Are You Sick Of Highly Paid Teachers?

[mac60]

I agree. Ditch the Union. Hire good teachers. Fire the bad.

The calculations used here are not fair to use. Our children are not piece rate. Most teachers make good money, have good pensions and are protected by the union... whether they are a good teacher or not.

Breaking their pay down to the hour per student is not a fair way to figure their pay, its just a round about way to get people to think they are under paid.... and I'm sorry, they are not getting paid to babysit my children... they are getting paid to educate a group of children at the same time. $50K+ for 180 days of work is good money.

Just my two cents.

TOTALLY agree here. In our area, teachers are paid really well, have excellent working conditions and benefits.

[momofboys]

My sister is a teacher (early elementary) & has been teaching for 31 years & she is GOOD (I mean a good teacher)! She has her master's degree too & she only just started earning about 50K a year. . . . of course this is after 30 some years of teaching! I guess I understand the part about not keeping those who aren't good or not giving raises unless it is deserved. But what about the good ones? Why should they be punished? And why shouldn't they earn a halfway decent salary? They have four year degrees & are required to continue to go to school. My sister had to have her masters in a certain timeframe. Continuing your education is not cheap & in most cases the schools don't always help pay.

[Unregistered]

FYI... I am currently a public school teacher (special education) and my salary is nowhere near $50,000. I make $30,000 before taxes. And I work WAY more than 180 days per year. That is merely the amount of days the students are there.

The 180 days are the only thing the public sees, though. Also the only thing a lot of people "want" to see. Same as tossing out $50,000 as a rate of pay. Skip the details for both of those, and it's easy to get people riled up and rally against the teachers.

Working conditions are excellent?? LOL!!! A room that's likely half full of kids who have no respect for anyone in authority, skip class half the time, disrupt class when they are there, don't do the work.. and have mommy and daddy backing them all the way.

I'll also just re-iterate that the 180 days are student days.. not teacher work days, and teachers don't just work the hours students are in their desks, either. SOME teachers are overpaid for sure, but there's more to it than $50K for 180 (+) days. That just shows how easy it is to get the wrong impression across.

[Unregistered]

Wait a minute. I am a preschool teacher and don't get paid enough to support my family. The money spent on preschool is for equipment, supplies, rent, electricity. All the same expenses you have at home are the same at preschool. Not to mention the snacks that are provided. Teachers need to be certified in cpr and first aide, at our own expense, we need to be finger printed and background checked, at our own expense. We are educated some with more than one degree, like me. For me it has never been about the money but for the children. Some of my students are at childcare 11 hours a day. Preschool teachers provide the bonding and nurturing the children crave during the day. CHildren learn life skills at preschool. We do that. We spend more time with your children than you do. How much do you get paid? Are you responsible for 12 other lives than your own? What an awesome responsibility. Walk a day in my shoes and quit whining. You are very lucky to have people like me to raise your children. It takes a village.

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours).


Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET'S SEE....
That's $585 X 180= $105,300
per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special
education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an
hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute -- there's
something wrong here! There sure is!


The average teacher's salary
(nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days
= $277.77/per day/30
students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!

[ex-preschool assistant]

To the preschool teacher above: you are so right. IMO, The Preschool teacher works much harder than school teachers... sometimes for less than minimum wage and almost always without health insurance or benefits. They never get the summers off (ok maybe regular teachers work through some of their summer breaks... but they STILL get paid vacations) and they KNOW that if they screw up, "tenure" is not going to save their job. If there is a potty accident - a teacher will send the kid to the school nurse.... not so for the preschool teacher. A teacher's job is cake compared to the average preschool teacher. They should realize that there are plenty of educators worse off than them and stop complaining that they are underappreciated.

[PolarCare]

Preschool teacher

My cousin graduated from high school the year before last. She is a preschool teacher and makes $8 an hour. She has no college education whatsoever and got the job with no experience. Her center paid for her CPR/first aid classes and reimbursed her for her interested person's report.

My sister in law is a high school teacher. For one, she doesn't get paid for time she doesn't work. She has the option to have her paychecks reduced during the time she does work so she still gets a paycheck during summer, but she doesn't do that. She teaches college courses in the summer. She went to school for 8 years and has her master's degree. She lived on spaghetti o's and top ramen and worked as a student teacher and at a tanning salon mopping up sweat to cover what her scholarships and grants didn't pay, as well as housing, etc. She deserves EVERY PENNY that she makes, especially after the rigors she went through to get her education.

Preschool teachers and daycare workers absolutely deserve to get paid better. I'm appalled at how very little they are paid, and that parents seem to feel they are somehow "entitled" to child care. As far as having a harder job...who oversees what a child is taught in preschool? There is no standardized testing, no budget consequence if Billy can't tie his shoes or Suzy doesn't know the alphabet. I spent Friday getting curriculum to teach my stepdaughter at home because at 4 1/2 she can't read or write, doesn't know the alphabet, her colors, to count to ten, write her own name, NOTHING. And frankly, I'm embarassed to take her to school that way. My kids could read and write, knew the alphabet by sight and sound, knew their colors, and basic shapes, and were very articulate by the time they entered kindergarten.

Our Elementary school lost 5 certified teaching positions this year. What does this mean? The school will have more students and less teachers next year. Larger class sizes. Teaching teams instead of individual teachers. Less individual attention. Kids slipping through the cracks. Teachers getting the same wage but working harder and harder. And evidently, sadly, a lot less appreciated!

[nannyde]

To the preschool teacher above: you are so right. IMO, The Preschool teacher works much harder than school teachers... sometimes for less than minimum wage and almost always without health insurance or benefits. They never get the summers off (ok maybe regular teachers work through some of their summer breaks... but they STILL get paid vacations) and they KNOW that if they screw up, "tenure" is not going to save their job. If there is a potty accident - a teacher will send the kid to the school nurse.... not so for the preschool teacher. A teacher's job is cake compared to the average preschool teacher. They should realize that there are plenty of educators worse off than them and stop complaining that they are underappreciated.

I don't know about where you are from but in Iowa a person can be a "preschool teacher" and not even have a GED. They don't have to go to college. They don't have student loans. All they have to have is a two hour child abuse class, a physical, TB test, and a clean background. They don't have to have ANY education... not even a fifth grade education.

They don't have to have documentable training until they have been in a Center for twelve consequtive months. If they change jobs.. which most do BY FAR.. the clock starts over. When they take a new job they don't have to bring anything to the new employer. There's no supervision by the regulating agency to make sure that they have any training if they DO child care... it's all based on the number of months they work for a center.

There's a reason why the pay is so low and the benefits non-existant. It's because the requirements to enter and stay in the profession are next to zero.

When every State requires all preschool teachers to actually BE teachers with a minimum of a bachellors degree and clinical/classroom experience BEFORE entering the profession THEN you will see the salary and bennies go up. We have to convince a nation that kids actually NEED preschool as opposed to just care before the age of five and that priority is a higher priority than using the money for age five to eighteen.

That hasn't happened because there really isn't any money for it and definitely no research to back up the benefits of it (with the exception of desperately poor children).