Where does the silly notion that teachers are overpaid come from?

[No_Pressure]

The average teacher salary in America is 40-50 thousand dollars per year. This is not a huge amount of money, in fact with a GED you can go down to the post office or the local sanitation company and get a job that pays a similar amount. Teachers aren't people with GED's either, they're people with college degrees, hundreds of hours spent in classes doing field observations and student teaching, and people who must maintain a B average or better, and in many states must obtain a master's degree within a few years of being hired or they're out.

Arguments I hear all the time that teachers are extremely well paid or even overpaid:

1. They don't even work 3 months out of the year!!! They get off for Christmas, they get off for snow days, they get off on holidays, they don't work on weekends!

(I am not in primary education so I'm speaking about secondary here)This argument is not really true. In many places the school year ends in mid to late June, and begins again in late August. Many teachers have to report back to the building or attend meetings on the curriculum at the beginning of August, and many teachers work at summer school programs or otherwise dedicate their time for the school district during July. This means that at the most, teachers get maybe 6 weeks off in the summer. They also get maybe a week in the winter and a week in the spring give or take. Is this more time off than the average employee in a business gets? Yes, it is. What do they do with their time off though?

Most teachers who are worth anything at all have to spend a decent portion of their time on the weekends and on their weeks off planning and organizing for their classes. Lesson plans are very time consuming to come up with. Working around state and federal testing is extremely difficult and screws up your entire curriculum, the day to day grading of tests and assignments from 120+ students in your classes takes a LOT of time. Teachers have a lot of time off at periodic intervals so they can have opportunities to re-organize themselves, grade all the papers they need to grade, and prep all the assignments and lesson plans they need to prep.

2. Teachers work easy hours! School starts at 7:30 and ends at 2:45!!! After that they're out of there! They get off of work hours before many others in businesses!!!

Do the math, 7:30 to 2:45 is 7 hours and 15 minutes. Teachers don't leave right away either unless of course they're the ****ty kind of teacher in which case they won't stay employed for very long. At my high school, classes began at 7:10 and went to 2:10. That is 7 hours of school in session. Teachers have to be there around 6:45 so you can tack on an extra 15 minutes of preparing in the morning at the building, and for many teachers you can assume that they're probably waking up around 6:00 or earlier, which I guarantee a lot of people in business are NOT doing.

On top of that, the cliche that teachers scramble to get the hell out of the building as soon as school is out isn't an accurate depiction of teachers in general. There are some ****ty teachers who scramble for the doors, just as in any line of work. Many teachers stay at least an extra 30 minutes at high schools and depending on what meetings they have to attend for their department or whatever else (after school clubs they are paid next to nothing to run, meetings with parents, leadership meetings, performance evaluations, IEP meetings, etc.) a lot of teachers in schools which end at 2:10 won't get to leave the building until well after 3:00 which gives them a full 8 hour day or more just like any other worker.

Most teachers then go home just as anyone in business might to a house and family and obligations to take care of there. Just like a lot of people in business however they MUST take their work home with them. Teachers at higher levels might teach 5 classes out of a 7 class schedule or 6 out of 8 depending on how the school runs it. That means that if the class sizes are average meaning between 20 and 30 students per class teachers must grade hundreds of papers and tests as well as prepare to administer the next lesson and assignments to hundreds of students.

3. Teachers are government employees and their union is so powerful its impossible to fire them!!! They can be as terrible as they want!!

This is certainly not an honest portrayal. I agree that it is probably difficult to fire incompetent and awful teachers with many unions across America. I also know that teachers are subject to as many if not more evaluations than those in the business world. The standards for evaluating a teacher aren't clear cut and simple either. If somebody needs to write up a performance review for someone who did great work to acquire a major contract for their business, the boss basically needs to say "John did great work and we made money as a result". This is extremely dumbed down of course but that is the gist of things- employee A did above and beyond exceptional work and as a result we have money, a quantitative and measurable result.

The greatest teacher in the world could come into a school in Philadelphia where the graduation rate is still something dismal like 60% and has been below 50% in the recent past. They could try really hard and do every trick in the book to get their kids educated and still fail because of things outside of their control. In their yearly performance review it may talk about how the teacher failed in their job, their students didn't improve greatly in their standardized tests, and neither did the school as a whole. Not only do the teachers not qualify for raises in some areas as the result of their school building or students' failure to meet requirements, but such a fact will weigh on their reviews from their building administrators and district, county or state officials. It is extremely difficult when you don't have a number with dollar signs to attach to a person to measure their true value to your business or in this case the school.

On top of that firing a teacher is hard but brushing a teacher aside is easy. It doesn't take much to put a teacher on probation in most areas which means for the most part decent teachers will be the ones teaching.

4. Teachers get incredibly lavish benefits for their work!!!!

I wouldn't say lavish, I would say good. Teachers get good benefits. You need something to attract people to such a line of work. The pay isn't amazing, even after years you will be hoping to make 60-70k which is what many people in a good company could hope to achieve after just a couple of promotions. Teachers know they won't get rich teaching, they know the job is difficult and highly stressful. They know it comes with a large workload and a lot of expectations. One of the few good incentives or attractions to the field is the relative job security (hard to get fired, as I said) and the dependable and good benefits of the job.

Also forget about the lavish pension myth at least for MD (it is different everywhere of course). It didn't used to be a myth, many teachers on the old pension system in Maryland were given a very generous amount during retirement. That changed years ago and every employee hired after that change hasn't really had an amazing pension.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now I don't want to say teachers are underpaid. I think it is sad that we value a lot of other occupations more highly than the people we depend upon to teach our children (and in this day in age depend upon to raise our children like school is a ****ing do it all daycare), but I don't think I would say teachers are underpaid. If you put the work in and have good reviews after a while you move up to making a comfortable living. You have a retirement plan that isn't great but its better than nothing, and you have a great health and dental plan for yourself and your family. Sure there is a large workload, the job is difficult, and it tests your patience daily but most teachers love educating people deep down and its what keeps them in the field.

The thing I'll never understand is how many people I know or talk to like to sit around and discuss teachers like they're a bunch of whiny greedy scumbags. Their ideal teacher is one which is extremely good at what they do, holds a master's degree, works all year long with minimal time off to plan or regroup, works well over an 8 hour day at the building and then goes home to work some more, and has crappy health benefits and a crappy or non existent pension- all of this for a maximum salary of 50,000 dollars because god knows thats what most people in other fields with master's degrees are making!

If you want good teachers you have to pay them. If you want bad teachers do exactly what many people think should be done- take away their benefits, make them work even harder than they already do. The good teachers will go somewhere else and do something else, and you will be left with extreme idealists or flat out low quality educators. I guess the real question is what do you value? We all have to pay taxes and taxes are what pay for our services. If somebody asked me what are the 4 most important local government services I would say in this order 1. Police, 2. Firefighters, 3. Teachers, 4. Roads.

We need police to maintain some sort of civility (even if certain police behave in an uncivil fashion), we need firefighters to keep our stuff from burning down, and we need teachers so our kids don't grow up without knowing who Ernest Hemingway or George Orwell are, when the Civil War started, how to do algebra, or what electrons are. What kind of price are you willing to put on your children's education? Naturally, people without kids might say "Nothing, **** the teachers and **** the schools, they do nothing for me!" but any human with a brain can understand the value of providing enough pay and benefits to keep good teachers interested in teaching.

Thats my rant. I'll now leave my thread entirely and never respond to it, allowing people to quote me and ask questions or make statements which will never be answered or face a rebuttal! Enjoy your arguing!

[greenspandan]

the same imaginary fantasy land where most right-wing talking points come from, i'd imagine.

[TheGoodBits]

Comes from the Republicans who ultimately want to destroy public education so their private charter schools will take off. You know, free market and all that jazz. Oh and they want to destroy America.

---------- Post added March-16th-2011 at 03:08 PM ----------

By the way, it really is a silly notion. I'm graduating in May and will have approx the same salary as my mom, a 5th grade teacher with 13 years of experience and a Masters Degree.

[Koolblue13]

Anybody who has to spend that much time around children and their germs, should have the best health care known to man.

If I spend an afternoon with my niece I get the sniffles.

[Thiebear]

Is there an example of someone saying that teachers are overpaid.

or was the assumption from the public sector teachers make slightly more than private teachers is the same thing as saying teachers suck and should all be volunteers?

[Teller]

OMG! The scawy wepubwicans ruin evwything!!! YIKES!!!!

Teachers work hard, I fully grant that. I was married to one, and I saw the work she did. But there is NO argument against the fact that they have THE cushiest schedule there is. It's not even close.

[endzone_dave]

If a teacher has a pension and free health care, then they are getting paid well. I'm not saying they are overpaid, they have a challenging and important job. I don't think they are underpaid either.

[aREDSKIN]

Well one can absolutely argue that the "administrators" are VASTLY over paid at public schools around the country. Here in Jacksonville, FL we have ELEMENTARY school principals making 95-110k in SALARY ALONE. Factor in another 25-30% of that in benefits and then add 2-5 "assistant principals" @50-80% of Principals comp. to the schools because the PRINCIPAL cannot handle it alone and then multiply it by 200 or so schools in the district then you see why the perception is accurate and it's out of hand. Some teachers are overpaid some are underpaid & imo most think as a whole they are "FAIRLY Compensated" for what they do and the results achieved.

[dchogs]

preach on, brother.

[Koolblue13]

OMG! The scawy wepubwicans ruin evwything!!! YIKES!!!!

Teachers work hard, I fully grant that. I was married to one, and I saw the work she did. But there is NO argument against the fact that they have THE cushiest schedule there is. It's not even close.

I always thought the same thing, when I was going to bed as a kid and watched my Dad grading papers into the night.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

You make good points, but I always find it unfair when one is able to present both the point and counterpoint in an argument. Do you have any examples of people making the 4 points you've addressed in the OP?

[Teller]

If a teacher has a pension and free health care, then they are getting paid well. I'm not saying they are overpaid, they have a challenging and important job. I don't think they are underpaid either.

Plus, you have to throw in the (conservative estimate) 10-11 weeks or more of what would be vacation time for anyone in a "regular" job.

Any non-teachers here get three months of vacation a year?

Don't get me wrong, I respect and appreciate teachers. It's an incredibly thankless and demanding job, that includes plenty of work outside school hours. But schedule complaints are absurd.

---------- Post added March-16th-2011 at 03:19 PM ----------

I always thought the same thing, when I was going to bed as a kid and watched my Dad grading papers into the night.

As I said, I was married to a teacher, so the inference of my ignorance is misplaced.

Hell, I'll do a couple hours of work every night when I get home if my boss will give me 3 months off every year, paid. NO problem.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

I always thought the same thing, when I was going to bed as a kid and watched my Dad grading papers into the night.

But for 2.5 months he didn't have to grade papers at all. Day, night, evening, morning...

[dchogs]

the assumption from the public sector teachers make slightly more than private teachers is the same thing as saying teachers suck and should all be volunteers?

not an assumption, a fact. average pay for public teachers is higher than it is for the average private teacher. add in the public benefits, and it isn't in the same ballpark. a friend with a masters degree left his private school for the public system... his salary alone went up roughly 75%.

[Koolblue13]

http://gawker.com/5782571/everyone-involved-in-american-education-is-broke

This is on topic, but more of a kind of funny read.

[Kosher Ham]

Must be from you. I have never heard that before.

[Hooper]

There is nothing more hilarious/depressing than this. Oh, the hypocrisy.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-stewart-teachers-wall-street-taxpayers-bailout-video-2011-3

[Koolblue13]

But for 2.5 months he didn't have to grade papers at all. Day, night, evening, morning...

My Dad regrettably said to me once "I had a hard job once and I didn't like it, so I became a Teacher". He hates that I remember that.

There is a lot about it that does seem cushy, but I could never do it.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

My Dad regrettably said to me once "I had a hard job once and I didn't like it, so I became a Teacher". He hates that I remember that.

There is a lot about it that does seem cushy, but I could never do it.

I could never do it either...I wouldn't be good at it.

[endzone_dave]

Most of the teachers I had as a kid didn't work hard. Work from 7 am to 3 pm, take 1/2 hour for lunch and 45 minute teacher break. So that's less than a 7 hours day. Most used the same tests and quizzes from the previous year. My son's teachers seem to work pretty hard but that probably has to do with it being in NOVA. I doubt the teachers from my little home town work any harder than they used to.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

not an assumption, a fact. average pay for public teachers is higher than it is for the average private teacher. add in the public benefits, and it isn't in the same ballpark. a friend with a masters degree left his private school for the public system... his salary alone went up roughly 75%.

So cutting teachers' salaries will improve the quality of people who enter education.

I think.

I'm not following this.

---------- Post added March-16th-2011 at 02:34 PM ----------

My Dad regrettably said to me once "I had a hard job once and I didn't like it, so I became a Teacher". He hates that I remember that.

There is a lot about it that does seem cushy, but I could never do it.

My mother graded papers every single night of the school year. She was a machine.

And she did for something like $21K a year in the mid 80s.

[Henry]

There is nothing more hilarious/depressing than this. Oh, the hypocrisy.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-stewart-teachers-wall-street-taxpayers-bailout-video-2011-3

Ouch.

[dchogs]

So cutting teachers' salaries will improve the quality of people who enter education.

I think.

I'm not following this.

ha... me either. i have no idea where you came up with that. i may be missing an earlier conversation in a different thread, but i don't see how you made that leap from what i wrote.

there are other benefits that make private school teaching attractive: smaller class sizes, kids that want to be there (largely), kids that are focused on going to college (largely), more involved parents (sometimes too involved), freedom from teaching to state standardized tests, etc. i was only commenting on thiebear's comment on public vs. private school salaries.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

My mother graded papers every single night of the school year. She was a machine.

And she did for something like $21K a year in the mid 80s.

In 1985, the average income for a woman was less than $14K. It sounds like she was paid relatively well to do her job well.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Well one can absolutely argue that the "administrators" are VASTLY over paid at public schools around the country. Here in Jacksonville, FL we have ELEMENTARY school principals making 95-110k in SALARY ALONE. Factor in another 25-30% of that in benefits and then add 2-5 "assistant principals" @50-80% of Principals comp. to the schools because the PRINCIPAL cannot handle it alone and then multiply it by 200 or so schools in the district then you see why the perception is accurate and it's out of hand. Some teachers are overpaid some are underpaid & imo most think as a whole they are "FAIRLY Compensated" for what they do and the results achieved.

20 years ago, that would have not been necessary.

But elementary schools are the no longer the same place you attended.

44 percent of American elementary students are now considered special education students. Each one of them requires their own IEP. Handling these students alone would be require 8 hour days for the average principal meeting forms, meeting with counselors, meeting with psychologists, etc.

Moreoever, now schools must comply with NCLB. This means that 100 percent of students - including the special ed students - must test up to grade level. Preparation for this testing is another full-time job. On top of that, there are myriad forms for the state and federal government.

Most schools now have after-care and in some cases, before school care.

9 percent of students are now ADHD. They fall under IDEA and require an IEP and also require medication.

Principals are also responsible for school safety in the age of Columbine. It's amazing how many meetings and trainings are required for this.

I haven't even gotten to discipline yet.