Teachers Substandard Pay - Solution

[Deletedaccount1]

What in the world are you talking about? I have to work for 32 years to get my full retirement benefit. That restarts if I EVER change districts. Also, I can never apply for social security even though I still have to pay into the system. Short work days? Are you high? Do you seriously not understand that my work day doesn't end at 3:30 when the bell rings? I just don't get paid for it. 180-190 days? Where did you get that number? That's the requirement for students, not teachers. We work far more days than that, almost always uncompensated like the 14 days last summer I gave up traveling around the state for professional development. That's not counting the week of professional development I had to do in committee. None of this is about preparing my OWN curriculum for the next year.

My god, your solutions would turn the U.S. into a third world banana republic. It never surprises me that the anti-education party has the worst schools in the country. And did you literally just cite a blog?

32 years is shorter than the average in the private sector. Needless to say, that also obviously changes in the private sector depending on your employer. This isn't Japan, Americans are not likely to stick with one company through their entire career. I understand that your work day doesn't end when students go home but I am talking about billable hours here. Like it or not, you have a shorter work day to be paid in and there isn't much that can be done about that. Any Google search of "how many days do teachers work per year" shows that they work around 190 days with up to two weeks of paid leave. This probably varies depending on location.

It is quite conceited to think that teachers hold the key to making America a great country. K-12 is not especially difficult and yet we forget that once students go off to college and start taking more difficult courses they actually receive less individualized instruction, not more. I don't think financial interventions improve educational outcomes so I think there's a strong case to be made that K-12 education can move in the direction of everything else. That direction is online, private and individualized for students based on what their parents want. Not for what a bureaucrat thinks they need.

- - - Updated - - -

No, no, and no. Your information about teachers is wrong. Cutting other school programs as the solution is wrong. And charter schools is a horrific idea.

Well where does the money come from then? Someone has to pay for it and if taxpayers were willing to do so, it would have already happened.

[nymphetsss]

This is basically how every tax works, not just property tax. Chances are i dont use a lot of stuff taxes pay for you, but you dont hear me complaining.

yeah 40k start for 8 months work is enough, whiny entitled breeders just want everything they can for free because they opened their legs

[cubby]

32 years is shorter than the average in the private sector. Needless to say, that also obviously changes in the private sector depending on your employer. This isn't Japan, Americans are not likely to stick with one company through their entire career. I understand that your work day doesn't end when students go home but I am talking about billable hours here. Like it or not, you have a shorter work day to be paid in and there isn't much that can be done about that. Any Google search of "how many days do teachers work per year" shows that they work around 190 days with up to two weeks of paid leave. This probably varies depending on location.

That is a demonstrably incorrect. You're thinking, incorrectly, that classroom time is their only work time. That is 100% wrong. Teachers typically work 50 hours a week. Usually more.

It is quite conceited to think that teachers hold the key to making America a great country. K-12 is not especially difficult and yet we forget that once students go off to college and start taking more difficult courses they actually receive less individualized instruction, not more.

It's actually based on innumerable studies. Your childhood greatly defines your adulthood, and school is a big part of childhood.

I don't think financial interventions improve educational outcomes so I think there's a strong case to be made that K-12 education can move in the direction of everything else. That direction is online, private and individualized for students based on what their parents want. Not for what a bureaucrat thinks they need.

Of course it does - demonstrably again. 100% true. Financial interventions literally improve educational outcomes, in almost every category. I can give you several examples. Teacher/student ratio. Better funded programs. More program offerings. Adding Art and Science and Music. The list goes on almost forever.

If education is the silver bullet, funding for education is the revolver.

Well where does the money come from then? Someone has to pay for it and if taxpayers were willing to do so, it would have already happened.

That's the big question. Your second statement is also wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

yeah 40k start for 8 months work is enough, whiny entitled breeders just want everything they can for free because they opened their legs

Teachers work year round. Stop pushing this "summers off" myth.

[aviger]

Teachers are over paid with stupid crazy retirement plans and tons of days off, that's why you don't have a teacher shortage. The three best reasons to be a teacher is June, July, and August.

this is bullshit. my wife (a 1st grade teacher) literally loses sleep because she has to work after she gets home grading and getting ready the next days curriculum.
You tell me how many other jobs require you to work AFTER you come home from work :P

During the summer months she's preparing lots of fun things for the kids and researching new plans on how to teach kids.
Sure she has free time then but if you count the hours she worked the other months i would be very confident that it's more than the free time they have ;P

[Celista]

Agreed. Those schools need to be rebuilt and staffed with the very best. Make public schools palaces of learning and growing. I weep for what we could have done in this country.

I know. So much wasted potential.

[Molis]

I don't agree 50k is enough. And the "summers off along with holidays" is more myth than reality. Teachers also work more than 40 hours a week - usually 50-60.

However, I do agree with you about hiring more teachers. Getting the student/teacher ratio down is key. Very good idea.

- - - Updated - - -



He's still being taught?

His short diatribe (can you have that?) is just more of the same i-don't-care-to-learn-the-issues bs. It's too bad we have to put up with it, but in every discussion there are plenty of those.

One issue I have is raising pay across the board will not help.

I would pay a great teacher 100k if they had to use their down time for training, prepping, and making a better experience for kids.
However the bottom 50% of teachers would ruin all that. they would take the money and take their summers and winters off still.

There needs to be accountability and a carrer ladder for the best and most worthy.

If you want to work 180 days a year you get 70% of the salary.
If you really want to have a career and a competetive salary you work 50 hours a week 48 weeks a year like the rest of us shmucks

- - - Updated - - -

You tell me how many other jobs require you to work AFTER you come home from work :P

Is this a serious question?
Most jobs where you have direct reports and you are salary doesnt stop when you leave for the day.

[Ashetaka]

32 years is shorter than the average in the private sector. Needless to say, that also obviously changes in the private sector depending on your employer. This isn't Japan, Americans are not likely to stick with one company through their entire career. I understand that your work day doesn't end when students go home but I am talking about billable hours here. Like it or not, you have a shorter work day to be paid in and there isn't much that can be done about that. Any Google search of "how many days do teachers work per year" shows that they work around 190 days with up to two weeks of paid leave. This probably varies depending on location.

It is quite conceited to think that teachers hold the key to making America a great country. K-12 is not especially difficult and yet we forget that once students go off to college and start taking more difficult courses they actually receive less individualized instruction, not more. I don't think financial interventions improve educational outcomes so I think there's a strong case to be made that K-12 education can move in the direction of everything else. That direction is online, private and individualized for students based on what their parents want. Not for what a bureaucrat thinks they need.

Excuse me I misspoke. I need to work 32 years to get my full pension AND be age 62. So you need the stars to align that you found your permanent, never changing school district by age 30 and never change districts to retire on time. What are you talking about "billable hours?" Teachers aren't compensated based on billable hours, we're salaried. We get a fixed amount regardless of hours. There are hourly rates, but those are stipends for official extra duties. Google is wrong, sorry. I suggest you talk to a teacher rather than reading something from a website that takes the average number of days students attend school and apply it to teachers.

No, it isn't conceited. Those who can do were taught. You don't become an astrophysicist without learning algebra first. Your ideas are so fractally wrong you don't even need a citation. A CENTURY of research shows you're wrong about the importance of education. Colleges are self-selected, do you not understand the difference? I'm done with you, just... wow.

[cubby]

One issue I have is raising pay across the board will not help.

I would pay a great teacher 100k if they had to use their down time for training, prepping, and making a better experience for kids.
However the bottom 50% of teachers would ruin all that. they would take the money and take their summers and winters off still.

There needs to be accountability and a carrer ladder for the best and most worthy.

If you want to work 180 days a year you get 70% of the salary.
If you really want to have a career and a competetive salary you work 50 hours a week 48 weeks a year like the rest of us shmucks

Generally speaking, I agree. My $100k salary for teachers includes getting rid of the Teachers Unions - for the most part. The details would be tricky, but obviously, we're not there.

We need to stop pushing this false narrative that teachers get summers and winters off. They do not. They certainly get some breaks, but those breaks are usually taken up with training, classroom modeling, grading papers, etc. I'm not saying they don't get more time off during the summers than other professions, but they do not "get summers and winters off".

[buck008]

Teachers' unions are not willing to be honest in this debate. They do not acknowledge things like the fact that teachers only have 180-190 work days, the detriment that a single salary schedule has on newcomers, the fact that teachers have short work days, more time off, higher pensions, earlier retirement, etc.

The simplest solution is to cut funding in other areas to increase wages. PE classes, art classes, extracurriculars, etc. That is (arguably) bad for students and they get nothing in return for higher teacher wages.

I think a better solution here is to put in place a voucher system to replace public schools so private schools who do not put barriers on entering teaching become the norm. Also make collective bargaining illegal. Encouraging unschooling would be wise as well and I think there is a good case for a K-12 curriculum that can be completed online which many parents would be interested in. Colleges are now becoming far more dependent on the internet and I think it is time that K-12 catches up with the times.

Yea, you're wrong. Several teachers in my family, and I'm a former teacher. I work retail management now because it's actually less work for very similar pay. Teachers do not work "short days". Most work from 5-6 in the morning until late at night. They don't have an 8 hour shift in the office, sure, but if you think that's all teachers work, than you're high. Teachers don't have the summer months off either. Most are required to teach some sort of summer program, attend a certain amount of training, and actually begin preparing for the upcoming year about a month before students return. Again, you just have no idea what teachers do. Early retirement is also laughable as teachers routinely work into their 60's and 70's because they can't afford not to.

Cutting funding from other programs in schools to pay teachers is also an awful idea. People who don't understand how education works often cite programs such as those as the first to be cut, but that's because they have no concept of the intrinsic educational value of things like music and PE.

Voucher systems are also a poor replacement. I'm not going to touch making collective bargaining illegal. It's an objectively terrible suggestion for any topic, but it can be discussed elsewhere. However, charter schools and private schools aren't necessarily better. They can appear better if the only metric you care about is standardized testing. However, even if you want to ignore how mindbogglingly terrible standardized tests are as a measuring stick for educational progress, those schools don't actually do that much better anyway. Even when you take into account that they can hand pick their student body and public schools take everyone. Often, they perform worse. As usual, wealth is the best indicator of which kids will be successful. The rich kids are fine regardless of which schools they go to. The poor kids, not so much. Vouchers just take money from the schools that need the money the most to begin with.

If you want to attract and keep quality candidates, you pay them a competitive wage. And the dedicated ones that teach now for the love of it despite the terrible pay will have their performance improve because they no longer need to go without sleep because they have multiple jobs on top of their responsibilities. What we pay teachers in this country is a disgrace. And, as the old adage goes, you get what you pay for.

[cubby]

Is this a serious question?
Most jobs where you have direct reports and you are salary doesnt stop when you leave for the day.

It is a serious question. Most people don't have work to do once they come home. Or use their own money to buy supplies. That list also goes on for quite awhile.

[Z-Man]

Depends on where you live. Big cities, especially in states like NY, that's not going to go far.

I dont get why people keep forgetting there are plenty of places in the US with high CoL.

It's a lot of money for someone living in their parents basement in Kansas.

In my city, $50K means you may be sleeping in your car when your landlord raises the rent again.

[Theodarzna]

New idea, Ok, fine you don't want to pay a teacher like a College Educated Professional? Then give us the glorified babysitter pay rate. 10$ a kid * 8 hours a day = 80$, 80*25 kids per class is 2k a day, 2k times the 180 school year is about 360,000$ a year.

[Kapadons]

Give me one full school of not terrible teachers and I’ll happily pay more. As it stands the one teacher that’s decent looks like a super star compared to her apathetic contemporaries.

[ArguesWithStrangers]

Transfer some of that overbearing military budget to education. Find it ridiculous having budget cuts in education while military over shadows numerous countries combined.

Teachers are paid by local and state taxes. The military is paid for out of the federal budget. Even if you redirected the federal money towards education, the states would just stop spending their own money on it, leaving you right where you started.

- - - Updated - - -

this would actually fix a lot of our problems.

Until you couldn’t get your cheap widgets made by Vietnamese laborers from WalMart because the Chinese took over all the waterways in South Asia.

[cubby]

Teachers are paid by local and state taxes. The military is paid for out of the federal budget. Even if you redirected the federal money towards education, the states would just stop spending their own money on it, leaving you right where you started.

Federal money is redirected to states and local authorities for education. This includes pay.

- - - Updated - - -

Until you couldn’t get your cheap widgets made by Vietnamese laborers from WalMart because the Chinese took over all the waterways in South Asia.

We could just cut funding to the Army Light Infantry Divisions and keep the [real military] Navy funded. I'm kidding - just pulling your leg a bit with a guess off your MMO-C name.

Seriously though, I've never thought pulling money from the military for anything is a good idea. What we need to do is just up the tax rates in some areas and fix some ridiculous loopholes.

[Ryonas]

Crazy idea: pay and treat teachers as professionals who have at a bare minimum four years or more of schooling/training, as well as ONGOING required training, instead of paying and treating them as glorified babysitters.

[Kokolums]

Given that would dramatically shift the burden to the parents, its unlikely. That would require at least 1 parent to stay home, unless the kid is put in some sort of care center. Like... a schoolhouse.

Or just hire a babysitter. Or have a grandparent there. Getting a grandparent involved might have side effects like creating closer family bonds and a more fulfilling life for everyone involved but we will just have to adjust.

[cubby]

New idea, Ok, fine you don't want to pay a teacher like a College Educated Professional? Then give us the glorified babysitter pay rate. 10$ a kid * 8 hours a day = 80$, 80*25 kids per class is 2k a day, 2k times the 180 school year is about 360,000$ a year.

We don't agree on much, but that is brilliant.

[ArguesWithStrangers]

But don't the military need that budget to pay all the new recruits with no education because teachers are stretched too thin?

Us service members are better educated than the general population, but nice try.

[Braum]

Thought I'd chime in with a little note on using bonuses as incentives for teachers. I have a friend who is a teacher in Florida. She teaches high school level English classes, but all of her classes are the remedial and behaviorally challenged students. In a given year, the district expectation is that less than 1 in 10 of her students will pass the state standardized testing. There was a push a few years back by the state governor to penalize teachers whose students performed at such a low level, but that policy would have resulted in her termination, despite her best efforts to help these kids learn. Any policy that targets student testing performance as the measurement for teacher performance is inherently flawed. Don't get my friend fired for trying her hardest with the kids who need the most help.