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.
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