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> 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 [

by 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?
  - bendbro 4y ago
    What has "what has 'urban'" to do with it?
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      What?
      - bendbro 4y ago
        Huh?
        bee_rider 4y ago
        Well this interaction was confusing enough that I had to check your profile. I suppose that's a hobby.
        asdjfhjlaksdhf 4y ago
        Who's profile?
  - simon_o 4y ago
    - christophilus 4y ago
      I’ve never heard of ”urban” being a code word for “black”. Is that a thing? I assume they mean “urban” as in “city” where you’re likely to have many other forms of opportunity vs “podunk” where you’re kinda stuck in one career because there’s nothing else around.
      - macintux 4y ago
        It's very much a thing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/10/heres-how-urban-a-term-plagued-by-racial-stereotypes-came-to-be-used-to-describe-black-musicians/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/10/heres-h...
- bee_rider 4y ago
  They spend all day herding children, so they are at least qualified to be Project Managers.
  - prepend 4y ago
    You jest, but this is my suggestion to anyone who wants a career change. You can study and get a PMP or Scrum certificate and get an entry level job fairly easily. And, if successful, can be making 100k within a few years. Of course you have to be a PM, so there’s that. I’d rather literally herd cats or manage a kindergarten class.
    - LegitShady 4y ago
      "So what do you do for a living?" "I call people and ask them to do the things they said they would do, on time. Then we have meetings about it for 4-6 hours a day. Technically I'm in charge."
- jensensbutton 4y ago
  Yes. And most wouldn't make a statement this dumb.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
aetherson 4y ago
People might want to be teachers rather than software engineers because teachers get enormous amounts of time off, have extremely high levels of job security, plus all the usual reasons that not everyone is in the very highest paying profession. Why aren't you a hedge fund manager?
- danaris 4y ago
  > teachers get enormous amounts of time off Anyone who's actually been or known a teacher knows this is false. During the school year, in the time they're not actively teaching, teachers are - Coaching sports - Overseeing other student extracurricular activities - Making/updating lesson plans - Presiding over detention - Tutoring students who need more 1:1 time - Serving on school committees (especially in larger districts) During the summer, teachers generally spend a large percentage of their time laying out the curriculum for the coming year. This is especially true for those in smaller districts, where one teacher has to teach three or four different levels of the same subject (or even multiple completely different subjects!).
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    I mean, I guess it's all relative. I'm a software engineer at a startup. On average I work about 50-55 hours a week. I get 3 weeks of vacation a year. I certainly don't deny that teachers spend a lot of time working on their "time off". But that said, I've known more than a few teachers personally, and yes, they still do get enormous amounts of time off. Heck, a bunch of them will even admit it is the biggest perk of teaching (because otherwise there aren't many). Teachers have plenty of real, valid complaints about the environment of teaching, and more importantly, it's clear with the current teacher shortage that something is really broken. Still, I don't think it wins them any supporters when teachers try to deny that most of them have vastly more time off than other professionals.
    - MarcScott 4y ago
      When I was teaching I worked a 7am to 6pm job, 5 days a week. That was actually in the school building, so that's 55 hours right there. The two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, when I wasn't looking after 35 teenagers in a small, hot and unventilated classroom, were spent marking, planning lessons and writing reports. Have you ever had a job where you literally have to plan how much you drink, so that you don't have a full bladder in the middle of a double Science lesson? Most weekends I'd dedicate around 5 or 6 hours to work, so that puts me up to about 61 hours a week. Of course we got those amazing holidays. Holidays when you were still expected to answer emails, mark work, write reports, plan assessments and lessons. One year, I remember working from September through to August, and my total time off was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In August the exam results come through, so I was expected to be in school to coach children on their options, and then write a 15 page report on the reasons my department had performed or under-performed. I appreciate that this has turned into a rant, but don't ever think that your job is harder than a teacher, if you are a software engineer. It's not. I can testify to that. Teaching involves understanding your subject, understanding pedagogy, being a parent, councilor and sometimes prison warden to children who are often going through the most difficult times of their lives. You have to do all of that, while basically performing on stage for 5 hours a day, and your lunch break is spent ramming food down your throat so you can get out to the playground on time to supervise the kids out there. An ex-colleague of mine has asked me to go back into teaching in his school. My response was "okay" can you pay me 150K, because I wouldn't do it for anything less.
prepend 4y ago
> 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? Isn’t the answer to this quite obvious? It’s harder to be a software engineer. And there’s more risk to the profession. Programming is interesting as you can be self-taught and be great. And it doesn’t require any formal training. I started as a college dropout (from a different major nothing to do with programming) and there’s lots of boot camps. Anyone with the inclination can do what you suggest. But I think programming is hard so many are incapable.
erdos4d 4y ago
Most teachers couldn't be software engineers, they just aren't smart enough.
JackFr 4y ago
> Why would someone choose to be a teacher making around the median when you could be a software engineer and make 3x as much? Is that a serious question? Why indeed? Maybe because a union job with a state pension (yes, defined benefit pension) that starts at 62K and has an advancing pay scale based only on education level and seniority (yes - job performance unrelated to pay) and very high job security ain’t bad place to be if you can get it. (And also I suspect that a lot of the people getting those teaching jobs simply would not be able to get 200K software development jobs.)

by vostok 4y ago

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?
- bendbro 4y ago
  What has "what has 'urban'" to do with it?
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    What?
    - bendbro 4y ago
      Huh?
      - bee_rider 4y ago
        Well this interaction was confusing enough that I had to check your profile. I suppose that's a hobby.
        asdjfhjlaksdhf 4y ago
        Who's profile?
- simon_o 4y ago
  - christophilus 4y ago
    I’ve never heard of ”urban” being a code word for “black”. Is that a thing? I assume they mean “urban” as in “city” where you’re likely to have many other forms of opportunity vs “podunk” where you’re kinda stuck in one career because there’s nothing else around.
    - macintux 4y ago
      It's very much a thing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/10/heres-how-urban-a-term-plagued-by-racial-stereotypes-came-to-be-used-to-describe-black-musicians/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/10/heres-h...
bee_rider 4y ago
They spend all day herding children, so they are at least qualified to be Project Managers.
- prepend 4y ago
  You jest, but this is my suggestion to anyone who wants a career change. You can study and get a PMP or Scrum certificate and get an entry level job fairly easily. And, if successful, can be making 100k within a few years. Of course you have to be a PM, so there’s that. I’d rather literally herd cats or manage a kindergarten class.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    "So what do you do for a living?" "I call people and ask them to do the things they said they would do, on time. Then we have meetings about it for 4-6 hours a day. Technically I'm in charge."
jensensbutton 4y ago
Yes. And most wouldn't make a statement this dumb.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

aetherson 4y ago

People might want to be teachers rather than software engineers because teachers get enormous amounts of time off, have extremely high levels of job security, plus all the usual reasons that not everyone is in the very highest paying profession. Why aren't you a hedge fund manager?

danaris 4y ago
> teachers get enormous amounts of time off Anyone who's actually been or known a teacher knows this is false. During the school year, in the time they're not actively teaching, teachers are - Coaching sports - Overseeing other student extracurricular activities - Making/updating lesson plans - Presiding over detention - Tutoring students who need more 1:1 time - Serving on school committees (especially in larger districts) During the summer, teachers generally spend a large percentage of their time laying out the curriculum for the coming year. This is especially true for those in smaller districts, where one teacher has to teach three or four different levels of the same subject (or even multiple completely different subjects!).
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  I mean, I guess it's all relative. I'm a software engineer at a startup. On average I work about 50-55 hours a week. I get 3 weeks of vacation a year. I certainly don't deny that teachers spend a lot of time working on their "time off". But that said, I've known more than a few teachers personally, and yes, they still do get enormous amounts of time off. Heck, a bunch of them will even admit it is the biggest perk of teaching (because otherwise there aren't many). Teachers have plenty of real, valid complaints about the environment of teaching, and more importantly, it's clear with the current teacher shortage that something is really broken. Still, I don't think it wins them any supporters when teachers try to deny that most of them have vastly more time off than other professionals.
  - MarcScott 4y ago
    When I was teaching I worked a 7am to 6pm job, 5 days a week. That was actually in the school building, so that's 55 hours right there. The two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, when I wasn't looking after 35 teenagers in a small, hot and unventilated classroom, were spent marking, planning lessons and writing reports. Have you ever had a job where you literally have to plan how much you drink, so that you don't have a full bladder in the middle of a double Science lesson? Most weekends I'd dedicate around 5 or 6 hours to work, so that puts me up to about 61 hours a week. Of course we got those amazing holidays. Holidays when you were still expected to answer emails, mark work, write reports, plan assessments and lessons. One year, I remember working from September through to August, and my total time off was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In August the exam results come through, so I was expected to be in school to coach children on their options, and then write a 15 page report on the reasons my department had performed or under-performed. I appreciate that this has turned into a rant, but don't ever think that your job is harder than a teacher, if you are a software engineer. It's not. I can testify to that. Teaching involves understanding your subject, understanding pedagogy, being a parent, councilor and sometimes prison warden to children who are often going through the most difficult times of their lives. You have to do all of that, while basically performing on stage for 5 hours a day, and your lunch break is spent ramming food down your throat so you can get out to the playground on time to supervise the kids out there. An ex-colleague of mine has asked me to go back into teaching in his school. My response was "okay" can you pay me 150K, because I wouldn't do it for anything less.

prepend 4y ago

> 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? Isn’t the answer to this quite obvious? It’s harder to be a software engineer. And there’s more risk to the profession. Programming is interesting as you can be self-taught and be great. And it doesn’t require any formal training. I started as a college dropout (from a different major nothing to do with programming) and there’s lots of boot camps. Anyone with the inclination can do what you suggest. But I think programming is hard so many are incapable.

erdos4d 4y ago

Most teachers couldn't be software engineers, they just aren't smart enough.

JackFr 4y ago

> Why would someone choose to be a teacher making around the median when you could be a software engineer and make 3x as much? Is that a serious question? Why indeed? Maybe because a union job with a state pension (yes, defined benefit pension) that starts at 62K and has an advancing pay scale based only on education level and seniority (yes - job performance unrelated to pay) and very high job security ain’t bad place to be if you can get it. (And also I suspect that a lot of the people getting those teaching jobs simply would not be able to get 200K software development jobs.)