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Please don't start that here. There's a 1000 post thread over on the Maryland forum already.
What I think you've seen here, and most of the self-proclaimed experts don't know, don't want to know and will never accept, is that teacher salaries/benefits are all over the map in most states.
Except in NC. Salaries are state controlled. Each county has control over supplemental pay that ranges from $800 a year to $6000 a year.
And sorry to say, after 4 years of salary freeze--I AM UNDERPAID.
@Tracysam- why spread so much vile hatred in the Internet? What do you gain from this? If you think that teachers in your state have a sweet deal the answer is simple, become a teacher yourself! That's right, you can become a teacher and make that high salary that you seem to firmly believe teachers make. I would also like to point out that if you look again at your favorite website you will see that the teachers you are complaining about are listed as non classified/certified. Do you know what that even means? It means THEY ARE NOT TEACHERS. If you look at Forbes you will see that the average salary for a teacher in your area is 54,000 a year and that the medium household income for your area is 72000 a year. Finally, have you even considered the fact that most of the teachers you are complaining about are *gasp* taxpayers too! You complain about teachers complaining but I ask you, are they the ones dedicating so much of their time bashing someone else's chosen profession?
If my taxes supported your salary sure you could look it up. The last time I checked my school taxes and proerty taxes didn't pay any salaries except teachers..
And superintendents, and administrators and custodians, and office staff and district personnel and garbage collectors and city government and city office personnel and road workers and construction workers in city jobs and firemen and police men... Do I need to go on?
And superintendents, and administrators and custodians, and office staff and district personnel and garbage collectors and city government and city office personnel and road workers and construction workers in city jobs and firemen and police men... Do I need to go on?
I want to address the sweeping generalizations being thrown around in this forum as there are huge fallacies on both sides of the argument, if there is an argument at all. The fact is that some teachers get paid a lot of money and others do not depending on the area. You cannot say things like "too many teachers are getting paid too much money" without taking into account the individual profiles of the districts and areas in which they are employed. That is a logical fallacy and makes an argument invalid. You should cite specific examples of things you would like to change and then suggest a route towards their change. This provides a logical standpoint and a place to start for the people who control the outcomes of the issues.
Politicians have a relatively complex job and many people to appease. If you are truly upset about the way teachers are being overpaid/underpaid, addressing it with clear focus and a suggested resolution transforms your simple opinion into an eloquent statement that can be acted upon more quickly. There are too many scattered, heated arguments throughout this thread coming from people who are obviously very intelligent. Thank you for your time and I hope that I have helped or inspired someone in some way. I truly believe we can compromise and provide systemic change for our unbalanced education system if we are fluid with our thoughts.
Yes, teachers do deserve to be paid this and more. Teachers work hard just as anyone in any other profession. Would this be asked if it were any other profession, instead of "being shocked" think about all that teachers do both in school and at home? As a teacher, I do more than just teach as do the majority of educators. We wear so many hats it is amazing we have time to take care of our own families. To those that are so shocked come work in the schools that are considered below par and see what it takes to try and meet AYP, gains, passing FCAT scores, and more. It may seem easy not to mention the ever changing demands from the state. It just burns me up when I come across a post like this, we have bills that need to be paid and none of us will get rich in this job. If you have children in school you would want the best, yet no one wants to pay the price for the dedicated teachers who make sure your child is getting the education they need to get into college and test on college level readiness, but this is just one teacher's opinion.
You can look up the salary of any PA public school teacher, either by teacher names or by a whole school district.
I was shocked that in my school district (which doesn't perform well, but where they like to keep increasing school distict taxes) most of the teachers make over $70,000.
Whatever happened to that old claim that teachers make a modest salary? I have a Master's degree in a mental health field, and I don't earn as much as these teachers with only a Bachelor's. The few that show up making in the 30,000 range end up being part-timers. The newest teachers, right out of school, make in the mid 40's.
Check it out. But a word of warning: your head might explode! And just think, this is their salary not including all that's spent on their benefits.
I did have difficulty finding Philly teachers salaries, as all that came up were charter schools. Maybe Phila blocked their regular public school teachers from showing up on the site?
Do teachers deserve to be paid well? Sure, the good ones do. Do they deserve 80 grand? maybe very few. But I just hate the continual bellyaching I hear from the teachers who complain that teachers are so underpaid.
I am a smart person, IQ in top 1%, PhD in School Psychology, and only make 57G after 8 years. Sure, that sucks and I wish I made more, but I have followed my passion. You seem proud of yourself so good for you. You define smart by salary but I do not. To each their own. Their are dumb people with PhDs and smart people without. There are good teachers making less than bad teachers... Don't be ignorant by broad sweeping prejudice. The solution is accountability, and the lack of appropriate ways to measure and apply this construct in the service sector is the ultimate problem. Unions are also a problem in this same manner. We do not work for profit, although this is not the best way to measure accountability in the private sector either. My brother is an engineer and we have debated this topic many times. Ultimately, you cannot compare the merits for teacher and engineer salaries because the systems they work in have different rules and parameters...Apples and oranges. Sounds like you were the kind of student that may have spent time in the counselor's or psychologist's office
My point was not that we should all be in a "race to the bottom." My point is when teacher salaries are higher than average private sector salaries of a certain area, AND you hear teachers whining and complaining about it, that breeds hostility from the public. My sister-in-law lives in PA and she says teachers there were demanding very high raises just a few years ago (during this recession). You don't get in the public eye and demand an 8% raise when families all around are losing their homes and jobs. Of course, you also have to compare apples to apples.
What everyone overlooks, however, is that teachers are repeatedly singled out, which takes the focus off of every other government job that should also be taking equal heat. When this occurs year after year, what occurs is that teachers make less than they should given their job and in comparison to other public emplyees at similar education levels, which is the only comparison that is fair. The only way that anyone can make a legitimate comparison between teaching and the private sector is if every other public position is also held to that standard. The politicians don't have the balls to focus on cops, firemen, trashmen, themselves, public works employees, public administrators. government, accountants, government attorneys, and everyone else both in the public eye and behind the scenes government that should also be taking equal heat for pay and benefit reductions. Teachers are the soft targets. Everyone else is either too tied in to the network or too politically dangerous to go after, which is unfair. Instead of spreading the cuts, we have teachers that go without pay raises for 4+ years while their retiree run school boards hold their contracts in a state of permament renegotiation becasue every year that they do so saves them a ton of money on pay raises that are essentially designed to keep up with inflation in a lot of districts. In other districts, the pay raises with later steps make up for the reltively low paying years in the beginning steps. Either way, it is no different than for other public employees of similar, and often lesser educational caliber.
The public is so easily led that any group that you set in front of them to villify, they will usually without too much question. However, perhaps I'm being to hard on most of them. The real issue is that the press colaborates with the political apparatus to keep the issue of the other public employees' salaries as non-news while the teachers get hung out to dry every year.
With schools and teachers, you absolutely get what you pay for. Most individuals move into better areas, like Bucks County, PA for the school districts when they are young, having children, and care about such things. They then become hypocritical when they have no more skin (kids) in the game and revert to being part of the apparatus that now wishes to diminish expendatures for others that they would have before welcomed. A successful public education system is one of the best developments in the modern age, and most of us take that for granted. It's the ONLY thing that gives you and your family its tenuous grasp on a SHOT at the middle class. Less then 200 years ago, most of us would be lucky to have an eighth grade education. Today, you essentially get 9 months per year of babysitting for your kids that also educates them, for 3-6k per year, in a good area, for an average household. In the private sector, school OR babysitting would cost you 20-30k per year minimum. This public school system allows parents to have kids AND to work, the income from which feeds back into the economy of the community. Especially when the kids are educated to a high enough standard to where they can be paid enough to stay in the community as adults. When the school system is good, the kids have a chance at a real college. When its bad, they get out barely being able to write a coherent 1 page paper.
In-line with the the overemotive hyperbole, adolescent phrasing, and illogical conclusions of the O.P. that drive the science student in me up-a-wall (shameful given her supposed education), the OP's comparisons make no sense. If she got a degree in Psychology, and is unhappy with the pay, then she's not smart. It is WELL known that the demand isn't there for psychologists, relative to the supply, to pay them much unless they are relative all-stars in their area of expertise AND at business/marketing their services. I was a **** poor student in getting my first college degree and yet got an A in every single psychology class that I took, without trying, becasue its an easy major. I've gotten a Master of Science, since, in a hard health science major, and so I know whats what in terms of relative difficulty of health science degrees. Anyway, that's why the supply and demand curve messes up the job market. There are too many people with psychology degrees because the major is relatively easy.
Teaching is exhausting. Most electricians couldn't do it. Most cops couldn't do it. Most private sector employees couldn't do it. It requires a mix of adolescent behavioral management and psychology skills, intelligence, the ability to perform for 5-6 50 minute periods a day five days per week, and the energy still to write reports, grade assignments, make lesson plans, and the work is doubles or triples for special education personnel who make the same as regular teachers but yet are required to have advanced degrees. Speech therapists, who are a large part of a most school districts total personnel, take huge paycuts to work in schools, in comparison to what they could get in the private sector, all because they get paid on the teachers payscale. The OP conveniently oversimplifies the issue of the teachers payscale, forgetting that there are a large variety of professionals on the payscale, some more highly trained than their pay reflects. It isn't just teachers. However, teachers are not overpaid considering their education, the skills that are required, the standard for other similarly or lesser educated public employees, and what is on the line in terms of the development of the children in the community
I am an elementary school teacher in Philadelphia, PA. I would just like to inform all the non-teaching "experts" on this forum that teachers in the lower achieving areas ROUTINELY use THEIR OWN money to buy supplies. No I don't mean just for simple supplies such as pencils, notebooks etc (even those those supplies can quickly add up to about 300 dollars a month) I am talking about in the thousands per year! My first year teaching I spent $3,000 because my school district would/could not supply for my class. These resources have helped my students tremendously. Every year I spend over $ 1,000 to make sure my students who are from lower income families have additional resources and support. This is my tenth year teaching. This year alone I spent $5,000 because I wanted to get a projector so all of my visual learners would be supported correctly. Not to mention how many class trips I have paid for so students from disadvantaged homes can have another learning experience. I know other teachers who have done the same for the length of their teaching careers. So please factor that in as a deduction to my $56,000/yr salary. My student loans alone are $38,000. Teachers here are only allwed to deduct $250 on their tax returns for ANY work related materials. My friends who work in cooperate can not fathom this. All of their expenses down to business lunches are paid for.
The fact of the matter is that many students come into the Philadelphia public schools with a vocabulary deficit of 1,000 words or more that they would have needed to score proficient by 5th grade on the standardized tests. At times, I feel like it is a battle that is rigged from the beginning. That's why it is so hard to gauge performance growth using tools like these. Most of my students come to me at least 1 grade in their reading ability. This has been the case when I have in any grade 1-6 here.
As far as job stability and tenure, please turn on the news every once and a while. 30 schools were just closed in the last 2 months alone. This has been happening for the past two years. I was almost laid off two years ago as a result. I know several teachers who were. All I ask is that you understand exactly what is going on here before making stupid remarks which you know NOTHING about.
Thanks!
Checked our teachers' salaries and it all seemed very reasonable. If anything, they seemed to be slightly lower than what I would have expected.
On a side note, degrees mean nothing. What you can provide to society and what that society is willing to pay for it does. I cringe every time I hear the statement, "Well I have a doctor/masters degree in such-n-such and even I don't get paid that well." Some people go through 8+ years of college only to finally realize at the end no one wants to pay them more than 30k for their skills, IF they can find a job at all. How someone can master the most complex dynamics of a skill set yet fail to grasp one of the most rudimentary lessons of life is beyond me, but whatever
There are friggin KIDS of 21 years of age out on oil rigs, stringing power lines, chasing the natural gas boom bringing home well over what some of these superintendents are making and doing it all with no degree at all. (See paragraph two, second sentence)
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