ATAB (well, maybe not all but these 650 are...)

[makattak]

https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2020/10/19/fire-all-of-them-more-than-650-teachers-called-in-sick-monday-in-idahos-largest-public-school-district/

650 teachers called in "sick".

But teachers are the real heroes.

[Andiron]

Wait wait wait, calling them "teachers" is disrespectful, now it's "educator",  or some other similar pretentious bullshit.

[bedlamite]

Wait wait wait, calling them "teachers" is disrespectful, now it's "educator",  or some other similar pretentious bullshit.

propagandist

[Ben]

These same teachers are going to the grocery store, Walmart, etc., where employees are showing up every day while making significantly less than a teacher's salary.

[bedlamite]

These same teachers are going to the grocery store, Walmart, etc., where employees are showing up every day while making significantly less than a teacher's salary.

It's not going to happen, but all the people working at the grocery store, malwart, etc. have to chase these "teachers" out of their stores.

[Perd Hapley]

These same teachers are going to the grocery store, Walmart, etc., where employees are showing up every day while making significantly less than a teacher's salary.

Yup. A friend of mine teaches in the Ferguson/Florissant School district in Missouri (Michael Brown's alma mater). Her salary is public knowledge. Once I saw it, while I'm happy she makes good money for what she does, I realized the old story of the undervalued public school teacher working for peanuts is - not true everywhere. I'm sure there are much less affluent districts, but some teachers at least are well compensated.

Oh, and I really do mean that I'm happy for her to be well-compensated. The stuff she deals with in her classroom of (I think) first-graders is heart-breaking. And she's a sweet, innocent girl, from rural Illinois, so it's a world apart from her own childhood.

[lee n. field]

Yup. A friend of mine teaches in the Ferguson/Florissant School district in Missouri (Michael Brown's alma mater). Her salary is public knowledge. Once I saw it, while I'm happy she makes good money for what she does, I realized the old story of the undervalued public school teacher working for peanuts is - not true everywhere. I'm sure there are much less affluent districts, but some teachers at least are well compensated.

Plus bennies.  Plus a nice pension.  Looking up what teachers make is a good way for me to get depressed.

[MikeB]

Plus bennies.  Plus a nice pension.  Looking up what teachers make is a good way for me to get depressed.

Yep. In my area average around 90k before benefits. And of course only work 9 or so months out of the year. While I’m sure some deserve it, I know most don’t. Guaranteed raises based on degrees and years. Doesn’t really matter how effective of teachers they are. Granted it was 30+ years ago, but when I attended schools in one of the highest paid districts, some of the most educated were the worst, least effective. Oh and I almost forgot paid time off for sabbaticals for education, travel, etc. So we pay them to get advanced degrees that for most I question how it makes them better teachers and pay for the education and then give them a raise...

[dogmush]

Meh, If you want to require graduate degrees, you need to pay enough to make it worthwhile.

[MillCreek]

My wife's district is the highest-paying in the state.  Beginning teachers start at around $ 55K and the scale tops out at $ 122K.  Based on her qualifications and credentials, my wife is at the top of the scale, and when she retires in three years, at the 30 year mark, her final salary will probably be around $ 130K.  You guys should have either married a teacher in an affluent district, or worked as one yourselves!

By way of comparison, however, my nephew, who went to a third-tier school for computer science, is now a coder at Microsoft making $ 160K per year, with five years of experience.  I have 37 years of experience, credentials and science/business/legal degrees and am not making as much as my nephew.

[MikeB]

Meh, If you want to require graduate degrees, you need to pay enough to make it worthwhile.

Who wants to require graduate degrees? I think they are worthless for most teachers. The unions got it built into contracts by donating to Dem politicians and going on strike every other year.

[MikeB]

My wife's district is the highest-paying in the state.  Beginning teachers start at around $ 55K and the scale tops out at $ 122K.  Based on her qualifications and credentials, my wife is at the top of the scale, and when she retires in three years, at the 30 year mark, her final salary will probably be around $ 130K.  You guys should have either married a teacher in an affluent district, or worked as one yourselves!

By way of comparison, however, my nephew, who went to a third-tier school for computer science, is now a coder at Microsoft making $ 160K per year, with five years of experience.  I have 37 years of experience, credentials and science/business/legal degrees and am not making as much as my nephew.

I think most teachers aren't worth that cost and it comes out of my property taxes, has nothing to do with being jealous of the salaries. I as a voter have to right to say they are payed more than the value of their work product.

[dogmush]

*paid.  Certainly yours were.     (I jest, I jest)

I tend to agree with you that elementary and high school teachers needing graduate degrees is a sign of degree bloat, but they DO need those degrees to get hired, and that doesn't seem likely to change.  If you don't pay enough that smart, good teachers jump through the required hoops, then you get dumb, bad teachers.


As far as the cost, public school is hideously inefficient in a lot of ways, but teachers salaries are bottom half of that list.  We have a long way to go (at least here in Hillsborough County, FL) in spending my property taxes smarter before I get up in arms over teachers salaries.

[Ben]

Since it appears my post started this salary debate, I'd like to clarify:

I think there are good and bad teachers getting overpaid. I think there are good and bad teachers getting underpaid.

My point was that these particular teachers, from one of the more affluent areas of Idaho, are certainly paid more than the Walmart greeter or the average grocery clerk around here, who is closer to $10/hr than $20/hr.

Those low paid people are going to their jobs every day, and, IMO, are at a much greater risk for the virus because they interact with people from everywhere, including out of state travelers. The teachers are interacting with the same group of kids for the entire school year, or semester, depending on grade. They have a much smaller potential infection pool, and schools are much more stringent about PPE and distancing than the stores I mentioned. Not to mention, the teachers themselves are not self-isolating. They are going to the grocery store, out to eat where they take their masks off, etc.

So in the case of this particular group of teachers, it seems more about some Idaho Education Association politics or similar than getting the virus, and their refusal to go to work is at odds with their everyday lives, and also selfish, considering all the low paid service workers that are doing their jobs.

[MillCreek]

I think most teachers aren't worth that cost and it comes out of my property taxes, has nothing to do with being jealous of the salaries. I as a voter have to right to say they are payed more than the value of their work product.

On the local FB pages, I see the same sentiments, but about cops and firefighters instead (They sit around the station all day! They never get out of their cars!, All they do is write tickets instead of catching the tweaker who stole my stereo, etc.)

[MillCreek]

So in the case of this particular group of teachers, it seems more about some Idaho Education Association politics or similar than getting the virus, and their refusal to go to work is at odds with their everyday lives, and also selfish, considering all the low paid service workers that are doing their jobs.

I roll my eyes at the teachers or office workers who claim this.  I have been going to work every day in a healthcare facility filled with sick people, and so have my healthcare colleagues. I am still alive.

[MikeB]

*paid.  Certainly yours were.     (I jest, I jest)

I tend to agree with you that elementary and high school teachers needing graduate degrees is a sign of degree bloat, but they DO need those degrees to get hired, and that doesn't seem likely to change.  If you don't pay enough that smart, good teachers jump through the required hoops, then you get dumb, bad teachers.


As far as the cost, public school is hideously inefficient in a lot of ways, but teachers salaries are bottom half of that list.  We have a long way to go (at least here in Hillsborough County, FL) in spending my property taxes smarter before I get up in arms over teachers salaries.

Different areas of the country are different. The vast majority of my property taxes go to shool funding and the majority of that is teachers salaries. I don’t even have a child in school and it costs me over 8000 per year in those taxes alone.

[MikeB]

On the local FB pages, I see the same sentiments, but about cops and firefighters instead (They sit around the station all day! They never get out of their cars!, All they do is write tickets instead of catching the tweaker who stole my stereo, etc.)

I might agree about cops, no paid firefighters where I live. Volunteers only.

[RoadKingLarry]

I roll my eyes at the teachers or office workers who claim this.  I have been going to work every day in a healthcare facility filled with sick people, and so have my healthcare colleagues. I am still alive.

But are you, really?

[MillCreek]

I see from my property taxes that out of the $5401.11 I pay per year, $ 1319.80 goes to my local school district.  I actually pay more in the aggregate for the local fire district and public hospital district.  I have never used the services of the school district, fire district or hospital district. Huh.

[cordex]

I see from my property taxes that out of the $5401.11 I pay per year, $ 1319.80 goes to my local school district.  I actually pay more in the aggregate for the local fire district and public hospital district.  I have never used the services of the school district, fire district or hospital district. Huh.

Schools also typically get state and federal taxes.  A lot of the state budget. 
https://ofm.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/budget/statebudget/highlights/budget20/2020_Balance.pdf
Let's see here ... of the Washington State Near General Fund accounts, K-12 schools get $27.4 billion.  Higher education gets $4.1 billion.

All other state budget items added up $21.9 billion.  So more state budget is spent on K-12 than everything else combined.

[Silver Bullet]

One of my gripes with teachers is the districts where they try to pressure the school district to limit classrooms to 20 students per class for "more personalized attention".  The real scheme here that limiting to 20 instead of, say, 30, more teachers have to be hired, and now at higher salaries because of the greater demand.

If you have 60 students and 30 to a room, 2 teachers.  60 students and 20 to a room, 3 teachers.  Oh, no, we have to hire another teacher!  And now they're scarcer than before so we have to pay a higher salary!

[AZRedhawk44]

Since it appears my post started this salary debate, I'd like to clarify:

I think there are good and bad teachers getting overpaid. I think there are good and bad teachers getting underpaid.

My point was that these particular teachers, from one of the more affluent areas of Idaho, are certainly paid more than the Walmart greeter or the average grocery clerk around here, who is closer to $10/hr than $20/hr.

Those low paid people are going to their jobs every day, and, IMO, are at a much greater risk for the virus because they interact with people from everywhere, including out of state travelers. The teachers are interacting with the same group of kids for the entire school year, or semester, depending on grade. They have a much smaller potential infection pool, and schools are much more stringent about PPE and distancing than the stores I mentioned. Not to mention, the teachers themselves are not self-isolating. They are going to the grocery store, out to eat where they take their masks off, etc.

So in the case of this particular group of teachers, it seems more about some Idaho Education Association politics or similar than getting the virus, and their refusal to go to work is at odds with their everyday lives, and also selfish, considering all the low paid service workers that are doing their jobs.

[charby]

For those who seem to think that public employees get paid too much, what is a reasonable salary for teacher?

[MikeB]

For those who seem to think that public employees get paid too much, what is a reasonable salary for teacher?

Personally I don’t think I can give an exact number. My problem is more to do with bad teachers making a lot of money. And often the bad ones making the most. At least when I was in school often the worst teachers were those who had been there for a very long time making the maximum. I also have a problem with public employee unions. They shouldn’t be allowed to go on strike every other year to force raises.

A good baseline though might be that median income in a region should be close to the average teacher salary. No offense to anyone, but realistically elementary and junior high teaching isn’t exactly a particularly skilled position. Charter and parochial schools often produce better results with non union teachers being payed less than in my opinion mostly overpaid union counterparts.

Of course this is from the perspective of an area of Pennsylvania known for inflated teacher salaries. Ymmv in other areas of the country that do things differently.

Now despite my personal experiences with teachers in school and knowing many later in life. I might feel differently if there was some evidence than more pay yielded better results, but the more we increase the budgets including teacher salaries year after year there is no evidence that public schools are producing better results, quite the contrary in most places.