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I do think teachers are underpaid and I do think they're undervalued; however, their starting salaries are not out of line with other professions that require a bachelor's degree (or some, like social work, even a master's degree).
You want an underpaid profession, try social work and mental health counseling. I, as a fundraiser for a nonprofit agency with a bachelor's degree and 15 years' experience, earn more than the woman with a master's degree and 30 years' experience who manages one of my agency's counseling programs.
Teaching pay and benefits vary widely depending on where you are in the US.
Here in our district in FL, you would make $38,000 after 10 years. Family medical insurance (not dental, disabilty, etc - those are extra) is $800 a month.
You are on annual contract forever now. Hundreds of newer teachers spent this entire summer without a contract and scrambling to find a job again. (no recall procedure either)
5th grade teachers have to grade 5 subjects per marking period.
24 students (can vary up to 27) x 7 grades per subject (5 graded subjects) = 840 assignments to grade per marking period (x 4) = 3,360 graded assignments per year!
ALL of that grading has to be done on your own time (weekends, nights) because there is no time to do this during the day. Your 45 min planning time is eaten up by checking e-mails, contacting parents, and "putting out fires". Then of course, you actually have to plan, which takes even more time.
Voters are running out of money and more likely to vote down any education-related tax increases. Also, voters think the school district is mis-managed (correct) but that is NOT the fault of the teachers.
Now that all newer teachers in FL are on annual contract forever, teachers can't make a peep about any fraud, waste, or mismanagement or their contract will simply not be renewed when it expires in June (every year). Teachers are contract employees here now, so their jobs end every single June, and they have "no expectation of re-employment" as the HR dept loves to tell teachers here. It's nuts!!
Check out the salary schedules (Huntington Beach Union High School District starting @ $56,000.00 ending at $101,282.00.) Then note the fringe benefit package with retirement, health, dental, vision that include the teacher's whole family @ $14,000.00 a year and also in retirement. Then factor in the 6 hour work day with 3 breaks in between (lunch , break and passing periods); Finally the 180 day work year. Also their is little accountability...20% dropout rate in California. Pretty cush job, I know I did it as a career. Teachers are not overpaid by a long shot...the have it made and the public is on to the union scam.
In general, the 6 hour day is a fiction - and it is not the hours the teachers work, but the hours that the kids are in school. Teachers are contracted for at least an hour to two hours longer than the kids.
Passing periods are NOT breaks (they are 3 to 5 minutes) - teachers are getting the class ready for their next class or monitoring halls or...
Teachers usually work at least 10 days longer than the 180 days - 180 days are only the days that the children are in the school - there are work days and inservice days added to that total for the teachers.
You are also isolating one particular school district. I imagine the COL in that district is pretty high. Can teachers afford a home in the district or do most of them commute from other towns where the cost of homes is a bit less?
Note that many districts and states are right to work and do not have unions for teachers. Many districts have much lower pay scales.
Also note that the top salaries are not on the scale of what other professionals would top out at. My ds who is a chemical engineer already makes more than that top salary and he has quite a bit less in years at the job than teachers who top out after 25 years of teaching.
I don't think that *all* teachers are underpaid. I do think that they are in many districts and I do think that it is because teaching and education are not valued.
Work hours are 8AM to 3:30 PM ("official time" that you must be in your classroom). However, kids come in the room at 8:10AM and they are still there after 3:30 due to the overcrowding and the late buses. (they hold students in teacher's room until each bus is called and that process takes about 40 minutes).
Then teachers rotate for hall duty in the AM and car rider duty in the PM (directing parents who arrive to pick up their children).
The elementary school I'm describing has almost 1,300 students. I used to teach at a school with 1400 students (with capacity for only 900. Yeah, THAT was fun)
The average teacher (professors no included) salary in NJ is $63,154. Taking into consideration the truncated schedule, that's equivelant to $82,018. Do you consider that low or high?
The average teacher (professors no included) salary in NJ is $63,154. Taking into consideration the truncated schedule, that's equivelant to $82,018. Do you consider that low or high?
That depends on the cost of living in the area and what that teacher would be worth working in industry. And you can't truncate the schedule. Teachers work a long week during the school year. Much of the summer off is just comp time. I've done the math and I work more hours as a teacher than I did as an engineer for about half the pay I could make as an engineer.
The average teacher salary, in my district, is $49,000 and that will not allow you to live in the district. The schools where I live have an average of $48,000 and with housing prices as depressed as they are yere, you could buy a fixer upper on that. Just for grins, I looked up a really affluent area and their average is $57,000 but, again, not enough to actually live in the area you're teaching in. The city I grew up in has an average of $48,000 and that will allow you to live there but they have issues like high drop out rates and high teen pregnancy rates. It's all relative. Whether $63K is low, med, high, depends on what you can do with $63K in that area.
The average for Michigan is nearly $55,000. There are places where that is a decent living and there are places where you can't raise a family on that. It depends on where you are. I'm sure NJ is the same. Much depends on geography. For reference, you'd need a masters degree plus 30 credits and about 8 years in service to make what an average teacher makes in Michigan. However, more relevent is the fact that a starting chemist or chemical engineer can expect a starting salary in the low 60's. Those are the careers I can get into in industry. There is a lot to consider when deciding if a teacher's salary is good. The fact is, I will not be able to put my children through college if I stay in teaching. So, when dd#1 graduates, I'm changing careers again. Entry level pay in engineering is better than the average pay for teachers and it won't take me 8 years to get there.
BTW, Michigan is ranked 4th for quality of life for teachers. I'm not sure how they calculate the comfort index but here's a list by state. Again, YMMV WRT demographics within the state. New Jersey ranks 36 out of 50 even though their salaries are higher than most. http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-27-2011 at 08:15 AM..
Actually, starting salary is $30,430 and the pension costs are actually about $2,000, not 20k. Teachers are extremely poorly paid when compared to other professionals with similar education.
To get the type of income a teacher would receive when retiring at 30 years, one would have to contribute about $25,000 (per year) for 30 years and that assumes a 7% ROI which is probably going to be on the high side moving forward.
That gives you an inflation adjusted "pension" of upper 30's, which is right around the average for NC teacher pensions. I'm not sure about other states.
I disagree teachers are underpaid, when accounting for pension value and auto increased pay you actually do quite well over time. Quoting starting pay and no benefits is very misleading.
Really????? You think it would take a contribution of 50% of someone's pay to fund 1.5% of the final average of pay times years of service???
To get the same type of income you'd get as a teacher, you have to contribute a significant amount of your money, it's substantial. When doing the math for the NC system, it added approximately $20,000 per year to the value of the teacher compensation.
Plus, you really can't put a price on "guaranteed" (I know it can be voted out, but very unlikely).
That depends on the cost of living in the area and what that teacher would be worth working in industry. And you can't truncate the schedule. Teachers work a long week during the school year. Much of the summer off is just comp time. I've done the math and I work more hours as a teacher than I did as an engineer for about half the pay I could make as an engineer.
Private industry often works long weeks as well. For example, investment bankers easily put in 60 to 80 hours/week. A FedEx truck driver has to work however long it takes to complete his/her route and that typically is more than 8 hours/day. They don't get off in the summer.
The reality is some jobs are a nice 8-hours and some aren't and this is known ahead of time.
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