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

[Koolblue13]

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

That's great, but depressing. Good call.

I am constantly reminded of the bumper sticker "when's the last time the government had to have a bake sale to buy a bomb".

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

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.

What about male teachers in 1985?

[TD_washingtonredskins]

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' date=' meeting with counselors, meeting with psychologists, etc.

[/quote']

Holy crap! We had a LD class of about 8 kids (all ages, mind you) who were all lumped together regardless of whatever condition they might have had. In hindsight, it was horrible because it seemed as though they were separated simply to keep them away from the other kids.

[SKOALSKIN]

50k for a part time job with benefits is pretty damn good.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

What about male teachers in 1985?

I closed the website, but I think it was 18K.

[TheDiplomat]

Teachers make too much money! →

Are you sick of highly paid teachers? Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and planning — that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now how many do they teach in day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

[Koolblue13]

Education should be the last resort to cutting anything. We haven't exactly been tearing it up compared to other nations and I can't see one downside to a more educated society.

Can anybody tell me how making it harder to be a teacher will improve our country?

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Holy crap! We had a LD class of about 8 kids (all ages, mind you) who were all lumped together regardless of whatever condition they might have had. In hindsight, it was horrible because it seemed as though they were separated simply to keep them away from the other kids.

LD is only a small percentage of special ed. This is what no one understands.

Dyslexia? Special ed.

ADHD/ADD? Special ed.

Gifted? Special ed.

Handicapped? Special ed.

People also don't know what LD means.

LD means normal or above average intelligence but a failure to perform as expected. In other words, if you have a 100 IQ, but peform consistently at an 85 level in math, that may be a sign of being LD. (It's a little more complicated than that of course).

Cognitive disabilities - what we used to call mentally retarded - means that you have a subaverage IQ. So, if you are 75 IQ and perform as someone with a 75 IQ, you are not LD.

Then there is TMI. Those are the kids in wheelchairs who need their diapers changed.

I've attended an IEP meeting. (A friend of ours asked me to be an advocate for her daughter since she was a single mom who was completely overwhelmed by the process). It was a two-hour meeting with the principal, teacher, parent, counselor, and school psychologist. We had to go over her scores, her school history, her diagnosis, and create a plan for her education going forward. Then we had to regularly meet in order to see how she was performing.

I found it exhausting and I didn't even have to do anything.

The problem is that the public really has no idea what teachers do all day.

---------- Post added March-16th-2011 at 02:52 PM ----------

I closed the website, but I think it was 18K.

What did the average male with a master's degree make in 1985?

If you are saying that my mother made a good salary compared to a supermarket checkout person, yea, maybe.

She went to school for six years though.

[rictus58]

Most schools now have after-care and in some cases' date=' before school care.[/quote']

Yes. They do. And at the one I send my kid to, it's $305 a month. And it is NOT staffed by a teacher.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

LD is only a small percentage of special ed. This is what no one understands.

Dyslexia? Special ed.

ADHD/ADD? Special ed.

Gifted? Special ed.

Handicapped? Special ed.

People also don't know what LD means.

LD means normal or above average intelligence but a failure to perform as expected. In other words' date=' if you have a 100 IQ, but peform consistently at an 85 level in math, that may be a sign of being LD. (It's a little more complicated than that of course).

Cognitive disabilities - what we used to call mentally retarded - means that you have a subaverage IQ. So, if you are 75 IQ and perform as someone with a 75 IQ, you are not LD.

Then there is TMI. Those are the kids in wheelchairs who need their diapers changed.[/quote']

Right...that's my point. In the 1980s when I was in elementary school, there was no such thing as special ed other than those 8 kids in "LD" classes. They were all lumped together into one class. I guess we had GT (so I hear), so that would also count. But people didn't really label ADHD or any of those other conditions that you listed. At least not that I noticed as we all were treated the same in our classes. I hope it was clear that I was disagreeing with your post but amazed at how much more dynamic the education system is today to handle all of those special cases.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Yes. They do. And at the one I send my kid to, it's $305 a month. And it is NOT staffed by a teacher.

But the principal is responsible for it. That was the point.

[Predicto]

In the current political climate, I suspect that the silly notion that teachers are overpaid comes from the fact that they tend to be in unions, and unions are inherently evil, ergo - anyone in a union must be overpaid. :whoknows:

[LeesburgSkinFan]

Holy crap! We had a LD class of about 8 kids (all ages, mind you) who were all lumped together regardless of whatever condition they might have had. In hindsight, it was horrible because it seemed as though they were separated simply to keep them away from the other kids.

Was that really such a bad thing?

[Stadium-Armory]

I thought the prevailing attitude was that teachers are underpaid.

I didn't realize that people thought teachers were overpaid.

[Koolblue13]

In the current political climate, I suspect that the silly notion that teachers are overpaid comes from the fact that they tend to be in unions, and unions are inherently evil, ergo - anyone in a union must be overpaid. :whoknows:

Well, according to Adrian Peterson, unions equal modern day slavery. Lavar and a few others even agree with him and these guys went to college.

[rictus58]

But the principal is responsible for it. That was the point.

The principals car isn't there when I drop her off in the morning. Nor when I pick her in the afternoon.

[Bang]

Education should be the last resort to cutting anything. We haven't exactly been tearing it up compared to other nations and I can't see one downside to a more educated society.

Can anybody tell me how making it harder to be a teacher will improve our country?

Cheaper uneducated easily manipulated minimum wage workers are good for those loving caretakers of our economy, who favor us with their protection by trickling down Wal Mart jobs.

~Bang

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Was that really such a bad thing?

It's not my area of expertise, but I'd assume it was a bad thing if your goal is to get the most out of each of those 8 students...yes. How can 8 people with potentially 8 different special needs all be treated the same way and benefit?

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Right...that's my point. In the 1980s when I was in elementary school, there was no such thing as special ed other than those 8 kids in "LD" classes. They were all lumped together into one class. I guess we had GT (so I hear), so that would also count. But people didn't really label ADHD or any of those other conditions that you listed. At least not that I noticed as we all were treated the same in our classes. I hope it was clear that I was disagreeing with your post but amazed at how much more dynamic the education system is today to handle all of those special cases.

Yea. I got that. I just like showing off how much I know about things.

The American education system is much much much better than it was in the 80s from a structural standpoint. The amount of legislation passed, the number of support staff in all districts, and the amount of federal funding has really improved the quality to individual students - particularly those with special needs. It is also much better at assessing those needs, though it may be a little overly generous in some assessments. Outside of some the truly worst school districts, I don't think you get the cases of the illiterate student getting passed from grade to grade with no one noticing.

I - personally - think the quality of the college student going into education has declined some however. In a large part this is cultural. A large part of it is that it is a really really really difficult job for a really really really crappy salary. I do think some students think "Yea...summers off!" But most of those people go into retail after a few years.

Opportunities for women have really hurt education. My mother was valedictorian of her high school. She became a teacher. So did five other women in the Top Ten of her graduating class. I can count on one hand that number of Top Twenty graduates from my alma mater who went into education since 1990. My mom probably would have become an attorney had she graduated 20 years later. If you are going to put in the time to be a teacher with a master's degree, you might as well become a school psychologist and make more money with more security and not have 4 preparations for 120 students.

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

Was that really such a bad thing?

Would you want your special needs child being treated with a one-size fits all approach?

I could give every teacher in the country a 20 percent raise tomorrow while raising test scores and lowering discipline problems. All I would have to do is send all special ed students to their own classes in an isolated part of the building while exempting them from NCLB. I could slash aides and psychologists galore.

Here is something to consider: Under Federal Law, every school has to meet the basic needs of every student. This means that if you have a deaf student, but don't have a teacher with the right qualifications, the school has to pay to send the child to a school that can meet his needs. Say, you are somewhere out in the sticks north of Frederick and your child has some serious cognitive disorder. If there is a special school in Gaithersburg for that student, the district is required by federal law to pay for transportation and tuition to that school - if the district can't meet the needs itself.

Again, no one knows this.

[LeesburgSkinFan]

It's not my area of expertise, but I'd assume it was a bad thing if your goal is to get the most out of each of those 8 students...yes. How can 8 people with potentially 8 different special needs all be treated the same way and benefit?

Seems like a manageable tradeoff rather than mainstreaming kids that slow the rest of the class down.

[Ellis]

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%.

My fiance is in this situation.

She took a private sector job b/c a hiring freeze went into place the EXACT DAY she was offered a job in the public sector. They couldn't hire her b/c of that freeze. About a week later, she took a job making about 2/3 of what the public sector had offered. Retirement benefits and health insurance don't kick in for a few months. In the public sector, it was immediate benefits.

She is likely going to stay in the private sector now that she's seen some of the shady stuff that goes on by the public Board of Education. There are kids in this private school precisely b/c they have very special needs that must be attended to. In MD, if you kid requires special attention, money can be gained to be paid towards the private school. Currently--and this should really piss off every single poster on this board--there is a strong effort being made to get this kids out of the private sector and into the public sector, not b/c their needs can suddenly be attended to when in the past they could not, but b/c of the $$$$$$$. The public sector wants that money to themselves even though the money is technically for the kids (but don't tell the unions that. oooooooooooh, god forbid the kids come first). Let's not play dumb to the fact that every gov't institution is in an economic **** storm right now.

It's really sad to see these kids treated like commodities. The parents are fighting in court to keep their kids where they are, in the private sector. It may come down to the parents simply opting out of the aid money just to have the right to send their kid where they need to be. This is likely going to put a strain on their incomes and bottom line spending. Most of them can't afford it.

Long story short... yes, teachers in the public sector are paid fairly but they're paid and compensated far too much as compared to teachers in the private sector.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Seems like a manageable tradeoff rather than mainstreaming kids that slow the rest of the class down.

Can you sell that to the parents of that 40 percent of the population? Explain to them how their students need to be shunted off so that the 60 percent can thrive.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Seems like a manageable tradeoff rather than mainstreaming kids that slow the rest of the class down.

If it were a binary choice, sure, I could see the case to be made for the way they handled it. But, isn't it better now that they can allocate more resources to the kids with special needs and address them on a more individual basis?

[Koolblue13]

Seems like a manageable tradeoff rather than mainstreaming kids that slow the rest of the class down.

My LD class had 30 kids in it. It was called SED, socially and emotionally disturbed. Mostly smart kids, with bad attitudes, but a few who couldn't point to land on a map.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

It's really sad to see these kids treated like commodities. The parents are fighting in court to keep their kids where they are, in the private sector. It may come down to the parents simply opting out of the aid money just to have the right to send their kid where they need to be. This is likely going to put a strain on their incomes and bottom line spending. Most of them can't afford it.

See, this is horse****. This is "Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare" Tea Party horse****.

This is not a private sector versus public sector argument. Those kids are not paying to attend that private school. The school district - IE, the local taxpayer - is paying to put those kids in that private school. Of course, the parents want the kids to stay. If your kid was attending a private school for ****ing free, you would want them to stay as well. Send my kid to Sidwell Friends and make the District pay for it. That sounds like a great deal.

Re-read what you just read. The parents are going to opt out of government aid in order to keep the kids in the school they are. The private sector is superior argument would state that they should have done that all along. You can't tout the superiority of private schools and then demand a government subsidy to go there.

(This is the fatal flaw in the voucher argument too, by the way. All vouchers end up being is a scholarship program for Catholic Schools).

The issue is, can that child's needs be met in the public school system? If so, financially, it makes a lot more sense to put the three children in that district in a class with a $50K teacher and $25K aid then spend the $150K it takes to transport and educate the child in a private school. Yes, I said transport. You have to pay for the child to get to that school regardless of the district.

The district is required by law to educate those children same as every other child in the district. How they do so is the trick.