Teachers have it so easy

[caramida]

Stealthcomic has a good calculation of the after-hours time requirements inherent in teaching.

http://stealthcomic.livejournal.com/174796.html

I could do the math on what the overtime pay would be for all those extra hours that we're expected to put in, but I won't waste the time. Suffice to say that even those rare teachers that are making 100k a year* have earned their due, and perhaps more.

*chuckles and shakes head at the very idea.

Comments

[dangerpudding.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've never questioned that one. Teachers work their butts off. My sister is a new (second-third year) art teacher, she got to develop 8 separate curricula over the last year and a half, one for each grade level.

Kinda like my department being one of the better paid (and less higher-degree-holding) in the university - we're also one of the only always on call and who work in the office year round, including when the university is closed.

Less obvious things still exist.

[dicedork.livejournal.com]

I've never met (virtually or really) onr single person who thought teachers were overpaid, who didn't make that calculation based on the students' seat time. EVER.

Every_Single_One of them would calculate the pay rate based on how long students are in class and assume that every day off for a student was one for a teacher and that the teacher wasn't working unless it was between the bells.

The gross misunderstanding about what teachers do is one of the bellwethers I often use to point out that our lip service to education is just that. It wouldn't be conceivable to have a culture wide error so grotesque if education were really a priority.

[sylphslider.livejournal.com]

When I was grading for a 75 student class (one section) I'd try to spend 10 minutes per midterm - 15, max. At 10 minutes per midterm, that's 750 minutes, or 12.5 hours. At 15 minutes, that's something like 19 hours. If the teacher has two midterms and a final exam, that's anywhere from 37.5 hours to 57 hours. The year before I started grading, students were getting paid $400 per class to grade. When I started it was $300 per class. Last year it was $200 per class. I didn't grade last year. While I'm glad I had some grading experience, it wasn't worth the time it took from my studies. Some students are so poor and desperate that they lobby to get three sections to grade.

Here's the breakdown. This is in San Francisco, where the minimum wage is around $10 an hour. Let's just say after grading papers I really have come to value the comments my instructors left on mine.

$400/37.5 = $10.66 an hour. (10 minutes per midterm)
$400/57 = $7.02 an hour (15 minutes per midterm)

$300/37.5 = $8 an hour
$300/300 = $5.26 an hour

$200/37.5 = $5.33 an hour
$200/57 = $3.51 an hour

[sylphslider.livejournal.com]

As for the $100k a year ...

If you are a step 16 teacher teaching special ed for the court and community schools you can make $90,000 a year. I think there may be one of those somewhere in Alameda County.

My friend Dave, who is a master teacher and took the lead on his school's WASC thing last year, makes somewhere in the 50s.

I will have taken an $800 a year pay cut from what I made as a secretary when I become a teacher, given the average a teacher makes.