<p>That is $50K for about 10 months. It is a very nice life for a youngster straight out of college who likes kids, wants a relatively low stress lifestyle, and isn’t too ambitious. If you are ambitious and don’t mind a high stress lifestyle then you want to go to investment banking.</p>
<p>Well seiclan, summers are off, so that’s about 10 weeks off, plus December and March breaks. And for those teachers who have been teaching for a few years, they already have plans in place and spend far less time than the newbies. So for many it is an 8:00 to 3:00 job.</p>
<p>I am all for paying good money for good teachers. But then I also want the bad apples removed. There should be some evaluation process every 2 years, whereby teachers stand to lose their jobs OR not get salary increases. </p>
<p>Many teachers in our school earn decent money during the summer. The cars in our school lots are all 2005 models or later, no dings, rust etc. Our Middle school science teacher drives a Porsche and makes $50,000 in the summer alone. But he’s a real smart cookie too.</p>
<p>That is a rather cynical view. I think teaching and investment banking require totally different types of talent. Many who excel at banking would not be able to handle the demands of dealing with classrooms full of kids, and vice versa.</p>
<p>The good teachers work more hours than 8-3. A lot of my kids’ teachers are in at 6 or leave at 6 (some get paid to coach or lead activities but I don’t think the stipend is that much). Mayor Bloomberg in NYC has a program to weed out the bad teachers before they get tenure; it was in NYT this am.</p>
<p>Teaching is one profession where I’d hesitate to complain about what the salaries are. I know a lot of teachers (including one of my Ds) and none of them entered the field because they were looking to earn the big bucks. We want to attract the best and the brightest to the important profession of teaching, and if providing a good starting salary can even provide a tiny bit of incentive, then why not. Being a good teacher is a challenging job.</p>
<p>Salary and current benefits are only part of the picture. Where the real payoff in teaching is is the retirement benefits and job security. The pension plan for teachers (at least in NJ and Michigan where I am most familiar) is SIGNIFICANTLY better than anything that one would see in private industry (if they even offer pensions anymore). That, plus the paid medical benefits in retirement give teachers a decided edge. To top it off, teachers can choose when they want to retire; many in private industry have retirement forced on them via downsizing.</p>
<p>Given that one may spend almost as many years in retirement as at work, using current pay of teachers versus that of private industry as a means to bolster the demand for more pay is very deceptive. This was made very clear this past summer when we were looking at potential retirement communities in the state. We talked with a resident of one very upscale community (beautiful golf course, 35,000 square foot clubhouse with indoor/outdoor pools, etc.) She and her husband were former teachers. She said that most of the residents were retired teachers since they were the only ones who could afford to live there.</p>
<p>If you want teachers capable of challenging your kids and the school to be able to offer top-notch courses, then school systems need to be able to offer a living wage to its staff. (And yes, in some parts of this country, $40-50K is not that much money.) It’s not just about what’s a good starting salary for a 22-year old, it’s about finding a way to KEEP these teachers once they have classroom experience and families they need to support. </p>
<p>Many school systems also now require that teaches get a masters within five years…but not all school systems will pay for it, either.</p>
<p>There are plenty of teachers who don’t dial it in – I see their cars n the parking lots long before classes start and well into the evenings.</p>
<p>P.S. to Funding Father: Retirement benefits used to be quite generous. Our schools have a two-tiered system, and the folks who came in after the conversion (about 1990), have much less generous benefits. The old-timers have a fabulous plan, I will admit.</p>
<p>Off my soapbox now…
Parent of two kids who intend to teach!</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>only on cc, would $50k income be considered a “living wage” :D</p>
<p>My auntie is a retired teacher; she taught for over 30 years; has money to travel all over the place now, very nice retired lifestyle. BUT she had to be very tough for that 30 years…she spent a lot of her own money on books and supplies for the school and was assaulted once.</p>
<p>I do not have a cynical view. I do not say that investment banking is superior to, or more difficult than, teaching. I just see that the starting salaries are much higher in one than the other. Some really bright college graduates might make better teachers than investment bankers, yet they choose the latter, because of the financial differential. </p>
<p>Yes, retirement and other benefits are great for teachers. It is one of the financially more rewarding careers out there. I am happy for this. I would like to see more talented people go into that profession.</p>
<p>I do agree that there needs to be more accountability and more willingness to get rid of bad apples. This would be easier if there were not such a shortage of qualified teachers- a shortage that suggests to me that salaries are not excessive.</p>
<p>
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<p>I know of someone who was assaulted by a parent (yep, a parent), and she went on disability for the remainder of the year. The following Sept. she just went to a different school district.</p>
<p>Someone said that they would like the bad apples out, but that won’t happen. Once tenured, its a smooth ride until retirement, IMO.</p>
<p>I said that about the bad apples, and we have had our share of them. In most other professional jobs, poor performance gets shown the door. </p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, what is the history of teachers unions. Does every State have them? And are there other professionals who have unions, or is it just laborers. I don’t know much about this.</p>
<p>I did not bother to reread as to who said it. I’d like them out too. I am sure everyone would, but it seems nearly impossible. Many of our bad apples have been collecting a teacher’s salary for an entire career (note how I did not say teaching for an entire career).</p>
<p>Links to some salary data:</p>
<p>[Teacher</a> Pay Scale - Ridgewood NJ « JD2718](<a href=“http://jd2718.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2007/02/09/teacher-pay-scale-ridgewood-nj/]Teacher”>Teacher Pay Scale – Ridgewood NJ | JD2718)</p>
<p>Other links are in the posts</p>
<p>Generally, in the northeast, teachers salaries tend to be below the incomes in their districts. In the area where I grew up, which is probably qualified as “rust-belt”, there have been some voter rebellions from time to time as the teacher salaries were generally above what the average wage earner was paid.</p>
<p>I must say it is nice to see so many support educators here. The haters haven’t seen this post yet I guess?</p>
<p>Being married to a 30 year educator, I must say some of you have absolutely no idea of a teacher’s day is like, absolutely no idea. </p>
<p>It has taken decades, yes decades of steady work and additional education hours to get a decent paycheck. </p>
<p>My spouse is one of the most caring empathetic smart people you’ll ever meet. She deals daily with kids whose lives are so bad at home… again you have no idea… </p>
<p>I could go on and on about some folks comments here, but I will gracefully leave it at you have no idea…</p>
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<p>Having a daughter who is a first year elementary teacher, this just made my blood boil. What’s low stress about having to keep a classroom full of kids engaged every minute of the day, feeling the huge responsibility for their learning, dealing with verbally and even physically aggressive parents, and sometimes with incompetent administrators? She is enormously ambitious: to be the best teacher she can be, and for her kids to get the absolute most out of what she has to offer them. She has BA and MA degrees from excellent institutions, and she is working around the clock – evenings and weekends too – between preparation, meetings, evaluations, parent teacher conferences, and everything else that goes into doing an excellent and really tough job. She is making too little to afford an apartment in the town where she’s teaching, because she is competing with a lot of entry level computer engineers who work in the same area and get paid much better.</p>
<p>I have a S on the other hand, who has toyed with entering finance. He’d be a wonderful science or math teacher. My question would be, given our huge lack of science and math teachers, what entry salary would convince our top science and math students to choose teaching over finance? I suspect it would be less than beginning finance jobs, since some would rather teach for a variety of reasons, but more than what most districts are now offering. Once a figure was reached, it is then up to districts and society as a whole to decide whether or not we are willing to pony up that amount. Until that happens, there is no way we’re going to convince enough smart people to teach science and math.</p>
<p>I read somewhere recently that the differential between a starting teacher’s salary and a beginning lawyer’s in 1970 was only about $2000 a year. Now it’s closer to $50,000. Anyone know if that’s true?</p>
<p>sac, It depends upon which law school you graduated from. Assuming it was Podunk U. a starting average lawyer is not going to paid 100,000/year. </p>
<p>Opie, Actually, I do know. I let the comments slide. My mother was a teacher. In fact she stopped teaching in one district after a student kicked her in the shin while she was pregnant with me. My brother’s joke used to always be, “So that’s what happened to you.” In those days the salaries were not what they are today. When I tell my mother what a teacher up on the pay scale earns today, she doesn’t believe me.</p>
<p>It is really hard to compare teacher and lawyer salaries because geography and type of employer varies. There are lots of unemployed lawyers, and some who are barely employed. And even full time lawyers making $30,000. I imagine the average law school graduate from an average school might make $40,000 the first year, $60,000 in major cities…and that all depends on working for large firm, public interest group…But I guess comparing top of the class lawyers (say Columbia Law) and top of the class teachers (Columbia Teachers School), the lawyers at NYC large law firm witih bonuses might be starting at $200,000…top of the class teachers at NYC suburban schools starting at $50,000?</p>
<p>Muffy, my H is an attorney, and from what we have seen in our area what you say sounds pretty accurate.</p>
<p>Don’t know why anyone’s blood is boiling. Most jobs are stressful, even when you are reporting only to yourself. Whoever made the quoted comment
, used the term “relatively” which is fair enough.</p>
<p>Obviously, sac, a first year teacher is very stressed out, because everything is new, all eyes are on her, she is anxious for tenure, and as late as people are having babies, she is probably dealing with parents that are 10 or more years older than she is.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the job gets easier once plans are in place.</p>
<p>It is wonderful that she takes her job seriously, and obviously many teachers do, but unfortunately many don’t. We have had teachers who got their degrees from Columbia and Yale, bright, dedicated, who went into teaching for the love of it.</p>
<p>Opie, there are no haters here, that I can tell. Don’t we all support education? Isn’t that why we are on this board? Just as there are lousy doctors, lawyers and engineers, so also there are lousy teachers. The difference is, you can choose your doctors/lawyers/ etc.</p>