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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?

#131

Post by 09bjb »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #114

> (2) Annual wages have been calculated by multiplying the hourly mean wage by a "year-round, full-time" hours figure of 2,080 hours; for those occupations where there is not an hourly wage published, the annual wage has been directly calculated from the reported survey data. See, this is where things go wrong. So they've got mean wage figures which are constructed both on a fact (hourly wage) and an assumption (work…

n=2 now. My wife works a 1.0 FTE that the district rates as 1.6 to 1.8 FTE (seven classes per day). She works 50h / week at the absolute minimum.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#132

Post by jonstewart »

The source needs some consideration. From Wikipedia on National Affairs:

“National Affairs is a quarterly magazine in the United States about political affairs that was first published in September 2009. Its founding editor, Yuval Levin, and authors are typically considered to be conservative.[1][2] The magazine is published by National Affairs, Inc., which previously published the magazines The National Interest (1985–2001) and The Public Interest (1965–2005). National Affairs, Inc., was originally run by Irving Kristol, and featured board members such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick, and author Charles Murray.”

Additionally one of the authors works at the American Enterprise Institute, ie., his job is to promote a politically conservative narrative on issues like these.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#133

Post by gridlockd »

maximente wrote: post #93
gridlockd wrote: post #67

Why do teachers have such an elevated standing in society anyways? If we're being honest, schools are, for the most part, daycare centers. Secondary education is, for the most part, completely useless. Yet, unlike with most other professions, the government guarantees that those glorified daycare jobs will continue to exist. Why should these jobs pay well?

you're right, it's not important to have an educated citizenry. we can just set them up with iPads and have them watch YouTube all day for a lot less - let's get a couple startups going on this ASAP - keywords: disruption, innovation, EdTech, Hadoop in all seriousness, i'd love for the US government to throw serious cash at teachers' salaries. it's basically a wise investment in the country's future. so what if they'…

> You're right, it's not important to have an educated citizenry.

Did you, in all honesty, go through the public school system and came out with an "yeah we need more like that"? Seriously?

> in all seriousness, i'd love for the US government to throw serious cash at teachers' salaries. it's basically a wise investment in the country's future.

You really believe that?

> so what if they're daycare teachers? we have plenty of $ to spend on providing a safe place and food for our children in the US for 8 hours a day.

Schools, a safe place? Where did even you go to school?

> a lot of the money is spent on the backend on welfare or prisons anyway, so it's probably not very expensive when the externalities are factored in.

I'm pretty sure most of the prison inmates had their share of public education.

> Finland

You can't just pick your favorite nordic country and act like it is representative of anything. What about France? Total free government education and massive youth unemployment. What about Spain? Everyone is running around with one or more degrees, but no job.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#134

Post by spike021 »

jedberg wrote: post #25

You'll notice a lot of people commenting here "my wife is a teacher" (myself included). I think these statistics are missing two very big factors. - In high cost areas like the Silicon Valley, almost every teacher is married to an engineer or is the child of an engineer. That is why they don't need a second job. Because they have a support network. - Teacher quits are low because most of the people who would be great…

>In high cost areas like the Silicon Valley, almost every teacher is married to an engineer or is the child of an engineer. That is why they don't need a second job. Because they have a support network.

Huh? My neighbor at my (fortunately extremely low-cost) apartment is single, a teacher, and he barely gets by, especially in summer (if he wants to have "fun money" during summer it means taking a summer school teaching job). Obviously one person out of a plethora of teachers in the Bay Area, but that's a ridiculously general statement.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#135

Post by kd0amg »

crumpets wrote: post #71
Someone1234 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the private sector, salaries are based on how much one's involvement in some endeavor causes that endeavor to generate more revenue That's never been my experience. I've seen people add tons of quantifiable value to a business, including dock loaders, customer facing staff, and even cleaners but in spite of their value being quantifiable they weren't rewarded. Clients and customers would literally say that staff…

No, value to the business only sets the ceiling. The floor comes from the labor supply side of the market. (i.e. can the company find qualified people willing to do it at X rate)

Hiring and compensation decisions have enough of a principal-agent problem that value to the business doesn't even set a firm ceiling.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#136

Post by humanrebar »

awinder wrote: post #116
mcguire wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check the caption for the "Median Annual Wages..." graph: " Teacher salaries are adjusted based on the assumption of a 10-month work year. " ...which is a good way to give them a virtual 17% pay raise. I wonder if the same applies to other professions like independent contractors or lawyers, who can only charge for part of their working time.

Yeah came here to talk about the same thing. Teachers have a 40 hour a week in the school job paired with a 10-20 hour wfh job preparing lessons, grading papers, etc. Those summer months are paid for by extra hours during the school year as far as I’m concerned. This is also not even getting into how much teachers spend of their salary money on the classroom. Which is so prevalent that there’s a tax deduction for it.…

How many master's professions insist on local monopolies for their employers? Other than predisposed ideological beliefs, it doesn't make sense for teachers' unions to be as against school competition as they are, at least with respect to employing exemplary educators.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#137

Post by WalterBright »

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…

> I have no idea how society decides salaries.

Supply and demand.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#138

Post by lazyasciiart »

rconti wrote: post #89
shantly wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Most of the private schools around here pay a lot worse than the public schools, especially if you factor in total comp w/ benefits. We have a tiny number with high enough tuition that they might pay well (but I wouldn't count…

Yeah, I'm not in education, but I was surprised to 'learn' that private schools generally pay less than their public counterparts -- and I've continued to understand that to be the case, but I'd love more information on the matter to correct any misunderstandings I might have.

My secondhand understanding is that they make up for it by offering more control over the students, down to selecting and expelling them.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#139

Post by gridlockd »

Qwertystop wrote: post #76
gridlockd wrote: post #67

Why do teachers have such an elevated standing in society anyways? If we're being honest, schools are, for the most part, daycare centers. Secondary education is, for the most part, completely useless. Yet, unlike with most other professions, the government guarantees that those glorified daycare jobs will continue to exist. Why should these jobs pay well?

Because they ought to be more than that? In some cases, perhaps, because they _are_ more than that? I'm pretty sure my K-12 education (public school) and college (private university) were both above average, but I definitely learned _something_ from at least a few classes every year in K-12, and at least could tell you what sorts of things I've forgotten from them. Meanwhile, I couldn't tell you what about half of my…

> I definitely learned _something_ from at least a few classes every year in K-12

What if the guy managing your retirement fund lost 85% of your money, would you stick with him because you got to keep at least some of it?

> Meanwhile, I couldn't tell you what about half of my college classes were even _supposed_ to have taught, shortly before graduation, despite passing all of them with (almost all) high marks.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#140

Post by WalterBright »

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…

> But it is great that at the end of a long career a few unicorn teachers can earn $100K,

Teachers tend to get very generous benefits packages, including retirement pay.

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