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The myth of the teacher pay gap?

nationalaffairs.com

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Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#11

Post by igetspam »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #3
planetzero wrote: post #2

One of my relatives retired from teaching a couple of years ago. She had guaranteed raises every year and ended up making close to $100,000/year.

And that's with a 3 month break every year. But still, dealing with kids every day is hard work. I know I wouldn't want to do it as a career. I thank those that do.

The three month break is a myth. Teachers are generally required to spend weeks doing prep before the year starts and weeks closing out after the year ends. There are also recommended to required activities during the summer. They also typically have to work during the summer because $40-50k is not enough money to live on, in most places.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#12

Post by H1Supreme »

vkhn wrote: post #9

I am willing to accept that there are studies and statistics that seem to contradict what is commonly accepted. I'm also willing to accept a lot of the evidence here that the problem is not nearly as bad as believed. This was, however, clearly written by statisticians that have no teacher friends or family. If they did, they would have asked more relevant questions of the data. For example WHY do teachers work "on av…

> My wife is a teacher, and I can tell you exactly why.

Which is?

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#13

Post by negzero7 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #4
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's with a 3 month break every year. But still, dealing with kids every day is hard work. I know I wouldn't want to do it as a career. I thank those that do.

On the east and west coast, I've met quite a few teachers, and none have a 3 month break every year. Maybe a few weeks, but they are frequently tasked with continuing education or some other task during the summers. And during the year, they're always working 12+ hour days.

I think the "always working 12+ hour days" thing is a myth. My wife is a teacher and I would say her and the teachers she works with will occasionally work extra hours, but by far it's mostly 7.5 hour days (8:30am - 4pm).

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#14

Post by shantly »

marricks wrote: post #7

I’m not so sure, my mom has been a teacher for 6 years and makes around 40k. Similar story for her peers. And even a 20% raise wouldn’t allow her to afford a home, or to send her kids to college without a huge debt burden... To be honest, I don’t even really care if that ends up being “in line with industry” some how, that’s still way too damn low. At that point everyone should be paid more. EDIT: realize I mistyped…

My wife makes under $40k after about 10 years. Health benefits blow, too. I'd love if the unions around here were some of those mean ol' ones who get teachers way more than they deserve or whatever. The one here can't even keep their daily planning periods clear of bullshit meetings. She grades or lesson plans for over an hour just about every night, has 30-60 minutes of meetings after school at least once a week. That wasn't so bad before we had kids, but it's really shitty now.

Lots of her co-workers work second jobs to make ends meet. Luckily for us I make a whole lot more than she does, which is dumb because she both does way more good than me and works much harder.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#15

Post by SamuelAdams »

Someone1234 wrote: post #10

This seems to use private education as a benchmark for the entire argument. From quit rates, to pay, to conditions, and beyond, but ignores the obvious which is that private pay and private conditions are largely pinned to be just above public salaries and conditions (meaning private education cannot be used as a benchmark for when someone is under-paid, over-qualified, or has too high of a quit rate because they are…

> required to have a masters degree

This isn't true from my experience. I have several friends who teach K-12 education. They only have a bachelor's degree, many times in different areas than what they are teaching (English degree teaching Math, for example).

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#16

Post by karl11 »

H1Supreme wrote: post #12
vkhn wrote: post #9

I am willing to accept that there are studies and statistics that seem to contradict what is commonly accepted. I'm also willing to accept a lot of the evidence here that the problem is not nearly as bad as believed. This was, however, clearly written by statisticians that have no teacher friends or family. If they did, they would have asked more relevant questions of the data. For example WHY do teachers work "on av…

> My wife is a teacher, and I can tell you exactly why. Which is?

They do a ton of work at home outside of school hours.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#17

Post by Florin_Andrei »

vkhn wrote: post #9

I am willing to accept that there are studies and statistics that seem to contradict what is commonly accepted. I'm also willing to accept a lot of the evidence here that the problem is not nearly as bad as believed. This was, however, clearly written by statisticians that have no teacher friends or family. If they did, they would have asked more relevant questions of the data. For example WHY do teachers work "on av…

> This was, however, clearly written by statisticians that have no teacher friends or family.

Or it's paid propaganda by whoever. In fact, I think this has a higher probability to be true.

I'm married to a teacher and the whole "article" is bullshit.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#18

Post by negzero7 »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #3
planetzero wrote: post #2

One of my relatives retired from teaching a couple of years ago. She had guaranteed raises every year and ended up making close to $100,000/year.

And that's with a 3 month break every year. But still, dealing with kids every day is hard work. I know I wouldn't want to do it as a career. I thank those that do.

Along with the other commenters, the 3 month break isn't accurate. It tends to work out closer to about 7 weeks off. I do agree that I also could never do their job! (Source: My wife is a teacher)

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#19

Post by eesmith »

mieseratte wrote: post #8
3JPLW wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for her! Unfortunately, your anecdote is not representative. Many older teachers are getting forced out because, well, they're expensive and new teachers are underpaid. https://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/

> Unfortunately, your anecdote is not representative. Of teachers starting today? Probably not. Older government employees often had ludicrously lucrative compensation packages compared to what we have now. It may or may not depending on what group we're talking about. > Many older teachers are getting forced out because, well, they're expensive Do you have information for that one, the link provided just lists start…

What you describe as "ludicrously lucrative", I prefer to describe as "reasonable".

I mean, couldn't I equally well say that the compensation packages we have now are ludicrously miserly?

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#20

Post by jedberg »

negzero7 wrote: post #13
lotsofpulp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the east and west coast, I've met quite a few teachers, and none have a 3 month break every year. Maybe a few weeks, but they are frequently tasked with continuing education or some other task during the summers. And during the year, they're always working 12+ hour days.

I think the "always working 12+ hour days" thing is a myth. My wife is a teacher and I would say her and the teachers she works with will occasionally work extra hours, but by far it's mostly 7.5 hour days (8:30am - 4pm).

I think that's the difference between a good teacher and an average one. My wife was a teacher (left because of the poor salary). She worked 12+ hours a day five days a week (we made sure to keep weekends open but we were there on weekends too sometimes). You could see which other teachers were there 12+ hours. It was the ones that sent the most prepared kids to her class. There was an obvious quality difference between the kids who had teachers that worked 12+ hours a day and those that didn't.
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