Move to Outlaw teacher's strikes in PA (Pittsburgh, Lebanon: rentals, house)

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

Aqua,
You must have been looking at the older database.

7 yrs of service above shows over 54k. 76k @ 12 yrs.

You are correct. I missed that guy, my bad. But there are 12 teachers that meet my claim.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

Aqua,
You must have been looking at the older database.

I'm seeing a lot of variation. It may depend on advanced degrees and maybe subject.

Anyway, as usual I find those completely unremarkable salaries for white collar professionals, particularly for the people with seniority.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by UKyank

Compare to European teachers:
http://download.ei-ie.org/Docs/WebDe...8%20Report.pdf

Seems their average take home pay for a new teacher after taxes is $35k USD which is friggin awesome.

(Report had an average of 2000 Euro take home a month multiplied by 12 months and then converted to USD)

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by Aqua Teen Carl

Seems their average take home pay for a new teacher after taxes is $35k USD which is friggin awesome.

(Report had an average of 2000 Euro take home a month multiplied by 12 months and then converted to USD)

Though comparing Euros to Dollars in terms of salaries one would also have to take the cost of living into effect between the US and the other country so a straight comparison is really corrent. Maybe there is an online calculator somewhere that does this.

[BrianTH]

Here is a good roundup on pay-related teacher stats in international comparisons:

Teacher Pay Around the World - NYTimes.com

To sum up, U.S. teachers are at the top of the scale in terms of hours of instruction per year. Their pay is more middling, and if you control for the relative wealth of the countries, their pay is toward the bottom end of the scale.

So per hour of instruction, adjusted for relative country wealth, we are way low when it comes to teacher pay.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Originally Posted by UKyank

Though comparing Euros to Dollars in terms of salaries one would also have to take the cost of living into effect between the US and the other country so a straight comparison is really corrent. Maybe there is an online calculator somewhere that does this.

Well if you take into consideration that they never have to pay for health care during their lives (in most EU countries) since that total is take home pay that is very nice. Not to mention they will be coming out of college with little to no debt while the average graduate's debt in the US is around $80k (plus interest). It's a win-win teaching over there apparently.

[UKyank]

To play devils advocate their results when compared againt their international counterparts is middling too....(though yes, many of those reasons are out of their control)

I actually don't think there would be as much backlash currently over teachers pay if the total expenditure in education as a whole in our country was in a way that taxes needn't be consistently raised nor the budget consistently increased when other countries can teach their children successfully while spending significantly less per pupil; the system as a whole is what really needs meaningful reform, teacher salaries are a convenient target

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by UKyank

To play devils advocate their results when compared againt their international counterparts is middling too....(though yes, many of those reasons are out of their control)

We're underpaying teachers based on international comparisons, and getting relatively poor results based on international comparisons. I'm not sure the conclusion I would draw from those observations is that we should pay our teachers even less. But I would tend to agree that we may be able to pay our teachers in better ways.

I actually don't think there would be as much backlash currently over teachers pay if the total expenditure in education as a whole in our country was in a way that taxes needn't be consistently raised nor the budget consistently increased when other countries can teach their children successfully while spending significantly less per pupil; the system as a whole is what really needs meaningful reform, teacher salaries are a convenient target

I think there is a some truth to this. We spend a lot of education money in the U.S. on non-instructional categories, and a lot of that spending might be unnecessary (although some of it is because we still have a lot of people living in spread out areas, leading to high transportation costs, and solving that problem is outside the scope of education policy alone).

That said, I feel compelled to note again that there isn't really a general backlash over teacher's pay. It is a big talking point among a certain political minority, but the majority of people aren't buying it.

[hempfield mania]

BrianTH,
When are you going to get it? YOU are in the minority. The city-data forum DOES NOT represent the majority in the PGH metropolitan area, especially the eastern suburbs.

People without children and people on fixed incomes, especially the elderly, can't continue to sustain the school systems with constantly rising property taxes and they are the majority whether you choose to believe it or not. What causes the continue rise on school budgets; for the most part, higher salaries and benefit/pension costs.

[SammyKhalifa]

Originally Posted by hempfield mania

BrianTH,
When are you going to get it? YOU are in the minority. The city-data forum DOES NOT represent the majority in the PGH metropolitan area, especially the eastern suburbs.

People without children and people on fixed incomes, especially the elderly, can't continue to sustain the school systems with constantly rising property taxes and they are the majority whether you choose to believe it or not. What causes the continue rise on school budgets; for the most part, higher salaries and benefit/pension costs.

That's because we're still running school districts designed for like three times the current population, not because teachers are allowed to go on strike.

Frankly, I feel this is more a convenient excuse to chip away at labor unions (especially in places like my home state of Ohio) than an honest attempt at "fixing" anything. I'm not in a union, and there are a lot of things about them I don't particularly agree with, but come on--people should at least be honest about what their goals are with this . . .