Posted on 02/27/2017 5:44:20 AM PST by MichCapCon
The law of supply and demand works for teachers like any other aspect of the economy.
Given the quality of a typical teaching degree, $28k sounds a bit high.
Then factor in the hours/day and days/year of teachers and the salary whining of the teacher crowd becomes even more laughable.
They work about as many days as Congress. And feel just entitled. I say 28K is just about right for both.
Not when you get the goobermint and da union’s collective bargain units involved...
But while teachers everywhere may start with a relatively low salary, they generally advance quickly up the pay scale.
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I was on my local district’s contract bargaining team for several years.
Union contracts typically have automatic raises built in to the salary schedule, commonly referred to as “steps”. There are usually at least 12 steps, and possibly as many as 15 in some districts.
In my district, the steps for a bachelors degree (with no additional education, referred to as “BA-0”)went from 1.00 to 1.61 on the 12th step. IOW, if the starting salary was 30k, the second year at 1.06 would be $31,800, the third year at 1.12 would be $33,600, and so on, to $48,300 for the 1.61 rate in step 12.
But that was just for BA-zero, if the starting teacher never achieved any advanced education beyond their bachelor’s degree. There are additional step advances for +20 hrs of post-graduate work, +40 hrs, for a masters, for a masters with additional hrs, for a second masters, and so on. By taking additional college courses, they can get automatic increases, which is mostly unheard of in any other form of employment.
And the “starting salary” is usually the salary discussed and criticized as being too low, to pressure local boards to increase that number. The thing is, all of the other teacher salaries are multiples of that starting salary, so if they get the local board to increase the “starting salary”, the big increases automatically go to the teachers who have been on the payroll for many years.
Of course, the younger teachers get hard hit by union dues. I would guess that the $28,000 number claimed in the article was after subtracting the $2k or so in first year union dues.
That is a pretty good starting pay for a part-time job.
Many Michigan teacher contracts are now readily available online at the local school district’s web site. Search for “Master Agreement”. The salary schedule will usually be as an appendix or exhibit in the back, and probably be called “Schedule A”.
Teachers after many years can retire with $80K plus (including full benefits). $30K starting may not be unreasonable.
I know this because all of the district's salaries were published a few years ago. All the way up to the and including the administrative staff and administration. We checked my wife's posted hourly and it matched.
In the real world you don’t get pay raises unless there is a profit made
Can’t find them because they’re homeless.
The “best and brightest” do not go into education for a variety of reasons. Teaching at K-12 (and often in college and graduate programs) is unbelievably easy and the challenges come largely from dealing with colleagues, administrators, and occasionally problem students. A “good” teacher is not necessarily a smart person.
Whiston, some of these crap numbnut teachers ought to be paying the taxpayers 28k for the privilege to even be in a classroom.
Exactly. Teachers don't work anywhere near as many days a year as the average professional works. Not even close. And that fact is always conveniently left out of the salary debate.
For those who went to college, would you say that the “best and brightest” went to the school of education. Also, would you say that an education degree is one of the more demanding ones?
Q - what degree program has students that enter with the lowest SAT scores but graduate with the highest GPA?
A - Ed majors
Q - Math problem, if you get paid a salary of $32,500 and work only 181 days a year - what is your hourly take home pay before taxes?
($29.92/hr) not counting benefits.
Q - What is the proper Title for a person that has a doctorate in Education?
Hint - it isn’t Ph,D
Ya - professional and very liberal whiners for the most part....
Since teachers only work nine months a year I think they are paid well, and many work in the summer which boosts their income and they still get three weeks off paid and numerous holidays.
I love when they have “Teacher Work Days”. What do they do during the other days?
I know that teachers take a lot of work home, my son taught for a while, but so did I when I managed Food, there wasn't a week I worked less than 50-60 hrs and I didn't get spring break, winter break, numerous holidays and 3 months off in the summer, I didn't bitch and moan that I was underpaid and no one cried out that I shoud be paid more.........OK I did.
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