Reply to Unpopular opinion: DCPS teachers are super well paid!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just read this in David Graeber's "Bullshit Jobs" that may explain some of the vibes here.

he's talking in this section about how capitalism has created this "principle of inverse relation of compensation and social benefit" --- basically, the larger the social benefit and contribution of your job, the less money you are allowed to demand. Very twisted, IMO.

"teachers perform a vitally necessary function, yet have the temerity to demand middle-class lifestyles. They are the objects of a special ire, I suspect, by those trapped in soul-desroying low- and middle-level bullshit jobs."[/quote]

Is this surprising, given that many of those soul-destroying jobs are lower paid than teaching, and also do not come with two months off during the summer and other breaks throughout the year?  And then to hear teachers making $130k say that's not enough and act like they're working harder than anyone else?[/quote]

I don’t know a single teacher making anywhere remotely near $130K (or even over $100K). Can we stop using the extreme top of a pay scale that most people NEVER see as an “average” salary? It’s disingenuous.[/quote]

This thread dis not about teachers "anywhere." It's about teachers in DCPS, who make more than teachers elsewhere. It's very frustrating that teachers from other jurisdictions keep coming into the thread and getting mad and saying "but I am not well paid!" Yes, well, we aren't talking about you. As a profession, teachers absolutely ARE underpaid. Teachers in red states often make what are essentially poverty wages because of underinvestment in education. It's a real problem.

But teachers in DCPS are among the highest paid in the country. And yes, some of that pay is due to bonuses for being "highly effective" and that's not guaranteed, but some teachers absolutely avail themselves of it and yes there are teachers who meet the requirement.

ECE teachers in DCPS are particularly well paid. If you have a master degree in early childhood education, you can make over 100k within 10 years of teaching. That's amazing. Go talk to preschool and kindergarten teachers in other areas and ask how that sounds to them. DCPS has invested heavily in its ECE programs and that shows up in an incredibly strong ECE offering throughout the system, even at schools that really struggle with the upper grades, and some phenomenally good ECE instruction. This is not a criticism, it's actually evidence of what can happen if you are willing to financially reward top performers.

Anyway, this thread is not about the average teaching salary. It's not even about the average teaching salary in DCPS, because averaging everyone's salaries across the whole system would be incredibly misleading, given how much pay can vary depending on credentials, impact, and tenure. The thread is about the fact (and it is a fact) that DCPS actually pays teachers pretty well. That doesn't mean teaching in DCPS is easy, that the district is well run, or even that DCPS teachers don't deserve more in an absolute sense based on the vital service they perform.[/quote]

Let me tell you that ECE teachers making 100K is the BARE minimum they deserve for the jobs they do.  Yes, they are making significantly more than other ECE teachers in other places.  That fact just says how little we value caretakers and women who work with children.  Working in ECE takes as much or more talent, work and knowledge as it does to teach Calculus.  I guarantee that if you took pretty much any CEO with some "big job", they'd run away crying from how hard teaching ECE is.  Imo, ECE teachers should start at 100K everywhere.  It should be the federally mandated pay across the country.  Same with those who teach special ed.[/quote]

And yet the schools here are terrible. Kids here do worse on math and reading tests than kids in MISSISSIPPI.

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

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