Teachers salary

[Babs]

If McDonalds were to cut in half the salary of the CEO and have open auditions for the position

I take it argument by analogy is not your strongest suit.

[Clark Addison]

If McDonalds were to cut in half the salary of the CEO and have open auditions for the position, there would be a flood of tryouts. If they were cut it down to 1/10th the current salary with open auditions, there would be just as many applicants. Does this mean that the CEO of McDonalds is overcompensated by a factor of 10? In both the real teaching scenario and the hypothetical McDonalds one there are better explanations than 'so many people are willing to teach suggests that teachers aren't significantly underpaidfor why the applicant/position ratio is so high.

How many of those would be qualified applicants? I would be happy to do Kobe Bryant's job for 10% of his income, but sometimes willingness is not enough.

[mUUser]

I'm hard pressed to come up with many other professions that are as straight-forward and well understood by those that choose to enter the field.....hours required, pay, promotion opportunities, stability etc.... pretty much general knowledge.

[LA Ute]

I read today that a husband-wife teacher team in New Jersey would make $164,000 together by the time they had been teaching for 20 years. They'd have a retirement package worth $3 million. (They contribute nothing to the package - it's all taxpayer-funded.) Their retirement paychecks would go up by 8% annually. And they get tenure after 3 years on the job. This all sounds pretty questionable (and unsustainable) to me.

[Babs]

I read today that a husband-wife teacher team in New Jersey would make $164,000 together by the time they had been teaching for 20 years. They'd have a retirement package worth $3 million. (They contribute nothing to the package - it's all taxpayer-funded.) Their retirement paychecks would go up by 8% annually. And they get tenure after 3 years on the job. This all sounds pretty questionable (and unsustainable) to me.

New Jersey has the 4th highest average teacher salary, at $60,000. It's conceivable you would top out at 82. Don't know about the retirement numbers, but you'd only have to pay them each 50 per annum over 30 years of retirement to hit a $3 million package.

[old_gregg]

New Jersey has the 4th highest average teacher salary, at $60,000. It's conceivable you would top out at 82. Don't know about the retirement numbers, but you'd only have to pay them each 50 per annum over 30 years of retirement to hit a $3 million package.

I'd be curious to know what % of their teachers have a graduate degree compared to the national average. Doesn't that significantly increase a teacher's salary?

[LA Ute]

New Jersey has the 4th highest average teacher salary, at $60,000. It's conceivable you would top out at 82. Don't know about the retirement numbers, but you'd only have to pay them each 50 per annum over 30 years of retirement to hit a $3 million package.

I think the $3 million figure includes health benefits and such. I'm more alarmed by 3-year tenure and the 8% annual increases. The piece I read did say $82K was where NJ teachers top out. Don't know how long it takes to get there.

[RobinFinderson]

I take it argument by analogy is not your strongest suit.

It isn't! I've got many strengths. How nice of you to notice. The one that people probably mention the most is tact.

[The_Tick]

I'd be curious to know what % of their teachers have a graduate degree compared to the national average. Doesn't that significantly increase a teacher's salary?

Nope.

My wife has her MA in Special Ed.

She received a 1k raise.

[Babs]

Nope.

My wife has her MA in Special Ed.

She received a 1k raise.

yeah, usually you get a couple thousand a year. Depends on the subject.

[grapevine]

There are two elementary teachers husband and wife meant in Texas and took job here over 20 years ago. From Wisconsin. Had to take pay cut as funding was cut this year. I think make 40,000 money a piece. Were able to travel to Europe. Before Stork showed up traveled a great deal.

Teachers do get great fringe benefits and retirement I think. Starting salary with just Bachelors may not be a whole lot. Masters and Doctorate more. But by retiriement I am sure most make 60 k. Idaho when age and years of service 90 can retire.

I know a few that retire than teach part time. Can't get full benefits if they teach full time. For coaches many nonteachers coach were I am at. Many districts have nonteachers as coaches. Teachers do not want too.

But a good deal of them coach and do other extracurricular activities after school. About $4000 extra is what I think is average for extracurricular activities. There are some that don't come until 5 minutes before school, leave less than 5 after. Only nonteaching is a few meetings. Many do put in time though outside school. Great thing about job is summers off. As teachers that don't go to school to keep certificataion why are they still teaching? BS you will lose job if you don't go to summer school.

Anyway like other proffesions people know conditions and salary before they go into it.

[Lost Student]

A charter school in NYC is trying this approach: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/ny...07charter.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/ny...yf7zdU2UuvNxfg


It's true, higher salaries do attract better applicants. I know a few PhD-holding college profs. who applied to work at this school.

You lost me where you implied that PhD-holding college profs. are "more talented and competent teachers."

[LA Ute]

From Chris Christie's much-discussed speech a few days ago:

Leadership, today in America, has to be about doing the big things and being courageous. That’s what it has to be about. Same thing with health benefit reform, which is an analogy to Medicaid and Medicare here in Washington. And if you think that the public workers in New Jersey hold on any less strongly to the benefits that they get through the government - teachers in New Jersey who pay nothing for their health insurance, nothing, from the day they are hired until the day they die, for full family medical coverage that costs the state of New Jersey $24,000 per family. If you don’t think they’re holding on to that tight, you’re not paying attention. The battles are similar. And here’s the problem. You can’t fix these problems if you don’t talk about them. You cannot fix these problems without talking about them....

The last example of that is education reform and all I’ll say about this is that in my state, where we spend $17,620 per pupil per year - the highest in America, $24,000 dollars per pupil in city of Newark, $28,000 dollars in Asbury Park - and we have 104,000 students trapped in two hundred failing schools across New Jersey. And the education establishment says , don’t worry help is on the way. And the help that’s on the way is more money, more money. Well more money is not going to solve this problem until we take on the issues that are really causing the problem. And until we as Americans are willing to do that final tough thing, which is to look the teachers’ union across America in the eye and say to them, you do not represent the best the teachers have to offer, you often represent the worst. And it’s time for us to honestly say that we can separate the teachers from the union. We have great teachers in New Jersey, working hard and making a huge difference in the lives of many children, but we don’t have enough of them. And one of the reason why we don’t have enough of them is because the bad teachers who remain with lifetime tenure are crowding out opportunity for the good ones, and then when you have reductions, the last ones in are the first ones out because all that matters is seniority and not talent. And so we send a new generation of teachers, good enthusiastic teachers, away because we have built a system - as Michelle Rhee put better than I could - that cares more about the feelings of adults than it cares about the future of our children. I will not take responsibility for that approach. I will not take responsibility for leaving a generation of children behind in America. I won’t do it. And we need to speak out and say it’s time to fix that system. Tell me where else in America - well really there’s two places - left in America where there’s a profession where there is no reward for excellence and no consequence for failure. Of course we all know the first one is weathermen. It doesn’t matter, it’s going to snow six inches, it snows eighteen. Well I said it was going to snow, what’s the difference? And they’re right back on TV the next night. Unfortunately, the second one is teaching. Because the great teacher, the only reward they get is the psychic reward of knowing that they’ve done a great job for the children in their classroom. And the teacher next door, who’s a lousy teacher who doesn’t care, gets paid the same as the teacher who stays late and comes early, the same as the teacher who communicates with parents, the same as the teacher who feels it’s his or her personal responsibility to lift each child up to the next grade. That’s not what America is. America is built on rewarding excellence and having consequence for failure. So we need to deal with that issue as well, not only in every state but in America.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/...#ixzz1F8iUt2AI