Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
Originally posted by: montanafan
This debate comes up so often because the salaries across the country from district to district vary so much. Then you have to keep in mind when you're talking about average salaries within one district, they vary greatly depending on years of experience and degree.
I don't know what the average starting salary in Houston city schools is, but I do know that the absolute maximum a teacher in my district can make with 35 years experience and a Doctorate is $51,422.
When you're talking about time off in the summer, you also have to keep in mind that there are some years when a teacher could have that time free, but every school system I know anything about requires teachers to renew their certification at least every three years for around 12 years which pretty much requires them to attend college during the summer to get those hours. After that here, we are required to get continuing education credit on our own time each year that usually requires a workshop or seminar somewhere in the state or nation during the summer and you have to pay for your tuition or registration, travel, and lodging, etc. You can get reimbursed for the cost of these requirements if you're lucky, in that there is a limited amount of funding for it and if it runs out before you get your paperwork approved by the state, you're out of luck. Then keep in mind that if you want to try to increase your salary through an advanced degree, you have to attend college during the summers for that as well.
I do get a decent benefits package, but it isn't free. Money is held out of each of my checks for my retirement, for my life insurance, and for my medical insurance and the premiums for that increase constantly.
If teachers in Houston city schools are starting out at 42K on average, I'm happy for them, but keep in mind that this is not the average for most teachers, and that most do not have summers free, or free benefits.
You make it sound like no other profession has extraneous expenses or requirements for certification or work spent outside ordinary work hours. At leaset teachers can write them all off.
And you ignored other benefits. What, for example, is the value of job security? How about mobility? Plus you have a personally satisfying job or you wouldn't be doing it right? There's a lot of pros right there and the only con is that you are only upper middle class. Well darn.....let me cry a river for you.
WTH are you talking about?
First of all, I did not say that other professions did not have extraneous expenses or requirements for certification or work spent outside ordinary working hours. I was addressing the misconceptions of previous posters who seemed to think that teachers do not have the SAME sorts of expenses and requirements as others, get free benefits, and just sit around drinking margaritas on the beach all summer.
Second, you missed the part about how teachers cannot always write off those expenses because the funding for reimbursements is usually limited. I was not able to write off any of the expenses I incurred for renewing my certification the first 12 years I was teaching.
Third, I am a tenured teacher, but collective bargaining, and therefore unionization of state employees, is not allowed in my state so my job security is just as tenuous as anyone else's in any workplace. I don't really know what you mean about "how about mobility". It's no different than any other professional's.
Fourth, I don't know what you're crying about, but you do seem to be whining about something. I, on the other hand, was not crying or complaining about anything. I was just trying to clear up some of the misinformation others were posting, and that I see they continue to post like Boomerang with pensions in Michigan. That's the problem with these threads about teacher salaries and benefits, most of the people don't know the facts, or didn't pay enough attention in class to be able to interpret them.
And finally, if you'll try reading my original post again, perhaps more slowly, you'll see that I never complained about my job at all. Perhaps your school district should have invested more money in reading comprehension specialists. Though my salary would merely make me middle-class, not upper middle class as you mistakenly stated, I did not and do not complain about it. I just finished my 28th year teaching and I intend to teach at least the 34 years required in my state before I can collect any retirement which will be about 60%, not 100% X 1.5%, of my average salary at that time. I will continue to teach because I enjoy it most of the time, love my students (most of the time), believe that I am doing something I was born to do, and can't think of anything I would want to do with my life that would be more important than what I'm doing right now.
Now dry those tears, and learn to spell least correctly.
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