Average Public School Teacher Is Paid Too Much

Teaching is certainly challenging, but it is not uniquely so

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Well can someone do a study on how much teachers in South Korea, Finland, Swedean, Japan, England, France, Germany, Australia, and ever other Western industralized country are PAID?? Hmmm if South Korea and Finland attract the highest 1% of college graduates then one might think that the salary and benefits package must be competive?? We are no longer in a isolanist society. We are in a global economy and things should be compared on that scale since they compare our students test scores that way.

Katrina of MD 11:38AM December 28, 2011

Boring, predictable pseudoscientific drivel from the AEI and Heritage.

Jason and Andrew (and me, for that matter) spend our days sat behind a screen, going to meetings, perhaps delivering the odd lecture. An hour of our time is simply not equivalent to an hour spent on one's feet controlling and hopefully educating a class of children. That stands regardless of whether we look at that hour in terms of the social benefits it generates (and hence in terms of the compensation it should demand according to the Heritage/AEI view of the world), or in terms of the difficulty and stress attached to that work.

The fact that in the US teachers tend to be drawn from the bottom third of graduates and thus 'deserve' their salary is a glaring conflation of cause and effect that these free-marketeers might have spotted if they weren't so caught up in relentlessly promoting their miserable agenda.

The US has among the worst-performing education systems of the advanced economies, and these guys want to pay teachers even less. I can only hope they are opting their own children out of the state education sector.

TK 11:40AM November 18, 2011

Twist is how you want, but these are the people that teach kids today. Do you really want underpaid, unmotivated people teaching them? Throughout my entire high school years I had ONE teacher that made a difference in my life and that is truly sad. Maybe a better question would be "are congress men (or anyone that works for the government for that matter) overpaid?"

Brittney of TX 11:19PM November 15, 2011

I've been teaching for nearly twenty years. My "vacation time" has decreased annually. I spend much of my "free time" creating activites that benefit my students. I create and sponsor activites that take me awa from my family. The opportunity cost for my career choice is expensive! I spend the same time accruing professional development that five workers in the corporate world would attend. Ask teachers in urban areas across the United States about job security. Many teachers have been laid off due to budget cuts and shifting administrative priorities. Successful workers in non-education related fields would never become successful without support of great teachers, who consistently gave them their undivided attention in their formative years. How do you measure in dollars the investment teachers make on a daily basis in the lives of their students? I believe that, if you really want to validate your research about teacher's salaries, you might want to validate your research by visiting classrooms. Remember and take stock in your own educational experience. What value do you place on dedication and opportunity cost?

William D. Bolch of TX 9:46PM November 15, 2011

Before you say teachers are overpaid, come walk in my shoes for a few years in a low income neighborhood where students only get supplies from their teachers. I have been teaching 13 years. I would say 10 of those areas had little parental involvement so kids would stay with me till their homework was done because no one at home would/could help. My job is more than 8 hours a fay and 180ish days a year. Just because we get summers off doesn't mean that we leave the teaching behind. Many of us work summer school, summer camps or even go back to school to grow our knowledge in their field of teaching, and learning more about best practices to allow our students, or my kids as I call them, to become smarter and ready for a world that is very different today than when I was growing up.

CT of TX 1:34AM November 15, 2011

A response to the Heritage report on teacher pay...

To come to the conclusion that school teachers are not underpaid, but in fact overpaid, is an unfortunate exercise in selective reasoning and analysis. I find it a set of detached observations from above and outside the profession, particularly lacking in any true accounting of the overall enormity of the challenges and tolls faced by teachers.

I say this from the perspective of being a public school teacher (Elementary level-6th, 4th, 3rd, and 2nd grades, currently 5th grade) for the past 14 years, while previously I was in the construction/remodeling trades for 20-plus years.

Thus, I am well aquainted with the extra burdens beyond the "8-hr workday" that many workers, service or retail managers, and particularly contractors in the private sector must cope with to be successful.

However, in my direct and observed experience, they pale in comparison to the extra burdens and challenges-physical, mental, emotional, and time spent- borne by most teachers. It is by any measure the hardest job I have ever had! (I remain a committed teacher out of a belief in helping students learn and thereby enriching the community at large we all must live in.)

(If pay were my only criteria in careers, I have already proved I could be doing much better for myself in the remodeling and real estate investment sector.)

I would actually like to delve further into more specifics of this topic, but am pressed to return to the full days I am spending this Saturday and Sunday tallying grades and filling out Report Cards for my 32 incredibly- varied 5th Graders.

I am also sure my family would be pleased to share their observations and feelings about the amount of time and effort they patiently allow me to spend

at my "underpaid" job.

My final thought is that, as a literate college graduate who has thereafter taken countless courses and workshops of educational professional development, I

would be glad to trade jobs-my classroom for your desk- with any author of this Report, and see who fared the best.

Thoughtfully yours,

Steve Griffith

steve Griffith of CA 5:46PM November 13, 2011

It is difficult to accept the "facts" which you present, when some of them are so blatantly false. A 260 day work year would mean absolutely no vacation days or other days off (working five days per week). I don't know of many jobs in which workers are not allowed a single day off.

Retiree health benefits for teachers are not available to most who have started teaching in the last 10 years, or are severely curtailed in comparison to what was the norm 20 years ago.

I would like to see you take into account the thousands of dollars which teachers must spend on additional schooling in order to maintain employment. Many states and district require advanced degrees, or at the very least a minimum number of graduate credits every five years.

Jennifer of MN 2:36PM November 10, 2011

Athletes and entertainers are overpaid. Their work occupies the moment and seldom endures. The work of teachers, nurses, and other education workers creates the future and determines what endures.

Teachers are not overpaid.

Dennis Kelly of CA 1:57PM November 10, 2011

Jason, Have you ever had to "teach" Have you ever has 25 kids in your classroom, ALL with different learning abilities. Take a 6th grade teacher. He/She may have 1/3 of their class on an IEP, and other may be on a 4th grade level. In rural towns where there isnt a big tax base, the budget is low. Have you ever taught with virtually No text books, and have to photocopy everything.

Have you ever had a parent or parents, scream at you for not being fair to their child.

It happens all the time in teaching.

Parents blame teachers for their child's misbehaving, etc.

It is always the school or the teacher's fault.

Have you ever tried to teach a child who doesn't want to be taught. Try that.

In normal business if a worker doesn't want to work, they get fired.

Try motivating someone who could care less.

As for working hours, I have see many teacher go in on weekend to do lesson plans, stay up late, correcting papers etc. To the Narrow minded such as yourself, they see teachers working 8:00-3:00.

They have meeting After school, federal mandates to keep up with, you name it. Teachers work on average 10 hr days, but to ignorant people like you... never mind not worth arguing. You can't fix stupid!

Also the public says "teachers have summers off". Most do Not. Most have to take classes to keep their certification. Take classes to keep up with new Math programs, etc.

I am an Engineer, and I do NOT have to take classes to keep my job. Teachers DO. Engineers right out of college get 60-70K here in Vermont from IBM, and those aren't top of the line engineers.

Teacher in Northern Vermont Start out at 26-28K.

Benefits are basically the same as any other profession. Teacher pay the same % to their health coverage as most Business professionals.

As for retirement, in Vermont they are Terrible.

The state just passed that in order to retire with full benefits (not great to begin with), a teacher needs to teach a combination of Age and years of experience EQUAL to 90. Do the math. Start teaching at 23 out of college (with a Masters), and you can retire at 60 with full benefits.

That is IF you start teaching at 23. So please do not try to tell me that teachers do not Earn their money. Teachers deserve as much money as possible.

Without teachers there is nothing. Teachers enrich children's minds, and get them to think they can achieve. Teachers are responsible for EVERY profession in the world.

There is nothing like a good teacher. Sure there a bad ones and those need to be weeded out.

I have seen many teachers get burnt out, because of parents, because of logistics, because Government tells them what to teach, what to test. NECAP testing etc. Let teachers teach and let kids grow and learn.

I for one am All for teachers making more money.

They certainly earn it.

Bob I of VT 7:37AM November 10, 2011

P.S. Those teachers who give there all to try to make a difference, work there ever loving tails off. I know! By the way, the $232 dollars a month I am paying for benefits is what I have to contribute WHILE employed as a teacher. When I retire I will have to pay entirely for my own benefits. I am a K-12 teacher. The practice of paying for a teacher's benefits after retirement went out the window over 20 years ago, meaning those hired within the last two decades most certainly will NOT have it. My cousin, however, is a secretary at a UC campus. She will have full benefits when she retires and she clocks in at 8 A.M. and out at 5 P.M. when her work day is done. My day starts at 7:15 A.M.. It is over when I have attended any required meetings, completed all federal special education paperwork, straightened the room, written and prepared lesson and behavior intervention plans for my students, the next day. Usually this is around 7 P.M..

Signed a UCLA grad, who i guess, according to YOU was in the lower third of her class! What a narrow minded, slanted perception you have. I HONESTLY feel very overworked and VERY under-appreciated. I could tell you stories of things I have seen. and had to do as an educator that would make your head spin!

Marcia of CA 9:39PM November 09, 2011

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