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What is so special about teachers and the education complex that they are immune to the market forces that many of us are subject to?
Imagine if you opened a hot dog stand and every home in made up geographical area (district) had to kick $500 your way twice a year whether they ate your dogs or not and regardless if they tasted good or not?
If anyone refused or couldnt pay the $1000 a year, men with guns would evict them from their homes and take possesion of it.
As the hot dog stand owner, you never had to negotiate that $1000 with any of those forced to pay it, and if you took care of the local strongmen, that $1000 could be increased over time, but never go down.
And if one day you decided to retire from the stand and let someone else run it, you still got your money.
The article says the average starting salary is over $32K in MO. For your statement to be true, there would have to be as many teachers in MO starting at $46K as there are starting at $18k in order to average out to $32K. Why the disparity in starting salaries?
There is a lot of difference in cost of living between rural and city, like in all states.
Starting salary in my state is $51,443 right out of school with summers and all holidays off. That is not terrible.
And when I look up the teachers salaries in my town, there is a website for that, many are making 6 figures. Last time I checked, there was a gym teacher earning $130K, plus whatever he made on the side at his summer job, assuming he had one.
Many of the PE teachers especially male, are also coaches. The football coaches around her make more than principals. I know some who are making $145000 a year. They are expected to get scholarships for the players. It is part of the job. They try to convince me their pay comes out of the ticket prices for football games.
I'm kind of surprised that no one has mentioned the growing teacher shortage nationwide. Undoubtedly there are areas with high pay (mostly in the Northeast), but if it is the gravy train that some of you keep suggesting, why are there so many unfilled classrooms?
Across Hawaii, for example, many classrooms are staffed by substitute teachers full-time. Last year it was reported that the state was short 1600 credentialed teachers. I know of classrooms right now that STILL don't have teachers 3 months into the school year. Many kids are playing video games while being proctored by an ever-changing series of adults. Some areas of extreme need now allow Substitutes who only have a high school diploma themselves.
This situation should not exist if teachers were paid living wages. If it is such a cushy deal, why isn't there a surplus instead of a teacher shortage? Why do more than half of new teachers, nationwide, leave the profession by year five?
BTW: In California and many other states, you HAVE to be 60 years old for full retirement. If you leave at 55 you get HALF as much. If you leave before 55 you don't get retirement at all.
Food for thought.
Just wanted to add, most of us retired teachers do NOT get health benefits. I earned Medicare in part-time jobs or I would have none after 32 years of teaching.
The same situation exists with machinists, electricians, carpenters, plumbers, construction workers, engineers, etc. Except...those fields typically work more like 240 days a year-not 180. And many do not have a full pension paid at taxpayer expense, let alone other benefits. A booming economy results in a labor shortage.
But I absolutely hate the argument that ALL teachers are at poverty level salaries. Because it's just not true.
It would be more accurate to state that regardless of what one does for a living, if paid in 'dollar bills' (worthless since 1933), the odds of equitable trade are slim to none.
Thanks to hyperinflation, a copper cent (1910) has the equivalent buying power of $2.00 (2019). So who do you blame for debauching the money system?
Or with an aggregate tax of 44% of the GDP, (state, local, federal) the population is divided into TAKERS and MAKERS. Who benefits from destroying the unity of a nation?
Or with the false belief that socialist government's entitlements and benefits will 'take care of you' by taxing 'other people's children' so that you forego the expense and burden of raising a family or bother to preserve the family. Who benefits from genocide and societal collapse?
Understated salaries presented in such a creative way causes mistrust.
Unions conscript teacher pay while treating them as if they were widgets. time on the job is the criteria used to keep or get rid of teachers.
Most new teachers leave after the first year.
Teachers get extra pay for a variety of opportunities available to them, such as coaching.
That salary is for September to June with a truckload of days off for holidays.
Most teachers have summer jobs.
That teachers work overtime is comparable with people in other industries like phrama who have to be on call and attend global meetings at all hours depending on the time zone. No summers off.
Tenure is incompatible with merit evaluations, so merit reviews with commensurate pay are eliminated.
Colleges push teaching curriculum, kids pay a fortune to attend college to be teachers and end up leaving the profession.
Teachers are a valuable asset and deserve better than pay to play demanded by the unions.
The insane rules which dilute good classrooms with bad seed teachers and disruptive students and crazy rules by administrators, who were teachers, needs a major correction.
Out teachers and kids and our future deserves better than administrators and unions now provide
I deal with adults who act like children, I deal with corporate downsizing that requires shared office space and reserving a room or spending an hour trying to find a place to work when I travel, I buy most of my own supplies, and sometimes my own technology, I deal with unruly adults, I deal with extra work load because people with kids think they can call out and not do work because little johnny has a hang-nail every other day, I deal with "special" supposedly "adults" who cant be talked to in in certain ways, cant be bothered at certain times of the day/week/month because they are "busy" then, I deal with doing extra work because of head count reduction (ie I work more because people got laid off), and I deal with a ton of political BS that most adults should be above.
ZERO sympathy, teachers or business professionals all deal with a ton of BS. Teachers aren't f'ign special, at least they get 3 months off, I only get 1 month.
And honestly, its not THAT bad, because I'm a grown adult and I make it work.
What 3 months do they get off? When I was still in school they got maybe a week or two during the summer and spent the rest of the summer in required seminars.
What 3 months do they get off? When I was still in school they got maybe a week or two during the summer and spent the rest of the summer in required seminars.
True. Many are required to take classes all summer.
Many of the PE teachers especially male, are also coaches. The football coaches around her make more than principals. I know some who are making $145000 a year. They are expected to get scholarships for the players. It is part of the job. They try to convince me their pay comes out of the ticket prices for football games.
Yeah. I don't think that is the case here. We are not raising any professional athletes in my town. Just Dr.s Lawyers, MBA’s PhDs, etc.
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