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Not easy. I subbed after college and at least high school kids were as awake as I was and took the same amount of time to "wake up". With first graders, you are tap dancing right off the bat. You honestly think 20 first graders is easy?
I have no issue paying a qualified and effective teacher well. They are worth it.
I do have an issue with tenure. I think we all had teachers who just weren't worth the air they breathed. For example. My school had Gym teachers who aside from gym were often Drivers Ed teachers or health teachers. They were also coaches. Maybe half of them bothered to have us open a textbook. In my opinion they weren't worth half their pay.
I had a history teacher whose claim to fame is that he fought in WWII. Never opened a book in his class either and no we didn't study history either. Tenure made him all but impossible to fire.
The benefit packages. As civil servants their packages should represent those of the people paying their salaries. That is an issue I have with all public servants including our elected reps.
Your issue should be with the principal too lazy to do what it takes to get rid of teachers. They simply have due process rights and can be fired. I've seen it done quite a bit. The reason I support teachers is because school systems would be getting rid of veteran teachers to save money and in public ed, you have nepotism and politics which can get a teacher fired if she didn't give an A+ to the child of a board of ed member.
You evidently didn't get it! Risk factors are just that, factors that increase your risk.
I agree with most of your post. I would like to address the bold. It's often said in Boulder, Colorado (a fairly expensive city) that there needs to be affordable housing so that teachers, nurses, retail workers, etc. can live there. As a nurse, I find this offensive, as if nurses are some sort of low-income category. I wonder if teachers feel the same way? Granted, I'll always take more pay, and I think teachers and nurses need to be adequately paid, but I hate being looked upon as a sort of "charity case".
I'm a nurse and not offended. I'm not sure exactly what is required to live in Boulder, but I'm near Fairfield County in CT where a single nurse's salary wouldn't get me anywhere.
Grading papers and lesson planning take up a lot of time, but if you're in the position long enough and the curriculum doesn't change much, there's less you have to tweak every time. I knew teachers who gave the same tests for years....They can curtail the high grading volume by not assigning as many things that need grades as I have seen. In many classes, teachers have aids that do all the grading. I'm speaking from my experiences living on Long Island, where teachers definitely have some perks that make their jobs a little easier.
Exactly! I recall when my kids were in elementary school, the teachers asked for volunteers to do the grading of spelling and math quizzes (with a key, of course, since many parents can't spell or do math, either)! I don't recall that in MS/HS, but the teachers there had 2 free periods to do that kind of work.
If the teachers both had doctorates, had been teachers for 44 years, AND were at the top tier...they would make $110,354 each. IE about 220K.
This is a FAR cry from being close to the 1% in income.
So...if you claimed that Mr. Joshua, I would probably say that you were stating a falsehood. Please see the link, and my prior information on income needed to be in the 1%. For their state it would require a personal income in excess of 530K. A family income would of course be even higher.
Teachers are not done working when they get home. There is often lesson planning, grading, grading, grading, phone calls, etc. I am a nurse and when I leave the hospital, I am DONE. I deal with a max of seven patients (on a busy night); not 22 first graders. I too have techs for all my patients, while teachers if lucky enough to have an assistant usually have one because there's a special needs child in the class the teacher has to modify for. I work over the summer and am paid for it, while teachers are contracted for ten months out of the year. I don't have a masters like most teachers do....yet. When I do finish, the hospital pays for most of it while teachers are covering it out of their own pocket. I get differentials for working nights and weekends, whereas teachers don't. Patients are fairly compliant while in my care and I work nights so don't have to deal with family members as much; teachers have no control over what goes on outside of school and have to deal with both uninvolved parents and helicopter parents. My benefits are far better than the benefits of my teacher hubby. So we don't take his benefits which saves the school system money. You'd be surprised how many teachers do that.
Stop whining. If teaching is such a great deal, then become a teacher. I've heard people complain about firefighter salaries and house, prison guard benefits, etc. yet no one wants to actually do the job. I have no interest in being an attoney even though every one I know works, takes a huge lunch break, does some more work, has assistants to do all the paperwork. I'm not going to knock what they make though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AMSS
But that's like teaching. They aren't compensated for time outside, reading professional articles (teachers have those believe it or not). As for the teacher you ran into, well I have no love for teachers who take extra time off for vacations. My husband teaches, but if he takes a day off (very rarely since it's easier to just go to work then prepare sub plans) - he does not want to be seen.
Maybe you should stop whining as well. Not every health care employer pays for furthering one's education. Some, such as my last employer, don't even pay for time off to go to continuing ed. (They did usually pay for the ed program.) You wanted a day off to attend a program, you used your day off for the week. You should get a job in a pediatrics practice! Talk about helicopter parents. Not only are some (a minority) of these parents helicoptering, they are all genuinely concerned because their kids are sick, and their "Mamma/Pappa Bear" instincts kick in. I know several people who work/worked for a school district just to get benefits b/c their spouses did not have any at their jobs. This is not uncommon either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AMSS
Why not? My husband was an engineer and now teaches physics. He'll tell you engineering was less stressful. Got to go the bathroom when he needed to, dealt with adults and not teens and parents whose angels do nothing wrong, far better pay, was judged on his work and not the homelife of students, and was actually respected and treated as a professional.
Maybe he should go back into engineering then. My spouse works in engineering. He has always had great flexibility and usually wonderful benefits. This "quit whining" stuff works both ways.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 12-22-2015 at 09:18 AM..
Scan through this forum and list all of the teachers - and I mean actual public K-12 teachers - that complain about being underpaid.
Go ahead... I'll wait...
Not a single one has. What you see - and what is obvious that many of you and your (lack of) reading comprehension are missing - is that teachers are trying to point out:
our salaries are lower than contemporaries with equal levels of college education. But, ironically, almost none actually complain about it. (prove me wrong by pointing out actual teachers doing so in this thread).
we do NOT state we work longer hours/days than other professions, BUT WE DO WORK LONGER THAN THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE PUBLIC REALIZES. This is so important that it necessitates repeating... the argument isn't about us working more than other professions, it's about working more than the public see/knows about! Almost everyone here has sat on the student's side of the desk, but to assume that that gives you knowledge concerning the details about the teacher's side of the desk is not only absurd, but insulting as well. And many of you would benefit from ceasing to spout your bilge, as you're only making yourselves look foolish to those that actually do know what they're talking about.
Pay is so widespread throughout a country the size of ours that to pick one salary and use it as an example for every teacher in the nation just shows how stupid - yes, I said stupid - some people can be. This shows not only a lack of common sense and logic, but could be construed as being intentionally misleading (IOW - a lie). To pick a salary in one of the highest COL areas in the country and say, "Look! See how much this one teacher makes! All teachers are overpaid!" is just so absurd as to make me question the person's... well, makes me think things I can't say in here as to prevent the entire post from being deleted.
I work in TN. A low cost of living area. So here's my salary: I have 21 years of experience & an Ed.S. degree (a degree that, ironically requires more graduate hours than a PhD teaching at college). I make $54K. My salary steps will continue for the next 4 years in which I will top out, which will probably be around $58K. From this salary I will pay into SS and a state pension. Now let's talk about that "golden" pension some of you mention: I will (after 30 yrs) gross 48% of the average of my top 5 highest paying years. So around $27K. From that I will continue to pay federal income tax, FICA and SS. I will be lucky if I see $1800/month. Please explain to me how "golden" this is. And I might add, this is more representative of teachers' retirements across the nation than some of the others mentioned in here.
Time worked: my contract - like most teachers in the nation - is 200 days. If an engineer gets a 2-week vacation every year (and many get more weeks as they progress through their careers), then they work 50 weeks, or 250 days/year. That's 50 more days. But... I spent 3 weeks this summer doing various unpaid crap for my school (ACT training, AP conferences, lab work with new equipment, etc.). And this is not just me. At any point in the summer, you will see the about 20-30% of the teachers of our school in the building doing various stuff, simply because it needs to be done. Typically, we are there 2-3 days before the official 1st day of school due to all of the crap we have to do (that really has nothing to do with education, but that's another thread) that takes away from our actual time to prep our rooms, etc. Coaches are there manning the weight rooms (this is above their contracted hours for their sports).
I get to school at 5:45am for a day that doesn't start until 7:45am. And I'm not the first in the parking lot. I leave at 3:15pm. Do the math geniuses. That's 9.5 hours - daily. I'm a morning worker. Others come in at 7:00am and work until 4:30-5:00pm. The kids may be there for 7 hours, but the teachers are there for much longer. And this, of course, doesn't include the hours worked by most of the coaches that, when the wages are calculated, make about 50cents/hr for their extra time.
Have you ever seen an English teacher take home the 75 3-page essays they have to meticulously grade? Think a 50-minute planning period is enough time to do this? Ever set up a chemistry lab, and then have to tear it down again to get it out of the way for the other teacher that uses your class during your planning period because your building doesn't have enough rooms for all of the teachers on staff?
Again, let me make this perfectly clear - virtually no teacher in this forum is complaining about being underpaid. We simply want to point out the fallacies made by some seriously ignorant people in here. Virtually no teacher in this forum complains about our time working. We also do not think we work harder/longer than the general public. We simply want to point out we work more than the general public thinks.
Most of you would benefit from walking in teacher's shoe for awhile. Simply assuming that because you've been educated gives you knowledge on how to educate is ridiculous. How about extending us some courtesy and respect in the fact we do a hard job that many would refuse to do, once you've actually had a taste of it.
Last edited by Starman71; 12-22-2015 at 10:01 AM..
In our state, the governor(s) have frequently raided the teacher pension fund (which teachers pay into) and then blames greedy teachers.
What state?
It certainly isn't directly the teachers' fault here in Michigan, but it is indirectly their fault for allowing the union to mismanage it. It isn't solely the union's fault, but a large portion of the blame goes on them for misusing the control that they do have over it.
It certainly isn't directly the teachers' fault here in Michigan, but it is indirectly their fault for allowing the union to mismanage it. It isn't solely the union's fault, but a large portion of the blame goes on them for misusing the control that they do have over it.
Connecticut. The union has no control over the fund; the union is there to assist teachers in job situations. Not sure why it's allowed in other states.
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For those of you who think teachers are overpaid...
