Teachers are overpaid.

Great Debates
21

I realize that Number Six was being sarcastic, but several people have posted wondering where it is that teachers get paid $35,000 a year. I’ll tell you where: California.

Two of my sisters are teachers. Both are in their early thirties. My oldest sister has been teaching elementary school for about 10 years, but she had to take a big pay cut 4-5 years ago when she changed districts. She is bilingual (Spanish) but does not have a masters. She makes $49,000/yr.

The other just started as a school teacher about three years ago. Her starting pay was in the low thirties.

My mom works with a woman whose brother (stop me if this sounds like an urban legend) makes nearly $100,000/yr teaching high school band and one community college class at night. He does not work summers.

I just saw an ad in my university paper pushing the teaching profession as a job where you can get a starting salary of $36,000. Another offered a starting salary of $42,000 in a certain district, but it may have required a masters.

Top salaries in certain districts around me reach $76,000, more if you want to teach an extra class above the standard 5 class load.

And of course, add a third to all of these salaries to compensate for the fact that most jobs require 240 days a year, versus 180 for a teacher.

Jokes about underpaid teachers or stories about how teachers leave teaching for positions that pay something after a few years really crack me up. Yeah, of course you’ll get better pay if you leave to be a lawyer. (You’ll also work 80 hrs/wk, 50 wks/yr.) But look at average pay for people with bachelor’s (or even master’s) degrees in the U.S.

Bottom line:
The hypothetical teacher starting at $35,000/yr in Number Six’s OP is making over $32/hr right out of college, with perhaps one or two more extra years of education than the standard college grad. How many of you here could say that?

22

Most of the complaints were about the implication that a typical starting salary is $35,000.

I caution you that determining hourly wages from salaries is almos always an underestimate. Yeah, most teachers only stand in front of a classroom 6 hours a day, but like many other salaried professionals, they clock a lot of hours outside work, most notably grading and preparing lessons, but also tutoring, organizing extracurricular activities, etc.

Also, you always have to be careful comparing salaries from different parts of the country (particularly without any cites.) Costs of living (and babysitting rates, teacher salaries, even the minimum wage) vary from region to region.

23

I will preface this with this statement. I live in North Dakota. North Dakota ranks 50th out of 50 states in teacher’s pay. We are facing a crisis in finding educators for our youth, because of the outflow of good teachers to other states. A bill was sent to our state Legislature by our Republican Governor in which every teacher in the state would end up with a $3000 pay raise. The bill sailed through the House side with only 8 people voting against it and over 200 voting for it. (don’t have exact figures in front of me.) Then it got to a Senate commitee. The Senate commitee stripped the bill of the raise, and instead, allocated funds to the local school boards to do with as they saw fit. (Both houses are dominated by Republicans. the Senate commitee is too, but the bill had wide support in both parties.) Our Goverenor was outraged. The local headline in our newspaper the next day was,

Now then. When I first read the OP, I thought one of those commitee members had somehow figured out how to use a computer and had logged in here.

that is all.

24

Number, teachers here make approximately 65,000 a year. Yep I would say there are some that are way overpaid, but there are some who earn it as well.

Our teachers are about to get another big raise and the support staff in schools, make a miniscule wage in comparison. Our system is ass backwards.

25

Here in South Texas, teachers start out making about 22,000 a year. Both of my parents have been teaching for twenty years, and they make about 55,000 each. My sister started teaching about five years ago, and she is still scraping by on about 24,000 a year. Now, they come home from work, and spend about two hours a night grading papers or working on lesson plans. I remember my dad teaching night school and summer school to make extra money. He did this when I was a little kid, I’m 31 now, but I know my parents struggled at the beginning. They are now seven months away from paying off a twenty year mortgage on a hundred thousand house, and close to retiring at the ages of 55.
I will admit, having summers off and all the vacation time at holidays sounds absolutely incredible. I know I don’t want to work every day for the rest of my life, but what are you gonna do?
Anyhoo, there’s my two cents, guys and gals, this was a very good topic.

26

A few years ago there was a statewide strike. Teachers at some schools left, teachers at others stayed. The ones at the highschool I had graduated from said “We’ll stick to our contracts… btw, our contracts say we only work 8-hour days and 40-hour weeks. So, that’s what we’ll be doing.”
The students and parents there quickly realized how much time teachers actually put in.

27

Teachers at my High School are very well off, and are very appreciative of the money they make. Starting teachers make anywhere from 35 to 50k, and there are several teachers making over 100k a year. Come to think of it, two of the gym teachers make 100k! My math teacher has been here for 30 years and makes 122k, and our superintendent pulls in a cool 192k. This is a public school, by the way.

We have money to burn.

28

Teachers earn every penny they make, and they deserve to make more. As my wife, who is a third-grade teacher, has often commented, “in what other profession does a person wake up in the middle of the night worrying about somebody else’s kid?”

I can only think of a pediatrician doing this. Then again, most pediatricians would be scandalized if they had to live on what a teacher earns.

Just about every argument about how “easy” teaching is can be shot down. And for those who are still unconvinced – spend a week in any elementary school classroom you wish, from the inner city of Chicago to the suburbs of Connecticut. Then stay after with the teacher to grade papers, give extra help, meet with parents and/or administrators. Then go home with the teacher while (s)he deals with his/her own family. If you shadow a teacher for five whole days, you’ll be lucky to be standing at the end of the week. It’s tough work.

29

Teachers make exactly what they earn…

Look, they’re in a union. If their job is so incredibly tough, when they went on strike it would cause a catastrophe. But it doesn’t. Yes they work hard. So do the rest of us. They have crappy hours and crappy jobs. They chose to do it.

Why don’t they make more? Because they don’t insist on it, and if they did, college students one year out would replace them. They all have TOO good of hearts. They actually think and worry about their kids. They’re stuck between being good people who want to help others and a government that isn’t willing to pay people for giving of themelves.

[Now the part where I get flamed] A lot of the people I know in the education environment aren’t the brightest people I’ve met. Hell, I still carry around thoughts of being in grade school and a teacher telling me I was wrong about something only to find verifiable truth that she was wrong.

Most people who have a college education could teach, (but we ask our teachers to do more than teach). But why? The really smart people make much more money in other fields. Teaching is using all that education plus babysitting. Which means you give of yourself. Better teaching isn’t a matter of getting the smart people to teach. Most of the really smart people aren’t that great at people skills.

Raising salaries for teachers does one thing…it makes those that teach richer. Is that a good thing? Yes. Is it necessary? No. They enjoy teaching. They’ll do it for less. Why pay more? {{You may now commence flaming}}

(Side bar: I admire teachers, I could never teach anything short of college. My point of this is that teachers are almost born to teach. That’s what they want to do and salary has little to do with their decision. Because of that they are stuck with crappy wages.)

Oh, and a quick comment on those that say “teachers are worth every cent they make.” Who isn’t?

30

I wonder what our medical care would be like if we paid doctors $24,000 a year?

How would our healthcare system be if the college students who went into medicine were only there because they couldn’t make it into business school?

What would it be like if the only good doctors we had were the ones who “Do this only because I really like helping sick people… God knows I don’t do it for the money!!”

31

80K in New York City is shit, pal.

I say take some economics classes. If lowering the salary caused you tog et people who “want to teach” then logically you should always pay people minimum wage no matter what the job is. Why not pay doctors minimum wage? Then you’d only get people who really want to be doctors. Why not pay people in YOUR job minimum wage?

I hate to break this to you but the old saying is correct: You get what you pay for. If you pay teachers crap, you will get crappy teachers. If you pay them well you will get better teachers. There’s no way around it.

Teachers, to contradict what many others have said, do not “Deserve” any particular salary. But what we choose to pay them will affect the calibre of education. Lowering teacher salaries will reduce the quality of teaching.

32

ALSO–

Let’s not flame Gazoo or ME for that matter for implying (or saying flat out) that teachers, as a whole, are not the brightest bunch in the USA.

It’s true. They are not. At the university I attended, a midwesern LA school known for training elementary teachers, most of the people who went into elementary ed. did so because, a)they absolutely were devoted to teaching kids or, b)they were really too damn dumb to succeed in any other major.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Do we want the people teaching our kids to be on a par with burger flippers? Or doctors and scientists? I know which one I want.

Start teachers at about $100,000 - $150,000 a year AND demand that they deserve every penny of it.

That way we can select from among the best and the brightest to take on perhaps the most important job in our society.

33

Thankfully, doctors don’t have to think that way in this country, Like I said, I’m going to get flamed, but teachers get paid poorly because they are willing to accept poor pay, and others can take over their job (although poorly) without problem. It’s not like air-traffic control, brain surgery, etc.

Others can teach, but not as well or with as much heart and concern. I wish good teachers were paid a ton of money, I really do, but unfortunately, I don’t see it happening in my time.

34

teachers get paid poorly because they are willing to accept poor pay, and others can take over their job (although poorly) without problem. It’s not like air-traffic control, brain surgery, etc.
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The only reason others could take over their jobs without problem is because society sets the standards so low. Others could easily take over doctor’s or NBA player’s jobs too… IF we were to drastically lower our standards for those jobs.

So the point is, because their job IS so important (it SHOULD be like air-traffic control, brain surgery, etc.) teaching should only be performed by some of the most talented people available. Then by simple and well-understood laws of economics, they would be paid a LOT more because they performed a job that few other could perform (properly).

As someone else mentioned… it’s quite simple… you get what you pay for.

35

Agreed. But how do we get it to that point? As I mentioned, the best teachers are those that have wanted to teach all their lives. I’m smart enough to teach several subjects, but I’d make a poor teacher. Others I know are great teachers, but not so bright that I’d want them to teach ME a thing. It’s one of those dichotomy situations…

36

Given their education and preparation, they are not overpaid.

But their number of working hours per year is not that much.

37

I’ve heard the saying in the original post before. I think it should be looked at by most if not all citizens. I come from a family of teachers and plan to become a teacher myself after I obtain the education to do so. If you think about it there is no more rewarding career then a teacher. Yet they get the least amount of respect. If it were not for the teachers our society could not possibly run as it does currently. Education is the key to independance and peace.

38

An “A” to the first person to find the grammatical error…

39

You’re right! I live in California, and during a debate on teahcer salaries over at Fathom, I did a bit a research and discovered that the starting salary for a teacher in my town’s main district is $32,000/year. Sounds pretty good, until you realize that this is the San Francisco Bay Area, the most expensive metropolitan area in the United States. We’re talking average house prices hovering at around $500,000. You can live in apartment and do okay on $32,000/year, but what about buying a house? Raising a kid or two or three? In Santa Clara, the school district is actually planning on building apartments for teachers with subsidized rent because they cannot afford to live in the area.

This thread should be moved to GD.

40

In what school board do Canadian teachers average $65,000 a year? Where the heck do you live?

Here it’s $55,000. Maybe. And that’s Canadian dollars, folks. My mother’s been a teacher in her board for 14 years now and she makes $49,000.