231–240 of 410 posts
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If this were true, wouldn't private school teachers be paid considerably more? In my area, they are paid considerably less.
Why would that follow that private school teachers would be paid more?
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How come 78% of low income fourth graders in NJ can't read?[0] [0] https://acnj.org/newsroom/news-releases/nj-4th-graders-score...
A hypothesis- their school reading lessons aren't being reinforced at home. Maybe their parents are too busy to do that reinforcement, working long hours, etc. Or there's a housing stability issue that lower income families often encounter. How are the other 22% of low income fourth graders able to read?
I see no reason this should not be the case. That is the starting wage in my Dallas area school district.
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I'm sure your mom is great, but teachers have low value over replacement. Teaching is not a particularly high skill or difficult job.
I'd strongly disagree with your assertion that teaching is not a difficult job. I won't address the exertion that goes into individual parts of it, but all of the teachers I know regularly work nights and weekends in addition to handling the emotional stress of teaching, which itself is a huge burden, especially for those working in less affluent schools. In any case, the measure for teachers should not be "how hard…
There's a difference between difficulty and exertion.
> how important is the outcome
It's pretty damn important that the garbage man comes and collects the trash every week, but we don't pay him the marginal value of trash collection to the county.
> another assertion I have issues with - there are rampant teacher shortages nationwide
I actually agree that the market doesn't seem to be clearing due to stingy education departments and state government. We should probably break their monopsony power by privatizing education.
> could you not be potentially getting a better teacher and having broadly positive effects on society if you're offering more money
If you want to make the argument we should fire all the current teachers and replace them with people who would otherwise be accountants or actuaries or software engineers, I'd be amenable to the argument.
The minimum starting salary for a teacher in Chicago is $60,000 (cost of living adjusted), the highest in the country. It hasn't solved Chicago Public Schools' problems. Source: https://wirepoints.org/chicago-teachers-are-paid-some-of-the...
Actually good teachers should be paid much more than that, but the bad teachers which are setting up kids for failure in life should be shown the door. Unfortunately that’s not how the teacher unions want it to be. Hard to reward the good ones well if you can’t get rid of the bad ones.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2022, the median income in the US was $54,132/yr [1] and the US Census Bureau says median household income was $70,784/yr [2]. I'm not opposed to teachers making $60k/yr, but I think setting this as a floor at a federal level for what is one of the most common professions in the US [3] will have significant and serious unintended consequences. There is a massive amount…
So. What do we do with that?
This is loosely related, but every time I think of public school teacher salaries my mind goes to the public school teachers I know. As a group they are… exceptionally ungifted. As just one example, I lived with two middle school teachers in Texas for a few years. They probably couldn’t pass the grade they were teaching. I have never met two professionals with so many credentials (MS in Education) and so little sense…
This is loosely related, but every time I think of public school teacher salaries my mind goes to the public school teachers I know. As a group they are… exceptionally ungifted. As just one example, I lived with two middle school teachers in Texas for a few years. They probably couldn’t pass the grade they were teaching. I have never met two professionals with so many credentials (MS in Education) and so little sense…
I think pay is one part of the problem of attracting the best teachers. Potentially an even bigger problem is just how much of the curriculum is dictated by fiat. We require them to get a Masters degree but then give them almost no autonomy. I'm not a teacher, but I feel like that's gotta hurt job satisfaction and be a big contributor to high teacher turnover/burnout. (quick Google says 8%/year leave the field entire…
Stop bending over backwards to please parents. Punish and remove students that can't behave in the classroom. Culturally reward students that excel academically.
This is loosely related, but every time I think of public school teacher salaries my mind goes to the public school teachers I know. As a group they are… exceptionally ungifted. As just one example, I lived with two middle school teachers in Texas for a few years. They probably couldn’t pass the grade they were teaching. I have never met two professionals with so many credentials (MS in Education) and so little sense…
I know a few people who are teachers, or related fields like librarians, and I would say they all are smart, hard working and care quite a bit about their students. They are all underpaid and reaching the point of burnout of the entire system and they are only in their 30's. I'm honestly concerned that we'll see education in the US quite literally falling apart as people willing to work in education effectively evapo…
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2022, the median income in the US was $54,132/yr [1] and the US Census Bureau says median household income was $70,784/yr [2]. I'm not opposed to teachers making $60k/yr, but I think setting this as a floor at a federal level for what is one of the most common professions in the US [3] will have significant and serious unintended consequences. There is a massive amount…
keep in mind that teachers only work 9 months of the year as well. Not really that impressive to take a 2nd job when you have 3 months in the summer to do whatever you want.
Many teachers take graduate courses, do extra-curriculars for students, teach summer school, and prep for the fall/spring in the summer. It's not just free time for many teachers, but it is unpaid time.
You can't just hand wave away the work they do all year long because you want to.
edit: I just thought of this. My wife, who has taught for over 15 years, only gets 4 days of PTO a year. Any other time she needs off is unpaid, as well. So, how much PTO do you get a year?