f/u to teachers
Teachers are on the defensive, because they have to be lately. Have you not seen the news related to teaching all over the country?
In my hometown, a small city in the MW, teachers voted to take a 2.5 pay decrease, in the lowest paying urban district in the state (starting pay around 25K), in order to save 170 teacher jobs. How many fields have people who are selfless enough to take less, just to save the jobs of those around them?
Here's a typical day of teaching, just as an FYI:
8-3 contracted work time (35 hours a week)
7:15-3:45 actual time at school for prepping for the day/following day, meetings with parents, tutoring, etc. (around 43 hours a week)
About 10 hours or so of grading, planning, prepping at home per week.
On a normal week, a teacher works 55 hours.
Teaching is more than presentation at the front of the classroom from 8-3. It's acquiring both content and pedagogical knowledge, it's planning a yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily curriculum that will engage students of all backgrounds and ability levels, it's administrative paperwork, it's meetings with parents, it's tutoring kids, it's grading papers. These things do not stop at the final bell. I love every minute of it (mostly....).
Most teachers do not sit on their butts all summer or during vacations. I've read at least 5 books related to teaching in the past month alone, preparing for the planning of the next school year. I've also spent about 10 hours a week planning our my annual curriculum, researching opportunities for classroom grants, and other matters preparing me for next year.
Do I enjoy my summer "off"? Certainly. However, it's because I have the freedom to use my time as I see fit. It's because I have time to think about pedagogy and how it will be applied to my classroom. It's because I get to pee whenever I want, not just between passing periods.
Plus, it can get mentally exhausting to work with kids at all levels of need. We love our kids, we yearn for them to do better, and we care about what happens to them. The overload of emotional commitment requires time to decompress. Teacher burnout is common--a huge percentage of teachers leave the field after less than 5 years.
I don't teach to become rich--it's a calling. However, in exchange for making a lesser salary, I hope that certain standards are in place. I came into teaching with the knowledge that I'd have access to affordable healthcare and a comfortable retirement. It allows me to do things I value--spend time with family and travel. I don't mind my pay, but keep in mind teacher pay varies greatly based on location.
Teaching is hard. Is it harder than any other job? It depends on how you look at it. I think being shackled to a desk 8 hours a day in front of a computer is torture. I love teaching.
Is teaching easier than any other job? Certainly not.
Do I work harder than most people? Yes. But I'd say I work harder than most other teachers as well. I'm the teacher who's getting her PhD, not because she wants a promotion, but because I think it will make me a better teacher. It's about working hard to do better for my kids.
Like any field, there are great teachers and bad ones. The bad ones are like "welfare queens" --they are the minority, but the first ones we hear about in the media and public's complaints.
Re: f/u to teachers
amen! nothing irks me more than ignorant people who b*tch about how teachers get the summers off and have such short hours of work each day! Grrrrrrrrr..........
Great Post. Teachers get no credit.
I guess our teachers are not as selfless as yours are though. We had a similar situation where the they could vote to not get a pay raise for one year or they could take the pay raise and let about 200 people loose their jobs. They overwhelmingly voted for the pay raise. That made me a little sad.
TTC #2 since 1/1/13
I hope you aren't suggesting that I am making myself a martyr. As I said above, I love my job, and I'd do it over almost any other job. Triple my salary in exchange for a desk job, and I'd politely decline. I was simply trying to give people a realistic picture of a teacher's day, week, and year look like.
Personally, I get more irritated with people who whine about not being able to find a job, but then refuse to get off their a$$ to find one. There are plenty of teaching positions in the Mississippi Delta and other poor, rural areas. These kids need great teachers, but people want jobs plunked into their lap.
Very well said Rachael! I am not sure if you have heard what has been happening in WI w/ teachers, I feel so bad for them. This is something one of my friends posted a while back, it really gives people a perspective.
Are you sick of highly paid teachers?
Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit!
...We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours).
Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.
However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET'S SEE....That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is!
The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days= $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!
If you break this down with all the same figures except the 25K you mentioned that would be $0.71 an hour per student. Education is too important for teachers to be paid this little. I applaud you for your time and effort.
I think teachers are amazing (the good ones, at least), and I could never do what they do. I also believe that we all have important jobs, and being a teacher is not necessarily a loftier profession than being, say, a garbageman. We all contribute to society in our own way.
Lots of people are making sacrifices in this economy. Teachers are usually immune from recessions, but that's not the case this time. So, I would totally agree right now that many teachers are underpaid and overworked.
However, where I grew up, teachers were the highest paid profession. In my rural area, they started at at least $30-40k (15 years ago), and made as much as $80k. They also had phenomenal benefits, and yes- summers off. I know of several teachers who recently retired early and are now collecting MORE from their pension than they made while working. That's a pretty sweet deal, and so the complaining about how hard it is was really annoying to the rest of the population who didn't make nearly that much and worked year-round without benefits.
I think pay, benefits, and working conditions for teachers vary so much from region to region. In some areas, teachers really are paid well for the hours they put in... in other areas, they can barely scrape by. Hence, the variety of different perspectives on a national board like this.
Excellent points made here....especially about the varied pay. My mentor teacher, when I was student teaching in Atlanta, was making 100K a year!!!! I was shocked! However, from my experience of working in 3 different regions in the US, that's not the norm.
Poor elementary school teachers! Sometimes, when I am grading 100 papers, I think it would be nice to teach elementary with only one group of students, and then I remember how little break time an elementary teacher gets! At least I can leave my kids in a room alone if I have an emergency!
Honestly, the pay situation is not unique to teachers. Virtually all professions right now are struggling with pay cuts of one form or another (including unpaid furlough days) and increasing costs for benefits.
I would also say that most professionals spend time outside of the office on work related reading and training.
I also don't think that a 55 hour work week is that unusual for most professions. Sad but true.
I applaud teachers and I'm glad that there are some awesome ones out there. I could never be a teacher, so I'm not. I'm "shackled to a desk" instead, LOL, but really what I love about my job is that I have no set hours. I can either sit here from 8-6, or I can work from 6-3, pick the kiddo up and then finish after he goes to bed. It's my choice.
~Working Mom~Breastfeeding Mom~Cloth Diapering Mom~BLW Mom~
Blog - No Longer on the DL ~ The Man Cave
Shawn and Larissa
LO #1 - Took 2 years and 2 IVFs ~ DX - severe MFI mild PCOS homozygous MTHFR (a1298c)
LO #2 - TTC 7 months, surprise spontaneous BFP!
You are right, on all accounts. I am not sure I was clear in my proclamation--I'm not contending that teachers in general work harder than everyone else, it's more a contention that they work AS hard as everyone else.
My "shackled to the desk" wasn't meant to be offensive...it's just what I felt like when I did a fellowship that required office work last summer. You couldn't pay me enough to do an office job...that would be impossibly hard work for me.
I have several thoughts on teachers. My mom is a high school teacher and my sister is a guidance counselor. Both of them work more than the 35-40 hours they are paid to work/week. Then again, I work more than the 40 hours/week I am paid to work. I think that is all about a good work ethic and having the desire to do your job well. I also remember some teachers in high school that were clearly just there to collect a paycheck. People like that exist in every job.
As far as pay, you don't go into teaching for money, you go into it for the love of the job. If you want to make a lot of money and that is the only thing that will make you happy, being a teacher isn't for you. Do I think teachers/counselors should be paid more - absolutely.
I have never known my mom or sister to have 3 months off in the summer. They are done with school around memorial day and back at work mid-August. They also spend time over the summer reviewing curriculum, preparing classrooms, etc for the following year. And they can only take I think 3-5 days off during the school year. I have four weeks to take off whenever I want during the year, plus a week off at the holidays and summer Fridays. I'm not limited to June/July. But I made a choice to NOT be a teacher, so I don't have summer months off from work. While I am jealous of them, it is a perk of their job.
I have so much respect for what you and other teachers do. If it weren't for teachers I would not be in the profession I'm in now, I would not have known what I wanted to do with my life.
The only thing I'm sad about is a lot of districts cutting out the arts. Those were so important in my life and shaped me to become the person that I am.
Rachael:
Where in Atlanta did someone make 100K?! I live in the metro Atlanta area (OTP) and don't come close to that! I'd looooove to make that one day!
I think it was Truman middle school (does that sound familiar?). I think it was the result of a short-lived pay increase/reward system that the was changed...but he was grandfathered in.
Hmmm... that doesn't sound familiar. I am assuming it is intown. I live in the burbs and although I probably won't make 100K, when I go back to public school I will make a decent living. Can't complain. Right now I teach state funded PreK which is horrible pay, but I take my babies to work with me so it's worth it. All about choices!
I didn't find it offensive, I found it funny.
I feel bad for teachers and other public employees that are seeing salary cuts, but at the same time I understand that those salaries are being cut because everyone's salaries are being cut which means less tax $$$. I mean, if the money's not there, what is there to do? Run the state budget into the ground?
~Working Mom~Breastfeeding Mom~Cloth Diapering Mom~BLW Mom~
Blog - No Longer on the DL ~ The Man Cave
Shawn and Larissa
LO #1 - Took 2 years and 2 IVFs ~ DX - severe MFI mild PCOS homozygous MTHFR (a1298c)
LO #2 - TTC 7 months, surprise spontaneous BFP!
It's seriously the perfect description of how I felt. I worked at a desk for 8 weeks, and I'll never do it again. It was a special fellowship opportunity--working for the Higher Education Department for my state. I did it mostly as a way to round out my resume. I came home EVERYDAY complaining about how much I hated it. My poor husband. I'm pretty sure he'd slap me if I ever talked about getting a desk job.
Totally reaffirmed my love of teaching!
Please Note: Mr. Rachaelski never has and never will be abusive. Taking artistic liberties in my writing.
These! My husband is a high school teacher and has been for 10 years. He pours his whole heart and soul into those kids. He works his a$$ off after hours, at home, and on weekends. He works a summer job also for some extra income. He is always being recognized as teacher of the year, who's who of teachers, etc...but there really needs to be a merit system of pay to make it fair for teachers who really put forth so much effort, and deserve more incentive!
He doesn't pay for health insurance??? We definitely get a good deal for great coverage, but it comes out of my paycheck. Are you sure he's not just blowing smoke up your DH's a$$????
In our district, you don't have to pay to be covered under health insurance, but it's not spectacular coverage either. It's a high deductible and co-pays, but it's no money out of your check. Maybe he's just a healthy guy and never goes to the doctor?
I would like to know how in the world he manages to do all that. Maybe he should write a classroom management book in his spare time.
All this teacher stuff has me fired up! To add to OP's 'a day in the life'...
The teaching job I just left (to be a SAHM) had an extended school year and the hours for students was 7:30-4:15 monday- friday. Clearly, teachers have to be there before then and had 2 hr meetings at least twice a week after school. In addition to that we were required to teach one saturday a month. I also never got a lunch break. I ate while grading papers or planning sitting in the back of my classroom with my kids as they were having a different class.
Each 'summer' (let's face it, san francisco simply doesn't experience summer...) I had 6 weeks off and I used it for professional development or recruiting kids in the ghettoes of the city to come to our school so that they could change their future.
My students were also able to call me EVERY day/night (even over holiday breaks) until 9pm for homework help. It was school policy. Most nights, my plans were interrupted as I needed to explain how to complete the hw to a child or deal with a parent.
I love teaching. I'm sure I'll go back to it when the time is right in our family for me to go back to work. I have to say, not once have I complained about not getting paid a decent amount. I think everyone, no matter what job you have, looks forward to a break or a vacation.
Did you work for a KIPP school?? I worked in extended day and year schools for 3 years...
Also, teachers are SO not immune to the budget crisis. Here in Maryland (metro DC) we are SUFFERING. We haven't had a raise in 4 YEARS (not even our step increase that we are supposed to be getting according to our contracts) and we've been furloughed. I have friends working for the fed. gov and they are still getting their steps and raises like nothing has changed. While we were furloughed three years ago-- our county government kept on working and kept on earning their steps. It's BALONEY and it pisses me off.
Plus, I'm not a teacher-- school psychologist-- but I'm 12 months and we have some other 12 month teachers in our county as well. Not all teachers have summers off.
It's against the law to ask parents to buy supplies?? What a load of crap! That kind of stuff really irks me because it 's just another way parents don't have any responsiblity to their child's education. You should NOT have to buy basic supplies for your classroom. We obviously do not have the law in GA and I would be outraged if they put it in place.
My aunt (also a teacher in NJ) would say the same thing. It's one thing to have great benefits. It another be handed a substantial budget and be told you MUST spend all of it when only a tiny fraction of what was offered was more than enough (a major pet peeve of hers).
She kinda sees both sides of the issue too. As a teacher herself, she likes to be appreciated for what she does. But with all the monetary waste at the administrative level she can't really blame the taxpayers for grumbling against the union in this state. The taxes here are so ridiculous (and most of it goes to education) that in spite of my husband making almost six figures, all we could afford is a 2-bedroom/1-bathroom ranch. As long as no one takes it out on anyone at HER level of the hierarchy she understands the grumbling and does a fair bit of it herself.
How many fields have people selfless enough to take pay cuts to save jobs? I'm not sure but, in my state, it sure as hell ISN'T the teachers.
Lots of people work jobs for $50,000 a year and actually WORK the whole year, as well as put in hours to further their own education on their own time. I'm not pissing and moaning about teachers getting the summers off, it's the nature of the job and a nice perk. The vacation is well earned and well deserved. I AM however sick and tired of teachers pissing and moaning about the job and the pay and not realizing that it's a huge perk, one which they would not get from any other job.
We have teachers demanding pay raises well outside norm right now, consistently voting to lay off fellow teachers instead of getting a smaller raises. This isn't even about taking a pay cut to save teachers jobs. Teachers are not willing to take less of a raise to save teacher jobs. They demand pensions which are not sustainable,and they are demanding healthcare without having to pay ANY of the premiums themselves. All demands and expectations which are completely outside the realities of this economy and all while the public schools are absolutely failing, miserably. So, I'm not really sure where this "education" I keep hearing about is. It's NOT in the public schools. In MOST fields, you actually have to demonstrate proficiency in your job to earn a raise, not in education though. Just get tenure and somehow you're entitle for life.
You knew what the job entailed, you knew what the hours were, you knew what the pay was. If you don't like the job, do something else. If you DO like the job, STOP WHINING!!!!! No one really gets paid what they wish they did, especially not in this economy. Shut up and do your job. WHy is this so hard? If pissed and moaned as long and as loud about MY job as teachers do, I would not have a job. Seriously, no one would put up with it. Once teachers actually demonstrate that they CAN do their jobs and ARE DOING their jobs, to the point that my husband and I don't have to shell out tuition for private schools every single year just to give our child a decent shot at actually getting an education, THEN, and ONLY THEN will I be open to hearing about how teachers deserve more and I should shell out more tax dollars to pay for it.
I have all the respect in the world for good teachers but this "oh poor me I'm so underpaid" BULL *** is getting really, REALLY old. MAybe in your small city you have selfless teachers teaching because it's a passion and willing to take pay cuts so more people can teach too. That's just not the reality nation wide. People fed up with teachers and their demands have a reason to be pissed off too.
1. There's no money for teachers that I worked with to demand raises. There isn't even money for books.
2. I don't have a pension.
3. We don't have tenure. My contract is at will. My will and theirs. I could have been fired on the spot. NOBODY had the opportunity to get tenure- which in my opinion shouldn't exist.
4. I didn't teach in a small city and knew some highly dedicated teachers that spent half their salary on food for their students who come to school hungry, books so they could learn to read, pencils and supplies so they could do their work as their parents failed to given them these basic things. I have seen the same in 4 different towns/cities of various sizes.
5. As a teacher the frustration lies with the system that creates barriers. As well as with SOME parents who are never there for their kids and don't support their child's education.
ETA: 6. The teachers I know are required on a semiannual basis to prove themselves with peer and principal reviews, professional development, etc. If we don't meet certain goals, we don't get to work there any more.
***Rachaelski- yes, i was working with a KIPP school.
I'm going to give you then benefit of the doubt and assume that you are not as nasty as you sound in this post. The intention of my follow-up was to share my perspective as a teacher and what the day and year of a teacher looks like. It's easy to assume that teachers put in 35 hours a week for 10 months a year and that's it. I just wanted to share that there's more to it than that.
Reread my posts related to this, I've not complained about teacher pay, nor have I whined about summers or stress or whatever else people were complaining about. Perhaps you weren't talking about me specifically; your use of the pronoun "you" in the 4th paragraph made it unclear.
50K a year is not the norm for teachers across the country, it may be in California, but after living and teaching in 3 different regions of the US, I have a pretty solid working knowledge of teacher pay, and I'd say that most teachers start out around 30K a year. I do believe the average pay for teachers (at all levels of experience) is 50K.
Also note that I've made no attempt to defend bad teachers. I think they should be fired. I believe in performance based pay. However, the system in and of itself is broken. A once a year test as the only measure to determine teacher and student performance? It's a piss-poor system. And, it's not even standardized across states...the test in Tennessee is much simpler than the test in Ohio or New Mexico.
What kind of work do you do? Being a public servant, teachers are automatically victim to scrutiny and criticism than the average Joe, and that's understandable, as we are paid through tax dollars. However, I find it frustrating that everyone assumes they understand the specifics of my job and are qualified to pass judgement. Are schools performing poorly--yes. Is it wholly the fault of teachers--absolutely not. Are teachers accountable to some degree--certainly.
However, teachers, especially elementary teachers, have very little say or control as to what happens in their classroom. Most public elementary school classrooms have scripted curriculum for reading and math, meaning that teachers are told what and how to teach. For me, who approaches teaching as a craft, that's a horrific barrier...how can I be expected to teach something to the best of my ability when my ability is no longer put into play. I digress.....
I figured! I worked at a school in Memphis for 2 years that was very similar in structure and ideology...and I loved it! I helped open up a KIPP school in Ohio, however that experience was less than ideal because of rocky leadership. Overall, I have much love for the KIPP system, though I worry about it being sustainable for teachers as they...age (you know, get married and have kids), since the schedule is so intense.
Were you TFA as well?
I worry about the sustainability too. The burn out rate is SO high. I think the KIPP network is looking into that, but it's complicated. Were you at any of the KIPP summits?
I wasn't TFA, but at least 50% of my coworkers were!
The other thing that hasn't been mentioned is how much money out of our pockets we have to pay to support our kiddos.
So true! Like I said earlier, I haven't gotten a teaching position yet b/c I graduated in May and am waiting until next school year now since I will be having LO in November. But when I did my student teaching last fall, I spent a fortune on supplies. I bought supplies that the children needed and also bought things that I thought would enhance their learning experience. I know that many teachers spend a lot of their own money towards their class supplies. For this reason, I always try to pick up some extra supplies to donate to my step-daughters classroom throughout the year.
i've stayed out of this until now, but i had to comment.
No one has responded to the fact that teachers where there are teacher's unions are getting a sweet ass deal. I'm from WI and I got watch all the craziness happen from my front porch, so to speak. They pay absolutely NOTHING into their own pensions, tenure happens almost automatically, and even if they paid TWICE what they're paying for their health insurance premiums they would STILL be paying less than the national average. They could be the best teacher in the world, and i'd still think it was unfair that they have all of these outlandish benefits that the tax payers end up paying for. I don't understand their entitled attitude. Why should they get a better deal than any other gov't worker?
No one on here is acknowledging that at all, and i don't get it.