Can I transition to teaching with a humanities phd?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t recommend teaching, but consider a private high school instead of public. It’s still an absurd amount of work, but I feel professionally respected now that I made the switch.

I left public school teaching 100% because of the conditions. I felt admin treated me like a child. I had to “one-two-three-eyes on me” at faculty meetings. I had to take direction from admin who were so far removed from the classroom that they no longer had relevant experience. We couldn’t keep teachers, and 1/4 of the staff was new every year. There was no sense of support or community.

I now work in a private where I am treated respectfully and I feel tremendous support from admin. They continue to teach one class so they still “get it.”

It’s still a TON of work. Weekdays are 10-11 hours long and I have significant work to do every weekend.

As for pay, it is only slightly lower than my former public school salary. Many in my department are former public school teachers or college professors.

I’m so sorry, but the 1-2-3 eyes on me at a meeting of adults made me laugh. I can only imagine the look on people’s faces if someone said that at my job. I do not blame you for leaving!

We also had to mimic clapping… “I clap 3 times, YOU clap 3 times…” We were high school teachers, most with advanced degrees and no patience for this nonsense. I also remember being given an assigned seat at some meetings.

Egads. I could kind of see some elementary teachers doing this in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way MAYBE (though I would hate that even), but what hs teachers have this as part of their lives? Why? I sometimes think there's this infantilizing attitude towards people who work with youth--probably rooted in misogyny. Does anybody ever say, "I find this infantilizing and demeaning" ?

[Anonymous]

In the mid 1980s, the Federal civil service closed the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), which was a Defined Benefit pension, to new employees. Most Feds are now in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS). FERS is mostly a 401(k)-like Defined Contribution system. The 401(k) like component is called Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). FERS has a tiny tiny component which is defined benefit, but almost irrelevant because it is so small. See www.opm.gov for details.

By contrast, state & local employees in MD/VA still have a CSRS-like pension system. It really is much better than the FERS available to most Feds. In the commercial world, pensions for new hires are almost extinct.

So, yes, teacher pensions are very good by comparison with almost anything else…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the mid 1980s, the Federal civil service closed the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), which was a Defined Benefit pension, to new employees. Most Feds are now in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS). FERS is mostly a 401(k)-like Defined Contribution system. The 401(k) like component is called Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). FERS has a tiny tiny component which is defined benefit, but almost irrelevant because it is so small. See www.opm.gov for details.

By contrast, state & local employees in MD/VA still have a CSRS-like pension system. It really is much better than the FERS available to most Feds. In the commercial world, pensions for new hires are almost extinct.

So, yes, teacher pensions are very good by comparison with almost anything else…

Is FERS pension so "tiny,tiny"? My husband receives a federal pension. I think the multiplier is 1.1% x number of years of service.

That's in ADDITION to the federal government matching part of the Thrift Savings Plan, right? I think they match something like 5% of your salary?

1.1% PLUS a match for your 401K sounds like a better deal than I get - 1.5% but no matching on additional 403(b).

[Anonymous]

I know someone who has a PHD, then recently did a 1 year masters teaching program at George Mason and is now a teacher in Fairfax County public schools. I don’t know the salary but l know they expected their pay to be not the lowest due to the PhD, though it’s not related to what they are teaching in public elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the mid 1980s, the Federal civil service closed the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), which was a Defined Benefit pension, to new employees. Most Feds are now in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS). FERS is mostly a 401(k)-like Defined Contribution system. The 401(k) like component is called Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). FERS has a tiny tiny component which is defined benefit, but almost irrelevant because it is so small. See www.opm.gov for details.

By contrast, state & local employees in MD/VA still have a CSRS-like pension system. It really is much better than the FERS available to most Feds. In the commercial world, pensions for new hires are almost extinct.

So, yes, teacher pensions are very good by comparison with almost anything else…

Is FERS pension so "tiny,tiny"? My husband receives a federal pension. I think the multiplier is 1.1% x number of years of service.

That's in ADDITION to the federal government matching part of the Thrift Savings Plan, right? I think they match something like 5% of your salary?

1.1% PLUS a match for your 401K sounds like a better deal than I get - 1.5% but no matching on additional 403(b).

Oh .. and for the FERS pension, fedgov employees contribute only 3% of their salary. For the MD state teacher pension we contribute 7%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the mid 1980s, the Federal civil service closed the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), which was a Defined Benefit pension, to new employees. Most Feds are now in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS). FERS is mostly a 401(k)-like Defined Contribution system. The 401(k) like component is called Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). FERS has a tiny tiny component which is defined benefit, but almost irrelevant because it is so small. See www.opm.gov for details.

By contrast, state & local employees in MD/VA still have a CSRS-like pension system. It really is much better than the FERS available to most Feds. In the commercial world, pensions for new hires are almost extinct.

So, yes, teacher pensions are very good by comparison with almost anything else…

Is FERS pension so "tiny,tiny"? My husband receives a federal pension. I think the multiplier is 1.1% x number of years of service.

That's in ADDITION to the federal government matching part of the Thrift Savings Plan, right? I think they match something like 5% of your salary?

1.1% PLUS a match for your 401K sounds like a better deal than I get - 1.5% but no matching on additional 403(b).

Oh .. and for the FERS pension, fedgov employees contribute only 3% of their salary. For the MD state teacher pension we contribute 7%

Correction -- FERS employees contribute either 0.8%, 3.1% or 4.4%! Wow -- what a great deal feds USED to have if hired before 2013!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Same as FCPS. Teachers also have a far better than usual retirement compensation. It's a tough job, but in this area at least, it's a secure reasonable paycheck with very solid benefits and more time off than is typical of many professional jobs.

Do we?

I'm in Maryland. Our teacher pension (for those hired after 2011) pension at Normal Service Retirement is 1.5% of your average salary (highest five years averaged) x # of years worked.

To retire at the Normal Service Retirement level you need to be 65+ 10 years service

OR

Age+ years of service = 90. So you can retire at age 60 with 30 years service, age 62 with 28 years service etc.

We contribute 7% of our pay to the pension each pay period.

How does that compare with other empoyers who offer a pension?

Well, only about 15% of American employees are still offering pensions to new hires so there isn’t much basis for comparison. I don’t know anyplace outside or public employment that still offering things like Golden 90. 1.5% is actually not a bad multiplier — figure a 40 year career for an employee that works from 25 to 65 (and many Americans work more than that), and it gets you to 60% of your average high 3, which is definitely more than most private sectors folks who still have a DB pension are getting. It’s not what the Boomer teachers got though, that’s for sure.

How many of those employees have advanced degrees in their field?

[Anonymous]

This is rather unrelated, but my grandmother was a NYC teachers ages ago. She retired in the 70s. Back then, you could retire from teaching in NYC with an amazing pension - 20 years got you 50% of your salary (so I guess a multiplier 2.5%. I think she taught for 30 years though, so 60% of her salary. Plus Social Security. Now THAT was a great pension!

Under the city's basic retirement plan for teachers, which has been in effect since 1970, a teacher with at least 20 years’ service can leave at age 55 on a pension that equals at least half the salary earned by the teacher during his final year of employment. The benefits increase with longer service, and they are paid in addition to Social Security.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/10/19/archives/city-teacher-pensions-called-unacceptably-high.html