Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What's the Point? Busted meritocracy?

Capacity for learning? What part of "similar gains" confused you?

Ahhhhhh... but making the profession higher-PAYING does result in smarter people seeking it out-- as opposed to the current state of affairs, in which it is all too often the case that those who can't do wind up teaching it instead.

Competition for relatively rare slots in programs or positions afterwards could easily take care of the rest, as long as that competition truly favored the best and brightest (see, Mark-- meritocracy again! Yay, me, staying on topic! )

The real money problems do seem to be about gross mismanagement of funds, though. That much is certainly true. But I've seen exactly zero evidence that running a school like-- er, or even "by"-- a corporation results in anything good coming of the resulting arrangement. In the one instance, funds are funneled to pork and administration, and in the other funds are siphoned into profits.

If anything, the latter seems to exacerbate the already bad problems.

Merit pay is a total nonstarter unless teachers actually regain the ability to say "no" to stupid curriculum components and edicts from on high that do nothing but make less time available in classrooms for real learning.

We have one of those local kids made VERY good, too!

My favorite bumper sticker of all time...

My kid won the Nobel Prize in Physics<-- real bumper sticker, as we've seen it around town and know who it belongs to.

DD says if she ever wins, she'll buy me a car to go with my bumper sticker. Since, you know... she can afford it then.

A green car. But not a real green car, that's cruel...

Seriously. We've had this conversation. Because that bumper sticker just delights us both. Almost as much as picking out awesome names for punk bands. Maybe Moral Turpitude is best reserved for a string quartet.

Indeed, the teaching profession has always been underpaid, but at least in years past, it was considered a noble profession. That has changed dramatically in the last decade or so. Anti-teacher sentiment is widespread.

Add in soaring tuition and increasing amounts of college requirements necessary, and you've got a formula that repulses the best candidates.

Private school teachers have higher test scores and genearlly earn less than public school teachers. A huge part of the problem is a system that refuses to reward based on merit and instead pays on seniority, and that alone.

Not to mention that teachers in California are pretty well paid. Average salaries in California are $68,000 (plus pensions and other benefits). In my district, it's over $75K. That's a lot of money for working a 180-day year plus a couple days tacked on at the beginning and end, especially given the fact that teachers overall have generally very low qualifications.

Not to mention that school here ends at 2:20 except on Wednesdays when it ends right after lunch and on other "minimum days" (three or four in the next couple weeks here, for example).

How much more do they need for so few hours worked compared to people who work 40+ hours per week on salary for 49 or 50 weeks of the year (that's 245-250 days, 9-5 or later!)? And why do people let them get away with claiming they're underpaid, when the reality is that they're not?

Where I live teacher salaries often start at 30K/year. I'm guessing you live in a very high COL area (I don't).

The "out at 2:20" thing is not true, as you must know. Grading, planning, etc.

Yeah, my mom never worked less than 50 hours a week during that 9 month contract.

She was at work at 7 most mornings, and never-- ever-- home before 4:45 in my memory. She also worked an additional 2-4 weeks a year completely UNPAID in order to set up her room for various things, or to mothball for the summer, etc.

Average teacher pay here is something approaching median income for the state, which is probably pretty good... particularly when you add in the benefits package.

Private schools serve student bodies whose parents are much more heavily invested in their children's educations (literally and figuratively), so there's an element of self-selection involved. Low SES students don't apply, either. Plus, there's an element of selection on the part of the schools, because problem kids can be easily kicked out... and the definition of "problem kids" is rather loosely defined.

So there's no point in comparing.


Low qualifications? Obtaining a teaching credential is essentially a five-year degree, since you need a bachelor's, plus other educational requirements and a student teaching gig. That's just to get in on the entry level. There are continuing educational requirements, basically throughout a teacher's career... and the tuition requirements that go with them.

Those average salaries are heavily influenced by teachers with master's degrees. Nearly every teacher in my high school (in CA) had one. How many careers do you know where the average salary of a master's degree holder is $75k/year?

The average salaries are also heavily influenced by teachers who are receiving stipends for extra duties, like sports coaches.

Another thing not mentioned in those averages is how much those teachers are spending their own money on classroom supplies.


Lesson plans, grading papers, leading extracurricular activities... it's a pretty rare teacher that puts in only 40 hours a week.

Okay, we'll say that many or most teachers work a full week.

Even so, they still work ~75% of the days that other people work; if they choose to work for no pay, that's their choice. I do this, my husband does this, my friends do it, so there's nothing uncommon there. Lots of people work on the weekend, and some even work during vaccation (read email/reply to it, etc.).

This means if they got paid the same hourly rate for working 245 days a year, teachers around here would be getting $100,000. This is simply not underpaid in any sense of the word for that job. It's not even underpaid for a mid-range software engineer, which is a high-paying job. And the average in the whole state of California would be ~$91K. Again, this is good money, and their hourly rate is very good.

Yet our public schools in this state are bottom-performers.

How much more money do California teachers need before they'll decide it's enough, if a $90-100K equivalent isn't?

There's a reason for why education schools are called diploma mills. Education degrees are about as fluffy as a degree can get. There is no way you can compare a degree in education with any other real degree. They have to be: the students are drawn from the bottom of the barrel (again, see GRE and SAT scores). Most US education students wouldn't get through a real degree program (sciences, English, other humanities, etc.).

These are people who struggle to pass watered-down qualification exams and complain about having meaningful standards or evaluations applied to them.