Pay Teachers More
nytimes.com
Pay Teachers More
1–10 of 92 posts
Re: Pay Teachers More
#2One of the startling factual claims in the article is that there were times in the United States, and are now places in the world, where lawyers make little better compensation than schoolteachers. Really? I recall reading in the 1990s in a book about education policy in the United States that schoolteachers are more numerous than doctors, lawyers, scientists, and engineers COMBINED. If there are that many more schoolteachers than doctors and lawyers, it would be surprising for the schoolteachers to be as well paid. Kristof makes the interesting point that one way to get teachers more pay, which does seem to be borne out by international comparisons, is to allow good teachers who can handle that to teach larger classes. When my wife grew up in Taiwan, the typical elementary school class size was sixty pupils--an especially small class might be only fifty.
Re: Pay Teachers More
#3I never understand why people get overly emotional about teacher salaries but not other public positions like fire, police, military, etc. While I empathize (my mother and 2 sisters are teachers), they do only work 9 months out of the year, and less than 40 hours per week. And teachers insist on remaining unionized, basically ensuring bad (non-criminal) teachers can't be fired once they get tenured after 2-3 years in most states. And the degree needed isn't difficult or technical to earn compared to laywers, doctors, engineers, etc. So I think their salaries at their current levels are justified.
Re: Pay Teachers More
#4We could pay teachers more if they removed Tenure and Teachers that don't preform. In what other industry does it pay you for not preforming. I am tired of thinking you need to throw more money at the problem. You need to remove the biggest problem. Those that don't preform. If you remove the teachers that don't preform, not only would you have more money, but have better preforming students. I am tired of this overall. Its not a money thing. Its a Union thing. Wisconsin is right to remove the gross weight behind union negotiations.
Re: Pay Teachers More
#5I never understand why people get overly emotional about teacher salaries but not other public positions like fire, police, military, etc. While I empathize (my mother and 2 sisters are teachers), they do only work 9 months out of the year, and less than 40 hours per week. And teachers insist on remaining unionized, basically ensuring bad (non-criminal) teachers can't be fired once they get tenured after 2-3 years in…
Teachers do not work less than 40 hours per week. A ton of time is spent on grading, prep, helping slow students, school meetings, complying with NCLB requirements, etc.
Re: Pay Teachers More
#6We could pay teachers more if they removed Tenure and Teachers that don't preform. In what other industry does it pay you for not preforming. I am tired of thinking you need to throw more money at the problem. You need to remove the biggest problem. Those that don't preform. If you remove the teachers that don't preform, not only would you have more money, but have better preforming students. I am tired of this overa…
Agreed. I have a very conservative, very anti-union family and there's not one of them who isn't in favor of higher teacher pay as long as it's tied to performance. So I really don't know who would be against it
Re: Pay Teachers More
#7I never understand why people get overly emotional about teacher salaries but not other public positions like fire, police, military, etc. While I empathize (my mother and 2 sisters are teachers), they do only work 9 months out of the year, and less than 40 hours per week. And teachers insist on remaining unionized, basically ensuring bad (non-criminal) teachers can't be fired once they get tenured after 2-3 years in…
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Re: Pay Teachers More
#8Numerous studies show that education majors is the US have among the lowest composite ACT and LSAT scores of any major.
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2006/02/ranking-sc...
There have been various explanation for this phenomenon which started in the 1970s and grew since then. Among the most interesting hypotheses is that traditionally smart women went into teaching as one of the few careers available to women who did not want to become young mothers and housewives. But this century, with more opportunities available to women, smart women become doctors, psychologists, screen writers, etc. Yet teaching is still a career dominated by women, leaving the less qualified students to take the available positions.
Re: Pay Teachers More
#9I never understand why people get overly emotional about teacher salaries but not other public positions like fire, police, military, etc. While I empathize (my mother and 2 sisters are teachers), they do only work 9 months out of the year, and less than 40 hours per week. And teachers insist on remaining unionized, basically ensuring bad (non-criminal) teachers can't be fired once they get tenured after 2-3 years in…
Teachers do not work less than 40 hours per week. A ton of time is spent on grading, prep, helping slow students, school meetings, complying with NCLB requirements, etc.
According to the BLS, the average full time teacher works slightly less than 40 hours/week (see Table 2). This includes time at the workplace, at home and at another location.
Re: Pay Teachers More
#10I never understand why people get overly emotional about teacher salaries but not other public positions like fire, police, military, etc. While I empathize (my mother and 2 sisters are teachers), they do only work 9 months out of the year, and less than 40 hours per week. And teachers insist on remaining unionized, basically ensuring bad (non-criminal) teachers can't be fired once they get tenured after 2-3 years in…
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It's a general observation of most "professional" employment that the actual working hours exceed the paid hours. It's definitely true of lawyers in large law firms (I have been one) that there are many hours that keep the lawyer busy with work that are not necessarily billable to a client. And, yes, I know both teachers and lawyers (I have pursued both occupations, although my teaching has not been full-time permanent employment in a government-operated school).