:07Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > [These guys](http://teacherportal.com/salary/California-teacher-salary) say starting around $35k and an average of near $60k, but I don’t think they are ‘experts’. In other words, Dio has no fucking clue. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/55 "2011-08-30T19:32:12Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > I don’t know that anyone has said that. > > Anyway, considering that the average _household_ income in Chicago is around $40k and a brand new teacher with a bachelors pulls in around $45k with pension working less than 40 hours a week for the CPS, they’re doing pretty good for only working 38 weeks a year. > > I sure made the wrong career choice. My MS+12 years of experience would net me a $10k raise easy if I’d chosen teaching instead. I’ve met a few teachers that worked in Chicago schools. They aren’t working ‘less’ than 40 hours per week. Chicago also has a serious poverty issue, so I don’t know what 40k means anymore. Have you not seen the inside of some of these schools? They are some of the most dangerous in the U.S. May as well have a career as a corrections officer in a county jail. It’s probably less stressful. Sure, you can argue that the “average” salary is 60+k for 20 years of experience or whatever, but come on. Urban teachers today have about a 5 year retention rate, so let’s see what it looks like in ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/56 "2011-08-30T19:32:50Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Who the fuck said anything about starting salaries? I responding to a poster’s assertions that his friends, who had only been doing it for a couple of years, were already at $50K a year. I was talking about starting salaries from the get-go. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/57 "2011-08-30T19:35:04Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > In other words, Dio has no fucking clue. That’s the same fucking site that I linked to, moron. I showed you the state-by state breakdown. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/58 "2011-08-30T19:35:18Z")
> [@black\_rabbit](#): > > Apropos article on Salon yesterday: > > [Confessions of a bad teacher - Salon.com](http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/08/29/confessions_of_a_bad_teacher/) > > It raises pretty much the same issues, but from a the perspective of a mid-career professional who left the private sector to pursue teaching as a passion, got fed up with the lack of support from any quarter, and quit. Even just as an anecdotal piece, that certainly seems to counter the notion that teachers catch just as much shit as any other profession. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/59 "2011-08-30T19:36:18Z")
The amount of ignorance and anecdotal evidence about “friends” making huge salaries and working banker’s hours really is remarkable in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653/60 "2011-08-30T19:37:06Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I responding to a poster’s assertions that his friends, who had only been doing it for a couple of years, were already at $50K a year. I was talking about starting salaries from the get-go. People who have multiple years under their belt don’t earn starting salaries, moron. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fed-up-with-teacher-hate-and-disrespect-in-this-country/594653.md?page=4)