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I realize this piece is more of a rant, and I won't hold it to a data accuracy standard it never pretended to have, but they pay issue is really misconstrued. S

I realize this piece is more of a rant, and I won't hold it to a data accuracy standard it never pretended to have, but they pay issue is really misconstrued. Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median, and when accounting for benefits and pension, quite impressive. In South Dakota and a number of states in the south and rural districts, yes it is another story, and it is bad. Also, teachers NEVER want to discuss pay differentials by anything but years of service. I'm sorry, but most qualified high school physics teachers have way differently valued skillsets in the labor force by alternate employers than most kindergarten teachers.

taneq 4y ago
However much they're paying teachers, it's clearly not enough, because not enough people are willing to do the job for that amount of money. Assuming you had all the skills required to be an effective teacher, would YOU put up with everything they put up with for that salary? Because I sure as hell wouldn't. (As an aside, it's different depending on where you are but in Australia, comparing teacher salary can be difficult because "they get 12 weeks of holiday a year" and "they only work 6 hours a day" but also they do 3+ hours of unpaid marking and lesson planning a day, they're expected to show up at the end of those 'holidays' prepared for whatever courses they've been assigned for the next term, etc. A close relative is a teacher and it's insane what they have to deal with.)
- throwaway9870 4y ago
  > However much they're paying teachers, it's clearly not enough, because not enough people are willing to do the job for that amount of money. The problem is that the scope of the job has changed and you can't pay people enough to do it. Here are some issues, straight from teachers I was talking to last week: * Admin who constantly wants teachers to do more with no additional resources so they can get credit for it and advance their career. They were very frustrated by this. * Teaching evaluation based on absolute standardized scores rather than relative. So you can have a bad class, lift them a lot, but still be viewed poorly because on absolute terms, they are still weak. You might say that evens out over time, but it doesn't because some teachers are better with difficult students, so they get more than their share of these issues. * Special needs students mainstreamed - kids with emotional issues that flip desks and yell out constantly, physical issues such as seizures if they bump their head, but parents will not let them wear protective gear because they will stand out, elementary school kids who are constantly in physical altercations with other kids. * Kids come to school not having eaten since the day before, cloths that haven't been washed in days, etc. * Unable to give accurate grades because parents fight back and so teachers are forced to pass kids even though they know they are just pushing a big problem on the next teacher. * Zero support from parents and in many cases, outright hostility. * The classroom is a minefield regarding what can be discussed and cannot be discussed. Everyone has an opinion on how it should be done, but almost none of them have ever actually taught.
justin66 4y ago
> when accounting for benefits and pension That many teacher’s pensions require one to give up social security benefits makes the decision to teach more difficult, I would think, especially for those who are later in their working lives.
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  > That many teacher’s pensions require one to give up social security benefits Patently untrue unless maybe you work for the Dept of Defense or something. Teachers can collect SS like any other employee.
  - MarcusGunnz 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - justin66 4y ago
    There are many ways to compensate teachers [1], but in general, you really shouldn't make categorical statements on matters you are completely unfamiliar with. I help manage the finances of someone who is in the position of being unable to collect any social security benefits from the relatively brief time she had a regular job which paid into social security prior to becoming a teacher, and is also unable to collect her spouse's Social Security survivor benefits (she literally receives zero dollars from Social Security, though if she had never worked a day in her life, she's be able to collect her spouse's survivor's benefits). You've made quite a few comments in this thread: how many of them are as badly informed as this? "Windfall Elimination Prevention" and "Government Pension Offset" are things you can google if you're interested in learning a bit about this stuff. [1] States whose teachers participate in their own pension plans instead of Social Security include California and Texas, so it's not like these are rare concerns https://www.socialsecurityintelligence.com/teachers-retirement-and-social-security/ https://www.socialsecurityintelligence.com/teachers-retireme...
    - lr4444lr 4y ago
      I'm not above learning something. Texas seems to be district-dependent, and CA is statewide: https://www.trs.texas.gov/Pages/active_member_social_security_at_trs.aspx https://www.trs.texas.gov/Pages/active_member_social_securit... https://www.calstrs.com/social-security https://www.calstrs.com/social-security This is not the case for NY, and not in WI and PA as I have heard from teachers there. In cases where they don't receive it though, they're not paying into it either. I can't comment as to whether that is a good or bad thing, because I don't know those cases. Maybe the union membership by in large doesn't want to? For the benefit of others, I post this authoritative link from the USDOE: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/mapED/storymaps/TeacherSocialSecurity/index.html https://nces.ed.gov/programs/mapED/storymaps/TeacherSocialSe...
dwater 4y ago
Comparing teacher pay to the median wage isn’t an apples to apples comparison because the average teacher has between a bachelor’s degree and a master’s, a state certification with regular training and renewal requirements, and a good amount of professional experience. I was a high school teacher and when I left my salary went up by 50% on day one, passed 100% increase within 2 years, and tripled within 5 years. The median wage earner in a large city is probably paid hourly for service work. I do agree that the single pay scale across all public school teachers is an issue. You will never get someone to teach high school math, science, or tech if salary is a significant consideration.
- treis 4y ago
  It's pretty close to the median worker having a bachelor's degree so that doesn't really skew the comparison Ultimately teaching salaries are fine. The median teacher makes about the median salary. But it comes with great job security, benefits, and significantly more time off than the median job. The benefits are high enough to attract enough teachers. The problem are parents and administration. And more recently kids missed a couple years of school due to Covid and went feral. It's gotten to be a significantly worse job. Solution is to cut the bullshit. Not pay more to incentivize people to put up with the bullshit.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > Ultimately teaching salaries are fine. The median teacher makes about the median salary. But it comes with great job security, benefits, and significantly more time off than the median job. I know 3 public school teachers, in CA/NYC/NJ. Their 6 to 8 weeks off in the summer (if that, due to ongoing training), is nowhere near enough to offset the low pay per hour and most importantly, having to deal with garbage parents and their misbehaving kids. They also work many extra hours at home during the school year doing grading or prepping exercises or whatever. If we have a get together, the teachers will pretty much guaranteed to be working all or some portion of the evening. > The benefits are high enough to attract enough teachers Only if you think 30+ kids per class is acceptable. I would want no more than 20 kids per class.
orzig 4y ago
This is the best reply so far. In the US, things (good and bad) vary dramatically between school districts, but everyone talks about “teachers” as this monolithic group. In the Boston area it’s absolutely possible to exceed $100,000 salary. The pay scales are public, look it up yourself. I’m willing to believe many teachers are underpaid, and that those in Boston have legitimate gripes too, but we need to be clear about which context we’re discussing.
- xbar 4y ago
  Are you a teacher in Boston? How many years teaching and how much education above a bachelor's degree does it take you to get to $100,000? My experience is that the grids have $100,000 sitting out there like a Cadillac, but 99% of teachers get steak knives.
  - waylandsmithers 4y ago
    My anecdata- friend last year just crossed $100K in about her 15th year teaching in Boston suburbs. She didn't have to do any of the "add-ons" like sports team coaching, curriculum work, tutoring, etc. to get to that number.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I find the reply to be lacking in justification for why the price of labor for teaching is related to the median price for all labor.
throwaway6734 4y ago
It's still not worth the money. Ive spent time in the classroom in a large urban district and the job was twice as hard as my current software engineering job (for me) for literally half the pay
vostok 4y ago
> Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median Is the median the correct benchmark? The median household income in NYC was $67k in 2021 [0]. Why would someone choose to be a teacher making around the median [1] when you could be a software engineer and make 3x as much? It's not just a matter of trinkets and baubles. That difference allows you to comfortably afford a nice family sized apartment [2] in a safe area with a convenient commute. [0] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewyork/HSG010221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewy... [1] https://teachnyc.net/about-our-schools/salary-and-benefits https://teachnyc.net/about-our-schools/salary-and-benefits [2] https://streeteasy.com/building/15-gates-avenue-brooklyn/h https://streeteasy.com/building/15-gates-avenue-brooklyn/h
- pnf 4y ago
  That assumes someone qualified to be a teacher is also qualified to be a software engineer. Have you met a lot of urban public school teachers?
  - vostok 4y ago
    This post doesn't assume that, but I have met urban public school teachers who could have been software engineers since you asked. My post does assume that the career would attract more highly qualified candidates if the pay was higher.
    - prepend 4y ago
      I’ve met some too, but I’d say that most are incapable. Or they are the same proportion of the population that is capable. I don’t think teachers are any more or less likely than a typical person. I’d guess I’ve met and spend significant time with 100 teachers. And a handful were capable of being a professional programmer.
  - gumby 4y ago
    What has “urban” to do with it?
viraptor 4y ago
> most qualified high school physics teachers have way differently valued skillsets in the labor force by alternate employers than most kindergarten teachers. Do they? I read that as implying that physics teachers could potentially get some stem jobs. But is that actually true? If you can do math, you can teach yourself enough physics to teach in high school. But that gets you nowhere near the knowledge necessary for applying non-trivial physics at work.
- sidlls 4y ago
  "If you can do math, you can teach yourself enough physics to teach in high school." No, you can't. Even at the high school level there is jargon, historical methodology, and domain-specific nuance that isn't accessible to the self-taught. That's true for almost any subject one might think of, in fact.
  - viraptor 4y ago
    To be clear, I didn't write "be an exceptional physics teacher with knowledge of history, nuance, etc." - I agree that's not a trivial thing and a very desirable one. But if you need "just a physics teacher" for a given spot, I stand by my opinion.
    - sidlls 4y ago
      I mean, if you’re talking about the happy path where every student understands the material on the first pass or can work out issues on their own then maybe. But that’s not how teaching or learning works for anyone, including super geniuses.
  - srdone 4y ago
    What prevents anyone from learning all they need about any subject on their own? If someone is capable of reading, it seems to me they could teach themselves any subject using books. Of course, having a good teacher to guide them in which sources to read, etc, would greatly speed up the process of learning. However, I don’t see any reason someone cannot learn any subject on their own.
brohoolio 4y ago
Starting salaries for many districts for jobs that require a masters is pathetic. Many suburban schools pay decent, but often urban centers pay poorly. I know one person who was offered under $30k for teaching young special Ed folks. This is someone who has a masters and extra certs on tops of that. Your argument about physics teachers being more sought after is interesting but misses the point. As a society we want our children to have the best outcomes, providing them with the best education at early ages provides that. To have the best education you want to pay well and attract the best candidates. Not have those teachers splitting their time with Uber so they can afford rent. There was a study that showed the value of great kindergarten teachers and it’s over $300k a year. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/07/28/128819707/the-kindergarten-experiment https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/07/28/128819707/the-...
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Nobody is ever paid for the value that they create. Software engineers are estimated to be worth several million dollars per year in value. Also, the average kindergarten teacher probably generates a lot less than $300k per year.
  - MarcScott 4y ago
    Do software engineers just spontaneously come into existence? Or do they begin their education with kindergarten teachers, and progress though to the professors that teach them at college? If a software engineer is contributing millions of dollars in value each year, they are doing it on the backs of the giants that taught and coached them to get to where they are today.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      If you want to follow the value chain all the way down, why not attribute the value of that software engineer to the professors who taught those kindergarten teachers to be good teachers? Or the kindergarten teachers who taught those professors? The truth of where the value to society comes from is somewhere between the "shoulders of giants" myth (that everything is obvious in light of what came before, and nobody really creates any value) and the "lone genius" myth (that value is created solely by bright individuals). Some component of the value that we attribute to a person likely comes from their teachers, but it may be 0 (or negative - lots of teachers demoralize their students too). However, a significant portion comes from them.
throwaway787544 4y ago
Many teachers work very long hours. Ones I've dated did a minimum of 60 hours. They would work their day shift and then go home and work more, and work on weekends, and then do tutoring for extra cash. Do you know how frustrating and exhausting teaching is? Very. They also don't get hazard pay for working in dangerous schools. One teacher I knew literally stopped teaching and became a kind of official bouncer (I don't know what it's called); when kids would get violent his job was to restrain them. The reason he switched was the kids' disrespect and his own desire to see them improve was crushing his soul. Many teachers use their own money to buy their students' class materials. If you're a teacher in New Jersey, you have to also live in New Jersey, a state with a ridiculously high tax rate. The years of service thing is a fair yardstick because it's comparing apples to apples. We are not paying them based on what a different job would pay them, we pay them based on the job we want them to do. Benefits and pension are wildly overblown. Half of teachers don't even qualify for pension and benefits vary greatly. https://www.teacherpensions.org/blog/what-average-teacher-pension-my-state https://www.teacherpensions.org/blog/what-average-teacher-pe... It's not enough money.
- aetherson 4y ago
  How old were the ones you dated? In general, the hours spent teaching diminish over time. At the beginning of a teacher's career, they spend a lot of time outside of class building lesson plans and creating tests and homework assignments. These legitimately take a lot of time. And they aren't perfect, so the teacher often sees that they need to make big changes after those lesson plans and tests and homework assignments hit the students. But after a few iterations, they have those tools, and at that point things settle down a lot. The material only needs to be updated infrequently. Most of that time that in the first few years was spent building those things is freed back up, and it's not replaced by anything.
  - eigenhombre 4y ago
    I know three teachers well (Chicago area; two quite senior, the other recently retired). Hours might have once diminished over time as you suggest, but their experience as told to me contradicts this trend: curricula have been changing so quickly in response to administrative decree that every few years everything gets thrown out and rebuilt. When you add to that decreasing resources for classrooms and increasing student-to-teacher ratios, it is not surprising to me that they work more hours than anybody else I know.
sanderjd 4y ago
The thing to compare to is the jobs the teachers could do if they weren't teachers. All of them have college degrees, many have masters degrees. The comparison point should be generic white collar office jobs, which are pretty much all easier (and especially, less annoying), higher paying, and more respected.
- prepend 4y ago
  Generic office jobs don’t pay that much. At least the kind that require education degrees. And they lack security.
  - newaccount2021 4y ago
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    Sure they do. The "that much" here is a low bar.
diognesofsinope 4y ago
> In South Dakota and a number of states in the south and rural districts, yes it is another story, and it is bad. I suspect this is because teaching is arguably the most stable job in rural areas.
justsocrateasin 4y ago
> Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median, and when accounting for benefits and pension, quite impressive. I'd disagree. Some anecdotal evidence - I'm from a HCOL suburban area with a nationally ranked public school system. Teachers here are generally considered "well-paid" by teacher salary standards. Many of the teachers in my area literally cannot afford to live here, and have to commute 30-40 minutes in. My mom was a teacher there. She was making about $80k a year at the end of her career, with 2 masters degree and 20 years of experience teaching (so she was pretty much maxed out on her salary). Her pension is something like $20k a year (also maxed out due to her YOE). My dad was in between jobs for some time in there, and my parents, who are frugal people, struggled to make ends meet on just my moms salary, borrowing against their mortgage for the year while my dad was unemployed.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  I went to Chicago public schools. Most of my teachers had graduate degrees from degree mill schools, some even had phds that they loved to talk about even though I doubt they spent more than a few days to get them. That ended up meaning they all made around 110-120, with full pension after I believe 30 years. Certainly not an amazing salary, and they all worked much harder than I ever have, but nothing to laugh at I’d say.
  - justsocrateasin 4y ago
    Very good point, that's a salary you can live very comfortably on. Seems like it just depends on the school district, but I'd say the authors main point, that salaries across the board for teachers are lower than they should be given how hard the job is and how qualified most teachers are, still holds true.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      Are our public school teachers unfit to be teachers and low-quality workers because not high enough wage is offered for quality people? Or is it that the salary attracts competent people but other factors are broken? The interesting thing to me is I see people almost universally praise our teachers, and comment on how great and caring they are. The money seems to be attracting the raw talent, so I'm leaning towards something else is much more broken in our system.
8note 4y ago
What should the salaries for educators be though? I'd expect it to be in the top 2% of all salaries, not the top 49%
aantix 4y ago
The earlier a skill is learned, the greater the ROI. What’s the ROI on properly learning to read vs learning that force=mass*acceleration?
ggm 4y ago
It's always been my opinion that market value aside, Kindergarden teachers probably deserve the HIGHEST pay because they lay the foundations, and without sound foundations, the building is unstable. Apologies for extended metaphorical language, but the underlying point is really what I think: Pay the ones at the front the most. They do the groundwork.
- HKH2 4y ago
  No, parents lay the foundations with discipline etc.

taneq 4y ago

However much they're paying teachers, it's clearly not enough, because not enough people are willing to do the job for that amount of money. Assuming you had all the skills required to be an effective teacher, would YOU put up with everything they put up with for that salary? Because I sure as hell wouldn't. (As an aside, it's different depending on where you are but in Australia, comparing teacher salary can be difficult because "they get 12 weeks of holiday a year" and "they only work 6 hours a day" but also they do 3+ hours of unpaid marking and lesson planning a day, they're expected to show up at the end of those 'holidays' prepared for whatever courses they've been assigned for the next term, etc. A close relative is a teacher and it's insane what they have to deal with.)

throwaway9870 4y ago
> However much they're paying teachers, it's clearly not enough, because not enough people are willing to do the job for that amount of money. The problem is that the scope of the job has changed and you can't pay people enough to do it. Here are some issues, straight from teachers I was talking to last week: * Admin who constantly wants teachers to do more with no additional resources so they can get credit for it and advance their career. They were very frustrated by this. * Teaching evaluation based on absolute standardized scores rather than relative. So you can have a bad class, lift them a lot, but still be viewed poorly because on absolute terms, they are still weak. You might say that evens out over time, but it doesn't because some teachers are better with difficult students, so they get more than their share of these issues. * Special needs students mainstreamed - kids with emotional issues that flip desks and yell out constantly, physical issues such as seizures if they bump their head, but parents will not let them wear protective gear because they will stand out, elementary school kids who are constantly in physical altercations with other kids. * Kids come to school not having eaten since the day before, cloths that haven't been washed in days, etc. * Unable to give accurate grades because parents fight back and so teachers are forced to pass kids even though they know they are just pushing a big problem on the next teacher. * Zero support from parents and in many cases, outright hostility. * The classroom is a minefield regarding what can be discussed and cannot be discussed. Everyone has an opinion on how it should be done, but almost none of them have ever actually taught.

justin66 4y ago

> when accounting for benefits and pension That many teacher’s pensions require one to give up social security benefits makes the decision to teach more difficult, I would think, especially for those who are later in their working lives.

lr4444lr 4y ago
> That many teacher’s pensions require one to give up social security benefits Patently untrue unless maybe you work for the Dept of Defense or something. Teachers can collect SS like any other employee.
- MarcusGunnz 4y ago
  [flagged]
- justin66 4y ago
  There are many ways to compensate teachers [1], but in general, you really shouldn't make categorical statements on matters you are completely unfamiliar with. I help manage the finances of someone who is in the position of being unable to collect any social security benefits from the relatively brief time she had a regular job which paid into social security prior to becoming a teacher, and is also unable to collect her spouse's Social Security survivor benefits (she literally receives zero dollars from Social Security, though if she had never worked a day in her life, she's be able to collect her spouse's survivor's benefits). You've made quite a few comments in this thread: how many of them are as badly informed as this? "Windfall Elimination Prevention" and "Government Pension Offset" are things you can google if you're interested in learning a bit about this stuff. [1] States whose teachers participate in their own pension plans instead of Social Security include California and Texas, so it's not like these are rare concerns https://www.socialsecurityintelligence.com/teachers-retirement-and-social-security/ https://www.socialsecurityintelligence.com/teachers-retireme...
  - lr4444lr 4y ago
    I'm not above learning something. Texas seems to be district-dependent, and CA is statewide: https://www.trs.texas.gov/Pages/active_member_social_security_at_trs.aspx https://www.trs.texas.gov/Pages/active_member_social_securit... https://www.calstrs.com/social-security https://www.calstrs.com/social-security This is not the case for NY, and not in WI and PA as I have heard from teachers there. In cases where they don't receive it though, they're not paying into it either. I can't comment as to whether that is a good or bad thing, because I don't know those cases. Maybe the union membership by in large doesn't want to? For the benefit of others, I post this authoritative link from the USDOE: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/mapED/storymaps/TeacherSocialSecurity/index.html https://nces.ed.gov/programs/mapED/storymaps/TeacherSocialSe...

dwater 4y ago

Comparing teacher pay to the median wage isn’t an apples to apples comparison because the average teacher has between a bachelor’s degree and a master’s, a state certification with regular training and renewal requirements, and a good amount of professional experience. I was a high school teacher and when I left my salary went up by 50% on day one, passed 100% increase within 2 years, and tripled within 5 years. The median wage earner in a large city is probably paid hourly for service work. I do agree that the single pay scale across all public school teachers is an issue. You will never get someone to teach high school math, science, or tech if salary is a significant consideration.

treis 4y ago
It's pretty close to the median worker having a bachelor's degree so that doesn't really skew the comparison Ultimately teaching salaries are fine. The median teacher makes about the median salary. But it comes with great job security, benefits, and significantly more time off than the median job. The benefits are high enough to attract enough teachers. The problem are parents and administration. And more recently kids missed a couple years of school due to Covid and went feral. It's gotten to be a significantly worse job. Solution is to cut the bullshit. Not pay more to incentivize people to put up with the bullshit.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > Ultimately teaching salaries are fine. The median teacher makes about the median salary. But it comes with great job security, benefits, and significantly more time off than the median job. I know 3 public school teachers, in CA/NYC/NJ. Their 6 to 8 weeks off in the summer (if that, due to ongoing training), is nowhere near enough to offset the low pay per hour and most importantly, having to deal with garbage parents and their misbehaving kids. They also work many extra hours at home during the school year doing grading or prepping exercises or whatever. If we have a get together, the teachers will pretty much guaranteed to be working all or some portion of the evening. > The benefits are high enough to attract enough teachers Only if you think 30+ kids per class is acceptable. I would want no more than 20 kids per class.

orzig 4y ago

This is the best reply so far. In the US, things (good and bad) vary dramatically between school districts, but everyone talks about “teachers” as this monolithic group. In the Boston area it’s absolutely possible to exceed $100,000 salary. The pay scales are public, look it up yourself. I’m willing to believe many teachers are underpaid, and that those in Boston have legitimate gripes too, but we need to be clear about which context we’re discussing.

xbar 4y ago
Are you a teacher in Boston? How many years teaching and how much education above a bachelor's degree does it take you to get to $100,000? My experience is that the grids have $100,000 sitting out there like a Cadillac, but 99% of teachers get steak knives.
- waylandsmithers 4y ago
  My anecdata- friend last year just crossed $100K in about her 15th year teaching in Boston suburbs. She didn't have to do any of the "add-ons" like sports team coaching, curriculum work, tutoring, etc. to get to that number.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
I find the reply to be lacking in justification for why the price of labor for teaching is related to the median price for all labor.

throwaway6734 4y ago

It's still not worth the money. Ive spent time in the classroom in a large urban district and the job was twice as hard as my current software engineering job (for me) for literally half the pay

vostok 4y ago

> Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median Is the median the correct benchmark? The median household income in NYC was $67k in 2021 [0]. Why would someone choose to be a teacher making around the median [1] when you could be a software engineer and make 3x as much? It's not just a matter of trinkets and baubles. That difference allows you to comfortably afford a nice family sized apartment [2] in a safe area with a convenient commute. [0] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewyork/HSG010221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewy... [1] https://teachnyc.net/about-our-schools/salary-and-benefits https://teachnyc.net/about-our-schools/salary-and-benefits [2] https://streeteasy.com/building/15-gates-avenue-brooklyn/h https://streeteasy.com/building/15-gates-avenue-brooklyn/h

pnf 4y ago
That assumes someone qualified to be a teacher is also qualified to be a software engineer. Have you met a lot of urban public school teachers?
- vostok 4y ago
  This post doesn't assume that, but I have met urban public school teachers who could have been software engineers since you asked. My post does assume that the career would attract more highly qualified candidates if the pay was higher.
  - prepend 4y ago
    I’ve met some too, but I’d say that most are incapable. Or they are the same proportion of the population that is capable. I don’t think teachers are any more or less likely than a typical person. I’d guess I’ve met and spend significant time with 100 teachers. And a handful were capable of being a professional programmer.
- gumby 4y ago
  What has “urban” to do with it?

viraptor 4y ago

> most qualified high school physics teachers have way differently valued skillsets in the labor force by alternate employers than most kindergarten teachers. Do they? I read that as implying that physics teachers could potentially get some stem jobs. But is that actually true? If you can do math, you can teach yourself enough physics to teach in high school. But that gets you nowhere near the knowledge necessary for applying non-trivial physics at work.

sidlls 4y ago
"If you can do math, you can teach yourself enough physics to teach in high school." No, you can't. Even at the high school level there is jargon, historical methodology, and domain-specific nuance that isn't accessible to the self-taught. That's true for almost any subject one might think of, in fact.
- viraptor 4y ago
  To be clear, I didn't write "be an exceptional physics teacher with knowledge of history, nuance, etc." - I agree that's not a trivial thing and a very desirable one. But if you need "just a physics teacher" for a given spot, I stand by my opinion.
  - sidlls 4y ago
    I mean, if you’re talking about the happy path where every student understands the material on the first pass or can work out issues on their own then maybe. But that’s not how teaching or learning works for anyone, including super geniuses.
- srdone 4y ago
  What prevents anyone from learning all they need about any subject on their own? If someone is capable of reading, it seems to me they could teach themselves any subject using books. Of course, having a good teacher to guide them in which sources to read, etc, would greatly speed up the process of learning. However, I don’t see any reason someone cannot learn any subject on their own.

brohoolio 4y ago

Starting salaries for many districts for jobs that require a masters is pathetic. Many suburban schools pay decent, but often urban centers pay poorly. I know one person who was offered under $30k for teaching young special Ed folks. This is someone who has a masters and extra certs on tops of that. Your argument about physics teachers being more sought after is interesting but misses the point. As a society we want our children to have the best outcomes, providing them with the best education at early ages provides that. To have the best education you want to pay well and attract the best candidates. Not have those teachers splitting their time with Uber so they can afford rent. There was a study that showed the value of great kindergarten teachers and it’s over $300k a year. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/07/28/128819707/the-kindergarten-experiment https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/07/28/128819707/the-...

pclmulqdq 4y ago
Nobody is ever paid for the value that they create. Software engineers are estimated to be worth several million dollars per year in value. Also, the average kindergarten teacher probably generates a lot less than $300k per year.
- MarcScott 4y ago
  Do software engineers just spontaneously come into existence? Or do they begin their education with kindergarten teachers, and progress though to the professors that teach them at college? If a software engineer is contributing millions of dollars in value each year, they are doing it on the backs of the giants that taught and coached them to get to where they are today.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    If you want to follow the value chain all the way down, why not attribute the value of that software engineer to the professors who taught those kindergarten teachers to be good teachers? Or the kindergarten teachers who taught those professors? The truth of where the value to society comes from is somewhere between the "shoulders of giants" myth (that everything is obvious in light of what came before, and nobody really creates any value) and the "lone genius" myth (that value is created solely by bright individuals). Some component of the value that we attribute to a person likely comes from their teachers, but it may be 0 (or negative - lots of teachers demoralize their students too). However, a significant portion comes from them.

throwaway787544 4y ago

Many teachers work very long hours. Ones I've dated did a minimum of 60 hours. They would work their day shift and then go home and work more, and work on weekends, and then do tutoring for extra cash. Do you know how frustrating and exhausting teaching is? Very. They also don't get hazard pay for working in dangerous schools. One teacher I knew literally stopped teaching and became a kind of official bouncer (I don't know what it's called); when kids would get violent his job was to restrain them. The reason he switched was the kids' disrespect and his own desire to see them improve was crushing his soul. Many teachers use their own money to buy their students' class materials. If you're a teacher in New Jersey, you have to also live in New Jersey, a state with a ridiculously high tax rate. The years of service thing is a fair yardstick because it's comparing apples to apples. We are not paying them based on what a different job would pay them, we pay them based on the job we want them to do. Benefits and pension are wildly overblown. Half of teachers don't even qualify for pension and benefits vary greatly. https://www.teacherpensions.org/blog/what-average-teacher-pension-my-state https://www.teacherpensions.org/blog/what-average-teacher-pe... It's not enough money.

aetherson 4y ago
How old were the ones you dated? In general, the hours spent teaching diminish over time. At the beginning of a teacher's career, they spend a lot of time outside of class building lesson plans and creating tests and homework assignments. These legitimately take a lot of time. And they aren't perfect, so the teacher often sees that they need to make big changes after those lesson plans and tests and homework assignments hit the students. But after a few iterations, they have those tools, and at that point things settle down a lot. The material only needs to be updated infrequently. Most of that time that in the first few years was spent building those things is freed back up, and it's not replaced by anything.
- eigenhombre 4y ago
  I know three teachers well (Chicago area; two quite senior, the other recently retired). Hours might have once diminished over time as you suggest, but their experience as told to me contradicts this trend: curricula have been changing so quickly in response to administrative decree that every few years everything gets thrown out and rebuilt. When you add to that decreasing resources for classrooms and increasing student-to-teacher ratios, it is not surprising to me that they work more hours than anybody else I know.

sanderjd 4y ago

The thing to compare to is the jobs the teachers could do if they weren't teachers. All of them have college degrees, many have masters degrees. The comparison point should be generic white collar office jobs, which are pretty much all easier (and especially, less annoying), higher paying, and more respected.

prepend 4y ago
Generic office jobs don’t pay that much. At least the kind that require education degrees. And they lack security.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- sanderjd 4y ago
  Sure they do. The "that much" here is a low bar.

diognesofsinope 4y ago

> In South Dakota and a number of states in the south and rural districts, yes it is another story, and it is bad. I suspect this is because teaching is arguably the most stable job in rural areas.

justsocrateasin 4y ago

> Salaries in large urban districts are often well above area median, and when accounting for benefits and pension, quite impressive. I'd disagree. Some anecdotal evidence - I'm from a HCOL suburban area with a nationally ranked public school system. Teachers here are generally considered "well-paid" by teacher salary standards. Many of the teachers in my area literally cannot afford to live here, and have to commute 30-40 minutes in. My mom was a teacher there. She was making about $80k a year at the end of her career, with 2 masters degree and 20 years of experience teaching (so she was pretty much maxed out on her salary). Her pension is something like $20k a year (also maxed out due to her YOE). My dad was in between jobs for some time in there, and my parents, who are frugal people, struggled to make ends meet on just my moms salary, borrowing against their mortgage for the year while my dad was unemployed.

colinmhayes 4y ago
I went to Chicago public schools. Most of my teachers had graduate degrees from degree mill schools, some even had phds that they loved to talk about even though I doubt they spent more than a few days to get them. That ended up meaning they all made around 110-120, with full pension after I believe 30 years. Certainly not an amazing salary, and they all worked much harder than I ever have, but nothing to laugh at I’d say.
- justsocrateasin 4y ago
  Very good point, that's a salary you can live very comfortably on. Seems like it just depends on the school district, but I'd say the authors main point, that salaries across the board for teachers are lower than they should be given how hard the job is and how qualified most teachers are, still holds true.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Are our public school teachers unfit to be teachers and low-quality workers because not high enough wage is offered for quality people? Or is it that the salary attracts competent people but other factors are broken? The interesting thing to me is I see people almost universally praise our teachers, and comment on how great and caring they are. The money seems to be attracting the raw talent, so I'm leaning towards something else is much more broken in our system.

8note 4y ago

What should the salaries for educators be though? I'd expect it to be in the top 2% of all salaries, not the top 49%

aantix 4y ago

The earlier a skill is learned, the greater the ROI. What’s the ROI on properly learning to read vs learning that force=mass*acceleration?

ggm 4y ago

It's always been my opinion that market value aside, Kindergarden teachers probably deserve the HIGHEST pay because they lay the foundations, and without sound foundations, the building is unstable. Apologies for extended metaphorical language, but the underlying point is really what I think: Pay the ones at the front the most. They do the groundwork.

HKH2 4y ago
No, parents lay the foundations with discipline etc.