Teachers are underpaid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make 37K a year, district is on a hiring freeze (and has been for years) so its unlikely to go up anytime soon.

Would you consider that underpaid?

What are your benefits and what will you get upon retirement?

Health and dental (deducted from paycheck). Retirement depends - a certain amount is deducted for each year that I teach depending what plan you choose. I forget the percentage.

I should add in addition to teaching and planning (no way that can be done in 40 minutes - I do a lot after school and at home) and meetings and trainings this week I've spent several hours after school making DHS calls, talking with administrators/counselors, and talking with the police. Fun times.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely. For the amount of nonsense they put up with?

I was a teacher for 6 years before leaving the profession to pursue medicine. It's strange because there are parallels to the fields, but I found a massive amount of disrespect for the importance of good pedagogy and achieving real learning outcomes (instead of generic test based outcomes). I also felt a huge lack of respect personally. I found it frustrating because we don't want seasoned teachers. We want cheap ones who will shut up and teach from the outline. And will be at-will employees (even though the hiring timeline for teachers runs once a year).

I got into teaching because I love childhood development, learning, and science. I found fostering these connections to be my true calling. After spending so much time, money and energy on my students, I realized that my passion doesn't matter because my classrooms aren't funded enough, my leaders (i.e. principal) do not have an interest in anything beyond beating last year's numbers, and my kids, who were from FARMS households, didn't have a framework to support their success beyond the bare walls of my classroom. I don't even think the school was invested beyond not getting shut down. The main goal was just to get above the minimum required passing rate. So, rote memorization took the day. And my county really didn't care about this population, so I gave up. Because I'm rational and realized that pushing a boulder up a hill over and over isn't a life.

No one blames me if a patient of mine who I've spent years counseling (along with their caregivers) develops a condition like type 2 diabetes. There is a sense of personal accountability in medicine (since no one wants to die), which doesn't apply to teaching (since lots of people hate learning difficult things).

Teaching is just so different. Outcomes, many of which are beyond your control, are your responsibility. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you don't have that support, it's a house of cards.

At conferences, I hear doctors complain about the state of medicine and the decline of respect for our field. It takes a lot for me not to laugh. Yes, insurers are terrible. Negotiated rates hurt. And coming up with ways to make a decent living while not working insane amounts is hard. Yeah. It's bad, but man, I've had it worse.

I don't pay for medical supplies. I am compensated fairly and my clinical judgment is given some form of deference (even though parents still second guess me). I do a decent amount of medicine in the Medicaid space. I feel a similar burn to churn through but people tend to give me a bit more room (including insurers) when I give a medical justification. There was no parallel when I was teaching. No reason, no matter how evidence based, mattered if it went against the fiat of numbers above all else.

I think people give me this space because they don't think they could be a doctor. I think no one bothered when I was a teacher because they felt any idiot could teach.

I actually work less as a MD. And I make a multiple of my previous salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicken and the egg

1. do we not pay enough because a lot of teachers are mediocre or bad
2. it doesn't pay enough so qualified, good potential teachers don't go into the profession.

I think STEM teachers and those that are willing to teach in low income areas are paid a lot more. But, has the increase in pay attracted more and better teachers in these areas?

Anecdotally, below article would support #1 above:

http://nypost.com/2014/12/08/majority-of-citys-teacher-trainees-flunked-literacy-tests/

It's not chicken-and-egg. It's a refusal on the part of US society to accept that the basic truth that people do stuff for money and prestige applies to teachers. We used to get away with this when the career choices for highly-talented women were limited to the following three low-pay, low-prestige jobs:

1. teacher
2. nurse
3. secretary

Those days are long gone. If you want highly-talented people go to into teaching, make teaching prestigious, and pay well.

I agree. I'm not sure how to accomplish that, though. There is little respect for teachers and I don't see that changing. They aren't seen as professionals.

Paying well -- yes, that needs to happen.

For the people who ask "who will pay them?" Who do you think? What value does society place on teachers?

Judging from what I hear out of a lot of people -- not much.

[Anonymous]

Taken from the discussion about school breakfasts:

Schools are now also social services programs.

With the new Code of (MIS)conduct, subsidized meals, and mental health services, there's no time to teach.

[Anonymous]

I don't pay for medical supplies. I am compensated fairly and my clinical judgment is given some form of deference (even though parents still second guess me). I do a decent amount of medicine in the Medicaid space. I feel a similar burn to churn through but people tend to give me a bit more room (including insurers) when I give a medical justification. There was no parallel when I was teaching. No reason, no matter how evidence based, mattered if it went against the fiat of numbers above all else.

I think people give me this space because they don't think they could be a doctor. I think no one bothered when I was a teacher because they felt any idiot could teach.

It's that point why teachers aren't respected or paid well. I agree with this PP.

[Anonymous]

I think people give me this space because they don't think they could be a doctor. I think no one bothered when I was a teacher because they felt any idiot could teach.

1. The bar for entry is different for doctors and teachers. I'm an advocate for paying teachers more but not paying the entire existing crop of teachers more. Teaching attracts people with the lowest SAT and IQ scores, draws from lower tiered universities, and an education major is on par with basket weaving in terms of level of difficulty. This doesn't mean that there are not fantastic teachers despite all this but it does mean that the current working pool is lower educated, skilled and has less aptitude.

2. Many people have choice in selecting and returning to a doctor than selecting and returning to a school. Every parent with kids in public school knows that their kids will have good teachers and terrible teachers. Its REALLY hard to get through those years when an idiot is running the class. Schools do nothing despite having full knowledge that an idiot is running this class. This frustrates other teachers and parents.

[Anonymous]

1. The bar for entry is different for doctors and teachers. I'm an advocate for paying teachers more but not paying the entire existing crop of teachers more. Teaching attracts people with the lowest SAT and IQ scores, draws from lower tiered universities, and an education major is on par with basket weaving in terms of level of difficulty. This doesn't mean that there are not fantastic teachers despite all this but it does mean that the current working pool is lower educated, skilled and has less aptitude.

2. Many people have choice in selecting and returning to a doctor than selecting and returning to a school. Every parent with kids in public school knows that their kids will have good teachers and terrible teachers. Its REALLY hard to get through those years when an idiot is running the class. Schools do nothing despite having full knowledge that an idiot is running this class. This frustrates other teachers and parents.

I'm the MD poster. First, you are part of the problem. Teaching is really difficult and requires skills that aren't assessed by things like IQ (and I say this as someone who's fairly IQ smart but had to work really hard to develop EQ to be successful as a physician. Teaching helped me in ways many of my colleagues completely lack. So when you say teaching is an easy major, I want to point out the subjectivity in an assessment of intelligence and "hard." Being a good teacher is hard in ways that many, many people do not comprehend.

Second, you don't have a choice. Your insurers dictate who is in network, hospitals give privileges, and in the ER you get who you get. There's some wiggle room, but just getting into a primary care or pediatrics practice is difficult. So, there are plenty of terrible doctors practicing shitty medicine day in and day out. And people take it because they think the doctor knows best and there's no way they could ever be one. There isn't the type of accountability discussions you see with teachers beyond the bare bones public health accountability metrics incorporated into the affordable care act.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely. For the amount of nonsense they put up with?

I was a teacher for 6 years before leaving the profession to pursue medicine. It's strange because there are parallels to the fields, but I found a massive amount of disrespect for the importance of good pedagogy and achieving real learning outcomes (instead of generic test based outcomes). I also felt a huge lack of respect personally. I found it frustrating because we don't want seasoned teachers. We want cheap ones who will shut up and teach from the outline. And will be at-will employees (even though the hiring timeline for teachers runs once a year).

I got into teaching because I love childhood development, learning, and science. I found fostering these connections to be my true calling. After spending so much time, money and energy on my students, I realized that my passion doesn't matter because my classrooms aren't funded enough, my leaders (i.e. principal) do not have an interest in anything beyond beating last year's numbers, and my kids, who were from FARMS households, didn't have a framework to support their success beyond the bare walls of my classroom. I don't even think the school was invested beyond not getting shut down. The main goal was just to get above the minimum required passing rate. So, rote memorization took the day. And my county really didn't care about this population, so I gave up. Because I'm rational and realized that pushing a boulder up a hill over and over isn't a life.

No one blames me if a patient of mine who I've spent years counseling (along with their caregivers) develops a condition like type 2 diabetes. There is a sense of personal accountability in medicine (since no one wants to die), which doesn't apply to teaching (since lots of people hate learning difficult things).

Teaching is just so different. Outcomes, many of which are beyond your control, are your responsibility. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you don't have that support, it's a house of cards.

At conferences, I hear doctors complain about the state of medicine and the decline of respect for our field. It takes a lot for me not to laugh. Yes, insurers are terrible. Negotiated rates hurt. And coming up with ways to make a decent living while not working insane amounts is hard. Yeah. It's bad, but man, I've had it worse.

I don't pay for medical supplies. I am compensated fairly and my clinical judgment is given some form of deference (even though parents still second guess me). I do a decent amount of medicine in the Medicaid space. I feel a similar burn to churn through but people tend to give me a bit more room (including insurers) when I give a medical justification. There was no parallel when I was teaching. No reason, no matter how evidence based, mattered if it went against the fiat of numbers above all else.

I think people give me this space because they don't think they could be a doctor. I think no one bothered when I was a teacher because they felt any idiot could teach.

I actually work less as a MD. And I make a multiple of my previous salary.

Thank you for articulating this well. I've been a teacher for 10 years and I'm burnt out. I bust my ass but constantly only hear negativity. I'm at the point where I'd like a 9-5 admin desk job where I can leave work at work and not be made to feel like crap because students aren't meeting some arbritrary score on a standardized test.

The question is always what more can we be doing? I can't do any more. There are circumstances way beyond my control. Administration sees students only as data points. There is no acknowledgement that they are actual humans coming to school with tons of variables in their lives. According to administration it shouldn't matter that a child sleeps on an air mattress in a room shared by their entire family and couldn't sleep because the baby was crying all night. But it's my fault that the student is reading below grade level even though their guided reading group meets daily and the student receives academic intervention daily but the reading books are brought home but never read at home and homework is never completed.

So then I have to sit at a data chat meeting and be asked what more I can do. Other than moving the child into my house, I can't do any more.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for articulating this well. I've been a teacher for 10 years and I'm burnt out. I bust my ass but constantly only hear negativity. I'm at the point where I'd like a 9-5 admin desk job where I can leave work at work and not be made to feel like crap because students aren't meeting some arbritrary score on a standardized test.

The question is always what more can we be doing? I can't do any more. There are circumstances way beyond my control. Administration sees students only as data points. There is no acknowledgement that they are actual humans coming to school with tons of variables in their lives. According to administration it shouldn't matter that a child sleeps on an air mattress in a room shared by their entire family and couldn't sleep because the baby was crying all night. But it's my fault that the student is reading below grade level even though their guided reading group meets daily and the student receives academic intervention daily but the reading books are brought home but never read at home and homework is never completed.

So then I have to sit at a data chat meeting and be asked what more I can do. Other than moving the child into my house, I can't do any more.

This. Another teacher here. It's gotten to be very demoralizing.

[Anonymous]

I always tell my colleagues that maybe if the state just adopts the students, they can "control the variables." They love, love, love their data talk so let's talk data. The students could stay after school for a controlled homework help time, have a healthy dinner and get to bed at a reasonable time. They could have Murphy beds fold down in the hallways. It could be like the story Madeline. My students don't do their homework and show up late to school because they stayed up until all hours playing video games. I cannot control what goes on outside my 45 min class. Many of my students' parents will show up for events at school if free food is involved but they won't come to meet with the teachers. Out of my 34 students, 26 of them showed up to a night where we had reading events and free pizza. One parent showed up a few weeks later for parent teacher conferences. I am so tired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for articulating this well. I've been a teacher for 10 years and I'm burnt out. I bust my ass but constantly only hear negativity. I'm at the point where I'd like a 9-5 admin desk job where I can leave work at work and not be made to feel like crap because students aren't meeting some arbritrary score on a standardized test.

The question is always what more can we be doing? I can't do any more. There are circumstances way beyond my control. Administration sees students only as data points. There is no acknowledgement that they are actual humans coming to school with tons of variables in their lives. According to administration it shouldn't matter that a child sleeps on an air mattress in a room shared by their entire family and couldn't sleep because the baby was crying all night. But it's my fault that the student is reading below grade level even though their guided reading group meets daily and the student receives academic intervention daily but the reading books are brought home but never read at home and homework is never completed.

So then I have to sit at a data chat meeting and be asked what more I can do. Other than moving the child into my house, I can't do any more.

This. Another teacher here. It's gotten to be very demoralizing.

I can relate to this.

I recently had my mid year review and was criticized and asked what more I could do. I just sat there and fought back tears because I have been working 10-12 hours a day since the beginning of August in addition to working on weekends in the attempt to stay ahead and do what is best for my students.

Unfortunately its a new principal who came in late into the school year so she doesn't know the students that I have and where they were in the beginning of the year and how much progress they have made. She just sees that my students and I supposedly aren't meeting some invisible line of achievement based on a 1 hour observation.

So frustrating. The rest of the week after that meeting I completely lost all motivation to do my job.

[Anonymous]

PP- I am in the same position with a new admin. One out of 34 of my students did not make the minimum expected progress last year and I got called into the principal's office where she went on and on about it. He missed making it by .1 He is a special ed student with an IEP and missed more than 25 days of school last year and was late something like 45 days yet I was made to feel like a failure because of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely. For the amount of nonsense they put up with?

I was a teacher for 6 years before leaving the profession to pursue medicine. It's strange because there are parallels to the fields, but I found a massive amount of disrespect for the importance of good pedagogy and achieving real learning outcomes (instead of generic test based outcomes). I also felt a huge lack of respect personally. I found it frustrating because we don't want seasoned teachers. We want cheap ones who will shut up and teach from the outline. And will be at-will employees (even though the hiring timeline for teachers runs once a year).


I got into teaching because I love childhood development, learning, and science. I found fostering these connections to be my true calling. After spending so much time, money and energy on my students, I realized that my passion doesn't matter because my classrooms aren't funded enough, my leaders (i.e. principal) do not have an interest in anything beyond beating last year's numbers, and my kids, who were from FARMS households, didn't have a framework to support their success beyond the bare walls of my classroom. I don't even think the school was invested beyond not getting shut down. The main goal was just to get above the minimum required passing rate. So, rote memorization took the day. And my county really didn't care about this population, so I gave up. Because I'm rational and realized that pushing a boulder up a hill over and over isn't a life.

No one blames me if a patient of mine who I've spent years counseling (along with their caregivers) develops a condition like type 2 diabetes. There is a sense of personal accountability in medicine (since no one wants to die), which doesn't apply to teaching (since lots of people hate learning difficult things).

Teaching is just so different. Outcomes, many of which are beyond your control, are your responsibility. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you don't have that support, it's a house of cards.

At conferences, I hear doctors complain about the state of medicine and the decline of respect for our field. It takes a lot for me not to laugh. Yes, insurers are terrible. Negotiated rates hurt. And coming up with ways to make a decent living while not working insane amounts is hard. Yeah. It's bad, but man, I've had it worse.

I don't pay for medical supplies. I am compensated fairly and my clinical judgment is given some form of deference (even though parents still second guess me). I do a decent amount of medicine in the Medicaid space. I feel a similar burn to churn through but people tend to give me a bit more room (including insurers) when I give a medical justification. There was no parallel when I was teaching. No reason, no matter how evidence based, mattered if it went against the fiat of numbers above all else.

I think people give me this space because they don't think they could be a doctor. I think no one bothered when I was a teacher because they felt any idiot could teach.

I actually work less as a MD. And I make a multiple of my previous salary.

Thank you for articulating this well. I've been a teacher for 10 years and I'm burnt out. I bust my ass but constantly only hear negativity. I'm at the point where I'd like a 9-5 admin desk job where I can leave work at work and not be made to feel like crap because students aren't meeting some arbritrary score on a standardized test.

The question is always what more can we be doing? I can't do any more. There are circumstances way beyond my control. Administration sees students only as data points. There is no acknowledgement that they are actual humans coming to school with tons of variables in their lives. According to administration it shouldn't matter that a child sleeps on an air mattress in a room shared by their entire family and couldn't sleep because the baby was crying all night. But it's my fault that the student is reading below grade level even though their guided reading group meets daily and the student receives academic intervention daily but the reading books are brought home but never read at home and homework is never completed.

So then I have to sit at a data chat meeting and be asked what more I can do. Other than moving the child into my house, I can't do any more.

+1000. I am leaving teaching after 29 years when this school year ends. I'm a very good teacher. This is no longer a viable or respectabe profession. I feel demoralized just about every day from unrealistic expectations and behavioral issues. Time to move on. Interestingly enough. ..ALL my colleagues feel the same way. Most can't leave. The young ones are paying off student loans..the mid range ones can't go back to school to retrain..they are supporting families..the older ones have x amount of years toward a pension. They also have kids in college. Not a good career choice anymore. I'm only sorry that I came back this year. I love the kids but no one can do what the system is now asking us to do.

[Anonymous]

What are you going to do next PP? Just trying to get some ideas for when I can't take it anymore (it's coming sooner rather than later unfortunately).

[Anonymous]

Adjuncting for starters..tutoring a little but I am trying to also launch a small business. My county is offering a buyout this year and any and all who are eligible ..it's not actually a lot who qualify...are running for the doors.