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redditmbathrowaway t1_jbtnkx6 wrote

I see a lot of people commenting to increase the pay. Of course that would lead to more people going into teaching, but is it justified?

Teachers get ~3 months off during the summer, a week off for spring break, almost a month off for winter break, almost a week for Thanksgiving, along with all other federal holidays. That's almost 4.5 months off work per year.

So teachers are working less than 2/3 of the time an average white collar worker works. People cite "lesson planning" and claim it's outside of working hours, but teachers only teach ~3-4 classes each day, with the rest of the day preserved for this lesson planning and any miscellaneous tasks such as grading.

To that point, most teachers recycle the same content and lesson plans year after year. There's not some major planning that needs to be done before each year/class, comparable to a company's quarterly planning.

To summarize, if you project out the hourly wage of a teacher for actual time worked and factor in the value of their state-sponsored healthcare and pension benefits, they don't seem to be underpaid.

I'm not sure if raising their salaries to attract a new generation of talent is justified. Maybe there needs to be a campaign focused on highlighting the extreme benefits of time off - especially to a generation that seems to value their time more.

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rhodium32 t1_jbtvyvj wrote

So you think people don't know? They didn't go to school themselves and experience no school during the summer for themselves? The reality is that people know what a teachers schedule looks like, generally speaking, and they still don't want to get into education. Why? It's. Not. Worth. It. It's funny how people don't use the same reasoning when it comes to higher salaries for other occupations. Why do CEOs have to be paid so much? Because we have to pay that much to attract the best and the brightest, we're told. Oh really? But somehow higher salaries for teachers in order to attract people to the profession has to be "justified"? Frankly, your dismissal of the work that teachers do both in and out of the regular school year is insulting. Pay is not the only reason people don't get into teaching, but it's absolutely not helping.

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redditmbathrowaway t1_jbuc2f8 wrote

Not dismissive. It's important work.

Just contesting that it's underpaid. If you look at the hourly rate, it's up there with many other professions.

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IamSauerKraut t1_jbtx86n wrote

>Teachers get ~3 months off during the summer, a week off for spring break, almost a month off for winter break, almost a week for Thanksgiving, along with all other federal holidays. That's almost 4.5 months off work per year.

Dogshit comment. Most teachers are not free of their professional responsibilities when school is not in session. Keeping the certification requires continuing education and professional development. A good number of teachers act as club and class advisors, supervise School Play practice, oversee marching band, and coach the athletic teams. The classroom itself requires attention during breaks. Indeed, many teachers are getting classrooms ready for the new school year while you are still in your chaise lounge in your bikini sipping a fresh latte.

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redditmbathrowaway t1_jbuctp7 wrote

Yeah, and they get paid to take on those extra responsibilities.

Haha and chaise lounge bikini? Don't know where you're getting that from. I'll get 15 days off next year (but probably take 10 or less). That's it. And I largely work when on vacation as necessary.

Work is quite literally my life. What I'm saying is market teaching as a profession where your career isn't so totally all-consuming. That could attract people who are interested in it, not purely driven by the financial upside, and who value their relative freedom and time more.

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jekomo OP t1_jbtunys wrote

These details are a little exaggerated, at least in my situation. I get 50 minutes of planning a day and a 30-minute lunch. Every other minute is with students. There are things that I reuse from year to year, sure, but there is a LOT of things that need changed or newly created. As an HS ELA teacher, I don’t have a textbook, so everything I use, I create or adapt from an idea I’ve found. But planning is only a tiny part. Grading essays is extremely time-consuming. I work at night and on the weekends. We get a week off at Christmas and long weekends otherwise. I work all summer, but at a different jobs. Lots of teachers have second jobs. We get from second week of June through third week of August. The main stressors are not students and parents; it’s constantly pounding from above for more, more, more and near-constant change to something “better.” Now that I am at the top of our salary scale after 18 years, I will not get more than a tiny .05-2.5% raise each year until I retire. Just some facts from someone active in the job right now.

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Sea_Childhood_810 t1_jbvgqe8 wrote

Your numbers are wrong. Most teachers teach 6 or 7 periods a day, with 42 minutes for planning. Above the elementary level, teachers see up to 170 students per day. I teach middle school and see almost every student in the grade, 162 students. There is grading to be done in that 42 minutes as well. If I grade just two assignments per week, and spend only one minute per student’s work (which is laughable), that’s already over five hours of grading a week. I only get 3.5 hours of planning time per week. But we haven’t even gotten to lesson planning or all the other administrative tasks yet.

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Gonzostewie t1_jbvzcbe wrote

>Teachers get ~3 months off during the summer, a week off for spring break, almost a month off for winter break, almost a week for Thanksgiving, along with all other federal holidays. That's almost 4.5 months off work per year.

>So teachers are working less than 2/3 of the time an average white collar worker works. People cite "lesson planning" and claim it's outside of working hours, but teachers only teach ~3-4 classes each day, with the rest of the day preserved for this lesson planning and any miscellaneous tasks such as grading.

All of this is absolute horseshit. All the teachers I know and have worked with teach more classes, get almost no time during the working day to get anything done because prep periods get filled with tutoring/makeup work, meetings and bureaucratic paperwork. If they don't do after hour work at home, they'd get called a shitty teacher more than the other names oblivious shitbirds call them already.

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throwawayamd14 t1_jbuben5 wrote

I saw a guy say he’s making 90k, that’s more monthly than senior electrical engineer roles pay in pa if it’s broken done by hours worked per year. They seem to be paid ok, but you’ll just get down voted

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SeptasLate t1_jbv1mv6 wrote

In a lot of parts of pa that's a higher than the cap and twice as much as the starting salary.

Going from bartender to educator shouldn't be a pay cut

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throwawayamd14 t1_jbv4dam wrote

Where in PA are they starting at 45k? My local sd is 60k.

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SeptasLate t1_jbv9exi wrote

From when I was looking at jobs last year schools in delco, monco, and York counties but the average is probably closer to 48-50k. I'd imagine other parts of the state are less competitive.

Starting at 60k has to be close to the top in the state.

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