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The myth of the teacher pay gap?

nationalaffairs.com

31–40 of 308 posts

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#31

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 I have no idea how society decides salaries.

I think your confusion stems from the fact that society does not decide salaries. In the private sector, salaries are based on how much one's involvement in some endeavor causes that endeavor to generate more revenue (or how much you can convince someone your involvement generates more revenue), combined with how easy it would be to find someone willing to do the same job with the same impact at a lower rate. If the value add is high and there is no one able or willing to do what you do for cheaper, you will have a high salary. If you add little value, and no one is willing to do what you do, you will be fired and likely not replaced -- they'll do without. If you add lots of value, but someone else is willing to do your job for less, you will be kept around if you accept a lower salary. If you add little value and someone else is willing to do your work, they will be hired for a lower salary. This isn't rocket science.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#32

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).

My wife's about to hit a wall on pay increases at right at $40k if she doesn't get a master's degree. Never get another real raise, just sub-inflation bumps every year. With quite a damn while left until retirement.

Mind, the master's degrees most teachers get aren't exactly hard—there's a giant market for easy-as-pie degrees for teachers for exactly this reason, and that's what most universities deliver and what most teachers go for since it's not like you get paid more if you do study in a real program—but you still have to pay for it, and it's not cheap on a teacher's salary.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#33

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…

Don't you realize most people don't have the patience or ability to be a software engineer? That it is one of the most intellectually demanding jobs in society? And that 4 years computer science education is both expensive and difficult? Recognize your privilige - you are very smart and, for you, programming is easy. You are in the minority. How about dental hygienists? Dental Hygienists made a median salary of $74,0…

> And that 4 years computer science education is both expensive and difficult?

Exactly. As a point in favor of this worldview, I'll use my mother. She completed her economics and English degree in India (undergrad). She also completed her liberal studies undergrad and a graduate teaching credential again in the United States (they would not accept her foreign undergrad, so she had to repeat). She said that the teaching education was mostly a joke and her classmates absolute dunces. This was at a public university -- cal state fullerton, to be specific.

Ultimately, teaching education, even graduate education, is not difficult and mostly a joke, which is what is reflected in their salaries.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#34
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…

> That is why they don't need a second job. Because they have a support network.

If an alien visitor to Earth was looking at this sorry situation, they could make some interesting assumptions about the priorities of this society and culture, as a whole, with regards to education.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#35
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.

> Or it's paid propaganda by whoever

I was curious about the site's owner (American Enterprise Institute) and looked them up on Wikipedia to give me context for reading the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

Half my family are teachers, at least. They spent a huge amount of time outside of a "standard" 40-hour work week preparing lessons, grading, etc. It's a tough profession if you don't love it.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#36

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…

Don't you realize most people don't have the patience or ability to be a software engineer? That it is one of the most intellectually demanding jobs in society? And that 4 years computer science education is both expensive and difficult? Recognize your privilige - you are very smart and, for you, programming is easy. You are in the minority. How about dental hygienists? Dental Hygienists made a median salary of $74,0…

Teaching doesn't require patience or ability?

And where I went to college the 4 year CS degree was the same price as a 4 year education degree (aside from books/misc expenses). They both required the same number of credits, and class costs were largely normalized (with a few exceptions). Plus then teachers have to take the licensing exams and pay for your own background check/license.

If people really believe teachers have it made I strongly encourage them to give it a shot. We could always use more teachers. Plus then it might give a perspective on what it is like being a teacher (workload, hours, pay, conditions, stress, etc) and why the turnover rate is so high.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#37
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 partner is a teacher. She does indeed work 40 hours per week on average, has extensive time off for holidays, has the full summer off (she doesn't work at all during it), has a pension that when she retires will easily fund her lifestyle and more, and is paid the median household income for the city. It's not an easy job, but it could be a lot worse. She was also given a signing bonus and scholarship that together meant she graduated with $0 of student loan debt.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Or it's paid propaganda by whoever I was curious about the site's owner (American Enterprise Institute) and looked them up on Wikipedia to give me context for reading the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute Half my family are teachers, at least. They spent a huge amount of time outside of a "standard" 40-hour work week preparing lessons, grading, etc. It's a tough profession if you…

ROTFL

I knew it. The "article" is 100% propaganda.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#40
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But according to this study, they aren’t and are only working ~40 hours. So who’s misunderstanding, this study that used time diaries from teachers or what the other teachers say? Both sources are self reported. I was expecting this study to ignore the extra hours that teachers put in away from the kids, but they seem to account for that.

The "article" was produced by a neocon think tank. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

It's a "study" in the sense that a blog by the American Tobacco Association (fictional entity invented for the purpose of this argument) produces "studies" about the "harmlessness of tobacco smoking".

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