4 ms·

I would encourage people to actually look their local teacher's salaries, they should be a matter of public record. The "teachers make terrible money" talking p

by Exmoor 6y ago

I would encourage people to actually look their local teacher's salaries, they should be a matter of public record. The "teachers make terrible money" talking point has been a talking point my entire life so I was surprised when my wife pulled up our local elementary school records and showed me that our child's kindergarten teacher made over $100,000/yr. Her school's PE teacher made $120,000/yr. This is in a county where the median household income is $66,000/yr so I wouldn't call it a pittance. I'm sure there are plenty of places in the country where teacher pay is lower than it should be, but teacher's unions have benefited greatly by the perception that they're universally underpaid.

yardie 6y ago
In many cases teachers salaries are based on a schedule. If you know how long they've been teaching you can pretty much figure out where they are on the band. And there are additional grants subsidies; Title I school teachers get a Ed Dept supplement for teaching at poorer schools. They also get paid more for having a Master's or Ph.D. A teacher who has a M.Ed in early childhood development and also designs the curriculum (lead teacher) at a Title I school with 10+ years of experience will be pretty far up there. My college roommate became a biology teacher and his starting salary for a small T1 school district was $28k. If I remember the schedule correctly it was going to double once he completed his Masters and gained 4-5 years of experience. > teacher's unions have benefited greatly by the perception that they're universally underpaid. The union would still be closer to correct, teacher salaries, on average, are still low [0]. School performance and property prices are intertwined so maybe your district has decided that to retain good teachers they have to pay good salaries. 200 $500,000 homes will kick in over a $1.2-1.4MM/year in property taxes. [0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/a-look-at-teacher-pay-across-the-united-states-in-2017.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/a-look-at-teacher-pay-acro...
- Exmoor 6y ago
  > The union would still be closer to correct, teacher salaries, on average, are still low [0] A spot check of the linked BLS.gov numbers with Wikipedia's list of household income by state [1] showed that about 2/3 of states I checked paid teachers above the average household income and the rest were within about 10%. As you say, there's likely a large amount of variation in there and there are likely a lot of young teachers who are not getting paid fairly since union members have an inherent tendency to enact policies benefiting current members over future members. But with that said, I still stick by my original point which is that teachers do not, on average, make a "pittance." They make pretty close to an average household income, on average, and typically also have significantly better than average pension benefits and vacation benefits. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Income_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    The BLS numbers appear to be mean wages for secondary school teachers. Mean wages are higher than median wages. Secondary school teachers make more than other teachers, too. The BLS numbers also include pay for extracurricular and summer programs. The median secondary teacher makes about 95% of the median person with a bachelor's degree.[1][2] [2] https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-display/mobile/education-pays.htm https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-display/mobil...
pseudalopex 6y ago
Your child's teachers make well over the 90th percentile for kindergarten teachers.[1] [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252012.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252012.htm

by Exmoor 6y ago

yardie 6y ago

In many cases teachers salaries are based on a schedule. If you know how long they've been teaching you can pretty much figure out where they are on the band. And there are additional grants subsidies; Title I school teachers get a Ed Dept supplement for teaching at poorer schools. They also get paid more for having a Master's or Ph.D. A teacher who has a M.Ed in early childhood development and also designs the curriculum (lead teacher) at a Title I school with 10+ years of experience will be pretty far up there. My college roommate became a biology teacher and his starting salary for a small T1 school district was $28k. If I remember the schedule correctly it was going to double once he completed his Masters and gained 4-5 years of experience. > teacher's unions have benefited greatly by the perception that they're universally underpaid. The union would still be closer to correct, teacher salaries, on average, are still low [0]. School performance and property prices are intertwined so maybe your district has decided that to retain good teachers they have to pay good salaries. 200 $500,000 homes will kick in over a $1.2-1.4MM/year in property taxes. [0] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/a-look-at-teacher-pay-across-the-united-states-in-2017.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/a-look-at-teacher-pay-acro...

Exmoor 6y ago
> The union would still be closer to correct, teacher salaries, on average, are still low [0] A spot check of the linked BLS.gov numbers with Wikipedia's list of household income by state [1] showed that about 2/3 of states I checked paid teachers above the average household income and the rest were within about 10%. As you say, there's likely a large amount of variation in there and there are likely a lot of young teachers who are not getting paid fairly since union members have an inherent tendency to enact policies benefiting current members over future members. But with that said, I still stick by my original point which is that teachers do not, on average, make a "pittance." They make pretty close to an average household income, on average, and typically also have significantly better than average pension benefits and vacation benefits. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Income_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  The BLS numbers appear to be mean wages for secondary school teachers. Mean wages are higher than median wages. Secondary school teachers make more than other teachers, too. The BLS numbers also include pay for extracurricular and summer programs. The median secondary teacher makes about 95% of the median person with a bachelor's degree.[1][2] [2] https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-display/mobile/education-pays.htm https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-display/mobil...

pseudalopex 6y ago

Your child's teachers make well over the 90th percentile for kindergarten teachers.[1] [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252012.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252012.htm