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Do teachers need advanced degrees?

cremieux.xyz

61–70 of 70 posts

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#61
post #2

Teaching salaries start at $48,112 on average. If schools want advanced degrees the industry needs to pay more, and that's beyond whatever adjustment the provide for holding an advanced degree.

All things considered, it's much better than it's made out to be. Teaching is pretty stable, offers pensions, unionized, yearly adjusted for CPI, opportunities to increase pay schedule + extra pay with extra curriculars / duties, lots of time off, good hours. Don't get me wrong. There are issues and it does depend on the district (US). Now the aides..

True. As long as we can agree that that means that tripling the current compensation is a necessity. Quadrupling it (ie. matching entry-level FANG) is not that necessary.

Btw: there is also the aspect that while children can get inspired and that is enormously motivating. Children also sabotage teaching and I've seen teachers leave because of that as well.

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#62
Warning: this article is NOT advocating against teacher credentials! It's arguing educating children with inferior genes is useless anyway.

So can we please keep in mind WHO this guy is making this "argument"? He SELF identifies as a Nazi. And not like the people who constantly get accused of being a Nazi. I do not mean he's anti-immigrant or something like that. This guy is a full-blown actual Nazi. This guy is proud of holding the most despicable of Nazi viewpoints such as eugenics.

And just so we're clear about what HE means by eugenics: he means massacring people with inferior genes (and obviously, like all Nazi's for some reason ... starting with Jews). He wants, for example, black people to be massacred in the US, in part because of the argument made in this post. He does not believe you can train someone with "bad" genes to be smart (look at the graph at the bottom, even in this article he's making the point that education does not matter, only coming from a "good" family does)

Crémieux Recueil is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Lasker

And no, this is not Godwin's law. There are (still) actual Nazi's. Really. This guy is one of them.

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#63
post #2

Teaching salaries start at $48,112 on average. If schools want advanced degrees the industry needs to pay more, and that's beyond whatever adjustment the provide for holding an advanced degree.

Most public K-12 teachers teach 9 months out of the year. So annualizing that salary gets you to $64,149. Supposing a two income household of two teachers earning that amount ($128,299), the household would be earning a good bit above the median household income of $83,730.

Now, add in the pre-tax earnings that would be necessary to emulate a teacher's risk-free pension. One would need post-tax investments which must be turned into an annuity on retirement. It's not a small sum.

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#64
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you overpay teachers, people who hate teaching, and hate being teachers, will become teachers for the money. Is a good idea to select the people who hate teaching to become teachers?

This is true of every single job. Teachers are high in big five trait agreeableness which means they typically don't negotiate on their own behalf

Teachers usually outsource negotiations to their unions and therefore largely cannot negotiate on their own behalf, even if they wanted to.

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#65

Hot take, I truly believe the answer for HS is yes. I grew up in a school district where the teachers had to have a master degree in the subject they were teaching. Those teachers strongly shaped me who I am today and I believe their advanced degree helped them become great teachers.

Did you grow up wealthy? If yes, it was probably that and not the teachers.

Nope. My family was below the poverty line at one point.

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#66

A friend who came from a wealthy family went to an Ivy League teaching school. While she was there, her family went bankrupt and she had to take on student loans. Fast forward to today, she regrets going there, saying a cheap state school would have been just as effective for her career.

You aren’t really paying Ivy League prices for the quality of the classes, but more the quality of the connections and reputation.

This is true (for anyone, actually), but how would a teacher leverage such connections?

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#67
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All things considered, it's much better than it's made out to be. Teaching is pretty stable, offers pensions, unionized, yearly adjusted for CPI, opportunities to increase pay schedule + extra pay with extra curriculars / duties, lots of time off, good hours. Don't get me wrong. There are issues and it does depend on the district (US). Now the aides..

True. As long as we can agree that that means that tripling the current compensation is a necessity. Quadrupling it (ie. matching entry-level FANG) is not that necessary. Btw: there is also the aspect that while children can get inspired and that is enormously motivating. Children also sabotage teaching and I've seen teachers leave because of that as well.

And where do you think that money will come from?

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#68
post #2

Teaching salaries start at $48,112 on average. If schools want advanced degrees the industry needs to pay more, and that's beyond whatever adjustment the provide for holding an advanced degree.

"The industry", at least at a pre-university level, is entirely at the mercy of state and local governments for its budgets.

If you want schools to pay their teachers more, you have to push for higher taxes, because that's where the money for them comes from. And you have to explain to your families and friends that yes, the extra $30.45 they had to pay this year is very, very meaningful, because it lets starting teachers make enough to actually afford rent, food, and clothes all in the same year. (You probably have to explain that part ad nauseam.)

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#69
post #28

It's funny that this is a question when every college STEM class is taught by people who have degrees that have absolutely nothing to do with being able to teach effectively.

I think a lot of teaching jobs are like that. If you were good at teaching STEM, I think you could probably work nearby in a STEM job for more money.

Unfortunately and for certain.

Re: Do teachers need advanced degrees?

#70
post #68
post #2

Teaching salaries start at $48,112 on average. If schools want advanced degrees the industry needs to pay more, and that's beyond whatever adjustment the provide for holding an advanced degree.

"The industry", at least at a pre-university level, is entirely at the mercy of state and local governments for its budgets. If you want schools to pay their teachers more, you have to push for higher taxes , because that's where the money for them comes from. And you have to explain to your families and friends that yes, the extra $30.45 they had to pay this year is very, very meaningful, because it lets starting te…

Teachers get can paid more whether you raise taxes or not. Chicago public schools runs a $700,000,000 deficit every year no sweat.

Chicago pays teachers more than any other place in the country and has close to if not the absolute worst student outcomes. Paying more doesn’t solve much

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