Teachers Salary (2 Viewers)

[SaintMeaux]

I am a teacher, and I am satisfied with what I make. I get off all summer and the major holidays. I work from 6:30 to 2:45 M-F, and I spend about one hour a day with homework. I use my time wisely during my planning period, so I do not have to take my work home.

Holy Cow!!! You just mirrored every argument for why some people think teachers don't have it bad at all.

I am sure I will get blasted for saying this but if you count days on vs off teachers work roughly 180 days a year. So when you average their pay it is north of 33 an hour. Furthermore, if a teach decides to work during the summer like everyone else than they have the opportunity to make additional income and bring that number up around 40 an hour, which by any standards is good money. I understand that teachers have to do "homework" but most people do that these days, I also understand that they have to put up with kids all day, but that is a choice they made. Most peoples jobs are not withouth its rough points.

I actually have two teacher friends that approach the profession much differently. One understands that he gets more days off than any other profession in the world and always keeps a part time job to fill his summers and breaks. He makes north of 70k a year as a teacher/hotel guy. The other guy is a teacher becuase he LOVES the holiday schedule (and is quick to call and remind me every july that he is home, doing nothing) and the fact that he gets paid for months that he does not work.

I understand and feel for teachers, but remember, its their choice to do it and they do get paid well for hours worked and have the BEST vacation schedule on the planet..

http://www.saintsreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18711&highlight=Teachers


You're playing right into Ridgebens hands!!!

 

[kanona29]

I think alot of teachers would be OK with their salary if money was wisely put into the schools by providing higher quality up-to-date resources and improved administrations.

I have always said that teachers are a different breed of people...They will put up with very low pay if the school environment is in good condition.

The reality is that most people don't become teachers for the pay.

However, in our current society raising a teacher's salary is a good incentive to convince the good teachers to stick around even though many of our public school systems are pure rubbish.

 

[mr.t]

There are a lot of teachers with my attitude, just like any other job, but I appreciate the compliment.

 

[diat150]

I think that ridgeben is 100% correct. teacher raises will accomplish nothing. mr. t and kanona also hit the nail on the head, very few teachers would move to the horrible conditions of the nola public school system for a 5k raise. I just dont see things ever improving.

 

[mr.t]

I think that if the right teachers were put into a poorly performing school, and if there were consequences for poor behavior and for skipping school, and if the parerts were forced to give positive reinforcement, then a school could show decent improvement in two years.

 

[SaintMeaux]

Does NOLA School District offer any incentives, like paying off your student loans?

Montana pays off teachers' student loans if they offer to teach on the Indian reservations, $10k per contract year for a minimum of two years. Wyoming has followed suit statewide, as well as Alaska.

 

[mr.t]

With Tops and a part time job, there is no reason for a motivated student to take out a loan at a public university.

 

[ridgeben]

Does NOLA School District offer any incentives, like paying off your student loans?

Montana pays off teachers' student loans if they offer to teach on the Indian reservations, $10k per contract year for a minimum of two years. Wyoming has followed suit statewide, as well as Alaska.

I saw in the paper today that if you are a qualified teacher you can go to NOLA schools and get big time incentives to teach.. I think I read where the package could be worth as much as 17k for an out of state teacher to come to NOLA.. Take a look ---->>>>>Here
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[ridgeben]

Holy Cow!!! You just mirrored every argument for why some people think teachers don't have it bad at all.




http://www.saintsreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18711&highlight=Teachers


You're playing right into Ridgebens hands!!!

:_rofl: You make it sound as if I am Dr. Claw and all teachers are Inspector Gadget....

 

[SaintMeaux]

:_rofl: You make it sound as if I am Dr. Claw and all teachers are Inspector Gadget....

LOL, I recalled a thread on teacher salaries earlier this year and decided to look it up. Whaddya know, Ridgeben is active on that thread too!!

I agree with much of what you say, this is an issue that must be important to you, as it should be to most.

I am a firefighter, and belong to a union with a pay scale that only rewards seniority (unless you go to the dark side of supervisory positions... ). I am happy to be realtively secure in my position, yet, I sometimes find myself wondering why I put in extra time on projects, etc. when I know I will never get a raise because of my effort.

My wife got her degree in Elementary Education, but was turned off to the profession during her student teaching due to the politics involved. She reported an obvious case of child neglect, and was confronted by the parent of the child the next week. (So much for confidentiality!!!)

Then that spring, the teachers union went on strike and kind of "showed their backsides" if you know what I mean. She has since let her certification expire and has no interest in returning.

The University in our city has a large, and very good education program. Most graduates go to Wyoming where the pay is 30% higher (thanks fossil fuel drilling!!!) or they go to Las Vegas, California, or Alaska.

When I lived in NOLA, I was amazed at the amount of private/parochial schools statewide.
People in Montana really have little choice. There are a few parochial schools around the state, but they are outnumbered about 50-1.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

I guess I am a pessimist, but I just dont see kids from bad parental situations turning around due to highly paid teachers. I guess I am saying that unless you get some really hot, middle aged woman to work miracles in the classroom (michelle pfeiffer), socioeconomics, and parental involvement make all the difference, not teacher pay..

mmm. not so much a pessimist as a reductionist - we're a nation of bottom liners and least common denominator...ers --- i understand the appeal b/c this is the most efficient way to look at a problem. however it is seldom the best way to solve a problem with a fair degree of complexity (of which NO schools would certainly qualify)

i teach, i would like to think i'm a very good teacher and would certainly like to be paid accordingly, yet knowing that in the present state that would mean i would have to jump through an additional 6 bureaucratic hoops to be evaluated by someone whose credentials i might have great issue with -- i'd rather just do my job and teach my kids and realize that my "value" comes less from my paycheck than my students success

i mean if i had to compare my paycheck to say an insurance adjuster getting bonuses for taking advantage of people who are trying to rebuild their lives - that just might make me grumpy

 

[MSUSousaphone]

I'm sure this will be posted a million times but....what the hey...

Smart, motivated people are going to have the pick of jobs most of the time. Jobs look attractive by several reasons, one of them being salary. Smart, motivated people probably won't shoot for a low paying job.

I'm a teacher. In two years I will get my LPC and will hopefully become a private counselor. This will TRIPLE my pay. If the pay were identical, I would probably stay teaching, but its a close call. I don't even think doubling my salary would be worth the time and effort I put into that band program.

I graduated with 7 music teachers. Five of them crossed the border to teach in Texas, the other is getting a masters in something else....and then I'm gone. Why? Because the pay is so ridiculously low that I can triple my salary going to another job.

Raise the salaries and you raise the demand for the job. Keep it low and you end up with a few who really love what they do, and a lot that just couldn't do anyting else.

In two years I will no longer be a teacher but I will always have respect for those who are and are doing what they love to do, and I will ALWAYS support a raise for them.

 

[RazorOye]

there's no doubt that the compensation teachers get is directly related to the quality of people who would stay in Louisiana to teach, the quality of teachers we could attract to the field, the veteran expertise of teachers that would remain teachers, etc....

Louisiana loses a lot of teachers to Texas each year - I was one. Once I got my Masters from LSU I made a beeline for Texas and after a couple of years I was making more than my mother who has been teaching in Louisiana for over 20 years.

And once I went to Texas, I worked very hard and managed to distinguish myself as a teacher. I am egotistical enough to say that Louisiana missed out on keeping me and a number of my colleagues who were also teachers from Louisiana.

I never had an entire summer off. That' more mythical than any other teacher notion - at least for me. I was constantly attending seminars, going to week-long or longer conferences. Planning for the upcoming year. Reading the summer reading novels for the upcoming fall. And during the workweek, I put in well over forty hours per week. Most days meant 2-4 additional hours with a few hours of work on the weekend to boot.

Perhaps it's because I taught literature and made my students write a great deal so I always had a stack to grade.

But I put in too many hours for the pay I was getting in Texas - there's no way I would settle for what Louisiana was offering.

I look here in Ontario where teacher pay and benefits are pretty good. - much better than in Louisiana. Much better pay (tens of thousands of dollars difference per year). Better insurance package and benefits (yes, above what Canada offers through their socialized care). The pension is phenomenal. They school day is shorter and makes more sense. The curriculum is more organized and less meticulous and tedious in credit-earning for diplomas. I could go on and on.

But the standards for teachers are much higher. There is no alternate certification process such as there is in the US where you can get a teaching degree without having to go into a classroom to teach or earn anything more than a handful of credit hours.

SUBSTITUTE teachers must have a teaching certificate from Ontario in order to substitute.

The job market is tight because the profession is such an attractive one in many different ways. I've never seen this quality pool of teachers and people going into teaching.

And guess what - the education system, the quality of learning and teaching, and level of student achievement far eclipses what I saw in Louisiana when I was interning at 3 schools in Baton Rouge and when I was teaching in Katy, esteemed to be a high achieving district.

Teacher pay is obviously only part of that - with the teachers who are in classrooms now, too many of them don't deserve what they are earning, much less a raise. And tying bonuses to test scores is the most backwards way of going about it.

I was almost always the last one to leave each day and wondered why I did it when I could go home when the slackers did and take home the same pay.

A LOT would have to change to turn things around, and pay is among it. But first, you'd have to rework the system to ensure that the teachers who are in the classrooms are doing their best and deserve the raise in the first place.

 

[mr.t]

I will tell you the problem with many public schools IMHO: consequences, or lack there of. I was threatened so many times teaching middle school, it got to be a joke. Most young teachers are not prepared and are stuck in the underachieving schools because the older teachers do not want that job. My mentor teacher was a joke. I was observed three times my first year and was judged on if I followed a script, not my lesson plans or student outcomes. We almost taught the LEAP test in class. Once you get three years, there is almost no teacher accountability, thanks to the LEA and the LFT. I can remember seeing a teachersin a local high school showing movies to the students while the teacher read the paper. He was the department head. No meaness to coaches beacuse they are great in their field, but many teach social studies with about 12 hours of college prep. They say read the book, and don't ask questions. Now computers are the great savior, right. What a joke. I use computers in my middle school social studies and journalism to a certain extent. But, I teach the subject matter, and the computer is for reinforcement and research. We have principals and school boards who are more afraid or getting sued everytime a kid is expelled or suspended. I can not tell you how many times I spoke to attorneys because their studend had a "special problem." Most of the parents could care less in the poorly performing schools. I could go on forever, sorry.