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

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#51

Post by shantly » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #36

sol_remmy2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 teacher…

These days especially, get ready to get to know kids then have them not show up one day because they killed themselves. Or have one you taught a while back do the same when they're moved up a couple grades. A couple not show up because they're in the hospital because they took a bunch of pills. That kind of thing. Pretty often. It's really bad. And that's at a pretty tame suburban school—the ones with gang violence and such going on are even worse. Plus the kids at those sometimes threaten or even attack teachers, too, and verbal abuse from the kids (talking like 4th graders and up) is a daily occurrence. So that's fun.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#52

Post by Florin_Andrei » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

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 whole "article" is propaganda by a neocon think tank. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#53

Post by shantly » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #33

sol_remmy2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 teachi…

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

Flip side: not enough people would put up with going through a "serious" teacher ed program to fill the demand, unless pay went way up. Not even close to enough.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#54

Post by julianapostate » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

3JPLW wrote: post #5

planetzero wrote: post #2

One of my relatives retired from teaching a couple of years ago. She had guaranteed raises every year and ended up making close to $100,000/year.

Good for her! Unfortunately, your anecdote is not representative. Many older teachers are getting forced out because, well, they're expensive and new teachers are underpaid. https://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/

fyi for anyone curious on that source.. those numbers come from america's largest labor union and professional interest group for public school teachers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Education_Association

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#55

Post by pkaye » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:41 PM UTC

shantly wrote: post #14

marricks wrote: post #7

I’m not so sure, my mom has been a teacher for 6 years and makes around 40k. Similar story for her peers. And even a 20% raise wouldn’t allow her to afford a home, or to send her kids to college without a huge debt burden... To be honest, I don’t even really care if that ends up being “in line with industry” some how, that’s still way too damn low. At that point everyone should be paid more. EDIT: realize I mistyped…

My wife makes under $40k after about 10 years. Health benefits blow, too. I'd love if the unions around here were some of those mean ol' ones who get teachers way more than they deserve or whatever. The one here can't even keep their daily planning periods clear of bullshit meetings. She grades or lesson plans for over an hour just about every night, has 30-60 minutes of meetings after school at least once a week. Th…

The teachers union in my city basically negotiated a deal for higher pay but the union would self fund their health benefits. It turned out to be a bad deal because over the years health care costs skyrocketed compared to the pay increases. What amazed me is some teachers are mentioning premiums higher than the individual market rates. So apparently they can't even negotiate good group premiums.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#56

Post by panzagl » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

noer wrote: post #29

SamuelAdams wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

It varies state to state. Some states require you to have a masters degree, some require you to have a masters degree or being the process of obtaining one, some states require you to have a masters but will waive that requirement if there's a need and some states require only a bachelors degree. Edit: there is a list of state requirements here: https://www.asha.org/Advocacy/state/StateTeacherCredentialin...

That list is for speech teachers, most 'regular' K-12 teaching positions only require a bachelor's.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#57

Post by simonsarris » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

shantly wrote: post #32

SamuelAdams wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mo…

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

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#58

Post by germinalphrase » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

ydnaclementine wrote: post #24

karl11 wrote: 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.

I am a high school English teacher in a suburban district outside a large midwestern city. There is a large variance between how much work members of different subject areas bring home. I certainly have colleagues that work their 40 hours and don’t spend a minute more thinking about school. The nature of my work is different, and I typically work 50-60/week.

Also for reference, I have been working as a teacher for 6 years and make just shy of 43k.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#59

Post by vkhn » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #17

vkhn wrote: 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.

Paid propaganda or not, I hold that these men have no teacher friends or family, or they would not have written this.

Re: The myth of the teacher pay gap?

#60

Post by shantly » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #55

shantly wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife makes under $40k after about 10 years. Health benefits blow, too. I'd love if the unions around here were some of those mean ol' ones who get teachers way more than they deserve or whatever. The one here can't even keep their daily planning periods clear of bullshit meetings. She grades or lesson plans for over an hour just about every night, has 30-60 minutes of meetings after school at least once a week. Th…

The teachers union in my city basically negotiated a deal for higher pay but the union would self fund their health benefits. It turned out to be a bad deal because over the years health care costs skyrocketed compared to the pay increases. What amazed me is some teachers are mentioning premiums higher than the individual market rates. So apparently they can't even negotiate good group premiums.

School district controls ours but this year they were all "the bad news is ya'll got sick too much so the rates are going up and deductible's worse, the good news is it's only going up 10% this year and, oh, probably forever into the future every year, and no we didn't get a second quote, the insurers told us they didn't even make any money on us last year."

There's a shocking amount of incompetence and corruption in school admin. Sometimes it's hard to tell which is which.