The myth of the teacher pay gap? • Hacker News Board

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#291

Post by DataWorker » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #277

intpx wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I taught for 3 years before entering private sector and this largely jives with my experience. So many teachers had only ever been teachers and had only ever developed their classroom and subject matter skills. spending hours a week being unproductive or marginally productive on grading, grade entry because they were scared to or refused to learn more productive ways of accomplishing the same tasks. I would watch tea…

It's weird right? In the same way that programmers seem to like to brag about working all weekend or till 10pm on some killer bug, teachers like to brag about grading papers all week. Online school stuff isn't perfect (looking at you blackboard and friends), but they can sure take a lot of this drudgery away if you are willing to learn a platform.

Slave morality is a thing. In terms of “Learn a new platform to keep the drudgery away”, perhaps, but you could also spend all your time learning new platforms then look back and realize you have accomplished very little else. If human interaction is the unique and critical component of school based education, then maybe that aspect should be where teachers focus their efforts? Leave the digital disruption to Ed tech and get back to the basic human fundamentals of pedagogy.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#292

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #290

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 it's hyperbolic to claim teachers don't make 'livable' wages. In the U.S. median teacher salary is north of $60k [0]. Maybe there's an argument that this is too low to be fair but when the median U.S. wage is below $32k/yr it's hard to make the case it's not livable Sometimes HN takes too much of a SV-centric view, especially in terms of wages. [0] https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/25-2031.00

Okay, but starting teacher salaries in CA are in the low $40s. Try living in SF or LA on that. I know my friend was teaching for 8 years and got a job in LA for $80k, but she left to go to Vegas because they pay a lot better there ~$100k, plus no state tax, plus it's way cheaper.

So, yes, maybe median is not bad. But starting out -- especially in a city -- seems really bad.

Especially when you factor in almost all of these teachers have college debt of about $30k+ to pay off...

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#293

Post by Faark » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 6:35 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #273

claudeganon wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s entirely possible within a publicly funded framework to have different models and observation of outcomes. Schools just have to be allowed the leeway to experiment without threat of privatization. State universities and community colleges do this across the country. And it’s not as if high-performing countries arrived at their (almost exclusively public) systems without this kind of iteration.

> It’s entirely possible within a publicly funded framework to have different models and observation of outcomes. Possible, yes. Practical? No. Democratic bureaucracies are effectively incapable of learning and adapting. Schooling is basically implemented identically today as it was 100 years ago. > Schools just have to be allowed the leeway to experiment without threat of privatization This is a strange statement to…

> If public schools were so great and privatization were so bad, why would people want to send their kids to privately run schools?

A good old prisoners dilemma. If you got more resources to spend on education, you don't want to sit in the same class as someone who can only contribute little to the course. Just like worse graduates will ruin the prestige of the school and thus value of your degree. Outcome-base exclusion can be fine, unless it ends up as proxy to select for socio-economic factors and thus make society offer less equal opportunity.

Just looking at "existential threat" -> "outcompeted" only works in a highly simplified world with no market failures and other issues.

> differential performance between countries is more about who is in those countries than how it is those countries educate

I'd like a source on that. I do understand culture will have a significant influence, especially on what value people place on education. But your statement seems to go a lot further into "school doesn't matter" territory. This directly contradicts with earlier statements and e.g. many chines studying in the US.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#294

Post by shantly » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

sgerenser wrote: post #228

shantly wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno, they all do it though. I know school stats report the % of teachers with higher degrees and of course they all want those percentages to be higher. Possibly there are state incentives. Mostly it's just a bunch of people doing dumb crap without anyone having the power & motivation to fix it so they can all knock it off, which is a pretty common phenomenon, actually. [EDIT] I mean to you wanna be the superintend…

Yup. NC recently got rid of the automatic pay bump for having a masters degree while simultaneously increasing base teacher pay and there was a huge uproar over it. Nobody wants to lose their boondoggle.

Teachers' master's degrees are, in effect, a way to divert money from (mostly) teachers and (a little bit, some places) school districts to universities for no actual benefit, so that's great. Hope they manage to keep it up and that spreads.

OTOH it'd be nice if there were still a way to reward teachers who'd done a real and relevant master's (which very few of them do now), but I don't think anyone's interested in nailing down that distinction. It's not even just degree mills, either, AFAIK the vast majority of postgraduate programs aimed at teachers are designed, primarily, to be pretty easy to pass and to have relatively low time commitments. They all want a piece of that action, and if they increase the rigor demand for their product will drop because a hypothetical very hard, non-bullshit teaching master's from a prestigious school brings the same pay bump as a very bullshit one from a third-rate state school.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#295

Post by Faark » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #194

mcguire wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. It's one of the biggest advantages of teaching. But you still can't pay for groceries with time off.

You can't pay for groceries with health insurance either but you still have to include fringe benefits when calculating total compensation.

Yes, but the value of benefits is highly dependent on the employee. 30% off international flights might be an awesome deal, but unlikely for someone who cannot even afford a car.

Vacation has great value, but usually only after basic needs are met. Cutting someones hours is often used as a punishment for a reason. At the same time it also makes total sense that other companies don't want employees reducing their working hours.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#296

Post by shantly » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #108

simonsarris wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the school require it? If everyone agrees its silly, why don't they just drop the requirement?

Are you suggesting they dumb-down our educational system?! These are our children, our most important resource, we are talking about here!

You got hit with downvotes, but your (sarcastic) reaction is, as intended, spot on for the kind of thing no-one wants to risk hearing if they try to change the way higher degrees work in education. That the whole thing is an (expensive!) load of crap is 100% true, but that isn't widely known, I think, and trying to explain it's harder and riskier (for administrators & others with decision-making power) than just going along with the flow.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#297

Post by bumby » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #292

bumby wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's hyperbolic to claim teachers don't make 'livable' wages. In the U.S. median teacher salary is north of $60k [0]. Maybe there's an argument that this is too low to be fair but when the median U.S. wage is below $32k/yr it's hard to make the case it's not livable Sometimes HN takes too much of a SV-centric view, especially in terms of wages. [0] https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/25-2031.00

Okay, but starting teacher salaries in CA are in the low $40s. Try living in SF or LA on that. I know my friend was teaching for 8 years and got a job in LA for $80k, but she left to go to Vegas because they pay a lot better there ~$100k, plus no state tax, plus it's way cheaper. So, yes, maybe median is not bad. But starting out -- especially in a city -- seems really bad. Especially when you factor in almost all of…

The article touched on that point, though. It spoke about how the narrative is skewed because many teachers are in rural locations.

That same link shows that the median teacher salary in California is $82k, which is still 17% above the median household income in California [1]. The average student loan debt is right around $30k [2], so above average wages combined with average student loan debt shouldn't be construed as unlivable, unless that term is extended way beyond the plight of teachers (which may still be fair).

Again, it should be taken in context (outside the SV bubble). I know engineers who started at [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSCAA646N

[2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2017-economic-we...

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#298

Post by robocat » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

breakbread wrote: post #278

bpt3 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're generally salaried so they're paid a fixed amount no matter how much they work, with that amount normally negotiated by their union. All data indicates that teachers are working less than 40 hours a week on average, which makes me believe that the ones putting in 50+ hours are a vocal, tiny minority.

I think it depends on the grade and/or subject you're teaching. My wife has taught HS English for a decade and the 45-50+ hr weeks has been the norm for her and her colleagues. I have the impression (from my wife and her coworkers) that it's much easier for elementary and middle school teachers to work the contracted hours and not bring their work home with them. High school just comes with a lot of extra baggage too…

Do you think that the non-work hours and other non-financial incentives (perks vs bricks) get used to vary the incentives for different types of teachers?

"Union contracts generally mandate that gym teachers must be paid the same as calculus teachers, with the predictable result of surpluses of gym teachers and shortages of calculus teachers."

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#299

Post by robocat » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

shantly wrote: post #294

sgerenser wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. NC recently got rid of the automatic pay bump for having a masters degree while simultaneously increasing base teacher pay and there was a huge uproar over it. Nobody wants to lose their boondoggle.

Teachers' master's degrees are, in effect, a way to divert money from (mostly) teachers and (a little bit, some places) school districts to universities for no actual benefit, so that's great. Hope they manage to keep it up and that spreads. OTOH it'd be nice if there were still a way to reward teachers who'd done a real and relevant master's (which very few of them do now), but I don't think anyone's interested in n…

> divert money from teachers and school districts to universities for no actual benefit, so that's great. Hope they manage to keep it up and that spreads.

I am hearing sarcasm, which I would wish to encourage in the US, but it is possibly out of place on HN.

So far New Orleans has been my favourite US location that seemed to have sarcasm as a culture (although I have sampled very little of the US).

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#300

Post by learnstats2 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #279

learnstats2 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ensuring that a class gets taught well isn't just a matter of standing up in front of them from 8 to 3; any teacher can tell you about the amount of random surprise work that needs to get done at a school. You can call that work exploitation if you want, but the bottom line is still that someone has to do it.

Again: you're asking a teacher to cover roles other than teaching.

That's not good for anyone.