If only we paid teachers more money...

[Mott the Hoople]

The problem is... we are NOT getting what we pay for in our education system.

I think we spend way too much money, primarily because it is overly burdened with administrative personnel. Look at the private sector, they don't need a school board, superintendent, admin staff etc... for each and every school district.

I think we also spend way too much on teachers who can't teach. Tenure needs to be re-addressed. It is way too hard to fire bad teachers.

That I don't disagree with but it aint all the teachers faults. What about empire building administrators who are more concerned about creating an empire then educating kids? What about apathetic parents who don't value a competitive education? My point is, if you just address the issue of poor teachers, you wouldn't have fixed the problem. We still wouldn't be getting our money's worth.

I think we have to be very carefull here not to demonize educators as most teachers are damned good, hard working and in very many cases working for far less then they could working careers in the private sector for which they are qualified. I myself turned down a job as a high school science teacher in Mecklenburg Country, NC cause I simply couldn't afford to take the pay cut. I make nearly double that in my current line of work. As I said earlier. Educators are no different then any other professional. You ussually get what you pay for.

 

[Timshel]

I don't know; I understand some of what you & Superfreak are saying, but I have still always felt that teaching is a vastly underpaid profession.

Engineering is a highly paid profession. Because of that, it attracts a lot of very intelligent, very ambitious candidates.

Teaching in general is pretty low on the pay scale. Many who end up in the profession either do it as a labor of love, or as a default option. If teaching was better paid, I think the whole culture around the profession would change, and would improve the quality of our education immeasurably.

It's probably one of the most important jobs in the country, if you weigh all of the factors & consequences in...

High pay without consequences for poor performance will not attract quality teachers. It will only attract those looking for high pay. I am not so sure that is what we are looking for in a teacher.

It might improve the quality of resumes received, but that does not mean they will be good teachers. Further, their performance will be affected by the knowledge that it does not matter.

It is a very important job. Which is why we can't afford bad teachers. The cost in money has little to do with it, because the cost in the loss of and/or damage to human capital is far greater.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

I don't know; I understand some of what you & Superfreak are saying, but I have still always felt that teaching is a vastly underpaid profession.

Engineering is a highly paid profession. Because of that, it attracts a lot of very intelligent, very ambitious candidates.

Teaching in general is pretty low on the pay scale. Many who end up in the profession either do it as a labor of love, or as a default option. If teaching was better paid, I think the whole culture around the profession would change, and would improve the quality of our education immeasurably.

It's probably one of the most important jobs in the country, if you weigh all of the factors & consequences in...

I think elementary and primary educators are low paid because traditionally they have been considred womens professions for those with strong nurturing skills and, in general, our society doesnt' value or appreciate those skills as much as they do the Engineers. That is a shame. These folks are very important profesionals that our society should value more.

 

[Timshel]

I think your missing my point here. There is a tendency to irrationally hold educators to a higher standard then we do other professionals. I was not implying that "It's all parents fault so don't fire teachers." I'm saying that were quick to blame educators for lack of our students performance even when it's not their fault. You can stuff a school full of Harvard PhD's and it won't mean shit in terms of this kids performance if they all come from families who's parents are mouth breathers that don't value education.

I mean look at Tinhead. Do you think he'd benefit from a Harvard education? He'd still be a lawn mower repair man!!

Nonsense. I am saying we should hold them to the same standards of other professionals.

You pretend that a generally low performing class can't be taken into account for reviewing the teachers performance. Of course, it can. I don't expect a class full of special needs kids to perform as well as the honor students. But, it is pretty easy to include such details into the metrics.

Nobody expects a batter to have the same OBP against the vastly superior pitching of the Rays. But that does not mean OBP is a completely useless metric.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

Nonsense. I am saying we should hold them to the same standards of other professionals.

You pretend that a generally low performing class can't be taken into account for reviewing the teachers performance. Of course, it can. I don't expect a class full of special needs kids to perform as well as the honor students. But, it is pretty easy to include such details into the metrics.

Nobody expects a batter to have the same OBP against the vastly superior pitching of the Rays. But that does not mean OBP is a completely useless metric.

Again, I don't have a problem with that. My point is to not listen to idiots like Tinhead who want to demonize an entire profession.

I also have to reiterate, you get what you pay for. IF you pay minimum wage for educators you'll get minimum effort and talent. If you pay top market dollars for educators but expect top level performance and accountability, you will get a higher quality of educator and you'll have stiff competition for those jobs but that doesn't neccesarily mean you'll get better test scores. You can only do so much with a Dixie or a Tinhead if you know what I mean?

 

[Canceled2]

When you take a a median base salary of an elementary teacher of 50k and add in benefits you get a total salary package of 72k. I am pretty sure that's a decent salary. The base salary of most teachers is 41k to 60k

BASE SALARY OF ELEMENTARY TEACHERS

10th percentile paid-33k-40k

25th percentile paid 41k-60k

75th percentile paid 61k-

TOTAL BENEFITS

Benefit Median Amount % of Total

Base Salary $50,951- 70.6%

Bonuses $0- 0.0%

Social Security $3,898- 5.4%

401k / 403b $1,936- 2.7%

Disability $510- 0.7%

Healthcare $6,103- 8.5%

Pension $2,548- 3.5%

Time Off $6,271- 8.7%

Total $72,216- 100%

 

[Minister of Truth]

I blame parents for disrupting the educational setting by producing unruly children.