Teachers pay is a disgrace.

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: gopunk
but just about everybody that goes into teaching knows this, so it's their choice

 

[tec699]

Originally posted by: DeeTees
If you want truly bad pay for a hard job try adjunct faculty at state colleges. You teach half load, have office hours, prepare lessons, forms grading and after all that you are lucky to make $16,000.00 a year. Oh by the way no benefits and if you want retirement you can contribute as much of your after tax salery as you wish to a pension plan. The full time faculty teaching the same courses (full load) make 65-75K have full benefits, tenure and have 10% of their salary contributed to their pension fund.

JUst a note - the percentage of full time faculty at state colleges is declining while the adjunct staff is increasing. I still think that it is a bad idea to work at screwing the teaching profession at any level. If you pay sh*t wages you get poor teachers. If you pay sh*t wages and overload the poor teachers you get no trachers or teachers that need school themselves. Oops, I guess that is exactly what we have been doing.

(former adjunct professor in state community college who thought he owed something to the system, so took the job as a favor to a full time faculty member friend)

Yea adjunct teachers at Universities have it rough. It comes down to one issue DeeTees: MONEY!

 

[Yax]

Originally posted by: tec699
So what am I trying to say? It amazes me that I have to go to a 4 year college like everyone else and I?ll have to endure the low teachers pay while my peers will be making double my salary.

You don't have to do anything. You chose to do it.

My bro-in-law is a teacher. He makes about $35K/year. But he loves the summers and holidays off so he does it for that. He never complains about the money. He always complain about the old teachers who have their life time credentials and don't have to worry about going to class to improve themselves. He blames alot of the bad education on them because they've been there so long, they just don't care anymore. Just there for the pay.

So, why don't you just go back to school and get your MBA, then try to make the money your friends do? Well?

 

[tec699]

Originally posted by: cheapbidder01

Originally posted by: tec699
So what am I trying to say? It amazes me that I have to go to a 4 year college like everyone else and I?ll have to endure the low teachers pay while my peers will be making double my salary.

You don't have to do anything. You chose to do it.

My bro-in-law is a teacher. He makes about $35K/year. But he loves the summers and holidays off so he does it for that. He never complains about the money. He always complain about the old teachers who have their life time credentials and don't have to worry about going to class to improve themselves. He blames alot of the bad education on them because they've been there so long, they just don't care anymore. Just there for the pay.

So, why don't you just go back to school and get your MBA, then try to make the money your friends do? Well?

I've thought about going back to my University and obtaining my masters. This would then open the door for me to be a principle or superintendent. I'm graduating this fall so I'll have to put some time in before I can be considered for a top tier position. Usually the males follow this route because of the excellent pay.

 

[MechJinx]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
A teaching degree is one of the easiest to obtain. This is a well-known fact.
Therefore, it is typically not a high-paying job.
That is a main reason that we don't have the "best of the best" going into teaching.
People already know that teaching doesn't pay that well, so I am puzzled at why they continually bitch about it.

The solution to our education problems is this: Pick a date a couple years away, and say that teachers are going to start out at, say, 65-70k.
Then say that the catch is, the standards are going to be much higher, so we don't have the substandard idiots that we have teaching now.
Specify that schools offering teaching degrees must produce grads that meet these standards, or they won't be hired.

What will happen is this: the current teachers will be tested and the ones who are not up to par will be weeded out.
Then, better, smarter students will start studying for teaching degrees since you can actually make a good salary now.
Better-educated students and happier teachers will be the result.

Well put, you hit upon a good solution. part of the problem is ensuring that teachers do a good job each and every year and the other part of the problem is making worth while for good teachers to continuing doing a good job and attracting good teachers to the field.

 

[LongCoolMother]

whats difficult is that there are good and bad teachers. in high school and middle school, ive met teachers that are really good, and immensely horrendous. id say in general though, high school teachers are idiots from personal experience. of course, there are exceptions, and the ones that are good are just awesome teachers, who im sure, could be working for far higher salaries.

 

[jyates]

The market pays what it has to for labor.

If there weren't so many people with teaching degrees the market would pay more
but as long as there are people willing to work for what the job currently is paying
you won't see the wages increase drastically.

I didn't read all the comments but I would recommend anyone who is a working
teacher who doesn't like what it pays to quit teaching and go into a field that
pays what you desire.

It's a well known fact that most teachers don't make a bunch of money but people
still make the choice to become teachers every day and then comment about the
pay like they didn't have a clue what it paid before they entered the job market!

 

[Drekce]

First off, my wife is a teacher. I feel that fact gives me a right to have a valid opinion on this subject as her pay directly influences my life.

Education is one of the easier subjects to get a college degree in. My wife teaches chemistry, which actually required her to take lots of upper level chemistry classes (physical chem., analytical chem., etc.) along with calculus, but still her education fell short of what a true chemistry major would get. If you look at the classes and the difficulty that most other education majors go through (elementary ed, early childhood, etc.) they are a complete joke. If I ran an elementary school I would not hire anyone who did not have a 4.0 GPA in college (if they received an education degree). It is a sad fact that throughout colleges in America the students in the education programs have the lowest SAT scores.

The way our Government schools are run in America an education degree provides a fairly secure lifetime job. There are many college degrees that are just as easy or easier to get than education where you have almost no chance of getting an actual job in that field right out of college, let alone one where you have a tremendous amount of job security. That fact alone makes an education degree worth more than many other degrees, even some that are more difficult.

As for the pay issue, my wife started fresh out of college making ~$28,000 at a private prep school in Central Florida. She could have had a little bit larger starting salary at a Government School, but rightly chose to go for the better environment and students. She works approximately seven-hour days (except when coaching, which she gets paid extra for) and almost never has to do anything at home. Her first year was tough, but by amassing her teaching materials over the course of a few years preparing is now a breeze. She makes about $18.75 /hr currently (pro-rated to only working 9.5 months and not including coaching stipends) and has great benefits. Most people leave off the benefits when discussing teacher's salaries. In this area teachers get an average of 10% of their pay put into their 403B accounts without ever having to add a penny themselves (i.e. not matching, but truly free money) and their personal health insurance is completely paid for by the school.

Looking at all of these facts I feel that teachers (my wife included) make plenty of money for the job that they perform and the benefits and security that they receive. Many teachers claim to put in long hours organizing, grading and doing all of the other tasks that most teachers must perform. I feel that these people could get their work done in a regular workday if they were more organized or worked a little bit harder. They are the same types of people who would probably have to work long hours in any field to accomplish their work.

 

[DougK62]

Originally posted by: jyates
...

It's a well known fact that most teachers don't make a bunch of money but people
still make the choice to become teachers every day and then comment about the
pay like they didn't have a clue what it paid before they entered the job market!

So many people go into teaching because it's an insanely easy undergrad degree to get. Most of their classes are a complete joke and are worse then high school.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: MechJinx
Well put, you hit upon a good solution. part of the problem is ensuring that teachers do a good job each and every year and the other part of the problem is making worth while for good teachers to continuing doing a good job and attracting good teachers to the field.

There's a third part that money can't buy - good parenting. Get all the best teachers in the world with all the best facilities and materials, and put them in a classroom full of kids who have no support from home, believe they have no future, and believe anyone who thinks they do have a future must be stopped...and see how far they get.

That's the factor that cannot be controlled, and it's the one that makes or breaks.

 

[jyates]

No doubt that parents are a big factor in their children's learning
process.

 

[OrByte]

Originally posted by: cheapbidder01

Originally posted by: tec699
So what am I trying to say? It amazes me that I have to go to a 4 year college like everyone else and I?ll have to endure the low teachers pay while my peers will be making double my salary.

You don't have to do anything. You chose to do it.

My bro-in-law is a teacher. He makes about $35K/year. But he loves the summers and holidays off so he does it for that. He never complains about the money. He always complain about the old teachers who have their life time credentials and don't have to worry about going to class to improve themselves. He blames alot of the bad education on them because they've been there so long, they just don't care anymore. Just there for the pay.

So, why don't you just go back to school and get your MBA, then try to make the money your friends do? Well?

I hear the same arguement from my brother and sister-in-law, both are teachers. Both complain that tenureship is what causes problems.

 

[SuperTool]

Because teaching is for women. Whose husbands bring home the bacon

 

[LongCoolMother]

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: tec699

Originally posted by: notfred
Most of the teachers I had in California weren't even earning thier crappy pay. If they suck that bad at teaching, they don't deserve any more money.

Was it the teacher or the pupil? I can work with a pupil until I'm blue in the face but if he is unresponsive then how is that my fault? I can only do so much. I can't make a student pass a test. Teachers and students have to meet halfway in regard to academics and parent support is vital for student success. How many parents are involved in their children?s education? From what I've seen it's not many. It's a disgrace.

You can't continue to blame teachers for everything. Some issues are just out of their hands.

I'm not blaming teachers for everything, I'm jsut saying that there are a lot of bad teachers out there, IMO.

I had a second grade teacher who threw things at kids, and was such a bitch that she sent little kids home crying. She yelled at me ( a 7 year old ) because my pencil broke. I had an AP Statistics teacher in high school who had to look up fourmuals for simple things like standard deviation because she didn't know them. I had a physics teacher who would only ask people questions who he KNEW didn't know the answer, because he didn't get a boost to his ego unless he got to correct somebody. These people should be fired, not paid more.

Now, I'm not saying that all teachers are bad, but I've had as many if not more horrible teachers than great ones. And the rest are all, well, average. They convey the material to you, but they don't make it interesting. They don't make you want to study it, they pretty much just don't piss you off enough that you wish they were fired. But still, the only reason you do the work or study the material is for the grade, not because you actually care about it.

i almost have a carbon copy when it comes to my experiences. i dont know if its a california thing, but man, you got it dead on. just this year i had a spanish teacher who caould BARELY speak english at all, the entire year i dont think the class really understood any sentence she said completely. it was up to the students to learn the material themselves. which also brings me to the point that parents matter substantially. and i agree with you tec699 when you say that, because what ive seen is that regardless of how poor a teacher's performance is, if the student has caring and involved parents, he/she will be able to learn the material thoroughly in most cases. i really think parents are the first step, before the teacher, imo, a student can succeed with good parents but bad teachers, not vice versa.

often times its so frustrating to see these people teaching because frankly, i could do a better job relaying and teaching the material to a class-j ust give me a teacher's edition of the textbook. and im not kidding.

of course, ive had great teachers probably every year, but only a handful. they really have a passion for teaching and dont just go on a systematic scheme of reading from the textbook like some robot day after day. of course, its obvious they had a much better education than the avg. teacher-its blunt, but true.

 

[MechJinx]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: MechJinx
Well put, you hit upon a good solution. part of the problem is ensuring that teachers do a good job each and every year and the other part of the problem is making worth while for good teachers to continuing doing a good job and attracting good teachers to the field.

There's a third part that money can't buy - good parenting. Get all the best teachers in the world with all the best facilities and materials, and put them in a classroom full of kids who have no support from home, believe they have no future, and believe anyone who thinks they do have a future must be stopped...and see how far they get.

That's the factor that cannot be controlled, and it's the one that makes or breaks.

Good point, Jzero. I forgot to mention that at all. I completely agree with you.

 

[fallenangel99]

dont be a teacher then. i know lots of girls (and a few guys) who go into education. personally, i think its one of the easier majors. most girls want to be a 2nd grade teacher or whatever. its not that hard to teach. besides being able to speak in front of ppl, what else do you need? i hate it when girls who want to be teachers take easy classes while im stuck with calc. 99 and engineering 500

just my .02 cents

and yes i lived with a girl who was in grad school for teaching.. let me tell you she had lots of free time. she went to 2nd grade classes and taught them how to add 1+1!!!

 

[homestarmy]

Shut up. You get a degree and have A GUARANTEED JOB. $27k isn't so bad, especially right out of college. You knew what you were getting yourself into.

Plus you don't have to work all year, boo hoo!

 

[TitanDiddly]

Man, I totally agree with you, it's absurd.

They get paid WAY too much. Halve it, or better yet, quarter it.

 

[Lithium381]

It's true, but it shouldn't be that way, where would we be without teachers? Definitally a 100% valid post, well except the part about his dad...:Q j/k

 

[homestarmy]

Why should people with Bachelor's degrees have to work all year round? That's just not fair...

I wish having a Bachelor's degree meant as much as you think it does.

And your friend got a $60k a year job on computers? Where the hell is this job? She's what you call LUCKY. That's not so normal.

 

[homestarmy]

Originally posted by: tec699
Usually the males follow this route because of the excellent pay.

What's being male have to do with anything?

 

[DougK62]

Originally posted by: homestarmy

Originally posted by: tec699
Usually the males follow this route because of the excellent pay.

What's being male have to do with anything?

Males need to be paid more to support the bare foot and pregnant wifey.

 

[fallenangel99]

exactly.. teachers dont work the whole year, they have good job security, they dont really work 8 hours a day.. i mean they teach what like 3-4 40 min classes a day? i feel bad for college profs who teach 1h20 min classes probably 5 times a day

 

[dirtboy]

If you don't like the pay, don't go into teaching. If you think you're going to make a difference, be prepared to be disappointed.

 

[homestarmy]

That's not correct. College professors teach a total of maybe 4 classes, total under three hours per week each, that's under 12 hours actually teaching PER WEEK.

Now that's a great job. That's why I want to go for my masters.