Should the starting salary for a teacher be $60,000?

[Nemesis 1]

I will teach the hell out of some kids for 60k a year. Don't even have to give me summers off, just allow me to yell and discipline(not hit) children and all will be good.

OH god know yelling is the worst thing we can do . Take it from an expert yeller . Discipline yes . Yelling will never work . It makes them close ears . You find what interest they have and out fox them .

 

[Nemesis 1]

I never attacked you. Nice try though. Some schools have failed; most likely not all failed schools have failed for the same reason. From the school my wife taught at last year, I can tell you that one failed/is failing because the administration is inept and doing insane things to play a numbers game with their students scores and their budgeting.

It's a school where you can make up 5 days of unexcused absences by attending one day of saturday school. Teachers have no options for disciplining children since the admin won't allow ISS/OSS since if students fail out the numbers look bad for them; forget about even considering expelling the extreme children. The school fires every first year teacher every year so they never have to pay for experienced teachers.

You have a vested interest. Thats all I have to say to you.

 

[BoberFett]

To be fair, measuring teacher performance objectively is very tricky and is a major sticking point for the idea of merit-based pay. If you base it on standardized test scores, they will just teach the test and nothing else. Other methods can be too subjective. Likely a combination approach would work best but nothing is going to be perfect.

Nothing ever is, but there has to be something better than what we have now. Teacher pay is part of it.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

You have a vested interest. Thats all I have to say to you.

Not really. I don't care what my wife does, and if I'm to believe you than I attacked her as well. So which is it? am I attacking teachers or do I have a vested interest in them? or are you just stupid?

 

[the DRIZZLE]

Depends on the subject. You can't pay a PE teacher the same as a Biology teacher but that's just my opinion. I got hounded by a recruiter trying to get me to teach science courses in either High School or a Community College. Starting salary was $21,000 a year though so I turned it down. If you're going to get anyone decent teaching at these positions you need to offer more money considering that during normal economic times you can make 2-3x that with very little effort straight out of college. With a bit of luck and lots of effort and hard work considerably more. My general impression of most teachers today is that they are subpar and that makes sense at their current salaries. Those teaching lower grades seem to just be glorified babysitters and that's just not right.

Just raising the salaries today doesn't do us any good though. You need to be able to fill those positions with better faculty. Generally speaking people will only work as hard as the weakest link and that means you'd have to fire an awful lot of teachers.

I also think you need to give teachers more power. It seems like lots of kids are coasting through High School without even learning how to read and write properly. Teachers need to be able to fail kids and hold kids as well as parents accountable. I don't recall the statistic on kids failing tests but it was something staggering and they're still getting diplomas. The military was even having a hard times since High School graduates were unable to pass the entrance exam.

Along these lines I'd also say we should get better teachers to teach the smarter students. It doesn't make much sense to pay someone with a 130+ IQ $150k per year to teach dumb dumbs. On the other hand the average teacher today isn't smart enough to challenge the smarter kids.

 

[Jeffg010]

After reading all these posts I decided to look up at how many teachers are out there and found this on the link below 7.2 million teachers in 2008 and with numbers like that you are bound to have a lot of bad teachers. One thing I have read was to have more teachers per students but that would require a lot more teachers and thin out the number of good teachers. It is real tough problem to deal with for sure.

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/pdf/cb10ff-14_school.pdf

 

[randomrogue]

I'm not sure paying a teacher $150K a year is the answer either. I mean you get 4 months of vacation. $150K a year and 16 weeks of vacation would require one hell of a teacher. I'd rather have Nobel Laureates teaching at Universities though 😛

 

[Nemesis 1]

Along these lines I'd also say we should get better teachers to teach the smarter students. It doesn't make much sense to pay someone with a 130+ IQ $150k per year to teach dumb dumbs. On the other hand the average teacher today isn't smart enough to challenge the smarter kids.

OH no the left just crapped there collective panties

 

[96Firebird]

Along these lines I'd also say we should get better teachers to teach the smarter students. It doesn't make much sense to pay someone with a 130+ IQ $150k per year to teach dumb dumbs. On the other hand the average teacher today isn't smart enough to challenge the smarter kids.

Being smart does NOT mean you can teach...

I went to community college for two years, where I got my associates in Engineering Sciences. I felt like I learned a lot there, the teachers were great. Then I went to Rochester Institute of Technology, and got my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. The teachers need to have their PHD to teach. Sure, they knew their stuff. But some just couldn't teach it to the students. I felt like I learned more in my two years at community college than I did at my 3 years at RIT. They just didn't know how to convey what they were trying to say.

 

[Chaosblade02]

I'm sorry but no public school teacher deserves $150k/year, that is just ridiculous. I could maybe see paying the very best teachers $80k/year, which they could live very well on in any area of America making that. I don't think teachers that don't get results should even be making $60k/year.

I could see a PHD professor making $150k/year because they are a PHD in their field.

 

[DrPizza]

You must not have been taking very difficult high school courses. My high school courses covered as much if not more than my college equivalents. It wasn't until Calc III in college that we went beyond what I'd learned in Calc I in high school, and my AP Computer Science course taught just as much (and in some ways more) as the first year programming courses did.

I frequently have students visit from college who comment that in Calc I in high school, we covered everything that's in Calc II and more - and in more depth. The difference is, the high school students who make it into my calculus class are above average intelligence. A college class tends to be skewed a lot more toward average. My students are smarter, so I treat them that way & challenge them. Also, we don't teach AP classes at my high school - a significant chunk of our faculty are adjunct professors (myself included) to 3 or 4 different universities. Our students get college credit and transcripts for taking our classes.

Alternatively your college classes weren't that hard. I don't know what to tell you but if you somehow squeezed in a year of College Calc into one semester of AP calc then I'm impressed. The thought of my terrible high school even teaching series and sequences is just laughable let alone everything else that was in the first two semesters of calc. Did you take regular or business calc in college?

Either way I think my high school sucked. It won all these awards and was in the top percentile for the state but it was a sham as far as I'm concerned.

It would sadden me if I didn't make it through series and sequences. Taylor and McLaurin series and polynomials bring together so many different concepts in mathematics. "Ohhhhhhh, so that's how you find the sine of 37 degrees accurate to ten decimal places." - and then you give them that nudge: "if you get a chance, skim through a numerical analysis textbook - there are algorithms that converge more quickly."

I'd be willing to pay teachers more if it were easier to get rid of bad ones. Let the free market work it out. Higher pay would lead to greater interest in the field, but teachers unions make it impossible to get rid of shitty teachers. If you could keep the good ones and pay them more and dump the losers, I'd be all for it.

That might be true in some states but tenure for teachers grants them one thing and one thing only: the right to due process before being dismissed (and the right to representation by their union in dismissal proceedings.) It's not a difficult process to get rid of a bad teacher - in fact, a bad teacher shouldn't be tenured in the first place. If someone's in competent at their job, you SHOULD be able to figure that out in the first 3 years they're on the job. If your school district has poor teachers, it's the fault of the administration and school board.

 

[Ausm]

I'm sorry but no public school teacher deserves $150k/year, that is just ridiculous. I could maybe see paying the very best teachers $80k/year, which they could live very well on in any area of America making that. I don't think teachers that don't get results should even be making $60k/year.

I could see a PHD professor making $150k/year because they are a PHD in their field.

My brother is a Professor and has a dual PHD he only makes 220K...I am on the horn right now with him to tell him that he is getting the shaft 🙂 Oh and 60K isn't really as outrageous as you think it is.

 

[bfdd]

DrPizza, I had a teacher in 9th grade shove a girl out of her desk and throw her desk off the third story building our class was in. The teacher wasn't fire, but was asked to resign. Why? Because firing him would have been to much of a hassle even though he had only been teaching there for a few months.

 

[child of wonder]

If a teacher has classes who consistently score higher than average and is adored by the students and parents, then, yes, they should be rewarded with higher pay.

Straight out of school making $60,000? No.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Teaching salaries shouldn't be that high. They get the summer off and they're jobs with a lot of rights and benefits. I'm more concerned that our job market is becoming more like Europe in that getting a safe teaching job is considered a "good job." People should be teachers because of the service, not the salary.



It's not about "deserving" in market economies. It's about supply and demand. Anyway, it's pretty obvious this story is not talking about professors.

It depends on where the students and teachers are, and "because of the service" is really a codeword for "we expect you to take shit pay and like it". There is no one who should not be properly compensated for whatever they do as a vocation. Having a great number of educators both my and my wife's family the summer off is compensation for putting in a whole lot of hours outside of the classroom. Are there those who are bums? Sure and they should get tossed. Asking intelligent, competent people who spend a lot of time getting advanced degrees and then thinking they should be grateful for the opportunity, and oh by the way that should be good enough isn't going to get or retain quality people. You generally get what you pay for.

 

[Chaosblade02]

My brother is a Professor and has a dual PHD he only makes 220K...I am on the horn right now with him to tell him that he is getting the shaft 🙂 Oh and 60K isn't really as outrageous as you think it is.

220k is top 5% wage earners. Which is nearly the top you are going to make working for someone else in America unless you are overhead in a very large corporation. Hes got nothing to be complaining about. 60k a year you can afford a home in an upper middle class low crime area, and afford payments on a house worth 400-500k. These days you need at least a Bachelors degree to make 60k/year working for someone else, or a very highly skilled trade. 60k is entry level for many types of engineers. And they are at the higher end of the pay scale for people with Bachelors degrees.

A PHD should be looking to profit off innovating something new in their field of expertise. I would be looking at anything I could improve on with the knowledge I gained combined with my own ideas. Instead of 220k/year, you could be collecting millions a year without even working every day.

 

[Icepick]

220k is top 5% wage earners. Hes got nothing to be complaining about. 60k a year you can afford a home in an upper middle class low crime area, and afford payments on a house worth 400-500k. These days you need at least a Bachelors degree to make 60k/year working for someone else, or a very highly skilled trade.

Where? In Afghanistan? 60k won't get you into an upper middle class neighborhood around here.

 

[Icepick]

I think teachers should be earning more money. Teaching our youth is a very important job.

 

[Ausm]

Where? In Afghanistan? 60k won't get you into an upper middle class neighborhood around here.

No shit I was thinking the same thing.

 

[soccerballtux]

Interesting article about raising teacher pay dramatically.

As the article says there is limited research on whether higher pay gets better results, but what little research that is out there suggest that it does not lead to better results.

More likely teacher who are good at good because of personal drive and ambition rather than because they are paid more.

Thought?

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/starting-salary-teacher-60-000-131728091.html

seems like backward thinking to me. Rich people are more successful, so if we gave everyone lots of money and made them rich, everyone would be more successful.

 

[Chaosblade02]

No shit I was thinking the same thing.

I know in the Richmond Virginia area, you can do pretty well on 60k/year. I make less than that and I live in a VERY low crime area. If you can't get by on 60k/year in your area, maybe you should look into relocating somewhere outside of NYC, LA or Chicago. They pay taxi drivers 60k/year in NYC, no wonder you can't get a low crime area when even non-skilled labor there can make that kind of wage.

 

[Ausm]

I know in the Richmond Virginia area, you can do pretty well on 60k/year. I make less than that and I live in a low crime area.

I realize you answer was solely based on Demographics just makes me want to live in a place with a lower cost of living 😉

 

[alkemyst]

Agree, isn't that why CEOs are worth their weight in gold, Even if they fail?

That's a fallacy though...most that fail get kicked by the stockholders or don't take a cut.

The crap we hear about in the news are those that suckered the people into bailing them out.

IMHO most teachers are overpaid. They are the biggest group of whiners crying about entitlement meanwhile wanting to work less.

It's a sad state of affairs...but when you have teachers booming 'suck my dick' music while flying into an elementary school between kids in the crosswalk, you tell me if that's worth $60k.

 

[Chaosblade02]

I realize you answer was solely based on Demographics just makes me want to live in a place with a lower cost of living 😉

I have a house payment, truck payment, utilities, internet and cable and eat out for lunch/dinner every day, and still usually got $800+ left at the end of the month, and I only make around $45k/year. If I get overtime I might have $2000 at the end of the month to save.

 

[Ausm]

I have a house payment, truck payment, utilities, internet and cable and eat out for lunch/dinner every day, and still usually got $800+ left at the end of the month, and I only make around $45k/year. If I get overtime I might have $2000 at the end of the month to save.

Sounds like your doing well and in my opinion that's all that matters in life.