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11-07-2006, 08:21 AM
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#101 | ||
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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Quote:
Not to mention that I would like to fully understand where this average comes from. He's saying it's all ok because a teacher makes the "average" salary ... This compares someone with at LEAST a bachelor's (and many more teachers are getting a master's these days) to unemployed, potentially part-time (don't know what's included in there), unskilled labor... need i go on? I don't think it's a fair comparison at all... And the whole argument that they're getting paid "market value"... like thealmighty mentions here, they're getting paid the market value for the quality that is there now... if you want higher quality teachers, you pay more, simple... many good teachers either don't teach ever or leave teaching because of the pay - or lack there of.
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11-07-2006, 04:44 PM
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#102 | ||
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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It is true that I am not a teacher, however I have obviously gone through 12 years of schooling and additional college years. From what I've seen, I stand by my comment. I do not mind debating if you wish. Can you please site examples that apply generally, as a whole, on average to the teaching profession that causes high stress? Quote:
I tried doing a search on average wages for college graduates and did not have much success. I welcome any additional data that you can find. As to market value, I can only speak from my experience in a suburb in GA. The GA 2001 average is $42K (see my other link) and I feel the quality of teachers is good+. wade moore & thealmighty. Your counter points are primarily to my my (1) and part of (4.b). I would appreciate your views on the other points? |
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11-07-2006, 04:59 PM
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#103 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Sep 2004
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All the people who bitch about teacher's salaries need to realize how much work teachers put in during the school year. Every day, my mom would get up at 5 am to be to school by 6:30 (school started around 7:00ish if I remember right) and most nights she wouldn't be home until 6 pm or later because of helping kids after school, etc.
And that's just the school day. That's not counting the hours grading papers and tests at home, or in some cases, spending summers writing curriculum as some teachers do.
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11-07-2006, 08:33 PM
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#104 | |||
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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I can site many examples, so I'll just try to grab a few that are direct examples from my fiancee's short year and a half teaching... A) Special Needs children that are EXTREME disruptions in the classroom, but do not get the services they need. B) Standardized testing that is thrown at them 2 hours before it has to be implemented. C) Short deadlines for Report Cards. D) Crap parents that will not even return the most basic emergency forms, let alone assist the kid at skill. E) Even crappier parents where kids come into school with bruises, etc. and they report as required but nothing is doneand the parent comes back and takes it out on the teacher. F) Dealing with 19 different children (many classes elsewhere in the country are larger than hers) all with very different needs relying on her to teach the very basics of education. There are many more, but I'm hoping the general point is getting across... Quote:
While you may not be able to obtain the market value for college graduates (i'll see what i can find) I think it is very easy to surmise that it would be substantially higher than the numbers for all workers. As for your comment about GA, I think JiMG, SkyDog, and others would be shocked because my impression has always been that GA is commonly known to have one of the worst public school systems in the nation. As for your other points, i'll work on responding to them, it's just very time consuming to do it thoroughly like I like to. Let me look for this data first.
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11-07-2006, 09:08 PM
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#105 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf06304/
Here's the best I could find for now... You'll see on the salary table that Educators (particularly for PreCollege) are amongst the lowest paid of college graduates. The only things similarly low are the Self Employed and state government employees. You'll notice that the median pay for all of those with bachelor's degrees is 47,000 and for PreCollege educators it is 41,000. For all graduates period it is 50,000 - which is more fair since there are many teachers with master's degrees (which btw averages 54,000 in salary).
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11-07-2006, 09:54 PM
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#106 | |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Cougarfreak. My apologies if we have gone off topic. I do feel this discussion on total compensation is important but will start another thread if you believe we've hijacked your thread.
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Fair enough, I appreciate your efforts and am very interested in debating this. I will wait for your full response on my 5 points of 'total compensation' plus anything else you wish to add. Update to average teacher wages. According to the NEA, the average wage is $47,808. http://www.nea.org/edstats/index.html In response to quality of GA public school, I found the below links (see report cards bottom half). http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/profile.asp and ... http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_dow...oning-test.pdf Yes, this does seem to indicate that GA is below average but will not concede that it is 'one of the worst'. FWIW, I searched for elementary school rankings and did not find any, the closest I could find was HS rankings. The HS that my children will be going to was ranked 375 out of top 1200 schools as ranked by Newsweek. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12532678...np=13&sort=sta Regardless of my satisfaction, I will concede that GA public education, as a whole, on average is below national average. Last edited by Edward64 : 11-07-2006 at 10:10 PM. |
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11-07-2006, 09:57 PM
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#107 | |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Quote:
Just saw your new post. My latest reply took alot of time and research and was not a reply to the post above but the one prior. I will reply after reading through your latest info. |
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11-07-2006, 10:38 PM
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#108 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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FWIW, I take the NEA stats with a grain of salt as they're trying to get people to be teachers.
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11-07-2006, 10:49 PM
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#109 | |
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: St. Louis
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Quote:
I have seen happy doctors on the golf course and lawyers at the bars, so due to my 20 years of schooling I have come to the conclusion that they are not stressed. Of course I could also just be talking out of my ass. |
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11-07-2006, 10:52 PM
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#110 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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1. Current Salary
We are addressing this, but I still stand by the fact that they are one of the lower paid professions that requires a degree. 2. Current Benefits I concur that on the whole, their benefits are on par with everyone else's.. sometimes worse, sometimes better... pretty much like any other job.. 3. Retirement Benefits I'll quibble with you a bit here. First off, you seem to write them off as being above average because state government is "above average". Well, state/federal/local/military all are pretty similar (although military is actually better). That is a LOT of the employees in the nation. So, I don't like teachers being categorized by themselves here. In addition, some larger corporations (like the one I work for) have pension plans that from what I've seen of the data from my corporation and my fiancee's retirement plans - are relatively on par. I will concede that I am in one of the largest professional corporations (by employees) in the nation, so I'm not a GREAT sample.. but there are many companies that have pensions... So, yes, they have better retirement benefits than many, but they are by no means in a class of their own. 4. Quality of Life 4a. Three Months Off Quick point of clarification - it's really 2 months off, at least in VA. In VA the last day of school is around the 3rd week of June (in the early 20's) and then they return to school 1 or 2 weeks before school starts (so again, 3rdish week of August). In addition, many teachers go in early in the summer on "their own time" to get things ready. I'm going to be selfish in answering PART of this. My fiancee works summer school. So, she really only has about a month off. And, the compensation for summer school is not all that great. So, for some teachers, they don't truely have 3 months off. That being said, this is obviously a huge draw. I can't argue too much when people make the statement that you should figure teacher pay by the hour when comparing to other professions. Fair enough to an extent, but they are still pretty low imo when you do this. However, I will argue some. The reason I say that is - yes, they get two months off. But that is the way the school system is setup. So, if you want to get full-time professionals, I don't think you can factor this in too much. It's not reasonable, imo, to say you want someone to dedicate themselves to this important profession, and pay them at a rate in which they need to work a labor intensive job in these two months in order to live like their peers with similar educations. 4b Low Stress - I'm not sure you responded to this, but I attempted to address this. I think your stance on this just comes from not seeing the behind the scenes of a teacher's job. In fact, I would add the stress of having to always look like you're enjoying your job  .5. Self actualization I would quibble with this a LOT. First off, to be honest, there are many teachers that I have seen that do not get this self-actualization. That being said, I do agree that this is a reason a majority do it. Where I quibble is that others don't do this. I would argue that if you're not getting this from your job, perhaps you should reconsider your profession. I do not think the rate at which teachers get this from their job is THAT much higher than other professions. I have met many people in the IT sector that get this from engineering a solution, developing a website, satisfying a customer, etc.. hell, when I worked Help Desk - I got a ton of satisfaction in fixing people's issues. I think you're short changing other professions in this element and would argue that while it may be a larger factor for teachers in doing their job, that they do not actually get that much more satisfaction than many other people do from their professions. Note: I'm really enjoying this conversation fwiw.
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Last edited by wade moore : 11-07-2006 at 10:53 PM. |
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11-07-2006, 11:18 PM
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#111 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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I've been hunting and hunting for a good ranking of stressful jobs.. Not having much luck, but I did find this one:
http://www.uq.edu.au/news/?article=7633 That mentions teaching as a top 10... admittedly this is in Australia, but I doubt it is that much different.
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11-08-2006, 12:06 AM
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#112 | |
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Pro Starter
Join Date: May 2003
Location: heaven
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Quote:
On that note, over half the high schools in my district are considered low performing, I believe. However, the #1 high school in the USA, according to the report you show (and the #8 as well) is also in my district. So if you are at the #1 school and you drive, literally, a mile away, you see a low performing school. How? Magnets. They recruit. They expel. They interview...point is any place can have a killer school given circumstances. The lowest rated state in the country has some awesome schools if you can afford to live there (or pay to go there). 1. Current Salary Discussion ongoing. 2. Current Benefits As stated in a previous post...what benefits? 3. Retirement Benefits Again, I have no idea what benefits you are referring to. Enlighten me. 4. Quality of Life 4a. Three Months Off- As stated, maybe depending on where you are from, the three months off is not three months as it was back in the day. Then you have the week long conferences, the days of training, etc..., to keep up with all the really neat advences and research (which seem to oftem be actually a rehash from 25 years ago. Nevertheless, the summers do, indeed rock. Of course, the summer off isn't a summer off because I demand that time off or I retire. It wasn't my idea. 4b Low Stress - You have no idea. Quit making assumptions you have no basis to make. 5. Self actualization What? Doctors save lives. Since this is very gratifying, I think we should take that into account and pay them $45K per year average across the board. Some doctors suck and kill people way more than others do, but they should all be paid the same regardless. p.s.- none of what you (or anyone in this thread) say is being taken personally by me and I hope the same goes for you.
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11-08-2006, 05:28 AM
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#113 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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thealmighty - do you really not have any retirement benefits? I did honestly think that it was pretty standard to have state retirment benefits for teachers.
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11-08-2006, 06:01 AM
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#114 | ||||||
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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11-08-2006, 06:19 AM
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#115 | ||
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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Quote:
I agree that it is the best way to definitively address the issue. Unfortunately all I can find are "top ten lists" which are all over the map - but that Australia one and a UK one list Teaching in the top 10. That leads me to believe that it would be difficult to argue that it is not a stressful job, even if it is not really a top 10 stressful job.
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11-08-2006, 10:48 AM
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#116 |
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H.S. Freshman Team
Join Date: Jan 2002
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i taught in school for about 27 years- 10 in private. one day i was sitting in the teachers room at a school that was below average in terms of student academic quality. i was complaining about the fact that the same kids were causing most of the problems. i said something like "why don't they send these kids to Continuation school and keep them there". another teacher looked at me and said "you don't understand! Continuation school is harder to get into than Stanford!"
i have always disagreed with the premise of the voucher system. my point has been that it doesn't make sense to allow 70-90% of the students to move to a private school when all you have to do is move 10% or so of the losers to Continuation school. in a normal school or classroom about 10% of the students cause most of the problems and they pull other kids along with them. getting rid of a few students would really improve the level of instruction. of course the question arises - Is this possible? a constitutional amendment would have to be passed that would state something to the effect that student rights do not exist. the school has the ability to make decisions that can only be appealed to the school board and attorneys cannot enter the process. my 10 years in a private catholic school showed me 2 things. 1. when you have a student problem deal with it by sending the problem to a public school. 2. you can have much better football teams in private schools. |
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11-08-2006, 09:16 PM
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#117 | ||||||||||||||
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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The following are quotes and responses to wade moore and thealmighty.
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Also see below for another link to backup my claim of average teacher salary http://money.cnn.com/magazines/money...pshots/84.html Assuming there is approx. 2.5 months of non-work, I am going to state the average annualized teacher salary = $59,368. 9.5 / 12 months = $47000 --> $47000 x 12 / 9.5 = $59,368. I actually believe the value of 2.5 months non-work with the ability to return to work after the 2.5 months non-work is higher than this monetary value but we need to quantify it somehow. Again, this is to make apples-to-apples comparison on salary wages. If you do not believe this $59K is valid, please (1) explain your reasoning and (2) propose your average annual teacher salary and how you came to the figure ex. how did you quantify the 2.5 months of non-work. Quote:
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I understand your argument may be that you are paid less during your working years etc. However, it is my contention that you both get better retirement benefits than the typical corporate employee during retirement. Also, if you do get pension after retirement, can you share the approx $ value per month? There is a place somewhere on the web that can put a current value price on this retirement annuity (ex. swag - $600/month retirement is really equal to approx $100K in todays dollars). Quote:
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Can you tell me if teacher also get normal vacations (ex. 2 weeks/yr in first 5 years) above and beyond the school breaks? If they do NOT, I will subtract the .5 months and make it a 2 month non-work period in my above calculations. thealmighty. If you do not believe 2.5 months of non-work is accurate, please state your (1) number and (2) reasoning. Quote:
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With that said, I have tried for the past 2 hrs to find what I consider legit studies on 'ranking job stress', 'stressful jobs', 'stressful occupations' etc. and have not been successful. I have seen the UK studies listing the teaching profession, but have also seen other lists not include teaching. If you have a link to a respectable study, please provide it. Otherwise, we will agree to disagree on whether teaching is a 'not high stress occupation' and 'This is not to say its a low stress job, just that its not high stress ... not out of the norm'. Quote:
Wade moore. I work in the IT HR sector in a technical and functional capacity as a consultant. In my experience, most IT people do not love their jobs and do not get self actualization from it. I do not believe the following links prove my point, however they are 'evidence' and FWIW here they are. Please provide your links showing otherwise. (a) Teachers have highest satisfaction in 20 yrs and/or great increase ... http://www.edweek.org/chat/transcript_11_01_2006.html http://www.harrisinteractive.com/har...ex.asp?PID=448 (b) Teacher job satisfaction is higher than IT and far above average. http://www.studentsreview.com/satisf..._by_major.php3 Quote:
**** To summarize and to try to establish some points of agreement ... 1. Current Salary. Can we agree on average salary = $47K and average annualize salary = $59K. If not please state your $ and links to show otherwise. 2. Current Benefits. Can we agree current benefits (as a whole, on average) norm with rest of corporate America? 3. Retirement Benefits. Can we agree that Teacher retirement benefits is on par with other government/state entities but above regular corporate America? 4.a Quality of Life - Three Months Off. Can we agree that Teachers get 2.5 months of additional non-work that others in corporate American do not? If not, state your months and reasoning. 4.b Quality of Life - Not High Stress. Can we agree to disagree unless someone comes up with a legit study/ranking on this? 5. Self actualization. Can we agree that there is 'evidence' that Teaching has a higher job satisfaction index than average? It seems much higher than IT etc. (see above link). If not, please state your reasoning and any links to support your position. **** Additional other quotes and comments ... Quote:
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11-08-2006, 09:55 PM
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#118 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Sure I get the time off, but I'm not earning anything. Well it's the same in the education industry. Listen I'm not denying that the time off is fabulous. I understand completely why the Europeans take all the time that they do. But I think it should be classified under benefits and not salary. There is simply no way, that in 5 years I'd be able to earn something even close to what I earn now over the summer. The fact that I do so now only speaks to my low teaching income and fact that I have year round part time job that pays me well. Teachers did not chose to work 9 months, it's the way the industry is structured. Also I'm kind of sad that this topic has gotten so far abreast from reform and I've gotten so little feedback on the ideas I've thrown out there. |
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11-09-2006, 12:25 AM
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#119 |
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H.S. Freshman Team
Join Date: Jan 2002
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private army- in case you don't get my pm. let me explain. i am too lazy too capitalize. sorry if that's a problem. where you see the letters that start a sentence with i just assume it's an I. the meaning is exactly the same. i am amazed you weren't taught that in public school - we always made a point of explaining that in private schools.
But just to put you at ease when i wrote anything to the students or parents i always was sure to capitalize and check my spelling- feel better now. |
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11-09-2006, 01:07 AM
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#120 |
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High School Varsity
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Manitowoc, Wisconsin
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So... I'm a little late here. I just graduated from high school. Everyone here seems to be bent on "fixing" education. My question is...
A. What is wrong with the education system; why does it need fixing? B. What is the goal of an education system? You want to fix it... to make it do what? Just curious. My problems with the education system are probably far removed from any of the problems anyone on this board has with it. |
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11-09-2006, 06:42 AM
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#121 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: The Black Hole
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I received your PM. Like I said, I wasn't criticizing you; I was just curious why a teacher for about 27 years wouldn't capitalize the beginning of sentences and the word "I". I always thought teachers would be meticulous about that stuff. If I were attempting to make fun of you, I would've done it publicly instead of a PM. I also have no earthly idea what your PM means. I assume that you were either drunk or English is not your first language. |
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11-09-2006, 09:20 PM
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#122 | |||
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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I do not know how much teachers are paid for summer school teaching and maybe my extrapolation in the attempt to quantify the 2.5 months of non-work is invalid. However, there needs to be some sort of 'value' factored for the 2.5 months of non-work in the discussion of 'total compensation', not just ignored. In your furlough example, the autoworkers were unexpectedly furloughed. The teacher 'furlough' was clearly defined up front (an extraordinary perk the rest of corporate America would love to have). Quote:
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I think the common answer to (A) is that (A.1) our PS education system is not preparing students for the future, as evidenced by low test scores and the lowering of the US competitive/economic advantage compared to the rest of the world and (A.2) overall teacher dissatisfaction with their profession due to compensation/work demands et al. For (B), ideally, for my children, I would want the answer to be (B.1) to prepare our students for collegiate level work and/or (B.2) encourage students to enjoy learning and/or (B.3) instill/inspire confidence in students which will allow them to succeed/adapt in adulthood and/or (B.4) somewhat expose students to more than traditional school work/sports. What to fix? I actually think, on average, as a whole our P.S. education system (as opposed to College which I think has a different set of issues) is doing okay (ex. I am personally satisfied with the education my 2 children are getting so far). This is not to say there is no room for improvement. I acknowledge the following suggestions are (a) easy to say but hard/not practical to implement and (b) some are in progress/being implemented to a certain degree. Regardless, my blue-sky suggestions are: (C.1) Additional vocational/apprenticeship options for non college/graduating students. (C.2) Somehow allow/encourage/entice/subsidize the underprivileged to continue P.S. eduction (ex. I always think how hard it would be for a single parent family to have his/her 4 kids go to school and keep a full time job). (C.3) Somehow eliminate any negative influences (ex. bullies, drugs, habitual problem students) from the P.S. (C.4) Ensure a maximum reading competency (ex. note I said maximum, not minimum ... no exceptions for Football players, hold back failing students if necessary etc.). I truly believe the ability to Read well coupled with the excitement of Learning is the key to a child's future. Miscellaneous additional ramblings, not quite as important ... (C.5) Let elementary school students (ex. maybe <4th grade?) do a 4 day school week, maybe extend school days Mon-Thu (ex. I know this will cause issues if both parents working). I feel younger students need more free time. (C.6) Require foreign language classes each year (ex. Mandarin or Spanish, future languages of the world). (C.7) Require music classes each year (ex. I think its been shown that music improves concentration/focus). (C.8) Encourage physical fitness but downgrade the importance of some competitive team sports (ex. I don't mind Football, Basketball but big-time competition with other schools I dislike). (C.9) More non-traditional school work (ex. balance check books, basic cooking skills, basic car maintenance etc.). I don't expect a full semester class in each but some exposure, maybe 1-2 weeks? |
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11-09-2006, 09:36 PM
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#123 | ||
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Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Muskogee, OK USA
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What is this 2.5 months of "non-work" you're talking about? I don't know a single teacher who doesn't do something during those months "off." It's not like they are sitting on their collective asses watching reruns of the Price Is Right and Brady Bunch. They have to take classes and attend workshops and seminars. A lot of them have to pay for this out of their own pocket. Again, you have shown that you have no clue whatsoever about the teaching profession.
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11-09-2006, 09:42 PM
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#124 | |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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11-09-2006, 09:52 PM
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#125 |
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Newburgh, NY
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Edward: I can't itemize for my brother but I know he took his HS steel drum band to several performances and had practices as well. He arranged music for the group. He took two weeks of seminars that he paid for. He spent some time writing a madrigal show that will be performed in the spring.
He didn't work 40hrs a week, but he didn't take the whole summer off either. During the school year he teaches a guitar class during his lunch hour, works with the HS band percussion section after school and at each football game, has regular evening rehearsals for his choirs, has regular madrigal rehearsals, has night and weekend concerts and competitions, and teaches private voice lessons for auditioning seniors. By no means does he have a light workload because he's a teacher.
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To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.. - Mr. Rogers |
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11-09-2006, 10:21 PM
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#126 |
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High School Varsity
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Manitowoc, Wisconsin
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Edward, I'd like to reply more... but I won't be able to be on a computer much until Monday. So hopefully I can continue the dialogue on Monday.
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11-09-2006, 10:23 PM
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#127 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Phoenix
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Itemize? Okay...
We got out Memorial Day Weekend. I spent that weekend with my family. Over the next three weeks, I spent 3 days in a workshop for required development so that I wouldn't lose my state certification. I worked 9 days over the three weeks with students from around the city preparing them for the National Speech Tournament. I spent 8 days in Dallas at Nationals. That was not a vacation; that was work. In July, I had numerous meetings for Association Organization, in addition to a three day retreat for the Association Representatives. Along with this, I am working on a Master's degree. I also had to revamp my curriculum and compile my new materials. I had meetings with my fellow coaches to plan our coaches convention. I had to meet with the Arizona Interscholastic Association officers to discuss the committees that I head. And on August 1, I was back at my school getting ready for the year. I did find a weekend to take my wife to Sedona, so I suppose I was very lazy last summer. Sorry that I didn't give you a day by day breakdown, but it is a bit fuzzy at this point.
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11-09-2006, 10:28 PM
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#128 | |||
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Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Muskogee, OK USA
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I'm not a teacher...yet. I still have 1.5 years to go. I do, however, have several friends who are teachers. Two that teach summer course for junior colleges. Another two that are going through grad school during that time. My mentor teacher said that you are either working a second job (tutoring, teaching, etc.), or futhering your education along with workshops and seminars.
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11-09-2006, 10:51 PM
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#129 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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JPhillips, AZSpeechCoach and Duckman. I find it hard to respond with what I consider a good analysis without a more definite information. I do really want a good, fair analysis on this subject matter.
Reading through AZSpeechCoach notes, it seems that he worked 20 days over a 3 week period (ex. over the next 3 weeks) but I believe I misterpreted his reply. I concede that teachers do complusory work over the summer holidays but there is no doubt they have extra days that corporate America do not have. Can we just try to come up with an average consensus number and move on? Just approximate honestly all the non-work time you (or friends) have off excluding holidays that rest of corporate America have also. Lets come up with an average of non-work days 'benefit'. Here's the format I think will work ...
To be fair, I don't believe you should factor any volunteer/hobby type work that occurred during the non-work periods. These were optional work that you choose freely to use up. Again, all I want is quantify this benefit. If you disagree with my earlier analysis, lets try to come up with an average non-work days that we can all agree on. |
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11-10-2006, 01:18 AM
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#130 | |||||||
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Pro Starter
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Muskogee, OK USA
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My understanding of it was that he was working closer to 30+ days. You are leaving out July. Plus, he has to return to work 3 weeks before the children even arrive, so that makes summer vacation shorter. Quote:
From the looks of it, I would say that have less than 10 total days for the summer if they are lucky. Quote:
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What qualifies as volunteer/hobby type work? Because I don't see where teaching summer school as a volunteer/hobby type of situation, nor do I see earning extra income to support your family as volunteer/hobby type work. Quote:
From my estimation, I would say it is 14-30 days depending on subject area, activities that they are involved, state requirements for teachers in regards to mandatory workshops, organizational obligations, etc.
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Last edited by duckman : 11-10-2006 at 01:19 AM. |
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11-10-2006, 06:15 AM
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#131 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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For the summer break debate:
I know during the summer I work between 10 and 30 hours a week. Once meetings begin that number approaches 40. But while I am working, it's the best kind of working: 1. I get to set my own hours 2. I get to set my own focus Sure I might attend a workshop. But it's a workshop I've chosen to attend. If I decide I want to take a weekend off, I can do it with no hassle. I might sit down and read a new book for eight hours one day and do nothing the next. Summer breaks aren't outright breaks, but they are a huge perk to being a teacher and I'm not sure why some people seem so intent on downplaying them. |
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11-10-2006, 06:38 AM
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#132 | |||||
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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I agree with considering 'earning extra income' out of counting non-work weeks. However, to remove this from the equation, we need to add the extra income generated in lieu of the non-work week. I am just going to say $1,500 unless you have a better swag. Working over the non-work weeks that you quoted. Out of 5 days possible per week, can you confirm you believe your friends are working 5 days (or more) a week working during Spring, Fall, Christmas breaks? I believe I can hypothesize probably not. In my swag of the 4-5 non-work weeks during Spring, Fall, Christmas breaks ... maybe they worked a total of 2 / 4 weeks? Quote:
Lets just say approx midpoint of 25 days in your experience, which is equal to approx 5 weeks (5+5+5+5+5). Therefore, I would value your examples' of additional non-work week + average salary = $53,500. 47 / 52 weeks = $47000 --> $47000 x 52 / 47 = $52,000. $52,000 + $1,500 = $53,500. I will wait to hear back from the others before trying to come to a consensus. So far, this means in my 'total compensation' model approximates $53,500 annual $ (with other benefits like pension yet to be factored). Quote:
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11-10-2006, 07:19 AM
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#133 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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Edward...
The reason I have stepped out of this argument... I think you really have a block and are trying to analyze this down to way minute of a detail. let's face it.. .Teaching is just as stressful if not more than others, it has as many bad things as good as any other job, and they make in the 40's per year... they cannot choose to work all year, this is just like furloughing Auto Works (You must not know about auto plants, many of them take several months off EVERY year.. I thought this was a very good comparison)... I just think you're doing way too much to try and drill this down. Fow what it's worth, even if you prove that they make on average what many other professions do, I will still say that the benefit to the community of what they do is worth FAR more than the average profession, and therefore they should be paid more.
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11-10-2006, 07:34 AM
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#134 | ||||||||||||
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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I would argue, to answer this question, on a slightly different track, that good might not be good enough. Education is so important that merely having a good education system is vastly inferior to having an excellent one. I would also suggest that the US, much as it does in health care, spends a lot of money on education relative to comprable countries. This suggests, to me, we're not doing something right. I would argue that the US does place value on things that are not easily measured by tests, such as independent and creative thinking, but I would agree that the system simply isn't performing as well as it could be. Quote:
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I am also going to reprint my suggestions for change from earlier in the thread Quote:
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11-10-2006, 08:14 AM
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#135 | |
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Pro Starter
Join Date: May 2003
Location: heaven
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There you go. It sounds like a divorce lawyer. "Can we accept this. Will you agree to that." No, I am in my situation and I can't agree to all that stuff at all. Your average salary was $57K or something (gives me a headache to read through this thread with all the quoting. ). I am in my 20th year and my salary is not even $57K. I do make $57K a year but it's because of coaching. Oh, and a $2500 stipend that math teachers get because they can't get any to stay in teaching. In fact, after 2/3 of a semester, my school still has an opening for a math teacher- currently filled with a non-math permanent substitute.Carry on.
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Check out The Unofficial FOFC Movie Guide Here Last edited by thealmighty : 11-10-2006 at 08:16 AM. Reason: edit to change $%7K to $57K |
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11-10-2006, 09:14 AM
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#136 | ||
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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11-10-2006, 09:21 AM
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#137 | ||
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that you want to dial in to exactly what someone is doing week by week in the summer, etc.. Here's the facts: Teachers average in the mid-high 40k's per year Teachers have quite a bit of stress, as much or more than other jobs Opinion: Teaching is one of THE most important jobs in this country. Therefore, I think they don't get paid enough.
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11-10-2006, 03:57 PM
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#138 |
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H.S. Freshman Team
Join Date: Jan 2002
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if u are offended by my non-capitalization - stop reading
i taught as mentioned before for 27 years. as a teacher you teach about 185 days a year which is approximately half the year. during the school year or summer vacations you take courses in order to further your education and become a better teacher but the additional units also lead to extra salary compensation. most of the teachers i knew took extra units early in their career in order to maximize their earnings. teachers are paid fairly for their work but since it is a job that depends on taxation revenue it will always be limited in comparison to most other college degree professions.for 2 married people who both work and want to travel on their vacation time it is a great job but if you are raising a family particularly in an expensive area it can be tough to make ends meet. but believe me if you are in the right environment and know a liitle more than the students you can be a successful teacher. as i stated earlier i taught in both public and private schools. in the public school depending in part on the course and the economic level of the community i could teach successfully if i could demand the attention of the students. in the private school attendance was generally at about 95-100% and i would spend no time at all on maintaining discipline. there simply was absolutely no discipline poroblems whatsoever in the classroom and that is the key to the ability to teach. take a student who has the ability to learn but has always failed and get that student in a 1-on-1 situation everyday for the entire school day. i firmly believe that every student would walk out with a good education. that is not reasonable but the closer you can get to that type of environment with 30 kids the more success you would see in actual learning. in addition one other belief i developed was this. students do not enter the learning process on an even playing field. there are students who enter school and since they are so poorly prepared there is no alternative but to fail. imagine how you would feel if from the very first day of school you found yourself way behind the rest of the students. after a few years you tire of failure and simply give up. i believe there is a way to minimize this problem. when students enter school (1st grade) there should be an immediate identification process to see who is below grade level. if the school day is 8-3 for students it should be extended to 8-4:30 for those students below grade level. i believe that what this would do is put the teacher in a situation to work with a smaller class and concentrate on turning failures at 6 years old into students with a chance of success at 7-10 years old. it would take more money, would increase teacher salaries and dramatically decrease the number of students who look upon themselves as failures. |
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11-10-2006, 06:36 PM
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#139 | |||||||||
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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Granted, maybe the wrong people are becoming Administrators. Maybe the solution to hire externally and not focus on promoting teachers to administrators unless true competency is shown. I know this might opened me up to more (!) criticism, but I tend to believe a good corporate manager can probably do well as a P.S. school administrator. Quote:
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This is not an unusual complaint that I observe in corporate America. Unfortunately, most of the times there are minimal options other than to wait it out, change jobs/schools. The bad administrator/manager will probably never change his stripes. |
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11-10-2006, 06:45 PM
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#140 | |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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11-10-2006, 06:51 PM
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#141 | |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2005
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If you would, can you share your view on what a teacher should be paid? Not to further this discussion but to put closure to it. |
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11-10-2006, 07:33 PM
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#142 | ||
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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I don't have an exact number without doing extensive research. Here's the general position I would put out there: Teacher's should be paid enough that many of our better minds want to teach. It should be a position where they are desperate to find teachers therefore they often higher underqualified teachers and hold onto poor performing teachers. Teaching should be a profession that people say, "I'd love to do it, but you just can't live off of that." Right now you could go on any college campus and ask people if they would like the job of teaching and many would say yes. Ask them if they'll do it, and they'll say no. Ask why? "It doesn't pay enough." I don't know what the magic number is. Maybe it's 60k, maybe it's 55k, maybe it's 90k -- I don't know. But, if we want to increase the quality of teaching, we need to increase pay. Now. How do we afford that? I also don't know. To afford it, it would require an overhaul of many other things in the education system.
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11-11-2006, 02:08 AM
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#143 |
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H.S. Freshman Team
Join Date: Jan 2002
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you can spend the rest of your life shouting to the rooftops that teaching is the most important profession in this country or any country and it will not change the way teachers are compensated. they will always be at the bottom of the professional ladder because of where the funds come from. that does not mean that the educational system cannot be successful. private school teachers make less money and have less benefits than public school teachers and yet have better results. it comes down to discipline and parent involvement. every time you see an attorney win a battle for student rights in any way it is a defeat for the educational process. attorneys are the major reason why the greatest right a student has is the right to "FAIL".
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11-11-2006, 07:00 AM
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#144 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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waltwal: I hate to tell you this but private school teachers have NOT, in the most recent and most comprhensive study to date, been shown to do all that better than public school teachers. Especially by 8th grade. This could be different for HS. Private school teachers just have better stock to work from.
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01-05-2007, 11:55 AM
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#145 | |
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College Starter
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: PA
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Sorry, I just stumbled on this older thread from another thread and had a couple comments. This is absolutely ridiculous:
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The problem is that labor in this country is expensive, and education is extremely labor intensive. The recent explosion in technology that has increased the productivity of the average worker has done little to increase the productivity of teachers. You still need one teacher per 20 students or so that you needed 30 years ago. So what you see is that second tier countries like Poland and Ecuador and what not get high marks for educating kids, because their lower labor costs make it more cost-effective to use a lot of labor on education. To compete with those countries in education is like a clothing manufacturer here that has to compete with one in China. Would increasing salary cause better candidates to become teachers? Yeah, but not as much as you might think. There are many non-monetary benefits to being a teacher that already increase the talent pool (summers off, working with children, 'making a difference', etc). |
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01-05-2007, 01:04 PM
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#146 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Not too far away
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Mr. B I think those are some insightful comments about the cost of labor and education. I will suggest that actually teaching has become MORE labor intensive in the last 20 years in the US. Class sizes are down. This makes sense as teachers are expected to do far more customization than they were 20 years ago.
Our society equates a lot of prestige with money. So while there are some tangible benefits that you mention I think the lack of prestige is as big of hindrance to attracting the kind of teacher we want as anything. It amazed me when I was in college the negative reactions I would get from people when I told them I was studying education. I was told time and time again "You're too smart to be a teacher". That sort of attitude needs to change and if it's not through raising teacher salaries we need to figure out some other way to make it as prestigious to be a teacher as a doctor or lawyer. |
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01-05-2007, 01:33 PM
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#147 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Monroe, LA, USA
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Oh, let me jump into this since I missed it the first time.
I've had two major careers, one as an Army officer, the other as a teacher, with a couple of far shorter stints where the government was not paying my salary. I think teachers should be paid more. I think it would in general attract and retain better teachers. Let's not forget that teaching has a very high turnover rate, especially in the first couple of years, so retention is as important as initially attracting teachers to the profession, if not more important. The fact that there is a continuing large shortage of qualified teachers in America indicates things need to be done to attract more good teachers. But I would couple higher pay with some changes. First, you have to improve conditions in some schools. That starts with basic discipline, order, and safety. I won't get into that in detail, but that is a self-inflicted wound in many schools and districts, and many administrators and elected school officials are afraid to face down the community and create safe, orderly schools. That alone drives out many teachers, and most people don't have a clue of what goes on in some schools. Second, make the teacher education, selection, and retention process tougher. Assuming a bigger, better pool, you can be more selective. And that already happens in higher paying districts. For my own district, the supply of good teachers exceeds the demand due to higher pay and better conditions. For most neighboring districts, the demand exceeds supply, primarily due to salary and conditions. Finally, I think teachers should work 12 months -- an educational 12 months, that is. I believe as long as teachers only work 9 months, that fact will always mitigate against higher pay, and nothing teachers can say about all the extra work they do off the clock will change that. In the Army I never worked a 40-hour week and as an officer never took my full 30-day leave allotment. I have no sympathy for teachers who moan about their long hours. I suggest that teachers work 12 months, which would include all existing holidays plus a two-week vacation in the summer, which would still give teachers about 30 or so days off per year, still more than most Americans get. Teachers who need to attend classes for certification or advanced degrees etc. -- and there is a lot of that in the summer -- that are job-related would be permitted to do that in the summer "on the clock." Otherwise during the summer teachers would be at the school collaborating on plans for the coming year, working individually on their own plans, analyzing test data from the previous year (We are swamped in standardized test data these days.), attending professional workshops and conferences, and doing other constructive things to make the school a better place. That's my view. I know, however, that most teachers think I'm crazy when I bring this up. |
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01-05-2007, 01:37 PM
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#148 | |
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College Starter
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Beantown
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Boston Bashers - III.14 - (8347) |
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01-05-2007, 01:41 PM
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#149 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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FWIW, I'm sure my fiance would not mind working 12 months.. she does summer school and goes stir-crazy during the period between that and the regular school year as it is.
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01-05-2007, 01:42 PM
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#150 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
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Dola:
I would imagine that many of the teachers that would have a problem with this are the ones that take the job not cause they're good at it or that it is rewarding, but because they get 3 months off.
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