s/o administrators' salaries: How much should teachers be paid?

[Renee in NC]

It's becoming a moot point anyway, as high schools are shooing students to community college rather than offering courses that aren't required for the diploma. I don't know about your area, but in mine with the exception of districts that are near tech companies or Us, math after Integrated Algebra II is all CC or provider of family's choice. Nothing is offered through the high school as the teachers who formerly taught Trig through Calc AB have been shifted to teaching remedial. Similar situation for other courses in the college prep sequence.

 

I have never seen that. I know not all schools offer classes past Calculus, but I didn't know that some school weren't offering it at all. That's just crazy!

[Rosie_0801]

I have had teachers who do not know their subject, I have acquaintances who are teachers and are, frankly, "dumb as rocks." An old report card that I received has spelling errors! Teachers are a large part of the problem. When the teachers admit this and start to get rid of the chaff then I may listen to their complaints, currently the teacher's main job seems to be the same as the politician's, "come back next year".

 

Since when do teachers do the hiring? My dh didn't hire himself to work 14 hours a day for most of the year and to work on public holidays when his missus was up to her eyeballs, crying with morning sickness. The maths teachers didn't hire him to do that and themselves to spend their summers surfing, to be handed a curriculum and lesson plans on the first day of the year.

 

As for chaff, there is surely a whole lot of that, but they aren't a reason to make teachers working conditions worse. The good teachers are already busting their buttons and making their conditions worse will definitely not improve anyone's lives. Not their family lives and not their student's educations.

 

I'm all for getting rid of crappy teachers and I'm all for paying the good ones (with the understanding that graduates can't work as though they are masters of their craft) properly. People working 14 hour days during term time and normal working days for most of the "holidays" don't deserved to be paid as though they work 7 hours a day during term time and have 2 months of surfing holidays per year. I think the issue to figure out is why there are so many crappy teachers. "Good" shouldn't mean "works 14 hours a day all year round" because that's not reasonable or healthy for anyone. That's burn out and marriage problems. The biggest contributer to the "chaff" element seems to be the institutions granting teaching diplomas to anyone who enrolls and sticks around for the duration. As far as I know around here, you can't flunk a teaching degree and if you can't multiply fractions, you should flunk the course. Then the other thing would be to get people who would pass to a high standard to enroll and they won't if they're going to be treated like probably chaff.

 

And, as someone already said, who'd cover the classes if all the crappy teachers were fired? Probably no one until a law changed and a working with children check was all that was required for those with degrees in other areas to get a job, instead of turning them away for a teaching diploma.

 

What's with this school district thing? I don't think we have that here. Our education systems are run by the state, so as far as I know, we don't have another level of administrators the way your districts seem to be.

 

Rosie

[angela in ohio]

Since when do teachers do the hiring?

 

I think this might be a U.S. thing only. Here, the teacher's unions fight hard to keep inept teachers. So it really is the teachers who are trying to keep poor teachers.

 

I know in dh's district, there are many, may applicants for each job. There are plenty of people to fill the shoes of bad teachers who are fired. If even a small percentage of them are capable, we'd be all set.

[angela in ohio]

The reason for this is pure politics.

 

It is politics. No one is allowed to teach until they have been run through the "values realignment" classes at the local teacher's college. :D I'm in the middle of this right now, walking a fine line between knowing better and wanting to pass my classes. :glare:

[Rosie_0801]

I think this might be a U.S. thing only. Here, the teacher's unions fight hard to keep inept teachers. So it really is the teachers who are trying to keep poor teachers.

 

Our teachers have a union too, but teachers and teachers union aren't exactly the same thing. Maybe this is just one of those location differences. Or maybe we don't perceive the union to be trying to keep poor teachers. It is hard to get rid of the "chaff" and that could be the union's doing. Protecting crappy teachers is an unfortunate side effect of protecting the good teachers. It seems many on here think it would be better not to protect good teachers so as to avoid protecting the crappy ones. :confused: That seems like a great way to lose the good teachers, to me. Our education system treats most teachers, particularly those in the early stages of their careers as though they are crappy, so most new grads don't last longer than three years. The system seems to weed out the good ones instead of the bad...

 

Rosie

[Murmer]

Answering the original question...I think teacher's should be making a living wage...in VT I would have qualified for government assistance on what I was offered for teaching...I think if they paid a competitive wage that induced people to do it rather than causing the most talented people to find other jobs that pay better we might be able to start real education...right now there are the ones who really care (they get burned out fast) and the ones that just wanted an easy major with an "easy" job. As someone told me once "You are too smart to be a teacher" and that truly is a mentality out there in education because if you are smart you might as well become and engineer or doctor, or lawyer or any number of things that pay more that 25,000 a year with a cap after PH.D and 20 years working of 56,000.