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.
Many city jobs (at least where I live) offer excellent benefits, the opportunity to earn 3 days off a month and decent pay. I have a couple of family members that currently work for the city as well as those who retired from city jobs. All of them make (or made) more than teachers. Those who retired, did so at the age of 55 just like many teachers do. Let's not forget that none of them were required to get a Master's degree and continue to take course/workshops.
This is not meant to prove that my job is so much harder than other city jobs. My point is that there are other jobs that do require less work, that pay overtime, and have great benefits. It's funny that those jobs don't seem to get bashed all day long.
Are those job holders out seeking public affirmation in forums?
There are MANY jobs out there that require a college education but not a specific degree. My husband is a lawyer and his paralegals all have college degrees. Their fields of study vary. They all make more than teachers. One of his paralegals is a former English teacher. She makes more as a paralegal than she did as a teacher.
There are MANY other jobs out there that require education, but not specific education. I think you sell an education degree short. The only SPECIFIC job it prepares you for is teaching, but you can get other jobs if you have an education degree.
I am not working right now. Nobody has started me anywhere. I am still a student. I am talking about how teachers are hired generally and not transferring anything to anyone.
A newly hired teacher may make $52K per year, but that is not that same salary a FIRST YEAR teacher makes. Newly hired and first year are not the same things. Newly hired teachers may have 20 years experience teaching somewhere else. Not every newly hired teacher will make $52K per year.
New teachers out of school make $38.5K in Broward County. I don't work so I make nothing. I probably will not get a job when I do graduate but if I do I won't be doing it for the fabulous pay of $38.5K per year.
* Most entrants have an associate degree in paralegal studies, or a bachelor’s degree coupled with a certificate in paralegal studies.
* About 7 out of 10 work for law firms; others work for corporate legal departments and government agencies.
* Employment is projected to grow much faster than average, as employers try to reduce costs by hiring paralegals to perform tasks once done by lawyers.
* Competition for jobs should continue; experienced, formally trained paralegals should have the best employment opportunities.
Note the difference in salaries after 20 years and how much the teacher salary has grown and the Para Legal hasn't. Why do we always want to measure starting salaries and not mid career salaries with step increases and COLA's for teachers. Does the Paralegal have a pension? How much is that worth per year?
I send my kids to private school. That should answer your question.
IMO the reasons the public schools are poor is because they are run poorly, not because teachers are overpaid. They have some pretty ridiculous and wasteful programs here in my area.
Regardless of the reason is the unit cost validated by the output? Forget who is at fault if anyone. Is the taxpayer getting a fair return on their investment. If the Broward Public Schools could be put in a stock portfolio would it be a:
Buy
Sell
Hold
Are those job holders out seeking public affirmation in forums?
I don't see much evidence of that. Most of the time, people make remarks that are way off about teachers and teaching. When teachers try and tell them what it is really like, then it turns into "you're complaining that life is so tough".
I don't need affirmation. I love my students. I don't love all aspects of my job, but overall I like it. I work hard. I don't have anything to prove. I also don't need anyone to pat me on the head and tell me I'm doing a good job. My students make me feel good and that I am doing something worthwhile.
I don't need affirmation. I love my students. I don't love all aspects of my job, but overall I like it. I work hard. I don't have anything to prove.
You have one thing to prove, namely that you are worth your pay. Any public employee has to prove that.
Which comments in this thread have been "way off"? Teachers get offended when an ounce of blame is pointed their way. The funny thing is that, at least in my experience, the best teachers will say "yeah I hear you...". Its the worst that protest the most!
I don't see much evidence of that. Most of the time, people make remarks that are way off about teachers and teaching. When teachers try and tell them what it is really like, then it turns into "you're complaining that life is so tough".
I don't need affirmation. I love my students. I don't love all aspects of my job, but overall I like it. I work hard. I don't have anything to prove. I also don't need anyone to pat me on the head and tell me I'm doing a good job. My students make me feel good and that I am doing something worthwhile.
Excellent, now do what you tell your kids to do all the time.
IGNORE them and don't let them get a reaction out of you. If life in the classroom is good for you excellent. Shout that out and let the world know how good you have it and don't try to defend your colleagues who aren't loving it. There may be a reason why you have a great relationship with your students and some others don't.
Yes your students are great and you help make them that way. Maybe if others shared your love for their students they might have great ones also.
You have one thing to prove, namely that you are worth your pay. Any public employee has to prove that.
Which comments in this thread have been "way off"? Teachers get offended when an ounce of blame is pointed their way. The funny thing is that, at least in my experience, the best teachers will say "yeah I hear you...". Its the worst that protest the most!
Wrong very wrong. The current setup does not allow individual teachers to demonstrate they are worth their pay and worthy of a raise based on performance and skill set. A fifth year math teacher (excellent performance) with their undergraduate degree in Math and teaching certification for their masters gets paid the same as a fifth year Phys Ed (average to marginal performance) major with both their undergraduate and graduate degrees in Phys Ed.
Do secondary teachers respect elementary teachers as being as smart and well educated? Do they see elementary as being less intellectually demanding?
Just curious!
Speaking as a secondary-school teacher, I can only address this question based on my personal experience. I have a relative who teaches kindergarten and she is, in my opinion, very intelligent and perceptive of others' needs, their strengths and weaknesses. Without being a manipulator in the classic sense, she takes what I think of as an "aikido" approach to managing others: she gently redirects them -- a very useful skill indeed.
The education majors I met while attending my college of education were starkly different in their personalities, and whether this is typical or not, I cannot say. The would-be secondary educators seemed (for want of a better word) edgier. The most starkly under-educated were, I'm sorry to say, in elementary education, and among them, I saw a notable lack of content area knowledge about basic subjects. My (least?) favorite example was the woman who repeatedly pronounced the name of French poststructuralist Jacques Derrida to rhyme (vaguely) with the snack chip. Hey, I'm not saying you have to pronounce it as if you were born with a silver croissant fork in your mouth, but it helps if you can at least say "dairy-DAH," not "Dorito."
In my professional life as a teacher, however, I've also met some startlingly undereducated secondary teachers as well. I hasten to say I've met with some absolutely excellent ones -- ones who were highly educated, competent, and energetic, ones who constantly sought to improve what they did with every year. However, I do cringe when I hear a teacher explain how "him and me" are going to the mall. I cringe worse when the comment comes from an English teacher.
Ultimately, I can't break it down quite that easily, TuborgP. I've seen both excellence and abysmal incompetence in both groups.
You have one thing to prove, namely that you are worth your pay. Any public employee has to prove that.
Which comments in this thread have been "way off"? Teachers get offended when an ounce of blame is pointed their way. The funny thing is that, at least in my experience, the best teachers will say "yeah I hear you...". Its the worst that protest the most!
Public employees are the ones who get automatic raises
Speaking as a secondary-school teacher, I can only address this question based on my personal experience. I have a relative who teaches kindergarten and she is, in my opinion, very intelligent and perceptive of others' needs, their strengths and weaknesses. Without being a manipulator in the classic sense, she takes what I think of as an "aikido" approach to managing others: she gently redirects them -- a very useful skill indeed.
The education majors I met while attending my college of education were starkly different in their personalities, and whether this is typical or not, I cannot say. The would-be secondary educators seemed (for want of a better word) edgier. The most starkly under-educated were, I'm sorry to say, in elementary education, and among them, I saw a notable lack of content area knowledge about basic subjects. My (least?) favorite example was the woman who repeatedly pronounced the name of French poststructuralist Jacques Derrida to rhyme (vaguely) with the snack chip. Hey, I'm not saying you have to pronounce it as if you were born with a silver croissant fork in your mouth, but it helps if you can at least say "dairy-DAH," not "Dorito."
In my professional life as a teacher, however, I've also met some startlingly undereducated secondary teachers as well. I hasten to say I've met with some absolutely excellent ones -- ones who were highly educated, competent, and energetic, ones who constantly sought to improve what they did with every year. However, I do cringe when I hear a teacher explain how "him and me" are going to the mall. I cringe worse when the comment comes from an English teacher.
Ultimately, I can't break it down quite that easily, TuborgP. I've seen both excellence and abysmal incompetence in both groups.
Now let me share with you the world of why teachers teach as seen by TuborgP. There are a variety of reasons why high school students decide to go into teaching which may be different from folks who change majors once in college. For high school seniors wanting to major in education:
They love kids, especially younger ones.
They were helped by a teacher and they want to inspire others like they were.
They love to work with a specific subject area that is hard to find a job in with a bachelors degree outside of teaching. History is one.
They want to coach and teaching enables them to get paid and do that.
They want the time off to travel during the summer and do a lot of fun things in their free time.
They think it is an easy job and not a very difficult major (right or wrong).
Some of the reasons are better than others and they create a different teacher candidate and most importantly a different teacher 5-10 years into the profession.
Teachers can have any combination of the above motivations or in some cases none of. My generation saw a lot of males go into math and science education because it gave them a draft deferment during the Vietnam war. Math and Science teachers were exempt. That is one of the contributing factors to why you are seeing a decline of male teachers as that crop enters retirement.
One of the reasons years 5-10 can test a teachers love for their job is that the realities of the profession and their motivation for going into it are no longer a match. When you are no longer feeling inspirational or feeling that affirmation when you walk into the classroom and that was your motivation it becomes tough. However with constant step increases at least for the first 15 years normally and COLA increase it becomes financially difficult to start over again.
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.
