Discussion Question
Practically everyone I know agrees that "teachers should be paid more". I'm on the same bandwagon.
The question before the class today is: how much more?
What is a reasonable annual salary for an average public grade school teacher?
posted by Ted @ 16:32
9 Comments:
At 20/2/09 00:58 ,
MomHouston said...
Are you including Hazard pay for the little ones that come armed with their sister's baby-daddy?
What constitutes a living wage? Do you consider what you make as a resident a living wage for just 9 months a year of work?
I would hope we could find a way to agree on a reasonable salary.
At 20/2/09 15:19 ,
KAISER ANDY I said...
My mom was a teacher for 30 years in both the public and Catholic schools. We were on food stamps when I was a kid.
While I take umbrage at the line "for just 9 months a year of work" because teachers work much more than that (and long hours to boot), it goes directly to the societal perception, and it is one of the roadblocks to better pay. For this discussion I propose this baseline:
Teachers,compared to most of us (excluding specialty jobs like resident or president) on average work more hours a day and put up with more shit than most of us.
We can't bring good teacher/bad teacher comparisons, as there are good cops and bad cops, firefighters, etc., and they get paid the same as their fellow workers.
Having written that, let me continue.
The school year needs to be extended, as no kid in a metropolitan school needs the summer off to tend the crops. There need to be different break schedules set up because teachers and students need time away. However, society has, for many generations, formed employment/vacation schedules around the notion that that kids will be out all summer, and when that gets mixed up, the parents will start complaining because that would mess with THEIR schedules, and so we're still stuck with the nine months out of the year thing, even though it's been proven that material retention is better on a year-round school.
You know what? I had a whole thing about parent and student cooperation, but I'm going to cut this short and state this:
Teachers should be paid at least as much as police officers, because they work shitty hours and have to deal with the same kind of crap, but they can't arrest the kids or give them the once over with the mag light.
Pacem
At 20/2/09 22:41 ,
Ted said...
I was really looking for more of a dollar amount.
At 22/2/09 05:17 ,
MomHouston said...
KA,
I was not implying that they don't deserve a good salary, they are the only hope for our society to bring about change but if we can't protect them and allow them to do their job, no matter what we pay them, won't be enough.
I don't know anyone that doesn't have a memory of a teacher that made a huge impact on them. Lit their interest (mine was in 6th grade and again in 1990 before I started college, 20 years after high school)
I think that teachers need to be paid a full time salary, even if we only use them 9 months out of the year, which I also agree should be year round for everyones sake.
We really are on the same side of this argument. What do police or firemen get paid? I have no idea. I just know that the same work I was doing at LSU 3 years ago is earning me almost double in Houston and I really don't think my cost of living is twice as high...except for paying for my damaged condo in New Orleans still.
At 22/2/09 05:41 ,
Yankee John said...
Here's a suggestion based on absolutely no empirical data: double the average wage for that municipality/region/county.
Tie it to anything else and you risk union infighting, political corruption and budget cuts.
Send the message that the reason teachers will earn twice what Mr. and Mrs. Bubba do is because Teachers are doing the job of two parents all by themselves.
At 23/2/09 20:06 ,
KAISER ANDY I said...
I wasn't trying to pick a fight but merely state that due to my personal knowlege of the work that goes into teaching, the public perception that 9 months is all they work is bunk, and we've already addressed that, so on with the show.
I believe that the Secretary of Education could weigh in on this one and firm up a number, but then again, that's political.
I think maybe 5% over median county wage would be fine. That way they're paid more, but in perspective of the county. Yes, this means that teachers in richer counties would be paid more than those in poorer, but hell- we've got to start somewhere.
That and we have to reintroduce same-sex schools. This will change the load on the teachers.
I'm out of this one, as I keep erasing my soap-box rants, and they normally stray from the main question.
I'm going to end with this:
Either pay them more, or task them with less.
Pacem
I heart my dog.
I spayed my dog.
I club my dog.
My dog is dead.
KA
KA
At 24/2/09 19:53 ,
Ted said...
As a product of single-sex education, I think it's a bad idea. All you're doing is delaying interaction with the opposite sex, leading to more problems in college (where there is less supervision).
I don't think 5% over local average is enough...I might buy 25%. Teachers should make enough to live quite comfortably, but not enough to be "rich". This will keep their motivations right--if people start to go into education for the money, you'll see the same breakdown we're getting in healthcare.
At 3/3/09 22:02 ,
KAISER ANDY I said...
cousin Luke and I were discussing this, and the Yooj's comment, and the discussion turned to the idea that anyone who has to put up with crap at a job from people who aren't or weren't raised properly should get more money.
At 6/3/09 01:19 ,
Ted said...
I think that includes all of us...
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