Do teachers get paid enough?

[Amanda1858]

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Teachers on average have seen a dip in their pay, and teachers earn $750 less per year than 14 years ago. And now they are spending more and teaching longer and to more students every year.

Do you think teachers get paid enough?

No, our teachers don't get paid enough. They have one of the most important jobs in the world as far as I'm concerned. The administrators make good salaries; they should split some of that money with the ones who do the teaching in the classroom.

 

[gdgyva]

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Teachers on average have seen a dip in their pay, and teachers earn $750 less per year than 14 years ago. And now they are spending more and teaching longer and to more students every year.

Do you think teachers get paid enough?

No but I want to qualify that remark. I think the best teachers ought to earn 80-100k annually. Why, because they are responsible for getting our future leaders ready.

But we have way too many that have given up. There are reasons for it....no money, kids not ready to learn, impossible student to teacher ratios, etc

And we need to clean up the issues with the unions

 

[natsb]

That's a pretty bad idea. For-profit institutions tend to be good at favoring those who can pay for them and completely sidelining those who cannot. That's institutionalizing a de facto caste system. The better idea isn't to get government out of education but to improve it. I'm for eliminating property values as a basis for which districts are best funded.

Getting Government out of education is a great idea. A for profit school is going to try a lot harder to keep students than a school with guaranteed income. The solution to your concern is simple. Give every student a voucher. That way the school treats every student the same regardless of family income. It is time for the left to become pro-choice.

 

[Amanda1858]

How much do they get paid?

I'm not sure. But---I used to work with a woman who taught school for many years and quit to become a nurse. She said she made way more money as a nurse (around $50,000/per year.) She also said nursing was easier work. This is in California.

 

[Cardinal]

Getting Government out of education is a great idea. A for profit school is going to try a lot harder to keep students than a school with guaranteed income. The solution to your concern is simple. Give every student a voucher. That way the school treats every student the same regardless of family income. It is time for the left to become pro-choice.

Which is awesome for everyone who happens to live near those schools, and sucks for anyone who doesn't. And it'll eventually suck for those better schools that do get mobbed by everyone within a forty mile radius.

Better to remove the property value as a measure for school funding and fund all schools equally.

 

[LibertyNut]

Perhaps my understanding of supply and demand is wanting, but based on the information you provided how does that support the idea that they are paid enough? Also, the value is not meaningless: I'm sure you have your own theory of what a "good" salary is, and whether teachers are deserving of such a salary. To give you an example, I hold teachers in high regard and believe they should be paid a salary that allows them to save for retirement and buy a home.

Basically, the argument is that since there is a greater supply of teachers then there are demanded positions the equilibrium level (in a totally free market) would lead to lower wages for teachers.

 

[countryboy]

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Teachers on average have seen a dip in their pay, and teachers earn $750 less per year than 14 years ago. And now they are spending more and teaching longer and to more students every year.

Do you think teachers get paid enough?

Some do, some don't. Most do pretty well when you consider their benefits and summers off. Teachers in higher end communities do quite well.

 

[LibertyNut]

The question is fundamentally flawed. "Do teachers get paid enough?" is the same as asking "Does Google get paid enough for advertising?" If we did not use a public dominated school system the wages for teachers would evolve naturally from socialites value of teachers and the relative abundance of those teachers.

 

[natsb]

No, our teachers don't get paid enough. They have one of the most important jobs in the world as far as I'm concerned. The administrators make good salaries; they should split some of that money with the ones who do the teaching in the classroom.

We may agree here. Cut the money going to admin and spend it in the classroom. They can start with the $67 billion wasted on the Department of Education. Then they can start closing those local Board of Education buildings and shifting the responsibilities to the schools.

I think teachers do get paid enough given their current responsibilities. They actually have little say in what happens in their own classrooms. I vote for a radical change in the system. I say the teachers should be paid much more. More in line with other professional careers. For instance, why not pay them $100k or more, but... Make them responsible for what happens in the classroom, just like other professional careers. On the same note, school principals should be getting C level earnings. And again, in order to keep the job and its income, they should be held responsible for the schools performance.

 

[Robbie Loucks]

Not in the United States.

 

[natsb]

Which is awesome for everyone who happens to live near those schools, and sucks for anyone who doesn't. And it'll eventually suck for those better schools that do get mobbed by everyone within a forty mile radius.

Better to remove the property value as a measure for school funding and fund all schools equally.

Live near what schools? If every parent had a choice where to send their children, schools would pop up all over the place. I know if I saw and under served location, I would open a school in a heartbeat. It was under a hundred years ago that dozens of smaller schools within walking distance were the norm. Gigantic schools that serve thousands of students can go the way of the dinosaur as far as I am concerned.

 

[LibertyNut]

Which is awesome for everyone who happens to live near those schools, and sucks for anyone who doesn't. And it'll eventually suck for those better schools that do get mobbed by everyone within a forty mile radius.

Better to remove the property value as a measure for school funding and fund all schools equally.

Not true. Suppose we used a voucher system and suppose for a moment that you have a poorly run school near you. The only thing standing in the way of new school coming in to compete with said poor school is the cost of renting a few rooms across town and required documentation with the government powers that be.

 

[Painter]

Looking at this chart: How much teachers get paid — state by state - The Washington Post

Teachers are paid enough as compared to other professions.
ESPECIALLY when you consider that they get the summer off in most cases, in addition to all of the paid vacations.
Teachers have a chance to take on a summer temp job. In some places such as summer tourist towns, these type supplemental jobs pay well and are easy to come by.

However, if you want better teachers, you might want to pay them a bit more.
If you are evaluating the performance of our teachers and the success of our students, it would indicate that the pay is not enough.

I am only OK with paying teachers more if other professions are looked into as well.

 

[LibertyNut]

High admin costs will always be associated with government run schools. Even if you somehow manage to cut admin costs, they will find a way to justify them later.

 

[natsb]

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Better to remove the property value as a measure for school funding and fund all schools equally.

I forgot to respond to your second point. All schools should not be treated equally. Good schools should prosper, and bad schools should be allowed to fade away. Instead of funding a school based on local taxes, they should be funded by the number of students that want to attend that school. When the bad schools are down to a handful of students, they will have to close or go under new management.

 

[Cephus]

Apparently teachers think they get paid enough because they continue to be teachers. If not, they'd go get other jobs.

 

[Hard Truth]

Most teachers are not very good, so I say no. We should raise the standards for teachers and pay more. That doesn't mean that teachers should be evaluated on test scores alone. Also, the pay should be higher for teachers working with more challenging students (ESL, low income etc.)

 

[PirateMk1]

The USA gets great results until you count in illegal immigrants, immigrants that don't speak English, gangs, inner city poor and uneducated, etc.

Isn't the purpose of public school to educate the uneducated and the poor? If it cant do that why am I paying for it?

 

[natsb]

Isn't the purpose of public school to educate the uneducated and the poor? If it cant do that why am I paying for it?

The purpose of public school is to educate all students, regardless of abilities or financial status.

I agree, if a school can't do that it should be shut down or the staff in it replaced. Failing schools should not receive unending funding.

 

[ChezC3]

Depends on where they live and when. In some areas, quite frankly, state dollars cannot in any way compete with private dollars. In some of those areas teachers wouldn't make enough to acquire a run down apartment, let alone anything resembling a middle class lifestyle. This runs across the board with government employees, and thus there is a dearth of bureaucrats *everywhere* with that economic reality.

For many teachers, I'm sorry, but they make a comfortable wage, pretty good benefits, retire earlier, and many of the folks that work in similar fields make far less and work just as much (if not more).

Then compare the wages of a starting public school teacher against that of the adjunct professor at a university, and you'd probably get laughed at if you argued that the public school teacher had it bad. You'd practically come out ahead if you gave up the idea of acquiring a PhD and teach at the postsecondary level in order to teach kids at a public school.

Every late summer, we have to indulge a certain segment of the professional class's martyrdom complex, while plenty of "unsung heroes" remain in the shadows (but do not demand nearly as much public pomp and circumstance).

It's not a popular point to bring up with teachers that the quality of oppression has been mixed if not overstated, but it's the truth.

I agree that a big part is location, location, location. On average private schools pay less than public. I'm not talking Phillips Exeter private, I'm talking your local parish run school private.

What's comfortable? benefits, I may agree with, retire earlier? How much earlier? What's similar to dealing with 100's of rotten brats everyday for 8 hours?

Ah, it's the adjunct thing. It's all clear now...

 

[Cephus]

Isn't the purpose of public school to educate the uneducated and the poor? If it cant do that why am I paying for it?

You cannot educate people who do not wish to be educated, who are only sitting in your classrooms because they are mandated by law.

 

[Cardinal]

Most teachers are not very good, so I say no. We should raise the standards for teachers and pay more. That doesn't mean that teachers should be evaluated on test scores alone. Also, the pay should be higher for teachers working with more challenging students (ESL, low income etc.)

Agreed. If the pay is higher, more people will want to study to be teachers and the job will attract a higher caliber. Not many people want to work the long hours for crappy pay, and all just to serve as a pinata for society that doesn't especially appreciate educators to begin with.

I came from a good public school system myself. I was shocked afterward by how good I had it when I read about the underfunded demilitarized zones that are so common throughout the rest of the country. We had our share of bad teachers, but they were, I have to say, the exception than the rule.

 

[Cardinal]

You cannot educate people who do not wish to be educated, who are only sitting in your classrooms because they are mandated by law.

You can apply that to anyone when you replace "law" with "any force at all," such as a parent.

 

[akrunner88]

You cannot educate people who do not wish to be educated, who are only sitting in your classrooms because they are mandated by law.

Yea well that's the price you have to (I would say GET to) pay when you live in a first world country. Get over yourself.

 

[ttwtt78640]

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Teachers on average have seen a dip in their pay, and teachers earn $750 less per year than 14 years ago. And now they are spending more and teaching longer and to more students every year.

Do you think teachers get paid enough?

Yes, or they would quit and qualified replacements would refuse to apply. This applies to any profession.