Teaching: your opinions (poll)Follow

I worked more at entry level and made less. A teacher with my level of experience in St. Paul makes $75,000. To teach kindergarten. For 40 weeks a year.

Cry me a f'ucking river.

Around 90-100K I think. I'm not an employment expert by any means but they make about 20% more than teachers in B.C.

This. While I suppose it's possible that there might be some school districts out there that require extracurricular activities of their teachers and don't compensate them, I've never heard any direct report of any district which does do this. It's one of those repeated rumors which lots of people seem to know, but no one can actually say "district X in state y does this".

There are *some* after school activities which staff are required to help out on, but they're minor things, like helping out at a bake sale, or football game, or school dance. Most schools handle those sorts of things by requiring every staff member to pick 2 or 3 events each school year that they will attend. That's not even remotely in the same category as coaching a team though. If you coach a team, or manage the drama club, or whatever, you get paid more for doing those things *because* they require significant amounts of time.

Just for perspective, because, y'know, not all states are the same:



South Dakota teachers:

Starting salary = $26k

After 10 years = $34k

Comparison to average state wage = +34%



US average teacher's salary: $49k


So, let's at least pretend all teachers don't make $80-100K a year.

Yeah. This link has some interesting numbers about teacher salaries and different ways of measuring them.



No one said that. However, in states with higher average pay, teachers earn higher pay as well. The point is that teachers earn higher than average (state) pay in every state. You're free to argue that teachers should be making more above average than they are, but it's wrong to say that they're somehow being grossly underpaid.

On the one hand, she gets to finger paint and sing the ABCs all day.

On the other hand, she has to deal with vomit, crying, and five year olds losing control of their bodily functions fairly often. I know I widdled my pants one time in kindergarten and the teacher had to call my mother to have her bring fresh clothes.

75K for 20 years of that is a bargain.

I looked it up according to the BCTF (who are in bargaining for what it is worth)

http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/Publications/NewslettersAlerts/BargainingBulletin/2010-11/BargBulletin2011-01-25.pdf

  Category Vancouver Edmonton Winnipeg Toronto Elementary TO Secondary Newfoundland 
        5 min.  $45,909   $58,819  $50,259    $49,261            $50,231     $49,198 
        5 max.  $74,353   $91,213  $76,385    $85,322            $87,004     $63,458 
        6 min.  $50,488   $62,422  $56,329    $52,750            $53,790     $74,619 
        6 max.  $81,489   $94,814  $85,338    $90,173            $91,949     $84,415 
 

So what I read from this, very top paid teachers (non admin) in Alberta make under 100K and a lot more of them make around 60K. I am not sure what the categories mean though they sound like "steps" to me, which are usually based on time spent in the position. Teachers have steps based on education as well, with the top paid ones having to have masters or better in terms of degree.



Edited, Sep 22nd 2011 6:31pm by Olorinus

That would be for someone with a Master's degree. Considering the cost both in time and money (including lost earning power during the 5-7 years at school) ... it really isn't a very good wage.

Considering the 7 years of lost income (even at 30K a year, working mid-wage service industry type jobs) and the astronomical cost of the schooling, and the prime + 2.5% interest rate on the loans you have to take out to do it, I think it is fair for a teacher who gets to that point to make that kind of wage.

Nevermind that no teacher is starting at step six (max), or the fact that most beginning teachers spend 3-5 years (here in B.C. at least) being TOC (teacher on call) and working another job to make ends meet... and teachers at the top of their pay scale (so years of service and masters degree or better) in B.C. don't make 100K.

So lets see.

a) no teacher starts at the top wage bracket (100K) and in B.C. (the most expensive province in the country to live in) that top wage bracket is actually only 80K

b) It requires at least 5 years of schooling - probably 7 (4 for bach, 1 for teacher's college, 2 for masters) for most people to be educated enough to EVER qualify for that top bracket. The cost, plus interest of that schooling is borne by the wanna-be teacher.

c) Most beginning teachers AFTER spending 4-5 years in school (so NOT even qualifying for top wage bracket) then spend another 3-5 years only getting substitute teacher work (which they can only get after all the retired teachers who pick up these shifts and have seniority have had their share). One of the "teachers" I know works full time at my local pub. He can't get enough work as a teacher to pay his bills.

d) So you're looking of up to 10 years of your life before you can even get to the BOTTOM rung of the pay scale. It takes years more before you even get close to the top range of the pay scale.

So yeah, I think after bankrolling their own education, then being underemployed for years, and then working more than a decade making considerably less than 80K or whatever - I do think it is totally reasonable for a teacher to make the top wage scale for a few years.

Edited, Sep 23rd 2011 1:18pm by Olorinus

Edited, Sep 23rd 2011 1:20pm by Olorinus

Yep. Canada student loans (believe me I know) are 2.5% + prime. Thanfully prime is low right now, but how long is that going to last?

B.C. student loans have the same rate (although every other province iirc offers a lower rate).



Edited, Sep 23rd 2011 1:24pm by Olorinus

Edited, Sep 23rd 2011 1:25pm by Olorinus

Oh, did I say it was bad? If so, I retract. I am just saying I don't think it is unreasonable considering most teachers would only be making that at the very tail end of their career and only after investing a considerable amount of money into education and time into the profession.

I might not think it is a generous wage though, just in terms of workers with no education making similar amounts. If teachers had their education fully paid for and their entry into the workforce streamlined then 80-100K in the final years of their career would be quite generous. Given that isn't the case, I don't see any reason to begrudge them it.

Edited, Sep 23rd 2011 2:08pm by Olorinus

I think the point is that it's formulaic, while for the rest of us, it isn't. If you are a teacher and get a masters and work for X years, you will make Y salary (which might be that 100k figure). If you are in any other profession and you get a masters and work X years, you might make 100k. Or you might make 50k. Or you might make 250k. It depends on how well you work, what your field is, and what the market values your labor at.

The tradeoff of working in a largely unionized field with standardized wages like that is that the resulting average wages kinda has to be lower than what you "might get" with the same education in another field. Certainly, it's absurd to argue that teacher salaries should be compared only to the highest earning professions with similar degrees (doctors and lawyers commonly come up). A whole hell of a lot of people have masters or higher degrees and don't make as much as a public school teacher.



Sure. And some workers with the same education make lower amounts. You keep kinda leaving that part of the equation out.



No one else gets that benefit either. The hardship for a teacher to gain a masters degree is no greater than any other professional. Actually, it's less so since they get significantly larger blocks of time off in which they can take courses towards a degree. It's pretty trivially easy for a teacher to get a bachelors, begin teaching, then obtain a masters. It's a hell of a lot harder for someone working full time to advance their education.

But even ignoring that, you're still forgetting that there's no guarantee of any given salary in any other profession. In non union professions you get paid based on the value of your labor to your employer. Having a higher degree increases your odds of your labor being worth more, but that's really it. In education, they just assume that a degree is worth X more dollars per year. For everyone. We can debate the necessity of that sort of pay system within education or the difficulty of trying to find any sort of alternative pay system, but I think it's unfair to just ignore that as a factor when discussing this topic.

And most young people in other professions don't immediately land their dream job either. What is your point?



No, I'm really not. You are selectively accounting for it.



It is vastly easier to land a teaching job out of college than the average of other equivalently degreed professions out there. You'll have to spend a couple years subbing before you get a permanent position, but you're gaining seniority while doing that. Have you *ever* heard of someone dropping out of the teaching profession because they couldn't land a job? They drop out because they decide they don't like it, but not because positions aren't available.

I've met lots of people bemoaning the fact that they aren't using their business degree, or math degree, or science degree in their current (often low paying) job. People often get teaching credentials after getting a 4 year degree *because* they can't land a job with that degree and decide to try teaching instead. I just don't buy that it's even remotely as hard to land a teaching job as other jobs with similar education requirements. From everything I've seen, read, or heard about, it's the exact opposite.



Absolutely. But you can't have it both ways. When people compare teacher salaries to doctors and lawyers they are trying to have the stability *and* the high pay. Which is more than a bit unfair IMO.



Not sure about the specific case that was brought up, but teacher pay ladders rarely have more than 10-12 rungs on them. Meaning teachers reach that "max pay" level far far earlier than "in their final years". And IIRC, the case was about a kindergarten teacher, which is usually considered one of the bottom rungs in terms of pay (they might be higher than grade school, but lower than middle or high school teachers). Remember, the issue is the automatic pay scale. If a kindergarten teacher is making 100k in a district, then a high school teacher (every high school teacher) with the same number of year in that same district is presumably making some significant amount more.


Um... I don't want to get caught up on one case though. The point being that public school teacher pay is often complained about as being too low, when in reality it most often ranges from "about right" to "OMFG they make that much?!!!".