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[MarsDragon]

Getting a degree in California basically requires either millionaire parents or an unheathy level of dedication.  My boss has already expressed a bias against potential employees who recently graduated around here.

Because they'd have rich parents or be dedicated? 

[Brentai]

They're either lazy or assholes.

No offense.

[Shinra]

The problem with teaching and teachers is that they are not paid enough compared to the importance of what they do, but it is difficult to qualitatively assess their performance.

The average salary of a teacher is between 40,000 and 50,000 dollars /yr, and work an average of 36 hours a week for an average of 38 weeks a year. That's 32 dollars an hour, on average, and an average monthly pay of 3,750 dollars. They make substantially more once they get tenure. Regardless, they also get phenomenal benefits.

I agree that spending in schools is an issue, but in most of the country, teacher pay really isn't one of them. If you were in, say, Oklahoma where the average teacher's pay is 30k, yeah, paying them more would certainly help, but I think if you're in the 40-50k range and complaining about not making enough, you're really overestimating how much you're really worth. Education's important, but you're still only getting paid to work 8 months a year for a job that you only needed a few years in a mediocre school for.

Consider that the average yearly pay for a Veterinarian is 75,000 dollars a year, basically what a teacher would make if they had to work a full twelve months, and that a vet is required to have a doctorate.

[Shinra]

The problem with teaching and teachers is that there is no good reason to be one unless you have an overactive sense of altruism, or you have a generic degree and nothing better to do with it.

I am of the opinion that if you need a reason to be a good teacher, then you really shouldn't be a teacher in the first place. See also, if you're one of those doctors who claims he'll leave the united states if he gets paid less under socialized medicine.

[Misha]

The problem with teaching and teachers is that there is no good reason to be one unless you have an overactive sense of altruism, or you have a generic degree and nothing better to do with it.

I am of the opinion that if you need a reason to be a good teacher, then you really shouldn't be a teacher in the first place. See also, if you're one of those doctors who claims he'll leave the united states if he gets paid less under socialized medicine.

This is dumb. You can see how dumb it is if you substitute "teacher" with any other job. We do not require janitors to be idealistic about their calling for cleanliness, and yet buildings all over the country are clean. We need proper standardized metrics and incentives for education.

[McDohl]

But, clearly, the current metric in public schools (in Texas, the TAKS/TEAKS/WHATEVERTHEFUCK) isn't working.

[Norondor]

No, it's working fine for its intended purpose, which, needless to say, is not to improve public schools in any way.

[Pacobird]

The problem with teaching and teachers is that they are not paid enough compared to the importance of what they do, but it is difficult to qualitatively assess their performance.

The average salary of a teacher is between 40,000 and 50,000 dollars /yr, and work an average of 36 hours a week for an average of 38 weeks a year. That's 32 dollars an hour, on average, and an average monthly pay of 3,750 dollars. They make substantially more once they get tenure. Regardless, they also get phenomenal benefits.

I agree that spending in schools is an issue, but in most of the country, teacher pay really isn't one of them. If you were in, say, Oklahoma where the average teacher's pay is 30k, yeah, paying them more would certainly help, but I think if you're in the 40-50k range and complaining about not making enough, you're really overestimating how much you're really worth. Education's important, but you're still only getting paid to work 8 months a year for a job that you only needed a few years in a mediocre school for.

Consider that the average yearly pay for a Veterinarian is 75,000 dollars a year, basically what a teacher would make if they had to work a full twelve months, and that a vet is required to have a doctorate.

The average household today makes 90% of the real wages in made in the 70s, and the average CEO makes about 260 times what an average worker in his company makes, compared to 24 back in the day.

Teachers' pay is not excessive; it is a throwback, protected by a ferocious union while everybody else was getting fucked.  That it looks excessive now says more about everybody else than it says about teachers.

I am not necessarily defending secondary education, but my problems with it have nothing to do with the compensation scale for teachers; rather, I think it focuses on the wrong subjects.  Civics & (home) econ >>>>>>>>>> calculus for its own sake

[Royal☭]

On the plus side, our schools are doing a bangup job producing kids who are really good at following the corporate command structure.  That's almost a pretty good argument to think that conservatives have been trying to wreck it since the 70s, since it provides a populous have internalized their own worldview without any form of coercion.

[Mongrel]

I keep looking at becoming a teacher for hopefully non-cynical reasons. P bird's assessment of teacher salaries (including the but about them being an outlier from a more equitable past) is pretty much spot-on. This is true for both the US and Canada.

Relevant extra info: Our public education systems are almost identical, with two exceptions:

1) Funding is set at the Provincial (i.e. State) level, so the "schools in wealthy areas are better" issue was never really a big problem for us (of course, it's impossible for there to be no difference at all, but the effects of being in a poorer school district were largely mitigated).
2) We don't really have charter schools (Alberta has a few).

[Pacobird]

On the plus side, our schools are doing a bangup job producing kids who are really good at following the corporate command structure.  That's almost a pretty good argument to think that conservatives have been trying to wreck it since the 70s, since it provides a populous have internalized their own worldview without any form of coercion.

Yeah, but the only thing anyone can teach you that will actually make you smarter is the ability to think critically, which teachers are way more psyched about imparting then the parents said kids actually go home to.

I have always thought a not-often-acknowledged reason wealthy/middle-class kids do better in school than lower class ones is that it is much easier to teach somebody to think critically when you can direct the thought exercises themselves away from how shitty his or her life is.

[Shinra]

The problem with teaching and teachers is that there is no good reason to be one unless you have an overactive sense of altruism, or you have a generic degree and nothing better to do with it.

I am of the opinion that if you need a reason to be a good teacher, then you really shouldn't be a teacher in the first place. See also, if you're one of those doctors who claims he'll leave the united states if he gets paid less under socialized medicine.

This is dumb. You can see how dumb it is if you substitute "teacher" with any other job. We do not require janitors to be idealistic about their calling for cleanliness, and yet buildings all over the country are clean. We need proper standardized metrics and incentives for education.

Incentives help, but I just feel like there are some jobs where you should want to do what you're doing. You should teach because you love to teach and you want to make a difference. There are other jobs out there that pay as much if you don't want to teach. There is a substantial portion of people out there who just get into this profession because they didn't feel like going anywhere else with their lives, and that's the biggest problem with education of them all.

The average household today makes 90% of the real wages in made in the 70s, and the average CEO makes about 260 times what an average worker in his company makes, compared to 24 back in the day.

Teachers' pay is not excessive; it is a throwback, protected by a ferocious union while everybody else was getting fucked.  That it looks excessive now says more about everybody else than it says about teachers.

I am not necessarily defending secondary education, but my problems with it have nothing to do with the compensation scale for teachers; rather, I think it focuses on the wrong subjects.  Civics & (home) econ >>>>>>>>>> calculus for its own sake

I agree with all points - I don't think that teachers are getting overpaid, I just find the 'teachers don't get paid enough' argument to be fucking laughable, because they average a pretty substantially high income for a job that is, to be perfectly honest, really fucking easy. Teachers aren't surgeons, and shouldn't be paid like surgeons.

Some practical classes as required learning would really be a start. I had a math teacher complain - at length - in high school that kids today can't do math without a calculator, and this was the reason we weren't allowed to use calculators in his class or on tests. The whole idea that we should not use a calculator when doing math - in an age where calculators are literally given away for free at the bank - is just the height of absurdity. If anything, we should have a required class on calculator use before we have a required class on math!

Why isn't Spanish required learning in every high school in the united states? I understand the far right xenophobia, but jesus christ knowing any spanish at all is really useful. In corporate america, being bilingual is a big plus on your resume, and Spanish is by far the most practical second language to learn in most of the united states, probably followed by Mandarin Chinese.

[Doom]

Some practical classes as required learning would really be a start. I had a math teacher complain - at length - in high school that kids today can't do math without a calculator, and this was the reason we weren't allowed to use calculators in his class or on tests. The whole idea that we should not use a calculator when doing math - in an age where calculators are literally given away for free at the bank - is just the height of absurdity. If anything, we should have a required class on calculator use before we have a required class on math!

Is this a joke or something because the obvious answer is "you need to do math and your calculator isn't in your hand, good luck."

[Shinra]

Doom; I don't see myself lost in the colorado wilderness, victim of a weird serial killer who has stripped me naked and taken away my cell phone, with my only escape being a series of math puzzles.

I can't honestly see myself in any situation where I would ever need math and not have easy access to my cell phone, which has a calculator built into it, as every cell phone has for the last ten years.

[Doom]

Maybe everybody here doesn't have to worry about it, being learned gentlemen and all, but it is a disservice to a budding mind to introduce a crutch to it before it learns the basics.

It's not that you always have access to a calculator, it's that they develop a dependence on a calculator that leads to comical things like inability to do base multiplication.

[Brentai]

Did you just call teaching an easy job?

All my teachers kept handguns in their desks to protect themselves from the people they were supposed to be educating.

[Shinra]

Did you just call teaching an easy job?

All my teachers kept handguns in their desks to protect themselves from the people they were supposed to be educating.

I'm referring to technical skill, not the dangers and rigors of the position. By this logic, convenience store clerks should be making more than 50k a year.

Also, most school districts really don't have those problems.

[Thad]

The average salary of a teacher is between 40,000 and 50,000 dollars /yr, and work an average of 36 hours a week for an average of 38 weeks a year. That's 32 dollars an hour, on average, and an average monthly pay of 3,750 dollars. They make substantially more once they get tenure.

Show me your source so I can determine whether it's wrong or you are.

[Joxam]

I deleted a post about teacher's salaries because I didn't think it was on topic for this discussion but if we're going to argue about that a bit I will hit the high points.

Before mom got sick she was a teacher (well technically she owned a store and managed a tutoring center after she stopped teaching because she couldn't make ends meet, but before that she was a teacher). The entire time she taught she spent about 500 dollars a month simply to supply her classroom with the essentials that happened to not be in the school budget, and if she ever got it in her head that she wanted her students to do any type of project, that could easily swell to over a grand a month depending on the length of and product needed for the project. Also, just because kids only have seven hours a day of school does not mean teachers do. She was frequently there an hour or so before school and didn't leave most days until 4:30 to 5:00 PM, and that's not even considering the time she spent grading shit or updating her curriculum. I don't know how any of the schools you went to worked, but around here teachers are provided with text books, a class room (mostly furnished), a computer (two if you're lucky), and enough seats for themselves and students. ANY THING ELSE they actually use to teach with, they bought themselves.

[Mongrel]

Maybe everybody here doesn't have to worry about it, being learned gentlemen and all, but it is a disservice to a budding mind to introduce a crutch to it before it learns the basics.

This. Just because we all use word processing instead of typewriters or handwriting, doesn't mean nobody should be taught spelling either.

One step at a time, one foot in front of the other. Just as a teacher should impart critical thinking as a crucial foundation, you need basic "Three Rs" to teach how math and language work, which is a pretty fundamental part of mental development.