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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?

#251

Post by learnstats2 »

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.

If you are not sure in advance what you are going to want teachers to do, then this might just be an excuse to exploit them.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#252

Post by a_imho »

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?

Probably to attract the talent required to upgrade them from daycare centers.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#253

Post by kungito »

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…

My friend works as a full time teacher. Has 24 * 45min=16h of classes each week which is above the norm which is 20 * 45min. He spends 2-3 more hours each week on grading things in case they have exams that week and about 2-3 hours each week in case he needs to prepare some materials. Most exams are already prepared and so are lessons. He doesn't call up parents (lol wtf) and students don't really ask questions on the platform. He has 3 weeks of winter vacations, 2 months of summer vacation and a week of Easter vacation. He has engaging lessons and always comes home with a new story about some cool interaction he had with the kids. He's way happier than when he was working in the private sector. He's teaching STEM classes in a high school known for problematic kids. He says the biggest problem with teachers is that half of them aren't for this job. They don't know how to handle the complex teacher-student relationship and start getting bullied by the worst kids with no way out. He says a big part of some of his colleagues being broken down shells of humans is that and the fact that they never worked in the industry so they don't appreciate the perks of being a teacher

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#254

Post by black_knight »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #218
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the difficulty of the job is relative to your talent set. My favorite teacher was my AP calc teacher in high school. She only graded during her planning session, never worked overtime, let us not only fix a broken classroom computer that the school basically abandoned but we also take turns playing GTA on it during lectures. Almost everyone in the class passed the AP exam. She was in MENSA and left a lucrativ…

How much preparations and grading there is depends on the subject (among other things). And mathematics is where you get most for free for just being smart and knowing your subject.

In (good) mathematics lessons, very little of the time is spent explaining the theory. Instead a lot time is spent doing exercises – both the teacher demonstrating and the students trying it out them selves. At that point the teaching becomes reactive, as the student get stuck and you help them figure it out. This requires little prep (basically finding good exercises).

In other subjects there is much more story telling and explaining. And it requires much more preparations in order to make it interesting, and keeping all kinds of details fresh in your mind.

As for grading, grading mathematics is quick and mechanical. While correcting an essay is a lot more draining.

So, I do not think talent is actually what is deciding factor here. The way you phrase it, it sounds to me like "Oh, if the teacher were better at their job they would have to work a lot less".

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#255

Post by colonCapitalDee »

OBLIQUE_PILLAR wrote: post #203

National Affairs dot com is published by the extreme right wing think tank The Claremont Institute, started by the man who came up with Barry Goldwater's line "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."

This is not true. National Affairs dot com is run by the right-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#256

Post by j7ake »

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…

Manually grading papers takes so much time (my experience as a TA in graduate school) I definitely thought about ways to reduce the workload with machines .

Even 20% workload in grading papers (e.g., quantitative works are graded electronically) would mean so much for the entire teaching industry.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#258

Post by bakuninsbart »

arkh wrote: post #247
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…

> I know n=1 but, my girlfriend is a teacher and I see her working about 40 hours a week, for a 24h job. She has a 0.6 FTE contracted position (and an according 60% monthly salary), she's at the school about 4 days a week. On her off-day, every single evening before work and after work, and at least one, sometimes two days of the weekend, she's grading papers, designing exams, preparing lessons, calling up parents, r…

She shouldn't accept it, but generally teachers aren't just working for a company and serving a customer. - They are responsible for the future of the kids they are teaching, and most of them are taking that responsibility very seriously.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#259

Post by bakuninsbart »

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…

Wait a second, are American teachers only paid for the hours they are spending in the classroom? Here in Germany, 20 hours is what you spent teaching, but it is a full-time job, as it is expected that you spent at least an hour preparing for every class.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#260

Post by barry-cotter »

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…

> Personally I think someone required to have a degree (master's for quoted salary), continued education requirements, and licensing earning under $50K/year starting is too low.

The effects of M.Ed. and other educational training on teacher effectiveness is not reliably distinguishable from zero. This contrasts with experience which increases teacher effectiveness up to six years and subject matter expertise.

So if continuing education and the most common teacher’s Master’s degree does nothing for students and costs money we shouldn’t reward it. By all means encourage and subsidize things we know help students, like a Master’s in Math for Math teachers or in English for English teachers, but M.Ed.s and Ed.D.s don’t do squat for anyone except the teachers who get better pay and faster promotions.

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