Because I couldn't keep my mouth shut ...
I just posted this in the local newspaper online comments section thingie:
Liberty - You are wrong. Normally, I try to be a little more elegant than that, but you are flat out wrong when you say that teachers work about 75% of the time that people in the private sector do. I can only assume that you mean because of their winter/Easter/summer breaks?
Let me set you straight. The average private sector worker works approximately 40 hours per week for 52 weeks a year - not including paid vacations or paid sick time or paid holidays. That works out to be 2,080 hours of work in a 52 week year.
Your average teacher works that 2,080 hours in 75% of the time that it takes average workers. The hours come where you typically don't see them: In lesson planning, before and after school meetings with parents, staff, and students, grading papers at home, field trips, student advising, chaperoning school activities.
People need to get it through their heads that while teachers don't do it for the money, not paying them a decent wage for the services they do is going to result in either no teachers or bad ones.
Teachers not only have to do their Bachelors, but they have to complete continuing education that is out of pocket. How many other private sector jobs out there do you know of that REQUIRE that in order to keep your job you have to pay to keep your certification? Tens of thousands of dollars - I'm not talking about a credit here or there - were talking the equivalent of a Master's degree. Some opt to get a Master's degree. Know what the average bump for a Master's degree is? $1500 a year. Know what the average Master's degree costs? About $45,000. It would take THIRTY YEARS of that $1500 bump to pay for the Master's degree.
I have a friend that is at the top of her pay scale, meaning she can't make any more money where she is. She has a Master's degree. She has tenure. She has been teaching for over 10 years. She makes $75k. Her degrees and certifications cost more than that. What job in the private sector caps you out of a salary but requires you to get even more education?
Furthermore, the average daycare provider makes almost twice what the average teacher makes. TWICE. And they don't have to have anything other than a State issued license, a fire escape, and some insurance.
It's ridiculous how this country claims to value education and yet thinks that it's OK to screw the teachers at any given chance. You want out of the recession and the joblessness? It's gonna be education that does it and you don't get education without teachers. Period. Full stop. I've seen it my whole life and I'm tired of it. We as a country don't value education. If we did, we would make sure that teachers get paid what they're worth.
Liberty - You are wrong. Normally, I try to be a little more elegant than that, but you are flat out wrong when you say that teachers work about 75% of the time that people in the private sector do. I can only assume that you mean because of their winter/Easter/summer breaks?
Let me set you straight. The average private sector worker works approximately 40 hours per week for 52 weeks a year - not including paid vacations or paid sick time or paid holidays. That works out to be 2,080 hours of work in a 52 week year.
Your average teacher works that 2,080 hours in 75% of the time that it takes average workers. The hours come where you typically don't see them: In lesson planning, before and after school meetings with parents, staff, and students, grading papers at home, field trips, student advising, chaperoning school activities.
People need to get it through their heads that while teachers don't do it for the money, not paying them a decent wage for the services they do is going to result in either no teachers or bad ones.
Teachers not only have to do their Bachelors, but they have to complete continuing education that is out of pocket. How many other private sector jobs out there do you know of that REQUIRE that in order to keep your job you have to pay to keep your certification? Tens of thousands of dollars - I'm not talking about a credit here or there - were talking the equivalent of a Master's degree. Some opt to get a Master's degree. Know what the average bump for a Master's degree is? $1500 a year. Know what the average Master's degree costs? About $45,000. It would take THIRTY YEARS of that $1500 bump to pay for the Master's degree.
I have a friend that is at the top of her pay scale, meaning she can't make any more money where she is. She has a Master's degree. She has tenure. She has been teaching for over 10 years. She makes $75k. Her degrees and certifications cost more than that. What job in the private sector caps you out of a salary but requires you to get even more education?
Furthermore, the average daycare provider makes almost twice what the average teacher makes. TWICE. And they don't have to have anything other than a State issued license, a fire escape, and some insurance.
It's ridiculous how this country claims to value education and yet thinks that it's OK to screw the teachers at any given chance. You want out of the recession and the joblessness? It's gonna be education that does it and you don't get education without teachers. Period. Full stop. I've seen it my whole life and I'm tired of it. We as a country don't value education. If we did, we would make sure that teachers get paid what they're worth.