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Average nurse's salary: $67,930
Average teacher's salary: $46,414
Adjusted teacher's salary for "full year": $60,212
They are very different jobs though, so why they are comparable, other than they are traditionally female dominated careers, is beyond me - and condescending of both. By the way, one requires a masters in most states, the other requires a 2-year degree in most states.
The salaries aren't accurate at all. The 2 yr degree's are not being hired easily anymore. Clueless gov't politicans wont shut them down, even though employers will rarely accept a nurse with 2 yr degree. Working conditions, geographic location, etc are factors.
QFT. There are some absolutely terrible nurses starting off at salaries that it would take a teacher 10-15 years or more to make. And these are fresh out of 18 month program RNS and sometimes LPNs. I had a multi day hospital stay not long ago, and two of the nurses I had were foreign and mean as hell.
What does being mean and foreign have anything to do with this? How do you know they are absolutely terrible? Based on what? Your personal experience? Nurses in many mid western states make peanuts. Those RN programs are very competitive and their standards are very high. An incoming class usually will have less than 1/3 students left when graduation comes around.
Average nurse's salary: $67,930
Average teacher's salary: $46,414
Adjusted teacher's salary for "full year": $60,212
They are very different jobs though, so why they are comparable, other than they are traditionally female dominated careers, is beyond me - and condescending of both. By the way, one requires a masters in most states, the other requires a 2-year degree in most states.
According to BLS it's -
RN: $65,470
High school teacher: $55,050
Kindergarten/Elementary teacher: $53,090
If you adjust for teachers having summers/holidays off, it's probably closer. Also keep in mind that many nurses get paid hefty shift differentials for working nights which can raise the average (and potentially wreck one's body). Pay for nurses working days vs teachers is probably within $5k/yearly on a per hour basis. I've heard teachers have better benefits too.
RN: $65,470
High school teacher: $55,050
Kindergarten/Elementary teacher: $53,090
If you adjust for teachers having summers/holidays off, it's probably closer. Also keep in mind that many nurses get paid hefty shift differentials for working nights which can raise the average (and potentially wreck one's body). Pay for nurses working days vs teachers is probably within $5k/yearly on a per hour basis. I've heard teachers have better benefits too.
Nurses don't take work home. When I taught full-time I generally worked 2 hours a school day at home, plus about an additional 4-6 hours at some point in the week. That was beyond any time I was required to be at school. My former fellow science teacher who was a nurse and became a teacher went back to nursing because she could be paid full time for working three 12-hour days. Other than part of June and the month of July, she had much more time to spend with her family being a nurse and she earned more money.
While we do both require a certain amount of professional continuing education, generally sponsored by the employer, nurses aren't REQUIRED to have a Bachelors like teachers in all states, let alone be forced to earn and pay for a Masters degree like is required in some states.
No, teachers in MOST states don't get all those awesome benefits everyone keeps talking about. My last district teacher health insurance premiums were $586/month and you were ineligle to draw Social Security ever, even if you paid into it at some point, because of the pension, which wasn't all that great. There is a reason a large number of retired teachers sub. Yes, there are few places where teachers get great benefits, but that is the exception.
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Nurses don't take work home. When I taught full-time I generally worked 2 hours a school day at home, plus about an additional 4-6 hours at some point in the week. That was beyond any time I was required to be at school. My former fellow science teacher who was a nurse and became a teacher went back to nursing because she could be paid full time for working three 12-hour days. Other than part of June and the month of July, she had much more time to spend with her family being a nurse and she earned more money.
While we do both require a certain amount of professional continuing education, generally sponsored by the employer, nurses aren't REQUIRED to have a Bachelors like teachers in all states, let alone be forced to earn and pay for a Masters degree like is required in some states.
No, teachers in MOST states don't get all those awesome benefits everyone keeps talking about. My last district teacher health insurance premiums were $586/month and you were ineligle to draw Social Security ever, even if you paid into it at some point, because of the pension, which wasn't all that great. There is a reason a large number of retired teachers sub. Yes, there are few places where teachers get great benefits, but that is the exception.
I really wonder how young teachers manage with young families. I had a lot more time to spend with mine as an engineer than I do as a teacher. I know people don't believe this but fellow teachers will. Between my required time, grading, prep, lab set ups/tear downs and retakes and tutoring kids, I put in 60 hours a week during the school year. IF I did that in engineering I would have been paid $60/hour for every hour over 40 but I never did that BECAUSE they had to pay me OT. It was cheaper to hire another engineer. With teachers they can just keep putting more kids in your classroom and you have to absorb the additional grading time because you just have to.
I don't know how that works with SS because I've been told that my working as a teacher doesn't impact my eligibility for SS. I'm fully vested as an engineer. Supposedly, I'm going to get something like $2100/month (in my dreams I know). This was something I asked about because I would have opted out of the state pension fund if it was going to cost me SS.
While I have good benefits I pay for them. I make $13k more working for the district than I did working for the charter school but my take home is the same (before union dues) because of everything they take out for benefits. Soon it will be less as our portion of our medical is going up by 50%. Yes, my benefits are good but I pay dearly for them. I'd rather have them and pay for them though so I'm ok with this. I know my family is covered if they have to go to the hospital and I'll have a pension when I retire. That's more than a lot of people have. My take home however sucks. We've only had one step increase since I started in the district but we also had a pay cut that took more than that increase away. The problem I'm having is wages are not going up. If I made what the average teacher makes in this state I'd be fine with this but I'm way below that.
If anyone knows anyone hiring engineers or chemists for the summer in SE Michigan...please PM me. I'm having no luck finding a summer job and I really need one next year with two kids off to college next fall.
I don't know how that works with SS because I've been told that my working as a teacher doesn't impact my eligibility for SS. I'm fully vested as an engineer. Supposedly, I'm going to get something like $2100/month (in my dreams I know). This was something I asked about because I would have opted out of the state pension fund if it was going to cost me SS.
It depends on how the teacher pension fund is set up. I am not sure how many states the loss of SS holds true for, but I do know Kentucky is one of them.
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It depends on how the teacher pension fund is set up. I am not sure how many states the loss of SS holds true for, but I do know Kentucky is one of them.
I've been told that that is not the case for Michigan and I hope that is true. I'd hate to think I traded $2200/month in SS for a $1000/month pension by taking this job. I think I'll get a lawyer if that happens. I'm told that our pension fund has nothing to do with SS and I do pay SS taxes over and above my pension payment so I'm assuming this is right. I would hope that anyone who loses SS would have one heck of a pension to make up for that.
My plan is to verify this with a lawyer in time to take the buy out on the pension and avoid the issue altogether. I have 5 years before I seal my fate here. If I quit teaching before I complete year 10 they just refund me everything I paid into the pension fund with a whopping 1% interest. Whoo hooo...
Nurses don't take work home. When I taught full-time I generally worked 2 hours a school day at home, plus about an additional 4-6 hours at some point in the week. That was beyond any time I was required to be at school. My former fellow science teacher who was a nurse and became a teacher went back to nursing because she could be paid full time for working three 12-hour days. Other than part of June and the month of July, she had much more time to spend with her family being a nurse and she earned more money.
While we do both require a certain amount of professional continuing education, generally sponsored by the employer, nurses aren't REQUIRED to have a Bachelors like teachers in all states, let alone be forced to earn and pay for a Masters degree like is required in some states.
No, teachers in MOST states don't get all those awesome benefits everyone keeps talking about. My last district teacher health insurance premiums were $586/month and you were ineligle to draw Social Security ever, even if you paid into it at some point, because of the pension, which wasn't all that great. There is a reason a large number of retired teachers sub. Yes, there are few places where teachers get great benefits, but that is the exception.
I would say nurses take work home in other ways - they are around sick people all day (exposed to all kinds of sickness) and constantly stressed because they're pushed to work faster and faster. They see a lot of stuff that doesn't just leave their mind once their shift is over (lets not forget the blood, poop, urine, vomit, bed sores, oozing wounds, etc). On top of that, they're on their legs all day and frequently have to help bend, push and pull patients. Nursing ranks as one of the highest occupations for work related injuries...about half of all nurses stuggle with lower back pain. The responsibility they take on can mean the difference between life and death. About 1 in 5 new nurses leave the profession within 5 years. Burn out in general is higher than all other healthcare professions.
In other words, one could argue that nursing is more physically AND mentally stressful. Yeah, they don't have to have a bachelor degree (I believe it's heading that way though), but the admission process, pre-reqs and sciences in nursing school are probably much more difficult than the classes required for teaching. I know that around here, to enroll in nursing programs one needs to: complete a 120 hour CNA course, make a certain grade on the TEAS test, basically make A's (to be competitive) in Algebra 1, chem 1, bio 1 and 2, A&P 1 and 2, microbiology and a few other classes. Even with a 3.5+ GPA, many people can't get into the nursing programs...some have to apply 2 or 3 times which can delay their start dates by a year or more.
On top of all this, nurses often work hectic schedules...night shifts, weekends, call ins, no summers off and they work a lot of holidays. For anyone that says nursing is easier than teaching, I'd just caution them that the grass isn't always greener....
Last edited by eddiehaskell; 01-02-2015 at 11:05 PM..
I would say nurses take work home in other ways - they are around sick people all day (exposed to all kinds of sickness) and constantly stressed because they're pushed to work faster and faster.
Not the same thing at all as having things that take time to physically do that must be completed outside of the paid work day. Many, many people, in many professions have jobs that physically wear them down and/or occupy their thoughts during non-working hours - including retail clerks, waitresses/waiters, factory workers, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell
About 1 in 5 new nurses leave the profession within 5 years.
50% of all new teachers leave the profession within 5 years. In the first three years 1 in 3 leave. If that is the yard stick, teaching "wins".
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell
Yeah, they don't have to have a bachelor degree (I believe it's heading that way though), but the admission process, pre-reqs and sciences in nursing school are probably much more difficult than the classes required for teaching. I know that around here, to enroll in nursing programs one needs to: complete a 120 hour CNA course, make a certain grade on the TEAS test, basically make A's (to be competitive) in Algebra 1, chem 1, bio 1 and 2, A&P 1 and 2, microbiology and a few other classes. Even with a 3.5+ GPA, many people can't get into the nursing programs...some have to apply 2 or 3 times which can delay their start dates by a year or more.
I have science certification and a masters in Geoscience, along with Education based higher degrees - I took all the classes you listed plus several calculus classes, organic chemistry, p-chem, physics, and a few more hair-turners, along with my geosciences. The 3.5 you chose as a benchmark would have been a non-issue for me. I am far from the only teacher who chose teaching even if they could have easily, based strictly on academics/grades, gone another route.
This thread is not supposed to be a debate about whether nurses have it harder than teachers. Every job/profession has its pluses and minuses. It's not about nurses at all. The thread is about what teachers should make. Really, the thread is about the lack of value society places on teachers. Your assumption that all teachers take nothing but easy classes in college and/or have poor grades is typical. Too many in American society see teachers as nothing more than overpaid childcare workers.
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Not the same thing at all as having things that take time to physically do that must be completed outside of the paid work day. Many, many people, in many professions have jobs that physically wear them down and/or occupy their thoughts during non-working hours - including retail clerks, waitresses/waiters, factory workers, etc.
But it is the same - just a different type of "taking work home". A soldier can come off the battle field, but he can't exactly erase his memory. While a teacher may grade papers for a few hours, the nurse may have dealt with being pooped on, HIV infected patients, children with horrific 3rd degree burns or had one of their patients DIE. Sure, they aren't having to physically do something like grade test, but they still have job related stress to deal with.
Quote:
50% of all new teachers leave the profession within 5 years. In the first three years 1 in 3 leave. If that is the yard stick, teaching "wins".
Regardless, what I meant to type was 1 in 5 nurses leave within the first year.
However, I have seen stats such as this:
Quote:
Candela and Bowles (2005) report 30% of new graduates leave the profession of nursing within the first year of licensure, as opposed to an average nurse turnover rate of 13.9% (Bernard Hodes Group, 2007, as cited by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2010) . The high level of attrition among new graduate nurses significantly contributes to the shortage of practicing Rns and creates an extensive financial burden to the hiring institution (Halfer & Graf, 2006). The loss of a graduate nurse in the first year of practice costs employers approximately $40,000 in hiring and orientation expenses (Halfer & Graf, 2006). In addition, hospitals may experience loss of productivity because the physical absence of the nurse, in addition to loss of productivity from other staff nurses due to increased workloads (Lafer, Moss, Kirtner, & Rees, 2003).
I have science certification and a masters in Geoscience, along with Education based higher degrees - I took all the classes you listed plus several calculus classes, organic chemistry, p-chem, physics, and a few more hair-turners, along with my geosciences. The 3.5 you chose as a benchmark would have been a non-issue for me. I am far from the only teacher who chose teaching even if they could have easily, based strictly on academics/grades, gone another route.
I have no doubt that some teachers have taken more science classes than nurses, but on the whole, your average K-12 teacher has probably done no more than the basic gen ed requirements (usually algebra 1 and one other intro science course). As far as I know, GPA is pretty much a non-factor for edu majors - if you retake a few classes, take a semester off and end up passing with C's, you essentially become a teacher (aside from any state testing). At every school around here, becoming an education major takes no more than signing up and paying tuition. On the other hand, getting into a nursing program is competitive...not any Tom, Dick or Harry can stroll in and say "sign me up for the nursing program".
Quote:
This thread is not supposed to be a debate about whether nurses have it harder than teachers. Every job/profession has its pluses and minuses. It's not about nurses at all. The thread is about what teachers should make. Really, the thread is about the lack of value society places on teachers. Your assumption that all teachers take nothing but easy classes in college and/or have poor grades is typical. Too many in American society see teachers as nothing more than overpaid childcare workers.
I have not stated that all teachers take easy classes or have poor grades. What I was implying was simply that admission to nursing programs is competitive and students are required to take (and pass with great grades) more science courses than your average K-12 teacher. Therefore, I don't think the "nurses only need a 2-year degree from Backwoods Technical School" statement is a fair point to make when comparing training for the professions.
And yes, while this thread isn't about nurses, someone did make the statement that teachers shouldn't make more money than nurses. I tend to agree.
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I think I'll get a lawyer if that happens. I'm told that our pension fund has nothing to do with SS and I do pay SS taxes over and above my pension payment so I'm assuming this is right. I would hope that anyone who loses SS would have one heck of a pension to make up for that. 
