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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I want a job where I’m overworked but am compensated for it. My friends who aren’t teachers work a lot but make over $150k per year. I make $75k. Maybe I’d make that much if I charged for my OT. The job cannot be done with one 45 minute prep period per day. Most days I get zero planning due to meetings and other BS. [/quote]

Teachers seem to have gross misunderstandings about pay in comparable professions. [b]Most people with degrees in the arts, humanities, and social sciences aren't making $150k a year. [/b]Not even those with masters degrees. Add in the health/retirement benefits, and the ability to earn more money over the summer (or save money on child care), and teachers get compensated pretty well.

But I acknowledge the hours are long. We do need to find a way to give teachers more prep time.[/quote]

This is a weird qualification. First, STEM teachers exist and don't have a completely different salary scale. Second, teaching in most states requires a professional degree or certification in *teaching*. I feel like you're trying to say teachers are only comparable to people with arts and humanities degrees, despite there not being a direct relationship, because you think both have lower earning power. Or maybe because you think teaching is an impractical career choice, which...well, isn't that exactly the problem? [/quote]

Well, first of all, I think STEM and SpEd should be on different scales. It’s the arts, humanities, and social science teachers stopping that.

Second, we’re talking about the type of profession, not just the degree. Teaching, even STEM teaching, is much more closely linked to the arts, humanities, and social sciences than jobs in math, science, engineering, and medicine.

Third, often the degrees aren't even the same. And even when they are, someone going into math education is going to be taking a different set of classes than someone planning to go into an actuarial, engineering, analysis, or finance career.[/quote]

Should an AP English, AP Euro History, or AP Macroeconomics teacher be paid on a lower scale than SpEd or STEM? They have considerable content knowledge that others do not have. They can also have 150 students in their advanced courses, many of whom also have 504s or IEPs that require the same support/documentation/adherence that a SpEd teacher gives to their students..

See where this leads? How do you determine who deserves higher pay?[/quote]

Same way as every other job: based on the relative difficulty of finding qualified staff.

Clearly you're an English teacher and not an Econ teacher.[/quote]

Pay depends on more than supply demand.  Greater factors include specialization and rigor/difficulty of course study.  The sciences and mathematics are well regarded as more rigorous and challenging subjects than English and social sciences.  Consequently, no one expects someone with a Ph.D in History to earn more than someone with a B.E. in engineering.  In fact, the former can expect around $30k starting while the latter can easily earn a six figure salary.  Teachers are paid appropriately based on the relatively ease of rigor of an education degree.

If teachers are overworked, perhaps the solution is to lower degree requirements (to a B.A. degree) enabling lower teacher pay in favor of increasing teacher staff.  If every classroom K-12 had an assistant or two teachers, workloads would decrease, students would get more attention and feedback, and parents would be happy.  Everybody would win.
[/quote]

That’s what is required now (a BA or BS).[/quote]

So many ideas when they dont even know the basic facts of teacher educational requirements. Forkin A. [/quote]

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