Teacher Salaries

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do--baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time. That would be $16.50 a day (8:00 AM to 3:30 (or so) PM with just 25 min. off for lunch). Each parent should pay $16.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. NOW... How many do they teach in a class, 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $495.00 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! We're not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE....That' s $585 x 180= $89,100 per year. What about those special teachers and the one s with master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage, and just to be fair, round it down to $7.00 an hour. That would be $7 x 5 1/2 hours (remember, no planning/preparing time) x 30 children x 180 days = $207,900 per year.

Wait a minute--there' s something wrong here! Average teacher salary (for a teacher with seniority!) $50,000/180 days = $277/per day/30 students = $9.23/6.5 hours = $1.68 per hour per student. A very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even try - with your help - to EDUCATE your kids!

WHAT A DEAL....And the parents don't even have to buy us pizza!

Silly, but you get the point. You really can't expect to get good professional effective teachers - and if you get them, to keep them - when they're starting at $36,000 or $40,000 after a college degree + 1-2 years extra...

Also, what this little scenario does not take into account is:
1. the TONS of extra hours worked by every single teacher.
2. the hundreds/thousands of dollars spent on the classroom. In my most expensive year, I spent $5,000 of my own money on supplies and field trips plus union dues (mandatory, even if you don't want to join the union) and professional development.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Teachers don't get 3 months of vacation a year. They are layed off and are unemployed 3 months every year.

11:22 PM

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