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Especially in Clark County. Teachers just love it there I hear
And if a teacher survives in Clark County, they deserve every penny. If their students actually make academic gains, then they deserve a raise. As it is, they're getting a 4% cut.
And if a teacher survives in Clark County, they deserve every penny. If their students actually make academic gains, then they deserve a raise. As it is, they're getting a 4% cut.
That has got to be one of the worse places in the country to teach. They recruit nationally and still have trouble finding teachers. Now with the pay cut, what? Clark County is a perfect example of the problem with salaries. Teachers in Clark deserve every penny they get paid and the tax payers are overpaying for the quality of schools they have.
And if a teacher survives in Clark County, they deserve every penny. If their students actually make academic gains, then they deserve a raise. As it is, they're getting a 4% cut.
Many if not most NYC schools are pretty rough also and the high rate of pay does not help keep good teachers. They burn out fast and often leave teaching all together because of their experiences. My wife was one such person. She worked in district 10 in the South Bronx and dreaded going into work every day. She told me she was unhappy with her job. One day she reached her limit. She walked into her principal’s office, quit and walked out. She found other work pretty soon afterwards. My wife can bear any thing and has never been know to be a quitter, so it was pretty horrible. I subbed in many schools like that in NYC and because of the discipline problems I will only work one or two days.
Is there a website you are getting this info from?
Dawn
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandpointian
I am always amazed that people look only at nominal salaries, when what matters for lifestyle and the building of financial wealth is real wages, i.e. what one can actually purchase for one's wages.
Although we need better and more complete data than is available from the link, housing prices divided by beginning salary offers an insight to how to compare salaries and non-housing income across states.
The numbers are old and very non-representative, but the following types of calculation are more useful for judging how cool teacher salaries really are...
California: .071, i.e. the beginning salary buys 7.1% of the average home.
Wyoming: .277
Idaho: .258
South Dakota: .250
Georgia:.231
Now...averages can be deceiving, but on average (which is what these numbers are), California teacher salaries are abysmal. let's hope that you are in a district where housing prices are low, other consumer prices are low, taxes are low (that may be a stretch), top end salary ceilings are closer to $150K, utilities are low and the quality of life is high. And...let's hope you have outside opportunities to add 20%+ to your teacher salaries a year or that your spouse is making the big $$.
However, bottom line, you need to make real wage comparisons. Ignore them at your peril.
I am always amazed that people look only at nominal salaries, when what matters for lifestyle and the building of financial wealth is real wages, i.e. what one can actually purchase for one's wages.
Although we need better and more complete data than is available from the link, housing prices divided by beginning salary offers an insight to how to compare salaries and non-housing income across states.
The numbers are old and very non-representative, but the following types of calculation are more useful for judging how cool teacher salaries really are...
California: .071, i.e. the beginning salary buys 7.1% of the average home.
Wyoming: .277
Idaho: .258
South Dakota: .250
Georgia:.231
Now...averages can be deceiving, but on average (which is what these numbers are), California teacher salaries are abysmal. let's hope that you are in a district where housing prices are low, other consumer prices are low, taxes are low (that may be a stretch), top end salary ceilings are closer to $150K, utilities are low and the quality of life is high. And...let's hope you have outside opportunities to add 20%+ to your teacher salaries a year or that your spouse is making the big $$.
However, bottom line, you need to make real wage comparisons. Ignore them at your peril.
S.
Sorry, But this is a bit of a smokescreen. Nobody in Coastal California can afford a house on starting wages. Do you think someone with a BA in business that goes to work at a fortune 500 co. gets a salary that allows them to buy a house?
If the average starting salary for a teacher in Orange County was 7.1% of the county median of $450k that teacher would be making $32k a year. I used to hire grads for starting work at a fortune 50 co.and we paid our kids less then that. AND those kids work 52 weeks a year not 40, AND they had to pay more for their benefits AND they were not guarnteed raises for additonal years of service AND they had to fund a 401(k) for their retirement as they were'nt going to get a gold plated pension.
In or late 20's & 30's most of the teachers I know made as much or more then my wife or I did with roughly the same years of experience in their fields. And we both worked for leading large companies in our fields that arfe household names & that most people would kill to work for. We had GOOD Jobs that gave us an income to save & build a good life with - and our teacher friend's pay was right in line with ours.
I will admit now that as I've "climbed the ladder" my wages have outstripped most of those teacher's friends, but you know what? I work 70-80 hours a week. One of my teacher friend's wife complains when he does'nt come home until 5:00! And he jokes about how he's been teachng the same material for 15 years and does'nt have to do much prep work at home anymore. And their family will be spending a nice long 6 week vacation with family back east this summer. Want to guess how long MY vacation will be - if I can take one at all? And let's not even talk about benefits - their health plan is very generous and very cheap. I'm paying a ton more for the medical my family gets.
So please, spare me the sad tales of the poor underpaid teachers of California.
Sorry, But this is a bit of a smokescreen. Nobody in Coastal California can afford a house on starting wages. Do you think someone with a BA in business that goes to work at a fortune 500 co. gets a salary that allows them to buy a house?
If the average starting salary for a teacher in Orange County was 7.1% of the county median of $450k that teacher would be making $32k a year. I used to hire grads for starting work at a fortune 50 co.and we paid our kids less then that. AND those kids work 52 weeks a year not 40, AND they had to pay more for their benefits AND they were not guarnteed raises for additonal years of service AND they had to fund a 401(k) for their retirement as they were'nt going to get a gold plated pension.
In or late 20's & 30's most of the teachers I know made as much or more then my wife or I did with roughly the same years of experience in their fields. And we both worked for leading large companies in our fields that arfe household names & that most people would kill to work for. We had GOOD Jobs that gave us an income to save & build a good life with - and our teacher friend's pay was right in line with ours.
I will admit now that as I've "climbed the ladder" my wages have outstripped most of those teacher's friends, but you know what? I work 70-80 hours a week. One of my teacher friend's wife complains when he does'nt come home until 5:00! And he jokes about how he's been teachng the same material for 15 years and does'nt have to do much prep work at home anymore. And their family will be spending a nice long 6 week vacation with family back east this summer. Want to guess how long MY vacation will be - if I can take one at all? And let's not even talk about benefits - their health plan is very generous and very cheap. I'm paying a ton more for the medical my family gets.
So please, spare me the sad tales of the poor underpaid teachers of California.
You are right about CA teachers in that the average starting salary for CA teachers is about $42,000 a year (not including 90% benefits paid) even with the cut in salaries in some districts. IF WE WANT TO MAKE ADDITIONAL money, we have to invest in going back to school to earn a MA degree. I don't know if your raises are based on your education and units you receive from college. But teachers can't max out on the salary scale if they don't have additonal units on file.
Another thing to keep in mind, most people who leave the private sector or have a career other than teachers, can go to another job and make about the same salary. With my 16 years of experience and if I were to leave my district for another one, I would lose about 10-15k a year. In other words, all CA districts pay teachers for experiences up to 10 years on the salary scale. As for me, I would have to drop down to a salary of a teacher with 10 years experience, even though I was making a higher salary in my old school district.
Depending on the grade, teachers are respsonible for the test scores of each child, whether or not they speak english, and whether or not they are movtivated to work. Grading papers, completing report card, poor work notices, and meeting with parents aren't as easy as many people may think. With the No Child Left Behind Legislation, us elementary teachers have to manually grade district benchmark tests every 6-8 weeks in Math and Language Arts, data input them individual because my district thinks it's cheaper to have teacher manually data input them than pay for scan trons.
Lesson planning isn't something we do in 5 minutes as well. I have to plan for 5 subjects listing objectives for each subject but differentiating those lessons based on the child's learning ability. So maybe your teacher friend worked in a very good school district where many of its students are proficient, and she isn't required to do half of what teachers in lower performing districts have to work harder to do.
I think many people who work in the private sector and work 80 hour weeks with only 1 week vacation, still don't realize how that TEACHERS ARE WORKING WITH DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES, DIFFERENT ATTITUDES, AND PARENTS. Just like any customer service job, we deal with our share of problems as well. I'M NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT MY SALARY, but it took me 16years and earning two degrees to make a base salary of $84,000 a year and if you tag on my benefits that are fully paid and the overtime that I do, it adds up to about $105,000 a year.
Now how do I make an additional $10,000 a year above my base salary of $84,000 (including my fully paid benefits of $11,000 that total $105,000)? Well I can tutor after school for an additional 20 hours a week which means I am, like you, working 60 hours work week. I can also work 4 hours a day (getting paid hourly of $38.17, which is also part of our governor's afterschool funded tutoring program for low performing kids) for three weeks instead of being off track for a month to help my low performing kids, and I work an additional 80 hours A year which averages about 10 additonal hours a month (emailing new teachers, meeting with them weekly, going to trainings with them) so as I hope you see now, this is a teacher who is earning EVERY PENNY the tax payers are paying me to help new teachers and low perfoming kids improve.
I wish I got home at 5pm that your friend was complaining about. I typically leave work, tutoring, meetings, staff develpments with my new teachers at 5pm or as late as 7pm, when technically I could leave at 2:32 when school dismisses.
My bestfriend is a teacher and she lives paycheck to paycheck. Dont you have to be a teacher for a LONG time to get that type of salary? She started at at $40,000 I think she has been teacher for a couple of years. I know when I was doing research for an essay I was writing I was looking at the different school districts salary chart to even get to $50,000 a year you had to be a teacher for like 10 yrs! I have heard many of my classmates say that they would love to be teachers but they couldnt afford the low salary.
Sorry, but I have little sympathy for someone that is "living paycheck to paycheck" when they started out at 40k a year.
You are right about CA teachers in that the average starting salary for CA teachers is about $42,000 a year (not including 90% benefits paid) even with the cut in salaries in some districts. IF WE WANT TO MAKE ADDITIONAL money, we have to invest in going back to school to earn a MA degree. I don't know if your raises are based on your education and units you receive from college. But teachers can't max out on the salary scale if they don't have additonal units on file.
Another thing to keep in mind, most people who leave the private sector or have a career other than teachers, can go to another job and make about the same salary. With my 16 years of experience and if I were to leave my district for another one, I would lose about 10-15k a year. In other words, all CA districts pay teachers for experiences up to 10 years on the salary scale. As for me, I would have to drop down to a salary of a teacher with 10 years experience, even though I was making a higher salary in my old school district.
Depending on the grade, teachers are respsonible for the test scores of each child, whether or not they speak english, and whether or not they are movtivated to work. Grading papers, completing report card, poor work notices, and meeting with parents aren't as easy as many people may think. With the No Child Left Behind Legislation, us elementary teachers have to manually grade district benchmark tests every 6-8 weeks in Math and Language Arts, data input them individual because my district thinks it's cheaper to have teacher manually data input them than pay for scan trons.
Lesson planning isn't something we do in 5 minutes as well. I have to plan for 5 subjects listing objectives for each subject but differentiating those lessons based on the child's learning ability. So maybe your teacher friend worked in a very good school district where many of its students are proficient, and she isn't required to do half of what teachers in lower performing districts have to work harder to do.
I think many people who work in the private sector and work 80 hour weeks with only 1 week vacation, still don't realize how that TEACHERS ARE WORKING WITH DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES, DIFFERENT ATTITUDES, AND PARENTS. Just like any customer service job, we deal with our share of problems as well. I'M NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT MY SALARY, but it took me 16years and earning two degrees to make a base salary of $84,000 a year and if you tag on my benefits that are fully paid and the overtime that I do, it adds up to about $105,000 a year.
Now how do I make an additional $10,000 a year above my base salary of $84,000 (including my fully paid benefits of $11,000 that total $105,000)? Well I can tutor after school for an additional 20 hours a week which means I am, like you, working 60 hours work week. I can also work 4 hours a day (getting paid hourly of $38.17, which is also part of our governor's afterschool funded tutoring program for low performing kids) for three weeks instead of being off track for a month to help my low performing kids, and I work an additional 80 hours A year which averages about 10 additonal hours a month (emailing new teachers, meeting with them weekly, going to trainings with them) so as I hope you see now, this is a teacher who is earning EVERY PENNY the tax payers are paying me to help new teachers and low perfoming kids improve.
I wish I got home at 5pm that your friend was complaining about. I typically leave work, tutoring, meetings, staff develpments with my new teachers at 5pm or as late as 7pm, when technically I could leave at 2:32 when school dismisses.
Several things in your post are illuminating.
1. You take home your base salary of $84K for working 9-10 months a year. The annualized equivilant salary for someone working 12 months a year would be $101k
2. Plus you get a rich benefit package, a generous pension and lets not forget tenure which means iron clad job security.
3. Despite all your long hours when school is in session you are still working what, 40-42 weeks a year?
4. Your "extra work" is just that - extra. You could take a year off from doing it or drop it entirely if you wish and be out the door at 2:33pm. How many private sector workers do you think can do that? "Sorry boss, My boys in little league this season. I'm gonna drop calling on those extra customers on my sales route, 'kay?"
How many people in the private sector do you think are getting a deal close to the one you outlined? I guarntee none of them that do are bellyaching they are underpaid the way teachers do.
You mention that you have to work with different personalities, attitudes, etc. Who does'nt? Everyone has a jerk boss or customer or VP or co-worker or client in their worklife. That's life. You think teachers are alone in that? Your post also talks of the extra hours you work. This is something I hear constantly from teachers - "We have to bring work home" Guess what - who does'nt? All my friends with serious professional jobs bring work home or go into the office on weekends, etc. As for your inability to move, who's fault's that? That would be the union who sets up the rules and makes most places closed shops. If that's such an issue for teachers have the unions change the CBA's.
Look, I don't disagree that teachers deserve a fair wage. But its simple risk & reward economics. You stand little risk of losing your job so that security means you should recieve less pay. Given the dollars you say teachers are making, the generous benefits they receive, the shortened work year and combine this with the security they enjoy it adds up to teachers in CA are overpaid.
(And I am not even getting into the results we get for that money in many of our schools.... That's a whole other thread)
All the public hears from the CTA is "Our teachers are underpaided. Is'nt it terrible we don't get paid more? After all, the children are our future!"
Sorry, but I have little sympathy for someone that is "living paycheck to paycheck" when they started out at 40k a year.
No one is asking you to have any sympathy I was just stating that living in the bay area where I live $40,000 is not a lot of money at all. You cannot even afford a home with that salary. I used to make $45,000 a year and between rent, childcare, gas, utilities food and other items needed I was check to check.
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