Teachers FLOCK to Michigan- 4th Highest Paid (Grand Rapids, Warren: credit, vacation)

[jaynarie]

I admit I did not read all the posts. For the most part, I was highly irritated by the time I got to page three. All right, all of you engineers, doctors, lawyers, managers, human resources associates, architects, etc.... Do you know what you ALL have in common? Someone, a TEACHER, taught you a large portion of what you know and what you need to know to complete your job. Starting all the way back in kindergarten with addition, money, measurement, etc... Going all the way through college, med school, law school, graduate school, etc... YOU could not make what you are making with out the help of a teacher, the majority of whom are grossly underpaid. I am contracted for 7 hours per day (may I note, although I am teaching in another state, due to being unable to get a job in Michigan, I have to work more that teachers in MI do. I do not have "duty-free" lunch, which means I still have to supervise my kids during my lunch period. I have 3 45 minute periods with out my kids per week, which 90 minutes of is spent in required professional development meetings, leaving 45 paid minutes per week to do all my planning, grading,etc.... Yeah right). Do you know how much time I actually "work" try 9ish, plus another 4-5 hours over the weekend. At report card time? Conference time? Make that 60-80 hours per week. So far this year, I have brought home a little over $8000 (four months). Do you know how much of MY money I have spent on/for my classroom? Over $600. In less than four months. I love my job, which is why I do it. But, since I can not even be approved for a home loan (larger than 60 thousand that is), I'm not sure if I can afford to stay a teacher. I already have to have a second job to pay my rent!
The AVERAGE salary in Michigan may be 56k, but that is not an accurate measurement. Teachers making that amount have either taught 30 years, 20 years plus their masters, coach sports, or do other jobs over and above their actual TEACHING. I wish they'd release statistics removing pay for summer school, coaching, instructing drivers ed, etc... because that would give you a more accurate picture of what teachers really make. IMO, it is not fair to count those salaries in the "average" figure, because those are extra/optional activities. Here is something I ran across from the NEA (the National Education Association) this week:

Myths and Facts About Teaching

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Myths and Facts

MYTH: Teachers make just as much as other, comparable professions.
Moderator cut: do not post copyrighted material

[jaynarie]

Originally Posted by JimmyInGreatLakes

Dennisk, you are misinformed. Teachers now get at least TWELVE weeks a year in the summer with the mandatory "after Labor Day" start.

That is an ignorant statement. There are still a required amount of school days, even if the first day of school isn't until October! It just means you go later into June and possibly shorten breaks or eliminate days through out the year. They changed the START date, not the number of DAYS in a school year.


Sorry, but this is a touchy subject with me (and likely every other teacher out there). I can't stand someone putting false information out there.

Oh, and 2 personal days are standard. Sick days, you get more of, but if you are female, in some districts you have to save them in case you have a baby and go on maternity leave.

[HeadedWest]

Originally Posted by jaynarie

MYTH: Thanks to tenure, teachers can never be fired, no matter how bad they are.

FACT: Tenure does not mean a "job for life," as many people believe. It means "just cause" for discipline and termination, be the reason incompetence or extreme misconduct. And it means "due process," the right to a fair hearing to contest charges. Quite simply, any tenured teacher can be fired for a legitimate reason, after school administrators prove their case. That's similar to what American citizens expect when charged with violation of a law.

In my town, the actual application is that, no matter how poor, teachers have a job for life.

No one has to prove any case to fire most workers in the private sector.

[JimmyInGreatLakes]

Originally Posted by jaynarie

That is an ignorant statement. There are still a required amount of school days, even if the first day of school isn't until October! It just means you go later into June and possibly shorten breaks or eliminate days through out the year. They changed the START date, not the number of DAYS in a school year.


Sorry, but this is a touchy subject with me (and likely every other teacher out there). I can't stand someone putting false information out there.

Oh, and 2 personal days are standard. Sick days, you get more of, but if you are female, in some districts you have to save them in case you have a baby and go on maternity leave.

There are no longer a required number of days in Michigan. There are a required number of hours instead and schools play with 5-10 minutes here and there for a day (which I have no problem with) to get those in.

I checked four districts in my area (mid-Michigan), Holt, Dewitt, Mason, and East Lansing. Only Dewitt goes beyond June 6th (June 11th) so they "only" have 11.5 weeks off instead of 12. I'd challenge you to find any other FACTS to challenge my "false" information I stated about the summer break. The five personal days I stated were not out of line. Personal days are not necessarily restricted to vacation days. You say they actually get 10-12.

[JimmyInGreatLakes]

Originally Posted by HighlandsGal

Hmmm....where are you getting this information from? A week off from Easter? In Michigan, at least the west part of the state, spring break is separate from Easter. Easter is just a weekend, with maybe the Friday before or Monday after off. Spring break is traditionally the first full week in April -- which I might add, most families go somewhere, so I would assume all the families that travel down south must be teachers, huh? And for the record, at every school I've worked at, private and public, in Michigan and in Colorado, teachers get 2 personal days, not 5. We do, however, get additional sick days (usually between 8 and 10, though I've never used more than 4). Doctor visits and children being sick are usually what those are used for. And "at least 2" weeks at Christmas??? Yeah right!! More like a week, which many "regular" business people also work flexible schedules around.

Summers are spent taking grad classes at mainly or totally the teacher's expense, along with district trainings and supplemental conferences, along with planning for the next school year. Add to that the fact that many teachers at the secondary level coach or are involved in extracurricular activities work an extra 3 or 4 hours every weekday, plus weekends for tournaments and games and practices.

It's funny....my best friends are accountants and engineers and I feel jealous with their expense accounts, company cars, long lunches, company phones, etc.

Every job has their pros and cons.....bottom line is that 99% of people could not make it as a successful teacher but they think they could or they think we are somehow overpaid.

I will never get it.

Okay, I meant Spring break, not Easter. And, yes, non-teachers will take that week off as well to travel with family. They must use vacation time.

I would challenge you to find any district in Michigan that has less than two full weeks for Christmas vacation. I don't know of any.

Grad school in the summer at your expense? Great! My employer doesn't pay for extracurricular schooling either. In Michigan, that master's gets a teacher an automatic raise. Most other professions, you have to take that masters and apply for and obtain a higher level job before it becomes useful.

Extracurricular activities are not forced upon any teacher and 90% of them earn them extra pay, usually 5% of their salary. That's usually not much on an hourly basis for what they put in but it's still not a volunteer job either.

No, I could not handle teaching and salute those who do. I'm not even trying to build a case they are overpaid, however, people are hurting in Michigan and I don't think it's out of line for people to question when teachers ask for more compensation than they currently get.

[JimmyInGreatLakes]

"(QUOTE=jaynarie)

The AVERAGE salary in Michigan may be 56k, but that is not an accurate measurement. Teachers making that amount have either taught 30 years, 20 years plus their masters, coach sports, or do other jobs over and above their actual TEACHING. I wish they'd release statistics removing pay for summer school, coaching, instructing drivers ed, etc... because that would give you a more accurate picture of what teachers really make. IMO, it is not fair to count those salaries in the "average" figure, because those are extra/optional activities. Here is something I ran across from the NEA (the National Education Association) this week: (Endquote)"

I found nothing in the statistics for teacher's salaries that "qualified" these figures as including additional instruction in the averages. They appear to me to be raw salary, nothing else. It is stated that the 56K is a MEAN (total salaries divided by # of teachers) so that it is NOT just 30 year/master's bearing teachers. Many of those teachers are making 70K plus. I hope you don't teach statistics.


"(quote)MYTH: If schools were allowed to grant merit pay, good teachers would be well compensated .

FACT: The fundamental problem is low teacher pay, period. Merit pay schemes are a weak answer to the national teacher compensation crisis.

Merit pay systems force teachers to compete, rather than cooperate. They create a disincentive for teachers to share information and teaching techniques. This is especially true because there is always a limited pool of money for merit pay. Thus, the number-one way teachers learn their craft --learning from their colleagues -- is effectively shut down. If you think we have turnover problems in teaching now, wait until new teachers have no one to turn to.


The single salary schedule is the fairest, best understood, and most widely used approach to teacher compensation -- in large part because it rewards the things that make a difference in teacher quality: knowledge and experience.(endquote)"



Yeah, I can trust the NEA, with interests slanted towards the teacher. They are certainly biased so here's some info from the Mackinaw Center for Public Policy that seems to counter their argument:

"One major problem is that the current teacher compensation system has the wrong incentives. In Michigan, nearly all teachers are paid according to the single salary schedule. This compensation method rewards teachers for experience and level of degree. If a teacher earns a masters degree, she gets a significant pay bump. If she stays in the job for another year, she gets yet another raise. Despite the research that shows that teacher seniority after the first five years does little to impact student achievement, individual teachers still get their raises year after year. As for extra degrees, no research definitively links increased credentials to higher student performance either.

Teacher unions have designed a system to protect the weakest teachers, not to promote student achievement. As long as a teacher doesn’t do anything egregious, the checks keep coming and the teacher unions get their cut. The only real accountability measure in the state is the competition that school choice provides, and, wouldn’t you guess, the unions want to do away with that too."

Yes, there's bias in the Mackinaw Center too. Whose bias will you believe on this issue?

It's just like the MEA (the state arm of the NEA) in one magazine article advocating, instead of standardized testing to rate schools, the use of student GRADES to rate the schools (and, thus, the teachers). Are you kidding me? Let those who are being evaluating have control over the means of evaluation? That's why I don't trust your myth-busting "facts" from an organization that has existed merely to prop up their members rather than the kids.

[Coldjensens]

"The AVERAGE salary in Michigan may be 56k, but that is not an accurate measurement. Teachers making that amount have either taught 30 years, 20 years plus their masters, coach sports, or do other jobs over and above their actual TEACHING."

Actually an average salary is the middle. That means that half of the teachers make more than this amount and half of the teachers make less. I think that this get skewed a bit because teaching does not seem to have good retention so not that many teachers stay in it long enough to get tenure.

In the district that we moved from in California starting teachers were paid absurdly low wages, but tenured teachers compensation was $99,000. That may include other things than just money paid to them though. Still if you could supplement that with a fun summer job, that is not a bad living, especially if a married couple are both tenured teachers. It would be really hard getting to that point though.

To have an average of $56,000, teachers in Michigan must top out around 90 - 100K. Not earth shattering, but that is better than some professions (how about ministers?).

What is really annoying is that many of the teachers were really bright hard working and motivated. However some were lazy and/or stupid. They all get paid the same and the administration was not able to get rid of the bad ones, nor even cut their pay. Usually they were not even aware of which teachers were bad. there is no meaningful review procedure.

Although I think that teachers are generally underpaid, there are some misconceptions about the business world posted here.

1. business persons, especially upper management and owners do not get raises every year. In fact at times our income drops year after year while we see salaried government employees demanding and getting pay increases sometimes even in bad economic times. As a business owner you take a great deal of risk. teachers and other government workers do not risk the possibility of not getting paid at all.

2. Vacations? I have never had a true vacation. When I take time away from the office, I have to bring my computer and blackberry and continue working. I do reduce my hours and try to work more at night or early in the morning.

3. Benefits? I have none. I have to buy my own health, life and disability insurance and the medical insurance is crummy. I am not entitled to unemployment. the only retirement plan is what I put into a 401K and social security which anyone under 50 is probably never going to see.

4. Hours: My typical hours vary from about 30 to as much as 90 hours a week. The biggest problem is that I never know when I will have to work thought a weekend or holiday so I can never fully commit to anything.

5. Sick days, vacation days, personal days: I get none. If I do not work, I do not make any money that day. If I am sick a lot, I will lose my business and make nothing.

6. Very little of what I use in business was taught to me by teachers (other than obvious reading, writing and math skills). College taught me very little of practical value. Most of what I use, I learned by working. At the higher levels teachers are more involved in teaching you how to think that in teaching actual practical skills.


7. Not all professionals are highly compensated. Attorneys working for the D.A.'s office or worse yet the public defender are very poorly compensated. Doctors do not get paid much at the beginning of their careers and some never reach the high compensation levels. Business persons often make a lot of money for some years and then little or none other years. Most start up businesses fail. Many if not most business owners have tried several times to start a business before they find the right combination and become well to do. It is not uncommon to find rich business persons who have lived at their business, or even in their car when they were getting started.

8. Continuing education is necessary in almost all professions. Even when you achieve the top degree or credential in your occupation, you have to continually learn either through formal education, or thorugh eself education or you will fail.

9. retirement is not generally realistic. Most of us will work into our 70s or even longer. Engineers and middle management people often have retirement plans that allow retirement as early as 57 or at least 65, but they also top out about the same as teachers do.

10. Summers off. teachers have the option of taking summers off most of their career. Further college education takes up 2-4 summers and then you are done. Some chose to work it the summer because they want to make more money. It would be nice to have that choice.

The big downside of teaching is that it has limits. After 10 to 15 years you will hit a maximum salary and never make more, except occasional cost of living increases. You have no possibility of making over $150,000 unless you become a superintendent (now those guys are overpaid!). The risk is less. The job seems much more pleasant than many. It requires special skills to be a good teacher, but you do not need to be a good teacher to be a teacher. In my experience, at least a quarter of the teachers that I have encountered are not competent and would be fired in the private world, but they continue teaching in our system. I have never heard of a teacher being fired for general incompetence. At the lower grades, you spend your entire day without the company of a single adult. That has got to make some people nuts.


It is really like any other profession. It has some very big advantages and some very big downsides.
You trade off lower pay for a more rewarding job and summers off, or at least a change in employment during the summer.

My hat is off to teachers (the ones who make the effort to be good teachers anyway). They do sacrifice for the benefit of our kids. So do many other professions (when is the last time that your local DA or public defender got a pat on the back? what about a doctor working in a clinic in an impoverished area at sustenance wages?). It would be great if teachers could be paid more. It would also be great if there was some way to pay the good teachers more and the bad teachers less. from inside the system, it probably looks really often. From outside the system it looks like teachers are really not that bad off, but they always seem to demand pay increases even when everyone else is taking pay cuts. However generalized perceptions are rarely accurate on either side.

The really abysmal work is substitute teaching. Substitute teachers make about $60/day and they never know when/if they will work until 5:30 in the morning. they may not be a worse paying job that requires college education.

[twill]

It appears that many of the people on this forum are jealous of teachers because we get the summers off (although, many on here have told an accurate picture of what we do in the summer). I actually think it is pathetic that other professions just get "2 weeks" or comparable. Maybe that's why the stress level in our country is so high and having negative consequences.
We earn less because we work less. But thank God we do! Even though I love kids, I don't live for my work, as most of you appear to. I actually get to have a life outside of the rat race! It's refreshing to get that time off to regroup and relax. BTW, JiimyinGreatLakes, teachers are REQUIRED to continue to obtain higher education credits in order to keep our jobs, it is not extracurricular! Most of you are coming off as so ill-informed! Everyone should be thanking the teachers for the extra money WE put into the state-the district's don't pay for these classes, we do! What other professions have to continually do this, at an average rate of $1200 per class?
It's disgusting how others try to downplay teaching, when most couldn't last 1 day! We have the hardest job in the world (besides parenting) because their are many aspects to what we do. We plan, teach, discipline (as best as we can), train kids whose parents are "too busy with real jobs," etc., while most of you on here do the same boring thing day after day! Don't hate us because so many others chose to enter fields that resemble modern-day slavery in the amount of time you have to be there - all day, 5/7 days for 50/52 weeks! And, btw, there is not one person who has not had the touch of a teacher in their lives!

[bobrosei]

I am all for teachers working all year and kids going to school all year . Then ,,,, maybe the kids would learn something and the teachers would earn their money .. They both would still have a great deal of time off ,, snow days , holidays , teachers conf. ,, teachers conf. ,, teachers conf. ,, etc. ,, you get the idea ...

[JimmyInGreatLakes]

Originally Posted by twill

It appears that many of the people on this forum are jealous of teachers because we get the summers off (although, many on here have told an accurate picture of what we do in the summer). I actually think it is pathetic that other professions just get "2 weeks" or comparable. Maybe that's why the stress level in our country is so high and having negative consequences.
We earn less because we work less. But thank God we do! Even though I love kids, I don't live for my work, as most of you appear to. I actually get to have a life outside of the rat race! It's refreshing to get that time off to regroup and relax. BTW, JiimyinGreatLakes, teachers are REQUIRED to continue to obtain higher education credits in order to keep our jobs, it is not extracurricular! Most of you are coming off as so ill-informed! Everyone should be thanking the teachers for the extra money WE put into the state-the district's don't pay for these classes, we do! What other professions have to continually do this, at an average rate of $1200 per class?
It's disgusting how others try to downplay teaching, when most couldn't last 1 day! We have the hardest job in the world (besides parenting) because their are many aspects to what we do. We plan, teach, discipline (as best as we can), train kids whose parents are "too busy with real jobs," etc., while most of you on here do the same boring thing day after day! Don't hate us because so many others chose to enter fields that resemble modern-day slavery in the amount of time you have to be there - all day, 5/7 days for 50/52 weeks! And, btw, there is not one person who has not had the touch of a teacher in their lives!

I'm honestly not trying to hate on teachers here. I'm trying to state the facts as I know them, they are not always right on but please, when you rebut them, state hard truths (e.g. are there any districts in this state that DON'T get two weeks at Christmas?). The pay, benefits and vacation time are relevant to discussions (especially in Michigan) where hard choices are having to be made between finite resources and quality education. And just what IS quality education? I'd say some parents and the MEA might have two different opinions as to what it is and how to measure it.

Hardest job in the world? I'd say that is somewhat subjective, however, a national guardsman in Iraq or a constuction worker making high-rise buildings might beg to differ.

I'm not saying you should be paid any less, but how much more do you deserve? Pay raises aren't even the issue any more. The cost of benefits (usually about 40% of the actual salary so that $56K avg. is actually more like $80K in total cost) is rising quite a bit and is hurting education funding the most. What will teacher's absorb vs. the taxpayers in this area? You may not appreciate this measure but one measure that sticks out to me is job turnover (not including retirements) among Michigan teachers. It's just about nil, which indicates that these are pretty good jobs paying a pretty fair wage.