Yep. Teachers while obligated to show up for only 180 days of school (36 weeks), tend to at least work 12 hour days. They also come into work on days kids have off for training and other general preparation work, work for a couple weeks before the beginning of school, and a week after school ends. They also tend to work weekends and holidays. When you count up the worked days, a teacher will generally work about 275 days with 12 hour days where as any normal job people work about 250 days with 8 hour days. Education budgets are always shrinking which translates into larger class sizes and often more classes (loss of a planning period) which creates a lot more work for them. Minimum standards are typically a bachelor's degree in a useful area with a minimum number of credits in specific areas along with teaching credentials. Most teachers have graduate degrees though. It's not uncommon to have an entire department at a decent school packed with Ph. D. holders. Teachers often have higher education and longer work hours than other fields, yet lower pay. This leads to a lot of turnover and teacher shortages in areas of STEM because the economy demands their talent elsewhere. Some teachers work at state colleges or universities in the afternoons or evenings teaching additional courses part time for extra income or work summer school. High salaries would attract better talent and ensure you could maintain that level of talent and not lose it to industry. That said, the school system is a very large budget item which is always underfunded.
Yes. And $55K on average is NOT EVEN CLOSE! That'd be damn good money for a teacher. I only get paid $36K a year and I have experience. That's normal. I'd kill for $45K a year. A lot of (American) teachers are bad though and the system is messed up. That's in the US, though. Don't think all teachers are as bad as the ones you see on Libs Of TikTok.
I think pay should be related to education attainment and difficulty of employment and teaching is not as intellectually difficult as medical or engineering careers so I think the lower pay is reasonable. Waitresses work just as hard as teachers and make minimum wage so the pay reflects the job.
Interesting. I had put my comment mainly in light of STEM trachers but then I removed that part thinking some people might have a fit at me.
😡😡😡 teachers become trachers when you are not wearing the reading glasses.
Yes teachers are underpaid my mom's a teacher in her income is really low
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This is where districts have a little say, but over all I say yes... but it also depends on what subject.
The shop teachers in my High school, were paid 90k a year... but that was after being there for years, like 10 or 20 years of teaching shop class.
The district I went to, started teachers at 35k (40k with experience) but every five years they would get a 5k raise, as long as they stuck around. Someone who stayed there ten years would cap out to the maximum... which, I was told was around 75k of base pay for non shop classes and then another 30k of benefits, retirement, health insurance, etc...
The neighboring district though offered 50k starting pay, (more with experience) but after 10 years you were still not maxed out, cause they started higher to lure in teachers so it took 15 years or more to max out.
I have a relative that works as a teacher who told me all this and I did considered it for about 5 seconds as a profession.
This is rural districts that cover huge area's, not city... so busing students is also a huge cost as students can be bussed 30 miles or more each way each day. They also get grants, due to employment challenges.
For example they lure teachers out by saying they'll pay for their education if they sign a contract saying they'll teach here for a certain amount of time. They do the same thing though with medical professionals too.
Depends on the teacher. Like any profession, you have those working hard and those who are skating by. I had teachers who didn't give a shit, were just there collecting a paycheck, and put no effort into teaching. I have also had teachers who worked really hard, cared probably a bit too much, and were really supportive.
I also feel like there are a lot of teachers who should be educating students about the system they are in, where they are simply being taught how to go out into the world and become cogs in the machine. Compulsory public education was fought (and lost) long ago, because people recognized the mindless system they were being forced into, to train them to be good little servants of industry. Teachers should be showing documentaries like this:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/1pCigAw2-0gor teaching people how to think for themselves, rather than reciting and memorizing BS.
If I had children, I would 100% teach them at home, or figure out what was being taught in the school and keep a close eye on it. So much of it is BS and not at all helpful for children. Good teachers will circumvent the system, not take part in it.
I think they are overpaid. When you consider the total package including benefits and how many hours and days they work per year, they get paid very well compared to other professions.
Since they work for the government they get great benefits. They get a full pension which is extremely valuable. Almost nobody outside of state or local governments have a pension these days. They have large numbers of holidays, a long break during Christmas and spring, plus the summer off.
Where I live, if they have advanced degrees, which don't make them better teachers, they get into six figure salaries for their pay alone. This is even in a below average cost of living location.
If they work all year like most people do, they get paid more for working in the summer.
Teachers always bring up the time they put in grading papers, preparing for class, etc. They act as if people in other professions don't work overtime for free. Plus it's not mandatory and a lot of teachers put in very few hours outside of school hours.
On top of all that, teachers in the US are unionized and their pay has nothing to do with whether they're a good teacher or not. A totally crap teacher gets the same as the very best teachers. In any other profession that's unlikely to happen.
Of course. But too many teacher's unions would like to get paid crap pay, than have the best teachers make the most money.
https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/undue-process-why-bad-teachers-rarely-get-fired
The research on “what matters” when it comes to a child’s academic success has been clear for decades: more than anything else that a school can control, the classroom teacher matters most.
Understandably then, for the past eight or so years, everyone from educators to policymakers to statisticians has expended much effort to define and measure effective teaching. And while they have come to a diverse set of conclusions, it strains credulity to argue that an ineffective teacher should be invulnerable to losing his job.
Unfortunately, once a veteran teacher earns tenure, state and local policy make it complicated and cumbersome to fire him, even if he has demonstrated time and again that he is a poor educator. This seems illogical, or at least counterproductive, since research also shows that achievement would rise, achievement gaps would narrow, lifetime income would increase, and economic growth would surge if we identified and then replaced the bottom 5 or 10 percent of the teacher quality distribution.
I think they are paid just fine.
What they don't get in money they get in time off.
Almost 3 months in the summer time plus Christmas, Thanksgiving , and Spring break? Not bad.
A medical doctor in the US might make three times what a high school teacher makes but they have no social life. I some friends who are teachers and they literally tell me that they enjoy the job because there is so much time off. They are happy to exchange money in exchange for time off.
And I think that has to be worth something. What I would do with 3 months off a year!!! . And I think that is just fine. Some people in the US may see that as a negative but that may be due to the Puritanical obsession with work and productivity where one always has to be busy at all hours of the day and relaxing and free time is frowned upon. My teacher friends take the time to rest and relax, to go on extended road trips, to sleep in late, to write books, to do all kinds of things that most people do not have the time for. Of course they are not rich and so live modest lives but they have the time off in exchange.
On the other hand I know people who are making shit tons of money and have big houses and very nice cars but they have no time to enjoy it since all they do is work, work , work.
On average? No. Certain teachers? Absolutely. I'd be in favor of firing the absolute crap-ton of useless, terrible teachers and upping the pay of the good ones. Unfortunately, you'd need to have higher student-to-teacher ratios, but with higher quality teachers that could still work.
Unfortunately there's a whole shitload of forces working against any improvement. Not least are the teacher's unions which prevent the sacking of crappy teachers and insist on seniority rather than merit based pay. But other problems include thinking that somehow the purpose of education is to "reduce inequality" rather than to improve student skills at a decent price. The reason this matters is that putting kids of widely disparate ability into the same classroom necessarily makes it harder to increase student to teacher ratios effectively because teachers then need to spend more time with individual students who are falling well behind their much better skilled classmates.
Don't expect any of those problems to be solved soon.
The issue in the USA is that schools are top heavy with administrators who soak up $$$ which could be used in classrooms, including increasing the pay for teachers.
My views are that the majority of teachers know enough to teach their subject but little more than required. My cousin's husband was a junior high school math teacher. He knew more than enough math to teach 13- and 14-year old's but would be made embarrassed by any second-year engineering student.
Well salary isn't only based on how skilled you are, it's also based on how many we need. Teachers we need plenty of, so their salery can't be higher than average. If one teacher could manage to cover the teaching of a bigger population, so we needed less of them, we could afford to pay them more.
They work 183 days a year. I worked in a K-12 system as an administrator and saw how little they did. Usually at 1:30 they were peeling out of the parking lot. Where I live a department head or a teacher that might perform other functions can make 100K. If you paid them by the hour it would be a lot. It is a parttime job for full time pay.
Yes. And I think they need to search for other employment. If the state can't afford to pay them, then the state should understand when teachers say they can't afford to work for them.
Here's a mad scientist idea, if conservatives really hate the government so much, why don't they take a pay cut and give it to their workers instead? That would hit the government right in the revenue sack with the progressive tax system.
The ones that teach in the charter schools and private schools yes. But the ones In the public schools most them are lazy and only care about their retirement and cushy government benefits. The government benefits for and a 10 year. They can't get fired even if they're a completely shitty teacher. That's trade off. They gave up a higher salary for the benefits.
Didn't realize how outclassed my education was until I ran into graduates from private schools.
Asian cultures have it pegged correctly - the current generation can only ensure future success by providing the upcoming the BEST education possible.
Higher education - and preparing our children for it - is the only way we'll keep from getting hammered in the future.
Everyone knows teachers are very underpaid. They should be paid at least 20% more than what they are paid now. If you paid them well, you would never hear about teacher shortages, even with the other downsides to teaching.
I think thier job should be more performance based. Give them a base salary with incentives for education goals met. I know some truly amazing teachers that will never earn thier true worth. And I've known some "educators" that are glorified babysitters.
If they were paid more better (more qualified) people would be doing the job. We live in an age where sports and their stars have higher value..
@ElementoP lmao
Way underpaid! They’re literally teaching and molding the future of humanity and bar managers make more. Does that make sense?
I would gladly raise teacher salaries, if they'd actually teach rather than just indoctrinate with liberal nonsense.
Yeah my niece and newphews are being taught the updated definitions of male and female.
They are also being taught about blm
So they deserve a pay cut.
As long as there's communists teaching kids to hate their country and themselves, I don't give a fuck how much they're paid
Depends on WHERE you are talking about. It varies enormously by state, and doesn't always closely correspond to cost-of-living; usually political influence is more important.
Many professions that rely on government funding remain underpaid. Teachers who choose to work at private schools usually make more money because their salary isn’t tied to the government.
The school system needs rebuilt from the ground up first
no they aren't underpaid, they're overtasked. parents should do their job instead of pushing their work onto teachers.
The fact that a good high school teacher makes less than an average plumber is what is fucked up about Ameriica.
Not sure about the US but up here in Canada they are paid well.
I personally think government-run education should be abolished.
A babysitter paid for the same time would make more than a teacher does on salary
they are glorified babysitters. they should get paid $10/hour
In the UK they are. Probably in the US every state is different.
Yes, definitely. Incremental increases would be good
They aren't even teaching actual subjects anymore they should get lower money
Yes they sure are
No, spoiled brats
Grossly underpaid.
Make it more of an in-demand job. Yes,
Definitely yes
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