toldailytopic: Are public school teachers paid well enough?

[Nathon Detroit]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for February 16th, 2011 09:50 AM

toldailytopic: Are public school teachers paid well enough?

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[some other dude]

Yes and no

There are many examples of teachers who are not effective, who are merely going through the motions, who don't care about the students, who don't know how to reach students, who don't like working with kids. Those teachers, especially those teachers who have been in the system long enough to be making salaries in the 70K and 80K and higher range - those teachers are obviously overpaid.

And then there's the young teachers who have put themselves through six years of higher education, who struggle daily to provide lessons that are interesting and captivating, who are learning their craft and love working with kids - those teachers, especially those new to the profession and making in the mid 30K to low 40K range - those teachers are obviously underpaid.

 

[Buzzword]

There are examples of teachers who were pressured into taking the career path, especially artistically/musically inclined individuals who were told that teaching is the only "real" job available to them.
These are not paid enough, because they hate their job.

There are also teachers who love educating, love being part of directing future generations in the right path.
These are not paid enough, because they love their job.

The job itself is VITAL to the proper development of children and teens in this country, and the fact that a supermodel can "earn" an amount of money in an hour that most teachers will never see in their entire lifetimes shows how screwed up our priorities are.

The school system has become so bogged down in "standardized" tests (which are not standardized at all because they refuse to acknowledge different learning forms, different communication forms, etc.) that individual teachers are HAMPERED by their state and federal governments from actually being allowed to teach SUBJECTS.
Instead they are forced to teach TESTS, within a preconcieved allotted amount of time, to the point that individual instruction and attention is not even considered.

So, to answer the question:
No. They occupy a position of unique importance to the survival of society, and rather than give them the pay earned by that position, we have reduced them to lowly slaves of the state.

 

[Lon]

No, not compared to their educated counterparts.

Should we give them more money?

No. The BoE (boards of education) redistributes funds so that teachers will ever see very little of those increased funds. What the boards do is quit paying teachers (defer the salaries and use those already recieved monies elsewhere) and let taxpayers do it in the newly voted tax allocation. Teachers will never be paid enough but this is a time-honored tradition and it seems there is little that can or will be done about it.

 

[Sherman]

I will have to also say Yes and No. Some very excellent teachers that care about the students are underpaid. The funds that are supposed to go to the salary get funneled into the things that don't help the students get further in life. Supplies for making tribal masks anyone? What does that have to do with developing a career and supporting a family?

Here is some of the other stupid programs and classes I have seen while my son was in public school in Nebraska:
Condom distribution--why not teach the students self control?
Gay days :vomit:
Sex Education--very pro promiscuity--:vomit:
Womens history - what happened to plain old US history or World history?
Gay studies :vomit:
Multicultural day.
Environmental Science class--what happened to Chemistry, Math, Algebra and Biology?:dunce:
There was no English or language arts class to speak of in my son's curriculum.

The schools are sucking the taxpayers dry, not paying the teachers enough and they are teaching garbage. The teachers the do care have their hands tied.

 

[some other dude]

Morgan Freeman on Black History Month

 

[Nick M]

Considering people should not be forced to pay for somebody else's education, especially a grossly perverted and intentionaly misinformed one, they are over paid.

 

[Granite]

The diamonds in the rough will always go underpaid and underappreciated. Then you have the lifers in it for a paycheck and free from any serious threat of dismissal who deserve a swift boot to the butt. It's definitely a yes and no question.

 

[Dena]

Condom distribution--why not teach the students self control?

Because it doesn't seem to work.

Womens history - what happened to plain old US history or World history?

Women tend to be left out of history books. Are you claiming women's history was all he was taught? I'm sure he did the regular US and World History too.

Multicultural day.

What does this include? Learning and celebrating a variety of peoples and cultures? The HORROR!!

Environmental Science class--what happened to Chemistry, Math, Algebra and Biology?

There isn't any reason the students can do all of those.

There was no English or language arts class to speak of in my son's curriculum.

?

At all?

The schools are sucking the taxpayers dry, not paying the teachers enough and they are teaching garbage. The teachers the do care have their hands tied.

Well, I am with you here. I'm not a huge fan of most of the public school system. It's inefficient.

 

[Cracked]

New teachers are paid little in many places. Many states do not value public education. That being said, many teachers who have been there a long time probably make plenty.

Personally, I don't think we need to adjust the upper end (in most cases), but the lower end needs some work.

 

[zippy2006]

A teacher once told me that she believed she was very well paid for only having to work 9 months out of the year :idunno:

But I agree regarding the bottom-end

 

[Son of Jack]

Morgan Freeman on Black History Month

Morgan Freeman is awesome!!!! And right.

On topic, I think school teachers in general are underpaid. A school teacher who takes his trade seriously works roughly 60 hours a week, when one includes prep time, grading, and the actual teaching of the lesson(s). Additionally, anyone who claims that school teachers only work about 9-10 months a year has probably never been a teacher and doesn't understand how to prepare to teach on a daily basis.

 

[Cracked]

A teacher once told me that she believed she was very well paid for only having to work 9 months out of the year :idunno:

But I agree regarding the bottom-end

They are not paid for the time they don't work. They can chose to take their money during the school year (as is is earned) or have it spread out. Same thing for aids (though they have a low hourly wage).

 

[Cracked]

On topic, I think school teachers in general are underpaid. A school teacher who takes his trade seriously works roughly 60 hours a week, when one includes prep time, grading, and the actual teaching of the lesson(s). Additionally, anyone who claims that school teachers only work about 9-10 months a year has probably never been a teacher and doesn't understand how to prepare to teach on a daily basis.

Yes, it could be as much. However, I would think that a person could do it (generally speaking) in about 50 hours a week if they were pretty no-nonsense. 40 hours a week is a joke. Good teaching is very time consuming.

 

[kmoney]

I agree with Buzz about needing to value teachers more. They are so important but education doesn't always get the funding it deserves. So I'll say no to the topic, in general.

 

[miriam]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for February 16th, 2011 09:50 AM

toldailytopic: Are public school teachers paid well enough?

Totally depends on where they teach - different school districts in different states and regions of the country pay widely different wages.

But, in general, no. I've volunteered in enough classrooms to know they couldn't pay me enough to deal with 29 first graders (and their parents) for 7 hours a day!

miriam

 

[Town Heretic]

It's a funny question that sparks equally funny exceptions...in any other endeavor in the public life most people would agree that higher salaries draw better people into the field.

My worst year in private practice I doubled what a teacher with a Ph.D would make entering the system. So no. The salary is low enough that you get two sorts of people: those who are highly motivated and view teaching as a calling and those who aren't terribly good at anything else and view it as a relatively easy alternative to military service and other more labor intensive means to make a living.

I say: raise the pay and with it the standards for admission into a teaching curriculum. We think it's important? Then make it as difficult to get into as a Master's program. And cross compare/track student performance between classes to get an idea of the effectiveness of the teachers. Let that control raises or firings.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Considering people should not be forced to pay for somebody else's education, especially a grossly perverted and intentionaly misinformed one, they are over paid.

This is true if and only if an education has no intrinsic value to society. Said a bit differently, are we better of as a nation when our citizens are well educated?

 

[Cracked]

I say: raise the pay and with it the standards for admission into a teaching curriculum. We think it's important? Then make it as difficult to get into as a Master's program.

You just killed elementary schools.

 

[CabinetMaker]

It's a funny question that sparks equally funny exceptions...in any other endeavor in the public life most people would agree that higher salaries draw better people into the field.

My worst year in private practice I doubled what a teacher with a Ph.D would make entering the system. So no. The salary is low enough that you get two sorts of people: those who are highly motivated and view teaching as a calling and those who aren't terribly good at anything else and view it as a relatively easy alternative to military service and other more labor intensive means to make a living.

I say: raise the pay and with it the standards for admission into a teaching curriculum. We think it's important? Then make it as difficult to get into as a Master's program. And cross compare/track student performance between classes to get an idea of the effectiveness of the teachers. Let that control raises or firings.

One has to be very careful when one uses student performance to determine if a teacher is effective or not. My mom was a teacher and she liked it. Mostly, at any rate. In one school she taught at her students did very well and she had very little discipline problems to deal with. The students did well on the Ohio's (the standardized tests used before CSAP). Then she moved to a different school and constantly struggled with discipline and her students Ohio scores were significantly lower. Same teacher so why such different results?

Socioeconomic differences. In the first school the kids had a stable family life, appropriate clothing and enough food to eat. The parents cared how their kids did in school. In the second school the rate of broken families was much much higher, the kids did not always know when their next meal would be or which house they would sleep in that night. The parents did not care how their kids did in school.

A teacher, any teacher, can only teach. They can only present the material to the students. What the students learn is entirely up to the student. Students who have a stable home, appropriate clothing, discipline at home and enough to eat arrive at school ready to learn and they do. When students do not have these things the schools must first deal with things as basic as a breakfast to eat and a warm coat to wear in the winter before the student is in a place that they can learn.

You cannot reasonably evaluate a teacher without taking into account the socioeconomics of the neighborhood in which the school is located.