We don't play out teachers a living wage.

Great Debates
1

IMHO we don’t pay our teachers enough and it’s showing in the grades and skills that our children are getting.

First off, I’m in a mood right now, I’ve always been a person who makes up my heart first and then decides how to deal with what my heart has decided. And I decided to vent some spleen here and see what you guys think.

Here in North Carolina where I live there is a terrific teacher shortage. The state has started allowing people to teach if they have a college degree, even without a teaching certificate. I heard on the news recently that Texas is having similar problems, in fact the problem seems widespread throughout the U.S.

I just ran into a teacher I know at the grocery store. She was telling me that she had been told she didn’t qualify for a home loan. Not enough income!! ** WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH US? ** This woman has been a teacher for 8 years, she taught my youngest son in fact. She is a widow with 2 children. She wanted to buy a home in a development about 3 miles from my house. These are not mansions, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, split-level ranch houses in this development, about 15 years old.

Meanwhile, flashback to a conversation I had with my calculus teacher from college a few years back. He got a job at his alma mater in the math department. I won’t tell the name of the school except to say it’s an ACC school with an outstanding basketball program. Naturally, as the new kid he got the remedial math classes, nothing unusual there. He told me that his class roster read like a roster of the b-ball team and that many of them were hopeless. They were so incapable that they couldn’t do basic math. But since then several of them have gone on to the pro ranks and are making big money. HUH?

I’ve been a construction foreman for several years, every summer we get an influx of kids straight out of high school who want jobs. Nothing wrong with that, everyone needs a job. Many of them work out just fine, but too many of them can’t handle simple things like adding and subtracting feet and inches. They don’t know how to read a tape measure well enough to tell the difference between an quarter inch and an eighth inch.

Ok, I am all over the road with this, I’ll try to pull it together a bit. There is a real problem with priorities in my opinion. The skilled teachers are retiring, the new teachers are not properly trained and the kids are paying the price for it. Meanwhile, we’re paying people who can barely read, write or do arithmetic millions to put a ball through a hoop. At the same time, teachers who are capable and caring can’t make a living. My friend, the teacher, will probably leave teaching. Not because she wants to, not because she isn’t good at it. But because she wants to make enough to buy a home for herself and her children. I am offended and outraged by this, but I really don’t know what to do. I just wanted to express my honest opinion, that’s all.

2

No disagreements from me. I have a masters degree, seven years of teaching experience, and I have $9.75 in the bank. The salary barely pays the bills and leaves absolutely no room for luxury.

3

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that if they scaled way the hell down on school sports–which eat up huge amounts of school funds–and spent that money on computers, teachers, books, tutoring, etc., the students and the schools would probably be a hell of a lot better off.

Not to mention that the number of students who actually go on to pro sports is such a minute percentage of all school children that they’d be FAR better off making sports private, and spending public money on all the kids…not just the glorified handful of jocks who get passed by teachers because of “school spirit,” and the desire to have the #1 sports team that DOESN’T FREAKIN’ MATTER!

I’ve met a lot of kids from my home town who were treated to this “special exemption” from passing classes, because they were good at sports, and then they got injured/washed out/whatever and now they’re doing whatever menial jobs they can get because they got very little in the way of a real education.

Pay teachers more, attract better teachers, and spend the money where it counts. On the BRAINS of kids, not the brawn.

4

I’m sure it’s not the same everywhere, but around here, teachers are making good money. Teacher salaries, at least at the high school level, are consistent with private industry, and every time I turn around the teachers somewhere in the area are asking for raises that are wildly out of sync with the economy.

And the insistence that if teachers were paid more, the students would learn more, is ridiculous. My kids went to parochial grade school, and the education they got from those underpaid teachers was good enough to put both of my daughters into honors classes in high school. Mathletes, and scholastic bowl, too.

And as for eliminating sports, I am of two minds about that. I know that money could be used for academics, which might give more kids a chance to benefit from it. Maybe. It might just get used up on the latest “education fad” or on administration waste, or something equally as useless. Audrey, I know that kind of stuff goes on, but I don’t think it’s quite as widespread as you think. What I see at our local schools is that a lot of kids participate in sports who might otherwise not learn that they can do those things. If you privatize all sports, then you limit them to the kids whose parents can afford to pay for them, and believe me, I know how expensive that can be. Yes, it’s true that most of the kids playing high school sports will never come within spitting distance of the pros, but if that’s the only consideration for what’s offered in high school, then art and music and foreign language have to go, too.

5

Yeah, teachers around here make at least 150% of what I do, and I get by just fine.

6

I made roughly 21K annually starting pay as a teacher in Texas with a Masters degree. Three years later I was making $23.5K teaching high school students. That is NOW the starting pay here.

I had to quit. My wife became ill and couldn’t work. No way in HELL to raise a family with two kids on that. So, I went back to construction. It’s a damned shame because I loved the kids and did a damned good too.

Teaching alternative classes to students grade 6 through 12 (all subjects). I had about 20-25 teenage boys that had been expelled from campus (usually drugs). Most of them were failing when they got there. Not when they left. Over half of them would be on the honor roll and I guarantee you they earned it.

If the kid sees that you care and won’t take any crap, but will return respect for respect and CAN teach them. The behavior usually takes care of itself. If you tell/treat someone like they are stupid long enough…they will usually fulfill that expectation.

SHOW them they are NOT stupid and guess what? The sky’s the limit.

Keep your teachers in poverty and they will go where the money is.
As far as the sports=money problem is concerned. The school district here hired a full coaching staff for the jr. high and high school my last year. Sixteen new coaches, all making a minimum of $40K each…the head is paid over $70K. The school spent 6 million on a new field…stadium, track etc.

I had to BEG for textbooks so I could even have classes.
This is not unique. I have heard many other teachers say similar things. Sports is a good thing. Not the only thing. None of these kids will be pros. At least not significantly speaking.

I gotta go…

7

t-keela, that story makes me sad. It’s extra sad because your situation is not as rare as it should be.

I hope you make it back to teaching someday!
Kids need people like you!
Good luck!

8

In the district where my sister lives and used to teach, a proposal was raised to demand parity: for every dollar put into capital expenditures and every dollar put into sports, a dollar had to be put into the purchase of classroom equipment, textbooks and computers.

It was voted down by a 5:1 margin.

9

As a teacher, I must agree: the idea that if you pay a teacher more, the kids will learn more… is a joke.

Kids will learn more when they are well taught by good, competent teachers under good circumstances.

The best teacher in the world cannot teach well in a war zone, a gang bang, a three ring circus, or a shitstorm.

Therefore, what we need is to hire good teachers and then arrange for them to teach in good circumstances.

…and this costs money.

I agree: skimp on teacher pay, and the teachers will go where the money is. Furthermore, if you screw around with their circumstances… that is to say, make their job harder, interfere with them in the classroom, legislate them into a corner, administrate them to death, and so on…

…then they will be less effective. Furthermore, due to stress, they will, again, go somewhere where there is less crap.

These are fairly simple principles, true of nearly any human in nearly any job. I have yet to figure out why the politicians can’t seem to understand it.

10

My mother is a teacher, as is one of my best friends. The former has been teaching for 25 years and makes a nice chunk of change - at least 60k. My friend just started this year and makes in the low 40s with LAUSD. That’s not chump change.

11

No, it’s not chump change, but I’ll bet if you look at the salary scale, you’ll see that your mother is at the absolute top of the scale. She probably has at least a master’s degree, maybe a doctorate, and she either has to or voluntarily continue to take classes to maintain her certification. If she’s been teaching 25 years she’s probably in her mid to late 50s.

She will never get another raise, except as an inflation adjustment, because she’s at the top of the salary scale.

As for your friend, check the salary scale. What will she be getting in 3 or 5 years?

Mrs. Kunilou has been teaching for more than 30 years. She would cheerfully accept her salary if she could give up some of the crap that comes with the job: the endless paperwork, fewer students so she could spend more time with each one, the lack of respect by many of the students and the lack of support from their parents.

12

My wife is also a teacher. As a starting teacher in Ohio, near Cleveland, she made about $34K a year. Here in Virginia, she started around $30K a year. Not a bad salary, but nothing to write home about. After 4 years of teaching, she’s making $33500 a year. When we first moved here, my first job paid $28K a year…a year later, I got a promotion and made $32K a year…6 months after that, I was approached to move to a new facility, and now make $60K a year. The most my wife will ever make (short of becoming a principal, or getting into administration) is short of what I make now. And I have only a HS diploma. While the experience I have does make up for a lack of degree, in my opinion, there should not be such a disparity between what our potentials are.

And while she does receive (grudgingly) $100 a year to buy classroom stuff for the kids, that doesn’t even come close to the amount she spends as an art teacher buying things for her classrooms. Or the time picking up and dropping off artwork all over creation, or decorating the school, or assisting ever single person that has some cutesy little project for their class, or doing “craft night” with the PTA. And of course, because she’s ‘artistic’, she also was “volunteered” to be in charge of the year book. So while the school pays for film, and developing, it’s still our camera that gets used (as opposed to the truly crappy one the school has), and her time that gets spent taking pictures at every event, dropping off and picking up film, cutting and pasting the crap into the pages, reviewing contracts every year with various vendors, ect. ect. Oh, but because it’s not a High School, she’s not eligible for the stipend that they normally get. So she does all that for nothing extra.

Uh-huh…tell me again how rewarding it is to be a teacher? Or how well off they are? While there may be some districts where teachers are paid what their worth, I’m willing to bet they’re in the minority…by a fairly wide gap.

And to build on what kunilou said, the crap they have to put up with in school is incredible. From screaming parents that argue over their kids grade, to internal investigations due to a parents court case against the school because they’re “precious angel” told mommy that the mean teacher grabbed them and hauled them down the hallway. Overlooking of course the fact that the kid may have been making crap up to take the focus away from why there had in school suspension. I’m sorry, as a kid when I got in trouble, my mom wouldn’t ever take my word over the teachers, without first coming into school and talking to someone. So little jonny causes a big stink, the investigation of course shows that nothing happened at all, and he doesn’t ever even get the original school punishment for his bad behavior, let alone any discipline at home. And what are the odds that teacher will think twice about disciplining the kids again, after having gone through all that? Way to teach kids social terrorism there.

And then there’s all the stuff that can’t be taught, because it might in someway touch on religion. So toss out a lot of Greek and Roman art, a lot of paintings in the Renaissance, and a whole slew of other things. And of course we have to meet the SOL (Standards of Learning), so drop everything to prep for that. Oh and wait, art isn’t a real subject, so we’ll tell the little hellions, that those grades don’t count towards them getting into the honor society. I’ll just mention in passing that she teaches in a glorified hallway behind the stage, has no storage, room for 25 kids, with classes of 32, and teaches art for grades K through 8. And she’s better off than a lot of art teachers that just have a cart.

And after all this, she still tries to encourage the very very few students that both appreciate art, and help them cultivate their talents.

So tell me one more time how well they’re doing?

13

Sure, teachers are underpaid, especially if you consider the importance of education and the difficulty of the job.

It’s interesting that the politicians who claim they need raises in order to keep good people don’t seem to think the same principle applies to teachers. :rolleyes: Same for the CEOs and their salary justification.

One problem with schools is that people keep saying the answer isn’t spending money to fix them. This is the equivalent of saying, “my car is broken, but I won’t spend any money to fix it.” It isn’t going to fix the car.

14

There appears to be a pretty massive disparity between jurisdictions in terms of teaching salary. My mother makes $50K as an elementary school teacher despite having only the minimum amount of education needed, no speciality to raise her salary, and middling seniority. Her drug and dental plans are good and the vacation, of course, is awesome - she only works 80% of the days of a normal full time job. The hours are reasonable even with extracurriculars. All in all it’s a perfectly good compensation plan.

If people in other jurisdictions are getting just over half that, that’s a remarkable disparity. I’d be looking to move out of state, that’s for sure.

15

With all due respect, thirdwarning, I think the problem is widespread. Mr. Levins’ mother used to work for the school district; stories like T-Keela’s are not unique.

In a school system wherein there will always be a shortage of money, I think the emphasis and money spent on sports is absolutely appalling. I would have no problem with all that money if sums that large were available for other pursuits as well–if the balance was equal–but when history teachers are begging for history books, and art teachers have no art supplies, and teachers who feel sorry for their students must go out and spend their own money on crayons/pencils, pens, etc., there is no way the sports budget at most schools is even remotely justified.

And as far as your point about “taking away sports would also mean taking away art and music and foreign language,” haven’t you heard about all the schools across the country who are cutting back on or completely eliminating music classes? I haven’t researched it, so this is just MHO, but I would bet that plenty of the schools who are cutting back on musical education have plenty of money for overpaid football coaches and uniforms and tour buses, etc., etc.

There are many parents out there from poverty-stricken districts who really pin all their hopes on their child becoming a sports star; wouldn’t that emphasis be better put on making sure their child becomes an educated adult with a real chance at college and a career? Where I grew up, there were plenty of kids who actually did excel at sports, and could have had “that big break”…and they couldn’t even get into college for it b/c they didn’t have the SAT scores necessary just to get into a state school!

I realize it will probably never change, but I think it’s a horribly sad case of totally misplaced priorities and lost opportunities.

16

My mother taught for 25 years. She obtained her Masters Degree slowly as time and costs permitted over those years. She had to have a second part-time job (aside from raising us) because teaching simply did not pay in her case. But it’s what she loved.

When she finally stopped teaching because she became too ill, she was making $27,000 a year teaching. [This was only six years ago] Near the same time, I started an entry-level administrative job that paid the exact same salary.

???

Doesn’t seem right at all.

17

I would like to take issue with the person who made the comment about the fine education available at private (parochial) school, and the fact that those teachers are paid less.

That’s a completely fallacious argument.

Public schools have a resposibility to teach every child, period. Private schools can and do refuse to admit children with learning disabilities, behavioral problems and other traits that will disrupt the classroom and prevent a good learning environment.

Add in smaller teacher to student ratios, and a self selecting group of parents who are more actively engaged in their child’s education and it’s really no mystery as to why you can get a better education for lower teacher pay at a private school.

18

I’m with RealityChuck. It’s an important job. It ought to be prestigious to be a teacher, and they ought to be compensated well. I think expectations are high (and should be), but I also think those expectations would be met more often if teaching attracted the best talent out there, and if teachers enjoyed good morale and support from parents and the community.

My mom was a teacher and my sister is teacher. I didn’t go into teaching because parts of the job didn’t look that attractive to me. Not so much the money, but some of the other hassles they faced. In grad school, I taught a few classes and it turns out I’m actually pretty good at communicating difficult concepts and motivating students. Best job I ever had. I loved it. Damn. Money isn’t everything, but I think if the profession were more prestigious and better paying, I would have considered it more seriously.

I do have a number of friends who started out in other careers and ended up going back to school to get a teaching certificate. Maybe someday.

19

I went into teaching because sales is a great way to make money, but a crappy way to leave your mark in the world. I needed something to feed my soul.

RealityChuck makes a good point. But why spend money to fix the car when you can just pass legislation titled “No Car Left Behind” that requires all cars to pass certain performance standards, regardless of their size, make, model, age, working condition, or amount of maintenance performed by the owners?

20

RealityChuck mentions the politicians. Are there places where teacher salary is not set by the local school board?