Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Haha! Sorry, I can't do much but laugh about this. Yes, those poor poor teachers. Nobody in private industry has to deal with stress in their job, not at all. Clearly teachers should get the summer off while tax payers pay them to "regroup" from their so stressful job.
You've got to be joking....
C'mon. Teachers are not required to sub during the summer and the amount of training required on an annual basis if fairly little. I already accounted for the training time and a bit of time to prep for the school year. Consider all these things and teachers are getting anywhere betwen 2.5~3 months more vacation time than people working normal jobs.
But still....the stress thing. Hahaha! I would recommend never saying that in front of a group of angry tax payers.
It is this intense level of public whining that creates the notion that teaching is for those without the fortitude to deal with the stress of the private sector. Imagine the stress for folks in commercial real estate management now or any one of the many fields being impacted by layoffs. How many tenured teachers have been laid off in the last 12 months? Talk about a stress reducer.
And yes, they are only working around 8 months a year, perhaps more like 8.5 months. They get the summer off and have a long winter break and get a number of other holidays off.
Where do you live where the school year is 8 months long? It's 10 months long here and teachers have to work for about a month when there are no students.
Teachers in FL make aroudn $38K to start, hardly a king's ransom in the Miami area.
I tried my hand at teaching in an inner city elementary school after college for a year, and then moved on to another line of work. Here is what I observed. Most teachers do work hard for not enough money. Yes, there are some deadbeats, and they should be removed. Unfortunately, the teacher's unions fight tooth and nail to protect some people who just don't belong there, and this is what reinforces the negative perception of unions. Administrative costs are high and bloated with so many wasteful positions based on politics. Unfortunately, not enough of this money gets into the classroom. Hence, teachers pay out of pocket for supplies, which is disgusting in my opinion being that they're not being paid much at all.
I know what some of you are thinking. They only work 35 hours a week, and get the summers off. Many of them actually teach summer school classes for some extra money to make ends meet. They spend many hours after work writing lesson plans, grading papers, giving extra help hour sessions before and after the school day. They are also involved in many extra curricular activities. This is not some kind of glamorous job that requires little time and little effort. Oh yea, did I mention that they also have to do a lot of workshops for kids to prep them to pass mandatory state exams? Here is the ultimate kick in the butt. You spend endless hours preparing them and many fail, but you're still the one under the gun to explain your class test scores. Yea, I know what you're thinking. Why didn't you contact the parents? Well, the only parents that are in touch with the teacher are the parents you really don't need to hear from all that much, because they take an interest in their children. You rarely ever hear from the parents with the kids who have real issues. Forget about principals supporting you when you're burdened with disciplinary problems from kids who can turn your class into a circus. When you finally get them under control, there is no time left to teach much. Did I mention that you're also supposed to be a social worker? Yes, report cases if you suspect child abuse, blah blah.? What I mean is that this is no 9-5 job. There are many people who teach, because they truly care about the profession, and stick with it. There are people like myself who figured out early on that it wasn't for me, and I would be doing a big disservice if I stuck around and wasted people's time.
Why am I saying all of this? This is not an easy job that just anyone can do. This profession is no different from other ones. Most people are professional. You get a few bad apples like any other profession. This generalization that people become teachers, because they just can't do anything else is not so. Oh yea, did I mention how many hoops one must jump through to get a certification to teach in public school? That's another discussion in itself. And that is my thought on this thread.
Last edited by izannimda; 04-30-2009 at 06:45 AM..
I tried my hand at teaching in an inner city elementary school after college for a year, and then moved on to another line of work. Here is what I observed. Most teachers do work hard for not enough money. Yes, there are some deadbeats, and they should be removed. Unfortunately, the teacher's unions fight tooth and nail to protect some people who just don't belong there, and this is what reinforces the negative perception of unions. Administrative costs are high and bloated with so many wasteful positions based on politics. Unfortunately, not enough of this money gets into the classroom. Hence, teachers pay out of pocket for supplies, which is disgusting in my opinion being that they're not being paid much at all.
I know what some of you are thinking. They only work 35 hours a week, and get the summers off. Many of them actually teach summer school classes for some extra money to make ends meet. They spend many hours after work writing lesson plans, grading papers, giving extra help hour sessions before and after the school day. They are also involved in many extra curricular activities. This is not some kind of glamorous job that requires little time and little effort. Oh yea, did I mention that they also have to do a lot of workshops for kids to prep them to pass mandatory state exams? Here is the ultimate kick in the butt. You spend endless hours preparing them and many fail, but you're still the one under the gun to explain your class test scores. Yea, I know what you're thinking. Why didn't you contact the parents? Well, the only parents that are in touch with the teacher are the parents you really don't need to hear from all that much, because they take an interest in their children. You rarely ever hear from the parents with the kids who have real issues. Forget about principals supporting you when you're burdened with disciplinary problems from kids who can turn your class into a circus. When you finally get them under control, there is no time left to teach much. Did I mention that you're also supposed to be a social worker? Yes, report cases if you suspect child abuse, blah blah.? What I mean is that this is no 9-5 job. There are many people who teach, because they truly care about the profession, and stick with it. There are people like myself who figured out early on that it wasn't for me, and I would be doing a big disservice if I stuck around and wasted people's time.
Why am I saying all of this? This is not an easy job that just anyone can do. This profession is no different from other ones. Most people are professional. You get a few bad apples like any other profession. This generalization that people become teachers, because they just can't do anything else is not so. Oh yea, did I mention how many hoops one must jump through to get a certification to teach in public school? That's another discussion in itself. And that is my thought on this thread.
I could not have said it any better. Thanks for understanding and for posting.
"Maybe just maybe the need to standardize curriculum and instruction was because teacher initiated curriculum wasn't cutting the mustard in many cases."
Your right it is just the teacher's fault. Not the fact that the state dictates what the teacher's must teac for standardized testing. I guess all teacher's just suck, and if they weren't working for schools they would be working at Walmart. Please! These are educated people that we are talking about, where do you get off?
Haha! Sorry, I can't do much but laugh about this. Yes, those poor poor teachers. Nobody in private industry has to deal with stress in their job, not at all. Clearly teachers should get the summer off while tax payers pay them to "regroup" from their so stressful job.
You've got to be joking....
C'mon. Teachers are not required to sub during the summer and the amount of training required on an annual basis if fairly little. I already accounted for the training time and a bit of time to prep for the school year. Consider all these things and teachers are getting anywhere betwen 2.5~3 months more vacation time than people working normal jobs.
But still....the stress thing. Hahaha! I would recommend never saying that in front of a group of angry tax payers.
A bit of prep time? You've obviously had very sub par teachers if all they offered you were lessons based on 'a little prep time'. My teacher friends and my kids' teachers offer amazing curricular plans that integrate technology, literature, manipulatives and field trips. Do those lesson plans just drop out of the sky? A friend spent most of last summer researching and organizing a unit on the Great Barrier Reef for science. I KNOW it didn't take a 'little bit of time'. I find that people with so much disregard for teachers' work have had inferior educations and been stuck with the bottom of the teaching barrel. How sad for you!
Some information is way off base and some of this information is regional. My neighbor was a teacher in CA making $60000/year. she said where she lived the cost of living was no higher than here in SC. I forget where in CA she lived. So no, not all of CA is expensive. Here in SC I think she said she would make about $40K, which is about right. My SIL is a teacher here and makes about that much. She earns a little more because she does some other projects and teaches summers chool.
So CA and some other states actually do compensate their teachers fairly reasonably although you can't expect to get good teachers to work in LA making $50-60K/year just as you can't expect to get a good teacher in NYC at that salary.
But the fact is that most of the country has teachers making $30-40K/year. That is not enough, sorry even if they are only working 10 months out of the year! Kids maybe in school 180 days but teachers work a whole lot more than that and they don't get to go home at 230-300 when school lets out. My SIL is often grading papers, preparing lessons in the evening.
I don't expect teachers to make 100K a year but I do think the vast majority of teachers should be compensated better. I also don't think that teachers anymore than anyone else should get tenure or a "free pass" just because they have been there for so many years.
First off, let's separate K-12 from college teaching, very different labor dynamics at play between these two work settings.
At least at the K-12 level, statistically people who go to the education majors are not, as a collective, the most academically adept or inclined. Get offended if you must, it's the truth. I personally know of the major changer who got tired of chugging through pre-law, the female who couldn't stand any kind of technical subject and figured out the portability (at the cost of salary) of the teaching job made it a no-brainer, the MRS degree chick who knew she wasn't gonna make any money teaching but that's what being hot and a teacher (or nurse to a lesser extent since they make primary breadwinner money) and having the husband be the primary bread winner is all about. Honestly, if somebody wants to argue these examples are not archetypes of the median flock of people who get into K-12 teaching you need to lift your head and look up.
It's a largely easy major to complete and it's a "volume major"; in essence since K-12 teaching is perceived to be a portable career it attracts and absorbs a large amount of people who would otherwise not pursue a 4 year degree at all. Actually I'll go further, those who can't hack nursing, go the teacher route. The demographics are identical and the only differentiation is honestly the willingness to put up with technical coursework and/or what expectations does the candidate have as it relates to where the above median income they desire is gonna come from. Politically correct? Of course not, but that's what it boils down to for the median ed major.
Granted, there's plenty of high academic achievers who choose to teach, but they recognize and understand that at the K-12 the career doesn't pay all that well as a median and is largely considered a secondary household income in a female-dominated labor force. In general, those who pursue a pharmacy phD or other career tracks that require long educational commitments or are highly technical in nature are tracks your median education major will never consider. Again, don't get me wrong, there's nothing inherently worthless about being a teacher, but to suggest the droves of people that flock to the degree every year do it out of an altruistic call to affect the lives of children is pure chaff. They do it because the opportunity cost of that pursuit versus not getting a degree at all (and forego the shot at a 'busy-bee' 30K-60K job) is just not that costly.I have friends who are teachers and they are well-rounded and smart individuals, but they admit it's just busy work.
Put in other words, absent the ability to manage a class full of children/teenagers, most technical majors can do a better and more proficient job at teaching a subject in the specific area than your median teacher. Here's where teachers get me fired up. If teachers were to then argue (as they often do) that the 'value added' comes not from being the best at teaching a subject, but rather from being more equipped to manage a learning setting with multiple children (proverbial developing minds or whatever the corporate buzz word of the month is at the schools), then they cannot expect to have the cake and eat it too when they are adjudicated as de facto baby sitters. Thence, the wage in a highly saturated field of baby sitters is justified in its present form. This of course throws teachers on a tizzy, but it really does boil down to that dichotomy. If I (an engineering graduate/post-graduate who taught at the college level) can do a better job at teaching math at all levels of K-12 but choose not to pursue a K-12 position because the pay is not worth my time, then I'm willing to concede you (the education major) are a better baby sitter than I am (better manager of a classroom) and that's why you're getting paid what you are, which in essence is the opportunity cost of every single parent choosing to subrogate the time taken to manage and educate their children at home for more lucrative pursuits versus spending their time doing it themselves at an economic loss. That's it. Altruistic motives and the like are not a median motivation or contributor to the reason why people go into K-12 teaching. If you're one of the few who did and honestly (remember, teachers are like Shawshank prison, they ALL swear they could be making 6 figures doing something else, after all we're ALL INNOCENT here you know?) pursued teaching for the love of making a difference while genuinely FOREGOING a more lucrative way of spending your time, then you shouldn't complain about being undercompensated, as you're doing it for a passion in life. I agree with you, one shouldn't have to starve in order to fulfill one's passion in life, but you're not alone in that dilema; pilots, artists, singers, all these professions have starving medians. You gotta pick your poison. Supply and demand.
If you're doing it for king and country, don't b$tch about the compensation, that I too agree, is worthless specially if you went in debt for that piece of paper, but if you're doing it for the same reason we're out there doing random professions (i.e. MONEY) then you have to look at it without emotional hang up and purely from an economic standpoint, which in the case of teachers is the opportunity cost of being someone else's baby sitter (manager if baby sitter is inflammatory to you), 'cause a specialist in the field could technically do a better job than the median teacher at actually teaching the subject but would bankrupt the district payroll if you were to get a non-children tolerant specialist for every subject the school needs to teach. simple economics is what its all about.
As to college, I'll leave it for another post. College education is a racket. Tenured professors are rent-seekers (which is par for the course, after all, aren't we all, as part of an American society that produces nothing?). They provide no valuable contributions to the field other than churning grants as the expense of the young and hungry (the graduate invisible adjuncts and assistant). The quality of teaching they provide the average undergraduate is poor to non-existent; they are the proverbial payroll swell. The whole education system at the college level is an extortion racket. I'd expand on it but I don't think it addresses the original question as I think it applies more to the K-12 crowd.
I hate the assumption that teachers are very under appreciated. I don't think anybody would argue that "those who can do/those who can't teach" applies to every single teacher, rather that perhaps its usually the case.
Regarding teachers asking for money, yeah its only natural. But when teachers are on TV complaining about not getting a raise and wanting better benefits when the rest of the nation (you know the tax payers) are getting pay cuts, benefit cuts or losing their jobs....it becomes a bit outrageous. I really do hope the tax payers put a sock in the teachers and unions mouth.
What specific private sector job does your Special Education degree prepare you for in addition to being a teacher? What is the salary range for the positions you are qualified for?
I have a degrees in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology. I decided to go into special education because I wanted to work with children with autism. Are you implying I only teach special education because I can do nothing else. I hope you never have a special needs child.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
