Posted on 06/17/2006 5:15:15 AM PDT by wintertime
One of the ongoing controversies in the public schools is the issue of teacher salaries. Teachers largely claim they are too low while taxpayers are equally vehement that they are more than adequate.
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Then there are the actual salary levels. Statistics in 2005 showed the average teacher salary in the nation was $46,762, ranging from a low of $33,236 in South Dakota to $57,337 in Connecticut. Even this ignores the additional compensation teachers receive as fringe benefits, which may add an additional 33% or more to the costs, primarily for very good retirement and health coverage plans. Further, averages include starting teacher salaries, which may begin at $30,000 or less, which teachers gladly mention, but ignore the high salaries of career teachers at or near the maximum on their salary schedule, important because retirement pensions are often based on the best three or so years.
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Last year, the New York State Department of Education issued a study that reported maximum teacher salaries in that state of $100,000 or more and median salaries as high as $98,000 per year. That is, there were districts, in Westchester County for example, where half of the teachers earned more than $98,000 a year.
A novel approach a few years ago by Michael Antonucci, director of the Education Intelligence Agency in California, compared teachers average salaries to average salaries all workers state by state. First prize went to Pennsylvania where the teachers received 62.5% more than the average employee. That difference is even greater when it is further considered that teachers average a 185 day work year while most workers put in 235.
(snip) Women who had been educators were 7.4% of the total deceased that year but 20.6% of them, nearly three times the statistical expectation were among the affluent few. Former male educators didn't do quite as well but even they were represented among the wealthy decedents by a ratio nearly 1.5 times the anticipated numerical ratio.
Teaching does not require a degree from a highly ranked university. Degrees from a community college and state schools are more than adequate to get a job. Also, admission to teaching programs are competitive either and teachers are among the lowest with SAT score.
Add to this that teachers can work more years because they can enter the job market with a B.A. degree and if a masters is needed can often acquire this degree in off hours and during their generous summers....and again big name colleges are not needed for these advanced degrees ( that are the joke of the academic world).
If pensions and health plans,the reduced cost of their tuitions, and the extra years in their career that they can work, teachers are doing at least as well or better as many in medicine, law, and dentistry.
Teachers conveniently take the highest earning years of those in the professions, and IGNORE the years of lost income while in training, the lost income waiting for a new practice to make money, the 3/4 of million or more to start a practice, and the high malpractice, and the complete lack of pension and health insurance, and the 24/7 responsibilities that go with the job.
They have summer vacations that more generous than a European worker, and if someone points out that they work 185 days a year, they WHINE that they put in out-of-class room time. Well! SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE!
By they way,,,,when was the last time you saw a teacher wearing a beeper because they were on 24/7 emergency call? Never!
My sister in law teaches 10th grade English in southern California and makes $70,000 a year. Not bad.
Not bad for a 9 month work year
Why is it okay for only a few in this country to make exorbitant salaries but the average joe is lambasted for the same ambitions?
Just one word -- VOUCHERS -- the panacea that would solve every single educational problem the US faces.
Plus, the test scores of the vast majority of home schoolers, many of whom are taught by non-degreed moms, puts most public school teachers to shame.
There there are all the holidays and "conventions" and other time off. A benefits package that rates better then 95% of the rest of the work force's benefits package. Hmmm.....
I've always been impressed by their complaint that they make "so little" that they have to work during summer vacation to make ends meet. Well guess what, I worked year around as a matter of course. If they would pay more attention to teaching the basics and less to whining and trying to turn all of our kids into liberals, we wouldn't have such dismal results on what the kids learn in school.
Well 1 more word -- $400,000,000 -- The amount of money given to 1 EXXON employee as a parting gift, while the oil industry was accepting fed tax subsidies and pushing their "low profit margins".
Nice screed.
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Name one item that is inaccurate.
The amount of money given to 1 EXXON employee
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Can you spell: r*e*d h*e*r*r*i*n*g
Or....are these the debating tactics taught in our government indoctrination camps?
I do have a Masters from a top rated university
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Then you wasted a lot of money.
They are both overpaid.
When was the last time Exxon threatened to take your home if you failed to pay your taxes? And that's paying for something that is slanted, extremely poor quality that many people don't use.
I didn't say your thoughts were inaccurate. I pointed out that people are quick to jump on an average American that wants to make more money. But, if a CEO of a poorly run, or even a well run company, makes millions, no one says a word. In fact, they are applauded. Why do you not applaud a teacher that betters himself and his family for making as much money as he can?
You forgot to mention the teachers' remarkably high rates of absence, which can average 15 days of the measley 185 annual working days.
$70,000 IS a lot of money for a teacher, but $70,000 divided by $400,000,000 = When this teacher has worked 500 years {!!} they still will not have earned as much as the parting gift to one oil company employee.
I don't think so. Watching a child with Learning Disabilites gain a sense of pride and belief in themselves is worth it. Not only that, I am still amazed at the whole process of teaching children to read, write, and perform math skills they were not able to do before I started working with them. Please don't think I'm giving myself all the credit, I spend a lot of time praying to God to help me help these children. As a result of those prayers, I have been able to help kids learn the basics they will need to suceed in all other academic fields.
I didn't say your thoughts were inaccurate.
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You bet! Not one thing is inaccurate.
However, I am the one, along with every other taxpayer in the US, that is paying the teachers salary and I am not satisfied with the results for the money paid out. Not only do I get pissed about their salary and the poor job performance that I am paying for in regards to teachers, I get extremely burned about the administrators in schools systems that rip the taxpayer even more than the teachers do. The whole public school system sucks, and I, and every other taxpayer, have a perfect right to complain and to do something about it.
I suggest you invest your money in a company that pays its CEO what it pays a worker. Put your money where your socialist heart is. That is if you really believe your premise.
As a lawyer turned teacher, I would like to address at least one point you make, in that everyone else puts in extra hours. That may be true, but perhaps not to the extent that teacher do.
As a former prosecutor I put in a good days work, and would generally take work home if I was preparing for an upcoming trial, but that was seldom.
This past year as a teacher, I often found myself in my classroom at 5:30 am getting ready for the school day. (School started at 8:20) and often times not leaving until 4:30 or 5:00 pm. Then, go home eat dinner, and grade papers the rest of the night. So on an average day, I might put in anywhere from 15-18 hours. It's worse for coaches.
It has often been said that teachers are nothing more than glorified babysitters. If that's the case, then I would love to have a babysitter's salary. Let's do the math. If a babysitter charges say $3.00 an hour per child, and the average class size is 25 students at 7 hours a day that comes to $535 per day. Teaching 185 days a year, that comes to an annual salary of $97,125, far more than the $32,500 I earned this past year, and that was a Doctorate level salary, not a Masters, or Bachelors. Please pay me like a babysitter.
Or lets look at a daycare. My local daycare charges me $20 a day. So, $20 times 25 students is $500 a day, at 185 days is $92,500. Please, pay me like a daycare.
Are there problems amongst the teaching profession? Sure, but so are there across all professions. Even in the legal professions there are attorneys that have no business practicing law. Bottom line, teachers have a far harder job then you would think. How do I know? I worked harder this past year as a teacher then I ever did as an attorney. I've seen both sides.
But, if a CEO of a poorly run, or even a well run company, makes millions, no one says a word.
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Again......Can you spell: red herring!
But, if a CEO of a poorly run, or even a well run company, makes millions, no one says a word.
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Again......Can you spell: red herring!
The taxpayers don't pay the CEO's salary. CEO compensation is a matter for the shareholders and is no one else's business. I pay teachers' salaries with my property taxes whether I want to or not, and yet have no say in how the money is spent. Nobody makes me invest in Exxon.
Wow, I kinda figured you to be an ass by your initial post.
You have confirmed it.
Or lets look at a daycare. My local daycare charges me $20 a day. So, $20 times 25 students is $500 a day, at 185 days is $92,500. Please, pay me like a daycare.
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Then why fight vouchers?
First, CEO pay is capped by legislation. Most of the notable compensation comes from performance pay....something teachers run away from.
Second, CEO's get fired when they do a bad job. Teachers can molest children and still remain on the payroll while an "investigation" takes place.
Third, CEO's exist at the whim of the stockholders and get thrown out even when times are good.
CEO's make millions of dollars because they are responsible for billions of dollars and the employment of thousands under them. Teachers have no responsibility to anything.
"Why does everyone begrudge teachers, dockworkers, mechanics, autoworkers...."
"Why is it okay for only a few in this country to make exorbitant salaries but the average joe is lambasted for the same ambitions"
Which of the named professions are paid out of taxpayer's coffers?
Personally, I begrudge EVERY dollar of my money taken out of my paycheck by government, and so should you.
If you make your living off of the taxpayer, do not be surprised when the taxpayer complains that you get too much, because it's the taxpayers money in your paycheck.
Nice point. Someone will invoke the "laws of the marketplace."
Still, teachers unions have been good at whining and not delivering results. They factor in salaries inthe lowest-paying states and then compare them to salaries of non-teachers in the highest paying (and cost of living) state.
The question is whether unions (or their CEO equivalent, cliques) help deliver superior performance.
But in other professions, there is accountability. In teaching there is very little accountability because performance is never measured and standards are always discounted.
You said, "Then why fight vouchers?"
Your assuming that I fight against vouchers. You are very WRONG! If anything I am in favor of vouchers. I am all for competition. I am a firm believer that competition breeds excellence.
Don't automatically assume that all public teachers are against vouchers and side with the NEA. To do so, you will only embarras yourself.
Unless the beeper is used by a 15 year old to tell the teacher that mom and dad are out of the house and it is time for a rendevouz!
"My sister in law teaches 10th grade English in southern California and makes $70,000 a year. Not bad."
especially since teachers only work about 8 months out of the year. My wife has been teaching fo 12 years now.
I hope you never need EMS, Fire, or Police services...
It would be a shame to have to be indebted to people whose wages you begrudge.
Yes, and most auto workers vote conservative. Unfortunately, you joined a union that takes your money without your consent (unless you are one of the few) and uses it to fight against vouchers and to support liberals across the spectrum.
All that tells me is that it's better to be a departing oil company employee than a teacher. The nice thing about a free market is that one can aspire to the level that they choose.
The CEO's pay comes from the company's customers who can buy from the company or not.
Teachers are paid from tax revenue which is extracted from the unwilling at the point of a gun.
It maybe due to the fact that Teachers' are paid by Tax payer dollars. CEO & Officers of companies payrolls do not come out of taxpayers salary.
Because there aren't that many CEOs, but lots of teachers. The total money paid to the CEOs of the Fortune 500 is much mess than the total compensation of millions of members of the education establishment
i'm with you. the only problem is that some people trying to make a good living do so by claiming that it benefits others i.e. the children. The CEO can't use that logic except when he gets a big reward for sales and profits.
Huh? Where?
I would agree with you, that's why I am one of the few. I refuse to join the teacher's union for the simple fact that I think they do more harm to teachers than good.
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