Unpopular opinion: DCPS teachers are super well paid!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am OP and I still believe that DC teachers are well paid. Btw the salary and most of the summer off, plus pension, still a good deal imo. Stop the whining, that’s all.

Come join us if we have it so good. That’s what I don’t get about DCUM. For all the posts I see from non-teachers about how good we have it, I don’t see any of them flocking to our profession.

Summers off? Nope. Summers unpaid and spent in trainings or working a 2nd job. High salary? Not most of us. Pension? Only if you survive the classroom for 30+ years, which most of us don’t.

And whining? Why ask if you don’t want to hear the truth? And “explaining” is not synonymous with “whining”.

So PP, the door is open. Since you still think it’s a great deal, then why aren’t you signing up? Why aren’t others?

There are DC cops who make $300,000. Completely ridiculous and egregious waste of tax dollars. But doesnt mean I want to be a cop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am OP and I still believe that DC teachers are well paid. Btw the salary and most of the summer off, plus pension, still a good deal imo. Stop the whining, that’s all.

Come join us if we have it so good. That’s what I don’t get about DCUM. For all the posts I see from non-teachers about how good we have it, I don’t see any of them flocking to our profession.

Summers off? Nope. Summers unpaid and spent in trainings or working a 2nd job. High salary? Not most of us. Pension? Only if you survive the classroom for 30+ years, which most of us don’t.

And whining? Why ask if you don’t want to hear the truth? And “explaining” is not synonymous with “whining”.

So PP, the door is open. Since you still think it’s a great deal, then why aren’t you signing up? Why aren’t others?

Because being a teacher sounds boring?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am OP and I still believe that DC teachers are well paid. Btw the salary and most of the summer off, plus pension, still a good deal imo. Stop the whining, that’s all.

Come join us if we have it so good. That’s what I don’t get about DCUM. For all the posts I see from non-teachers about how good we have it, I don’t see any of them flocking to our profession.

Summers off? Nope. Summers unpaid and spent in trainings or working a 2nd job. High salary? Not most of us. Pension? Only if you survive the classroom for 30+ years, which most of us don’t.

And whining? Why ask if you don’t want to hear the truth? And “explaining” is not synonymous with “whining”.

So PP, the door is open. Since you still think it’s a great deal, then why aren’t you signing up? Why aren’t others?

Because being a teacher sounds boring?

What is wrong with you people. Teachers are SO NECESSARY it doesn't even need to be explained, whereas half the white collar workers in DC have jobs of pure bullshit. They could be eliminated and the world would be no worse off.

I was teacher for 5 years and I am now a journalist and writer. Teaching was one of the most exhausting jobs I've ever had -- you are interacting all day long, you have to meet each kid where they are figure out how to get them to grow and learn, you have to keep your calm and stay empathetic, all while dealing with constant administration tasks. It's not an easy job when done well.

[Anonymous]

(I would very strongly suspect that most of the white collar, six figure non-teachers posting negativity on this website during the day actually have bullshit jobs. I mean, how are you here?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am OP and I still believe that DC teachers are well paid. Btw the salary and most of the summer off, plus pension, still a good deal imo. Stop the whining, that’s all.

Come join us if we have it so good. That’s what I don’t get about DCUM. For all the posts I see from non-teachers about how good we have it, I don’t see any of them flocking to our profession.

Summers off? Nope. Summers unpaid and spent in trainings or working a 2nd job. High salary? Not most of us. Pension? Only if you survive the classroom for 30+ years, which most of us don’t.

And whining? Why ask if you don’t want to hear the truth? And “explaining” is not synonymous with “whining”.

So PP, the door is open. Since you still think it’s a great deal, then why aren’t you signing up? Why aren’t others?

Because being a teacher sounds boring?

What a way to say you know literally nothing about teaching. Boring? Ha. You’d need a moment’s peace to have a boring moment. Teachers don’t get that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(I would very strongly suspect that most of the white collar, six figure non-teachers posting negativity on this website during the day actually have bullshit jobs. I mean, how are you here?)

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(I would very strongly suspect that most of the white collar, six figure non-teachers posting negativity on this website during the day actually have bullshit jobs. I mean, how are you here?)

+1000

Definitely lots of bullshit jobs in the world. It also seems like bullshit though how terrible how DC schools are. The teachers are well paid, the schools are well funded and yet, as a parent, I would not even consider sending my kids to 90 percent of them. It is hard to believe kids can spend so much time in school and learn so little.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an MCPS high school teacher and I work my 2nd job on Saturdays , full-time in summer, and every non-teaching day that is scheduled like today, President's Day. It is my house maintenance money. It paid for my new roof, my new furnace, and my kitchen+bathroom floors in the past couple of years.

I have 2 masters degrees. I had roommates until l I was 40, which allowed me to put a down payment on my house and pay for the adoption of my daughter..

Why aren't you DCUMers running away from your current job and into public school teaching??

MCPS teachers don't make as much as DCPS teachers. The whole premise of this thread is that DCPS teachers are paid well, not that all teachers, or even that all teachers in the area are paid well.

Why don't you get a job with DCPS? Apparently they are hiring.

You do realize they only make 10k less than DC teachers…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(I would very strongly suspect that most of the white collar, six figure non-teachers posting negativity on this website during the day actually have bullshit jobs. I mean, how are you here?)

+1000

Definitely lots of bullshit jobs in the world. It also seems like bullshit though how terrible how DC schools are. The teachers are well paid, the schools are well funded and yet, as a parent, I would not even consider sending my kids to 90 percent of them. It is hard to believe kids can spend so much time in school and learn so little.

Really? I have sent my kids to a Title 1 DCPS school for 7 years. They have classmates suffering from homelessness and who knows what else. however every teacher they have had has been incredible, 40 percent of the kids are getting 4s and 5s on PARCC, and my own kids are scoring in the 99th percentile on all the state assessments, entirely due to teachers. I think they are doing pretty well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am an MCPS high school teacher and I work my 2nd job on Saturdays , full-time in summer, and every non-teaching day that is scheduled like today, President's Day. It is my house maintenance money. It paid for my new roof, my new furnace, and my kitchen+bathroom floors in the past couple of years.

I have 2 masters degrees. I had roommates until l I was 40, which allowed me to put a down payment on my house and pay for the adoption of my daughter..

Why aren't you DCUMers running away from your current job and into public school teaching??

MCPS teachers don't make as much as DCPS teachers. The whole premise of this thread is that DCPS teachers are paid well, not that all teachers, or even that all teachers in the area are paid well.

Why don't you get a job with DCPS? Apparently they are hiring.

You do realize they only make 10k less than DC teachers…

To start. DCPS teachers have a higher ceiling on pay because there are more Title 1 schools offering the T1 bump, and there are more bonuses available for performance. You might start out making only 10k more in DCPS, but you could wind up making 20-40k more than in MCPS if you stick around and can meet performance targets.

And before you yell at me, lots of industries have annoying performance targets that result in bonuses but are not always fairly applied. I get that the bonuses in DCPS for "highly effective" teachers don't always reflect good teaching but BS metrics. MANY industries where it can be hard to measure effectiveness or ROI have this problem. Probably the only job where bonuses can be tied very directly to performance in a way that feels fair is sales, and even there, there's a host of issues that are annoying (like being the wrong gender or ethnicity in an industry where people of the "right" gender/ethnicity regularly sell a lot more).

That's life. Work often sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(I would very strongly suspect that most of the white collar, six figure non-teachers posting negativity on this website during the day actually have bullshit jobs. I mean, how are you here?)

Do you get that saying "teachers in DCPS are super well paid" is not the same as saying "teaching is a bullshit job and it's probably easier than what I do"?

Also, it depends on the teacher, honestly. My kid has had teachers in DCPS who were amazing, deserve double their paycheck, just absolutely phenomenal. I've also come across some real duds who should either be forced into retirement of fired, including a specials teacher who just showed the kids movies every single class for an entire year. I mean EVERY class. I just looked and that teacher took home 85k that year (we are no longer at that school). Making 85k to press play on a movie 6 times a day and hand out the occasional coloring page (and skip back to school night and every other school event -- I never once saw this teacher outside of school hours) is pretty bullshit.

Every industry has it's slackers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(I would very strongly suspect that most of the white collar, six figure non-teachers posting negativity on this website during the day actually have bullshit jobs. I mean, how are you here?)

Do you get that saying "teachers in DCPS are super well paid" is not the same as saying "teaching is a bullshit job and it's probably easier than what I do"?

Also, it depends on the teacher, honestly. My kid has had teachers in DCPS who were amazing, deserve double their paycheck, just absolutely phenomenal. I've also come across some real duds who should either be forced into retirement of fired, including a specials teacher who just showed the kids movies every single class for an entire year. I mean EVERY class. I just looked and that teacher took home 85k that year (we are no longer at that school). Making 85k to press play on a movie 6 times a day and hand out the occasional coloring page (and skip back to school night and every other school event -- I never once saw this teacher outside of school hours) is pretty bullshit.

Every industry has it's slackers.

Well, yeah. My kids have definitely had some specials teachers who were totally phoning it in. They can also throw out random grades -- they are assessing kids on any kinds of standard.

I'm not misunderstanding the premise of this post, it just makes me furious to see people insult hard working teachers ("teaching seems boring"?) when they are sitting at home on their computer probably doing something completely useless.

[Anonymous]

*aren't assessing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(I would very strongly suspect that most of the white collar, six figure non-teachers posting negativity on this website during the day actually have bullshit jobs. I mean, how are you here?)

+1000

Definitely lots of bullshit jobs in the world. It also seems like bullshit though how terrible how DC schools are. The teachers are well paid, the schools are well funded and yet, as a parent, I would not even consider sending my kids to 90 percent of them. It is hard to believe kids can spend so much time in school and learn so little.

Really? I have sent my kids to a Title 1 DCPS school for 7 years. They have classmates suffering from homelessness and who knows what else. however every teacher they have had has been incredible, 40 percent of the kids are getting 4s and 5s on PARCC, and my own kids are scoring in the 99th percentile on all the state assessments, entirely due to teachers. I think they are doing pretty well.

DC's math and reading proficiency scores are among the worst in the country. Kids do better in Mississippi than they do in DC.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/us/math-reading-scores-pandemic.html

[Anonymous]

I have 2 friends who switched from lawyering to teaching. . They are exhausted, but not bored.