It’s in Pierce County. One of the fastest growing areas in the state.
Join the fucking club. Many salaried jobs require more than the 40 hours of work per week. It may not be explicit but you had better put in the time if you want to keep that job.
Bottom line, when comparing salary, teachers’ base pay is for nine months of work, not 12 and it should be calculated as such.
Sure, but what do those high-pressure jobs typically pay, compared to what teachers get paid? (Not to mention general differences in working conditions, of course: law-firm employees aren’t putting in those 70-hour weeks dealing with schoolchildren and their parents.)
I’m just trying to call out the widespread doublethink that simultaneously claims that teachers don’t rate above-pittance pay because their jobs are so “easy” with all that “time off”, and that teachers have no kick coming about their immense and decidedly non-easy workloads during the school year because hey, lots of salaried jobs require more than 40-hour weeks! 
Zero isn’t a failing grade, it’s no grade at all. A mouse in a maze will do better than zero. This is on top of a process of grading on a curve so the 70 could easily be a failing grade.
In the real world businesses have to adapt their hiring practices to compensate for a graduation certificate that has no merit.
When I was between jobs I got a job at a factory that required a basic math skills test. It was 3rd grade math. The HR person congratulated me on getting 100 percent and I pointed out it was 3rd grade math. She said the person ahead of me got a zero.
That person’s HS diploma had no value beyond a certificate of attendance and even that might be in question. If a student is failing then the school can help with tutoring or fail them so they can repeat the year and get them back on track.
I think I’m done exploring this idea in this thread–but it might be interesting for another thread.
This, however–are you sure? Because I’ve met some people who have jobs, and boy howdy are they NOT all the best.
This is my single biggest soapbox , but I am in the middle of coordinating 2000 AP exams, so can we please do this after school gets out?
Absolutely! I’m at the elementary level, where we very rarely fail kids–our approach is much more “provide all the support”–so the expertise of a high school teacher would be very welcome.
20+ years ago, I gor in a debate here wirh even sven when i said grades were essential to learning. I have so completely changed my mind on that. Grades, and “failing” is poison.
The easier I make my grades, and the more i decouple them from my feedback, the higher my standardized test scores go.
@MandaJo, the last time we had this discussion about grades (I think in a discussion of college grade inflation?) you changed my mind on this – really appreciate your thoughtfulness and expertise. I will definitely be looking for this thread once school is out.
We really need to pay them more than a living wage. Ideally teaching would be a professional career in line with technology, accounting, finance, etc… That way, it would be competitive both for college graduates and mid-career people who might choose to move into it. As it stands, if I wanted to do that, it would be nearly a 50% pay cut to start as a first year teacher. I might have considered it if the pay cut was like 15-20%, but there’s no way I’d take a 50% pay cut to deal with high school kids.
I remember thinking we were in some degree of trouble when I was in college. I lived in my school’s freshman honors dorm, which was where a large chunk of the best and brightest freshmen students lived. I lived there as a freshman, and for another 3 years as a resident advisor.
I can count the number of people who wanted to teach K-12 on one hand. This at a major state university with a huge teaching program- I think at the time, it graduated the most education majors in the state. Everyone wanted to go into some sort of professional or academic field of study and make a career in that, and teaching was seen as a career for people who couldn’t do any better.
Politicians don’t fund education because their constituents don’t push them to do so. They often don’t want to pay increased taxes needed to properly fund education because they don’t think it’s worthwhile.
I’m on the side of teachers here and am not trying to argue otherwise, and I certainly agree that teachers do a lot of work that doesn’t involve actual classroom teaching, but the fact remains that they do get generous holidays even if not all of that time is actually vacation.
By way of anecdote, when I was staying at a friend’s lakeside summer cottage, a rather magnificent summer cottage was being constucted nearby. My friend knew the property owners. They were both K-12 teachers, and with two reasonable salaries they could afford it since teachers are paid quite well here, but more to the point, it was well justified because they could spend most of the summer there. It was a nice position to be in but they had earned it and I didn’t begrudge their situation.
That said, in most US jurisdictions teachers are underpaid and under-appreciated.
it was Black group
Here’s an idea; increase vacation time for everyone else!
Paid sick leave, more minimum vacation for employees (from a separate bank, of course… calling it all “PTO” and making people unable to take vacation due to chronic illness, disability, or being a primary caretaker is astoundingly ableist and discriminatory)…
People think teachers get too much vacation and that’s “unfair”, but I’m thinking it’s more a problem that non teachers aren’t getting enough!
This plan will, of course, upset the capitalists. But really, I’m ok with that!
I considered teaching about 16-18 years ago as I was seeking a career change. At the time, I had an entry level science job and it would have been a pay cut. It wasn’t my only reason not to pursue it, but it sure as hell wasn’t attractive!
this sounds right to me, or at least better than everyone angry about their horrible jobs taking it out on anyone with decent wages/conditions/benefits and so forth.
for example
we need a better club.
ETA: I do think for the most part teachers are extremely underpaid
I wonder why New Trier isn’t on that chart. From their current teacher salaries, I see a max of $149,478 per year (and there are a good number of teachers at that rate), with most teachers well in the six figures. I’m guessing the media is around $130K, just eyeballing their salary report.
As I showed above not all teachers receive a pittance in pay. In Chicago they are paid very, very well by any measure (add in their pension and it is downright outstanding). Those are public school teachers.
Put another way, this is not a universal problem. It is up to the state and/or local communities to pay their teachers well. If they are not paid well blame the locals and not society. Those teachers should seek better paying teaching jobs elsewhere. Maybe when no one wants to work in a given district they will improve the pay.
Also, unionize. That seems the real thing that raises wages for teachers.
Pretty much all of the North Shore area public school teachers are paid very well. They are some of the best public schools in the country.
Oh indeed they are. I remember six figure salaries there back in the late 90s. And the property taxes to go along with it! 
I was just curious why they were left off that list. Maybe too outside the norm?