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And in case you're wondering where my original "teachers make double the median" bit came from, I was using the actual median for all workers (not just full time workers), which is around 21k.
Because that's not an attempt to obfuscate the issue at all.
And regarding the stuff about hours...
I don't know how it is in other states, but I've never heard of a 6-period school. Maybe NJ is irregular, IDK. But the I've only ever heard of 4-period days (with block scheduling) or 7/8 period days (without it). I've never had anything but an 8 or 4 period day. Every teacher in our schools teaches at least 5 classes. By law, they need two prep periods. But that's not time they spend pissing away, it's time spent doing stuff that needs to be done. Just because a teacher isn't in the classroom, doesn't mean they aren't working.
All my teachers either taught 5 classes and had a lunch duty (+2 prep periods), or they taught 6 and had two prep periods. The prep period was also the time in which they could eat lunch, while reviewing the lessons for the rest of the day, etc.
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Sure. Do you know any teachers? Ask them when they grade papers. Yes. Sometimes they have to take homework home to grade it. But it's not as often or as much time as you might think.
I know plenty of teachers. All of them grade homework on their own time. They might get some of it done during their prep periods, sure. But if they aren't just checking to be sure a student did an assignment and are actually reviewing it, there's no way they can grade all 120-180 of them in 1 or 2 40 minute blocks (which they are supposed to use to prepare for the rest of their classes).
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No, they aren't. Are you just making stuff up? While they might stay after school to help students at/near finals time (if they have semester assignments and want to help students finish), but that is not normally required (to be fair most teachers will do this), but it's hardly 1 day a week. It's more like one week out of each semester. They also are typically required to chaperon 2-3 school events a year (dances typically). That's it. It's not nearly the heavy burden that some try to make it out to be.
If a teacher is only available after school for 7 days every 2 marking periods, they suck. And that's all there is to it. They don't give a crap about whether or not their students learn.
The vast majority of teachers I've ever had voluntarily stayed after school a 1-3 days a week. I had teachers that were available 4-5 days a week--they'd purposefully plan to stay and do their grading in their classrooms after school so that, if students needed help, they'd always be available.
Then again, maybe that's part of the reason why NJ is the 4th best education system in the US.
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By the time a teacher has been teaching for a few years, those lesson plans are pretty well set, requiring only minor changes each year. Again, it's not that much "new" work. Don't get me wrong, I'm not belittling the efforts teachers put in, but I'm also not going to insist that they put in massively more time than other full time salaried professionals do. We all work hard out there. Teachers are not unique in that.
Again, then the teacher sucks and doesn't actually give a crap. Reusing the same lesson plans every year is a terrible idea. You learn new teaching techniques, and from mistakes, your entire teaching career. If teachers aren't constantly reviewing the topic and the way they teach it, then they shouldn't be teachers.
And you claim you don't want to belittle the work teachers do, yet all you've done is pretend like they work 5 hours a day for half the year. Hmmmm...
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Sure. And a teacher that puts that much extra time in earns about 50-60% more than the base salary. You can't point at both the low base median salary *and* those long hard hours of work. Either look at a teacher working 5 hours a day for 190 days a year, and earning 45-50k/year *or* look at a teacher working 8-9 hours a day for 220 days a year and earning 75-80k/year. You're trying to mix and match the greatest amount of work with the lowest amount of pay. That's simply not how it works at all.
Remember. A teacher working 6 units out of 6, and handling an extracurricular and teaching summer school, will earn 13.5/8ths of the base salary. That's 68% more than base. So if 50k is a median base salary, then that teacher (and that's literally the maximum one could work), would be earning 84k/year. That's the real "median pay" for a teacher doing all that stuff you talked about. And that's absolutely comparable to other professional fields *and* that's before taking into account their generally superior benefits and pension packages.
You only earn more if you take on more school responsibilities. Everything required for your classes is included in the initial salary. If you stay after 5 days a week to help your
students learn trig, then that's 5 hours of unpaid work every week.
Your examples are absolute ********* And your math is ludicrous. I like how you increase the median salary to demonstrate what that teacher would earn. And care to actually provide a source on your numbers?
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Except that they work 5 days a week every week of the year. When exactly are they going to take on a second job? There aren't a whole lot of part time jobs you can work where you only work after 6PM in the evening and/or only on weekends. And that now puts the engineer working vastly more total hours than a teacher. Also, how much is a job like that going to pay? Not nearly as much as a teacher will earn doing a summer school class.
A. Restaurants are a viable option, as are department stores. You know, the kind of jobs that teachers that work in the summer end up with?
B. You realize summer school only consists of a handful of teachers, right? It's not like they can all do it. And remember that a teacher working summer school is essentially giving up their vacation time. An engineer who doesn't use his unpaid time is going to make more too. Maybe not as much, but he works less per day too.
Frankly, if your "friends" only work 5 hours a day, they are horrible teachers and don't deserve their jobs.
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It's hugely relevant because they can fit another course in the consecutive time they are not working their normal hours. And that extra job pays them 12.5% of their base salary. You can't be serious about that claim.
No, it's irrelevant. They work just as many hours as other jobs, and condense them into 10 months. Yes, they CAN take a summer job. But that means the total number of hours they'll work will
vastly exceed the number of hours an engineer would work a year. Thus, it's irrelevant.
