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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?

#231

Post by ikeyany »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #225
musicale wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm somewhat baffled as to why "work to rule" is considered a sort of strike or protest. If two parties have already agreed that one will perform a certain amount of work and another will pay a certain amount of money, it is unreasonable for either side to demand more than what the other side agreed to. A contract becomes meaningless if one side can arbitrarily adjust the terms.

It's not about one side arbitrarily adjusting the terms; it's about both sides realizing that they have a shared interest in keeping the organization running. It's just not feasible to write an employment contract that fully encompasses the work needing to get done.

Feasible for whom?

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#232

Post by ikeyany »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #153
jyounker wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never known a decent teacher that puts in less than fifty hours per week, and a typical week is more demanding than all but the most stressful weeks I've worked in software.

I've always wanted to be a teacher, still do. But their job is like 10x harder than mine and pays 1/10th the price, so as much as I'd enjoy it and I think I'd be good at it, it just seems insane. Good thing there's always a budget to build newer fancier schools, but not to pay teachers livable wages, cause that makes sense.

You can always do what the teachers with connections do, and simply teach at private/charter schools.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#233

Post by tathougies »

shantly wrote: post #217
tathougies wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flip side: intellectuals tend to like intellectual pursuits. Having a dumbed down teaching curriculum means turning these people away, not for monetary reasons, but for lack of stimulation that is easily accessible in the private sector. My mother, and many other people I know who wanted to go into teaching, wanted to do so because they wanted to be teachers, not the pay. What turned them off to the profession is the…

Sure, I get that, but you're not gonna replace all the incompetent people in education with competent ones just by making the relevant degree programs tougher. That's a lot of people. Pay would have to go up, probably quite a bit.

I see no reason we can't do both. Remove the requirement of a teaching credential to teach and raise salaries for teachers who deliver results.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#234

Post by dboreham »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #216
matz1 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its relative, I have plenty of friend who work in restaurant, they wouldn't want to trade with my software job. True that software development job is physically lot less demanding but for them its mentally exhausting.

I find software development both emotionally and mentally exhausting. And frankly, quite boring most of the time. I would love to be able to make the same money slinging pizza like I did back in college. The job was trivial enough in complexity that it freed my mind to think about and do other interesting things.

I knew one software development manager who gave it all up and became a plumber. Another became a high school mathematics teacher.

I've been running an excavator recently to do some...yard work...and honestly that line of work seems pretty appealing, and quite lucrative.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#235

Post by dboreham »

mehhh wrote: post #105
filmgirlcw wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would note that at least based on the educators I know, private schools often tend to pay LESS than public. Obviously, this may be dependent on area, but in Georgia at least, teachers at private schools typically make less once you factor in things like 401k, retirement, and health insurance. A lot less. This is an anecdote but my cousin's wife quit her job at a public high school to work at a private school, alleg…

Private schools are a 10k to 15k pay haircut in Seattle, most require a morality clause that makes being LGBTQ+ a firable offence, and the vaccination rates are appallingly low compared to public schools. Seattle's Catholic Schools are single handedly bringing back Measles & Rubella as a latent disease, where it used to not exist. With Running Start being an option for the last 2 years of High School (if your in publ…

How is that legal? Some "we're a religion" loophole?

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#236

Post by mattbreeden »

sjg007 wrote: post #174
burmer wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the truth is if teachers worked their contractual hours schools would fall apart; and teachers will emphasize this point as protest! The general idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule Some examples, many of which only do "work-to-rule" on certain days, not even on all of the days. https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/02/09/west-chicago-teacher... https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2018/01/26/ora…

Teachers should just work their contractual hours. Now that would be a protest!

Part of my wife's contract includes wording like 'any duties', so they can add as much arbitrary work as they want

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#237

Post by femto113 »

mehhh wrote: post #182
femto113 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle has hundreds of private schools, I doubt more than a handful have anything like the morality clause you cite, and most that I am aware of are explicit about their support of LGBTQ+. Do you have some source for your claim?

Kings School, all Catholic run schools (which are the majority of the private schools in the region) and the other various religious schools have this clause. My neighbor was fired over it and had trouble finding work at other private schools as there are just a handful of Montessori and language immersion schools, with everything else that isn't SPS having a Morals clause. Edit: The GSBA directory only lists 2 schoo…

I confess general ignorance of the religious schools in the area, but while this obviously this isn't an exhaustive survey the following examples seem typical of secular schools in the area (all quotes lifted from the school's websites).

Northwest School

"Diversity is our commitment to build [a] community that includes individuals and families who represent a wide variety of ... gender identity and expression, sexual orientation"

Seattle Academy

"includes and embraces a spectrum of differences in ... gender, sexual orientation"

Lakeside

"Lakeside is committed to creating an inclusive and equitable community in which all individuals can participate in and contribute to the life of the school, regardless of ... gender, ... sexual orientation, or any other aspect of their identity."

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#238

Post by mattbreeden »

tunesmith wrote: post #49

The entire opening of the article seems to be designed to take advantage of confirmation bias - the initial "there is no pay gap" is just an assertion, and then a bunch of therefores are built on top of it. Their entire argument seems to be based on "the pay gap calculation is dumb", but the problem is, even if that is true, that doesn't disprove that teachers are underpaid. The point about teachers having above aver…

> The "if teachers aren't paid well, why aren't we seeing more of them quit?" is a lousy point. Some jobs are simply more important than others, and its jobs practitioners know that. They are less likely to quit.

They reaaaally like to pull the guilt card every chance they can too. 'Think of the children!', 'If you quit, who will be there for these kids?', etc..

I don't know that removing a lot of the guilt would make teachers quit more, but I do think they would quit bad school environments more in favor of better ones, but they don't want to abandon the kids.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#239

Post by ArnoVW »

joe_the_user wrote: post #87
mikeryan wrote: post #85

The more I read articles in education based on national numbers the more I realize that national macroeconomic views are pretty much meaningless compared to local micro views. I don't care how much teachers make nationally, - I care how much teachers make at my local schools.

I suppose then people elsewhere are expected not to care what teachers at your local school make then? Isn't politics about seeing a larger picture?

His point is that a phrase like "this [teacher|nurse|officer] only makes xx" can be deceiving when the local economic context is not taken into account. Cost of living is not equal.

To give an analogue example : the same mechanism applies, in an exacerbated way, across countries. Comparing salaries of Americans with those of -for example- a Frenchman will not take into account that healthcare and education are much more expensive in the US.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#240

Post by mattbreeden »

childofteacher wrote: post #112

The 10-month working year is a core issue here. It's hard to convince voters and other government workers that teachers deserve a X% or XX% raise, when teachers receive 2.5-3x (summer break, plus other holidays) more paid leave than the average American. That paid leave is worth something: I think many people would choose a job with a $50k salary and 10 weeks of leave over a $60k salary and 3 weeks of leave. The obvi…

My wife spends most of her summer 'break' working, including multiple weeks of it being required to be in the classroom or at district offices.

Additionally, during the week, she works waaaay more than 40 hours a week, so even the time during the summer she isn't working I think is really just averaging out from her overtime during the school year.

I wouldn't have a problem with her pay if she actually worked as much as detractors seem to think all teachers do, but her pay:time ratio is awful.

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