Have to respectfully disagree. Hear me out please...

2010-04-08T14:45:40.971-07:00

Have to respectfully disagree.

Hear me out please: I teach at a private school. Why? The environment at the school is way better than the public schools where I taught before, and they didn't require me to get yet another teaching license (three states in 4 years = I'm not spending any more time in education classes. I love teaching and can't understand why the classes don't prepare us better for the classroom. But that's another comment).

In the interest of full disclosure, pay is one of the main reasons this will be my last year teaching; I'm going into nursing. Same hours per week, you leave work at work by law, and the pay starts at nearly double the rate. There are more risks, but it's worth it to me.

As a teacher, I have yet to make $30K in a calendar year. Yes, that's teaching full-time, summers off. But that means I have to work (tutoring, summer school, waitress, cashier) during the summer to have the standard of living/retirement fund/savings that everyone else has in this competitive economy. And I work an average of 50 hours per week when you include lesson planning, after school events, and phone calls from students on top of the grading of papers that is standard. In this situation, you might see that quite a few teachers actually DO need to be paid more.

I agree that the superintendent in that particular case was probably correct to threaten as he did.
However, we have to look at that $74K as an average; and that means that some people earn more, and some earn less. It's a stretch to look from that one situation to say that teachers are pulling the value of their work. I still say most aren't even close.

Comments on (not)Happy About THIS!: Paying Teachers is Not the Answer

Have to respectfully disagree. Hear me out please...