Forum Post: Why do we pay the important jobs like teachers 35K
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 6, 2011, 7:10 p.m. EST by Fallspring
(30)
from Silver Spring, MD
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
why are we paying people on wallst millions while teachers and social workers 35k a year. just because some are greedy and decided to go into finance instead of choosing an "important" job like social worker or teacher doesn't mean they deserve more money.
I don't know where you live, but teachers in my state make closer to $60K and have their summers, Christmas and spring break off. Works out to be about to be about 35.00/hour. They pay little or nothing towards health insurance and pensions. On top of that, they can't be fired if they fail to teach our children. If they want more money they go on strike and hold the community hostage until their demands are met. Then the tax payers and home owners get an ever larger tax bill.
Since the Department of Education was created in 1979 the teacher unions have gained more and more power and the money spent on education drastically increased while the performance of our schools has fallen dramatically. We went from #1 to around #21 in the world.
So my question is why do we pay teachers so much?
$60K really is not a lot of money, and having a full benefits plan is not unreasonable either. I can't exactly say why our school performance with the rest of the world is so dismal ( and certainly do not blame the teachers or the teacher unions), but I'm willing to bet that in those countries whose school performance is better than that of the U.S.A, the teachers are paid top wages when compared to other professions in their countries.
I do not see it unreasonable to pay teaches $100,000 + a year and full benefits. Our society is just not willing to make the allocation to teach our children.
homework and lesson plans do not correct and create themselves in no time
What state is this? Because its not North Carolina, that's for sure.
A better question: Why do we value people who make the best sex tapes (Hilton, Kardashian) over people who educate our children? Should we just train our daughters to have as much sex as possible, so that hopefully their sex tapes will also make them filthy rich?
How about people who hit or throw balls around all day? Are they worth 100s of times more than a teacher?
Who is "we"? I have never spent a dime, nor paid a tax that I know of, towards any sex tapes, nor do I value the Hiltons or Kardashians over my children's teachers.
Who are these people you speak of that would train their children to do anything so that "hopefully" they would become "filthy rich" some day?
Betsy: Have you seen "Toddlers and Tiaras?" Or "Dance Moms?"
ikki, what you don't see if that these teachers, while supposedly having a couple of months off each year, are also stuck spending 70+ hours per week when they are at their jobs. Once school is over, these teachers have to spend hours grading students' papers, participate in extra-curricular activities, attend PTA meetings, hold open house, etc. The school systems can add a LOT of extra work for these people that go above and beyond simply showing up during school hours.
The best teachers are the ones who go above and beyond even that, and spend yet more time outside of work trying to get National Board certified, or advanced/gifted certs., or special ed. certs. These can lead to more pay, but only if the teachers put in so many hours of extra training and pass a number of rigorous tests.
Frankly 55k isn't enough so someone that has such an important job. It takes a lot of skill to be a good teacher, which is why I think the good teachers should be paid more, which would also make teaching a career that people actually want to take up instead of something that people fall back into.
where I live, Teachers start off at 40k per year (get summer and such off as well) and then after 2 -5 years, they are up to making 55k-60k a year.
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Fallspring -
"Teachers in the state's (Maryland's) public school systems are earning this year a mean of $63,634"
http://www.stardem.com/news/state_news/article_fd653431-ba01-5595-8808-e11a079cbd6e.html
Perhaps those who teach and do social work care more about what they DO than about what they are PAID to do it. Many millions of people VOLUNTEER to do "important jobs" their whole lives without getting paid a cent monetarily for their work.
Just exactly how did you become an expert at determining what ANYONE "deserves" or what motivates each and every person on this planet? Were you paid to gain such knowledge and skill or do you do it for free?
One is paid by the government, the other is paid by the private sector. How should we deal with it?
Take a look at NYC's teachers' pay rate. Not too shabby based upon 9 months worth of work. I'm not saying that they don't earn every penny but take the salaries plus the incredible benefits they have, they are not doing badly at all. They are definitely upper middle class. And for living in NY that says a lot.
http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/EDDB658C-BE7F-4314-85C0-03F5A00B8A0B/0/salary.pdf
Teachers shell out thousands in their own money to buy classroom supplies that the government refuses to supply. They take papers and tests home to mark. They work very hard and don't get respect. The plan now is to make it very easy to get rid of teachers who accrue seniority in order to replace them with new "starting pay" teachers. And eventually to replace all public schools with non union charter schools.
I don't know where you come from but where I am, teachers will be given a budget for school supplies and will be given them at the start of the year, if they need more during the school year, they buy it, submit the receipt and then will eventually get reimbursed for the costs.
Here in NYC teachers sell out for classroom supplies.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/24/news/economy/public_school_teachers_budgets/index.htm
I'd be happy to get together with my neighbors and pool our money to start a neighborhood school and hire an awesome teacher at at least twice that much. We can't afford to though, because we collectively already pay much more than that in property taxes to support the less than stellar public school.
Because they are government funded jobs for the most part, and the government doesn't have any money, because the tax revenues are down, because all of our jobs have been exported overseas, with the increased profits going to the 1%. Time to break this vicious cycle, support the China currency bill this week.
http://www.freep.com/article/20111006/NEWS07/111006046/Senate-clears-last-step-toward-final-vote-Chinese-currency-bill
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So you wouldn't mind if schools doubled or tripled their fees provided it went to the teachers?
'Teaching' is an important job, no doubt. But not all teachers are competent, in fact very few are. Most teachers have very little clue what they are teaching.
Plenty of money for bombs on six nations in three years, and the only thing teachers are getting are pay cuts.
This country may be 2 Dumb 2 Fail. Meaning we are already in a decaying, slow downhill state, along with perpetual war on countries that most high schoolers couldnt point out, if they even know we are bombing them at all.
We are on our way down, and teh people are still just sitting around, not putting anything together on their own (not including occupy and few others, obviously). And getting ready to put all the same criminals back in power for another two-four years.
You seem to be implying that due to budget cuts, high school teachers are not longer able to teach Geography or World Studies to their students.
I would think that the fact that our high school students do not know world Geography or Current Events might imply that our teachers are not actually doing what they were getting paid to do in the first place.
I think most parents dont want to put the time into education anymore.
Sounds like parents, not the government, are the problem then. Having a child and raising it to be a responsible, intelligent, well informed, and productive member of society isn't the governments job. It never has been.
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