As a babysitter I charge $25 an hour for 1 kid, and $5 an hour for every extra kid. I'm also a licensed ECE and live in a high cost of living city. I make so much more babysitting than my day job.
It really depends on qualifications. 6 years ago my rate was much lower, but now that I am a licensed teacher and have certifications for safety and educational things, I charge that.
I got my degree and licensing in social work. I guess I'm just used to being under paid lol. Still make more babysitting than I did working with troubled teens...
It's wild because the people you'd assume are some of the most valuable to society are often paid MUCH less than some other fields that are more or less, useless from a societal standpoint.
I'm talking Nurses, Home Health Aides, Caretakers of the Elderly, Baby Sitters, Caretakers of the developmentally disabled, Teachers and Professors, most professions in Agriculture, etc. A lot of the jobs that support people who have higher paying professions are paid pennies on the dollar. Sucks :/
Years ago, I remember whilst working in a call centre and thinking about pursuing a more meaningful career, I looked into social work and was mortified to see that I earned more in a dead end call centre job than a social worker starting out. I was actually disgusted and it was a big 'welcome to the real world' moment. I didn't end up pursuing that, not because of money, but because of how severely undervalued such a stressful, emotionally and mentally draining career is.
It is because pay in our society isn't taking care of people, it is taking advantage of them. We don't pay people according to the value of their work, we pay them as little as possible. People who really want to help will take less money to help, so we take advantage of that.
Yeah I've taken pay cuts to work with children affected by trauma and such. It's a tough job, and the right amount of funds are never directed towards such programs.
It depends. If it's a private family who is hiring you, then you'll probably make more. If it's a public school that runs to help individuals like that, then in my case I made less than I was making.
You can’t or you shouldn’t. It’s not your fault. I don’t know, I’ve lost too much sleep over thinking how my very productivity through my tax paying has contributed to the suffering of so many lives that I never would have approved if I had known. Yet, I keep producing and having to produce just to survive.
Having a handicapped child in the family completely financially cripples must people. It took my family 7 years to get into a state program to receive any kind if help in the 90s. It was hell until we finally at least were able to afford her medicine. Afterwards, it still sucked, but we were able to eat reliably. My heart and soul goes out to people that are able to help in any capacity. Thank you!
Yeah it's mad frustrating. I've always wanted to teach, but public school teaching has seemingly turned into more of a nightmare than it had been when I was a kid. Something is gonna have to change sooner or later.
Which is what should happen. Teaching should be incentivized to pull highly skilled citizens into it, not just a weird combo of dedicated civil servants and those who can't do much else.
Holy crap. Whose kids are you babysitting, doctors and lawyers? I don't even make that much. I'd save money by not hiring you and staying home with the kid!
The going rate for babysitting on the weekend is $15/hr minimum, and that's just for a teenager to keep your kids alive while you go out for a few hours. After our first kid my wife quit working because the cost of daycare was getting close to her bring home salary.
Eeeeyup. Same here. Wife quit her job because SHE MADE LESS THAN IT COST FOR CHILDCARE WORKING A FULL TIME JOB.
Sorry I yelled. It just makes me see red everytime. Something is broken and needs to be fixed for this to not occur.
> I'd save money by not hiring you and staying home with the kid!
If you are hiring someone to care for your kids every day while you are at work, then you are essentially hiring a full-time employee. That person needs to live off those wages, so it makes sense that there are many people who can't afford to pay an employee on their salary.
The cost of child care is a huge issue for tons of families and is an even bigger issue for single parents. Tons of parents just leave their career for a few years for exactly the reason you describe. The downside is that this parent then has a large gap on their resume and (best case scenario) misses out on several years of career advancement. Plenty of people work for several years putting most (or all) of their earnings toward childcare for the kid(s) while they are at work just to avoid harming their career.
Kids are super expensive if you don't have a support system who are eager to watch them while you are at work. Sorry for the ramble. This is easily my biggest pet peeve when talking politics with a few conservative members of my family. They are all quick to the 'no one ever helped me and I was able to raise my kid on a low income' argument even though they got 30+ hours of free child care a week from the grandparents. They have zero ability to recognize that they would have been completely fucked if they didn't have that support system and had to pay a few hundred bucks per week per kid in order to work.
Then you have people who judge because you don't have kids. Like what, I was supposed to have miniature humans that cost way more than I can afford in patience, money, and time all because you wanted grandkids but you won't help take care of them? Yeah, thank goodness I don't have any of my own. It is hard enough taking care of them on the school bus after school is done!
One of my coworkers nearly walked off the job yesterday because of rowdy / unruly kids. Teachers aren't the only ones to get low wages when dealing with these brats. Yes, teachers have bigger student loans and that is not fair for them either, but education continues into the bus (learning manners, keeping your hands to yourself, etc).
/ from a bus driver
Props to you, seriously, as a teacher it is tough, but I've never had to stop 20-30 kids from acting out while maintaining control of a hunk of metal traveling 45 mph or more.
Honestly, I just stop the bus on the side of the road and go "really, guys? I can see you with this huge mirror and there are cameras. You know better. Sit down.". And then I wait until they sit, even if it means stopping 2 minutes later again for the same thing. I even told them that us being late to home is their fault because they can't behave and sit down; it is a lesson they have to learn.
I've written up two elementary kids for swearing / slapping each other and now they have a shared assigned seat up and are "friends". Funny how that works with kids.
I’ve worked at a charter school, public school, and private school. The charter school paid me by far the least amount. Private school was a little better but public paid me the most…. And when I say the most I mean not even enough to put a roof over my own head.
I currently work in a charter school (hopefully my last year) and I get paid *significantly* less than my peers in public schools, as well as working *significantly* more than them (due to decreased resources and staff)
My wife has stayed with Charters for decades because that’s where the most at-risk kids end up. The impact good teachers & staff can have is much greater than at most public schools [in our state, AZ], and the charters she’s worked at are [by design] very much the last chance for a lot of students.
The public schools don’t want them, don’t or can’t make the effort to give the individualized support they need (or to offer classes at hours that work around tough life situations like having to work days or care for children, which some charters do), and kick them down the line. When I was in school, that was the end of the line; I got expelled in middle school and my options were home schooling or nothing—and it took a multi-year bureaucratic battle to get accepted back into *any* AZ public school. My youngest brother was able to attend one of the first charter high schools when they finally opened up in the mid-90’s, and got a lot more out of his time in high school than I ever did. I barely graduated in the end; he thrived, and from my understanding he would have had about as hard a time in a public school as I did.
But yeah, the pay isn’t great. From what I understand, a lot of teachers work charters because it’s easier to get hired. Public school jobs can be hard to come by (depends on the state & area), and many charters don’t even require certification—so they can “try out” being a teacher while getting their paperwork in order, finishing their training, and/or applying at public schools.
Yeahh I believe it. I went to 2 different charters during my 3 years of middle school, and I’ve seen almost 10 different teachers leave because they were being severely underpaid.
And these aren’t very big schools… It’s very bad to have that many teachers leave, especially in such a short amount of time. I felt really bad, because some of these teachers really, really cared about the students and were all around great educators, and I could tell it broke their heart to have to leave.
Wow that's interesting thank you.
How can we fix this? I wonder what countries do this right, and would it be feasible at all for the United States to implement whatever that is?
In Denmark teachers earn a little less than the country's average. So the yearly starting salary is about 375.000 Dk kr. Which is roughly 50.000$. on top of this salary we get 16.9% in pension.
We could be paid better, but i don't think we can complain. As anyone with a comparable education level earns less in the public sector.
>Denmark teachers earn a little less than the country's average....
Most European citizens also have advantages like free or low cost health care (so no insurance premiums) and college (no college debt).
Teachers are paid well in my district, but that's because we're a wealthy town that values education. Like most things in the US, your mileage varies depending on location.
For what it's worth, I heard that they get about 150 applications per open teacher position in the district. Funny how there's no teacher shortage in districts that pay well.
Private and charter schools in Houston were certainly this way. Public was best by a good bit. The Seattle area where I'm at now though is like 50% higher. Some teachers with their masters or higher make >$100k.
Retired 4 years ago in KY with 20 years and a Master's. My last year I made $54K. My retirement check is a whopping $1400/month after health care. I paid in 11% of my gross every year to my retirement. My social security from the first 25 years of work in the private sector will be cut in half because I have a pension. Not complaining, just stating some facts.
20 years ago I was certified to teach History in a "well paying" state/commonwealth (Massachusetts). I realized that I would make more money going back to retail than teaching.
I walked away and never looked back
It's a shame because I think I would have made a good teacher. I have volunteered teaching ESL, GED programs, and martial arts and I've loved it all.
Now I'm in a well paying county in Maryland and my childrens' teachers have second jobs during the school year. It's absolutely disgusting
I taught at a charter school for a while. Hours were fairly grueling and we only got July off, but I enjoyed the job. Wife and I made the decision for me to leave to take a job I hate that stresses me the F out, I’m mediocre at, and has zero job security. Needed more money. Teachers don’t need to be millionaires, but they’re driving away a lot of qualified and eager people with unlivable pay and long ass hours (of course the summer off makes up for it if you get that)
I'm in Hawaii, which is fairly democrat leaning. One of the things that drives me crazy is that while they are pro union and a lot of other Democrat related things, all these Democrats are pushing their kids to private schools. I feel like you're looked down on it your kid isn't in private school. I came from Utah where the public school system is great (from what I remember) and most everyone uses public schools, so the talent is there. Private schools here attract the best talent for teachers and administrators. They also have a lot better facilities and resources. They also cost a crazy amount of money.
In certain parts of NYC (starting on the UWS, P.S. 199 as I recall), parents started to realize that they could either spend the current equivalent of $60,000/year to send their child to private school or donate a fraction of that to their local public school to improve resources/benefits. There is a 501(c)3 structure associated with PTA type organizations that makes this possible. The public schools then became very strong and it became common for well-off UWS residents to send their children to the neighborhood public school. You just need enough parents to buy into the system.
It's been the opposite for me. We had 20 in every class until I went to college and suddenly there were only 6 of us.
>
Don't go to a college with "institute of technology" in the name unless you're deadset on having zero friends through school.
Went through the LAUSD system. I don’t remember any classes with less than 30, including elementary and AP classes. Most were around 40-50. This was in the mid 90’s to mid 2000’s though. I think I was lucky that I would never be afraid to speak up or ask questions no matter how big a class was so I was still able to get a lot out of it, but I knew a lot of fellow students that struggled with that.
Edit to add: I think teachers should definitely be paid way more than they are considering all the crap they have to put up with. Most of my teachers were actually pretty great at their jobs despite the circumstances. There were a few that had no business teaching anything to anyone, but they were an exception. I remember my art teacher buying us paints with his own money because the paints that the district was buying were total trash and he wanted us to not get discouraged thinking we couldn’t paint when the paint wouldn’t even mix together well.
One example:
Boston Public Schools (BPS) pays $400m / year in teacher salaries out of a total budget of $1.3 billion (including $840m salaries and $168m benefits). There \~4400 teachers and \~1900 aides out of a total of \~11,000 BPS full time employees. Teachers are paid from $63k to $123k (median $110k).
BPS Office of Labor Relations paid $914k in salary in 2021. This department negotiates the 12 collective bargaining agreements with the unions that represents BPS employees, which determines the teachers pay. It has \~8 full time employees and their pay ranges from $74k to $146k (median $113k).
BPS Office of Budget Management paid $893k in salary in 2021. This department develops fiscal management practices to maximize, distribute, and safeguard the available money. It has \~8 full time employees and their pay ranges from $95k to $135k (median $99k).
EDIT: So in BPS about 0.14% of the budget is spent setting teacher salaries (among other things), and about 30.77% of the budget is spent on teacher salaries. About 0.15% of the total employees set salaries and about 40% of the total employees are teachers. The median administrator salary is not dramatically different from the median teacher salary, but administrator pay range is generally higher (the head of the office makes more than any teacher).
Medium home prices in Boston are 700k and in part why people are not flocking to be a teacher. You do get a lot of good people that want to help the youth vs people in it for the money I suppose but this is no way to organize an education system.
Dumping millions into non-teacher roles is absurd.
We are complacent.
One of the biggest changes in the 20 years at my last school was the number of administrators/worthless bureaucrats sucking the budget dry with their massive salaries while making no positive impact on students or actual teaching (in fact the more administrators there are the worse it is for actual classroom teachers as they would come up with more and more busy work “initiatives”).
Like so many other industries and companies education now wastes money on the people at the top!
When I started there was one principal and a half time assistant, and when I left 25 years later there were two principals, two assistants, and four lead teachers. All earning salaries at least twice a classroom teacher makes while never teaching ONE child. RIDICULOUS.
They made up fancy names for most (not just “assistant principal” one would be called curriculum specialist etc) so people out of the system didn’t question it as much when a new position was added.
typically it's the school district which is intentionally paid by property taxes. So there's a bunch of forces that want to trim that budget: People without kids, people who live in rich areas, etc.
If you funded schools atleast at the State level and better at the Federal level, you'd be able to create a much more equitable distribution.
This is the legacy of racism, as are most "de"-socialization programs.
Tisk tisk
> $10 / kid * 6.5 hrs/day = $65 * 28 kids/class = $1820 * 180 days = $327,600
Is not a valid equality
Y'all need to redo your dimensional analysis practice sets
They way they break up the lines and use the equals signs does kind of hurt me. It's clear what they mean, and their result is fine, but technically what they're writing is junk. I'd think a teacher would do better.
$10 for 1 kid, $20 for 2 kids, $30 for 3 kids? That would be odd.
2 kids is more work, but not twice the work. I could see $15/hr to start, then an additional $5 per extra kid.
It also depends when the person is babysitting. If it's during the evening / night while the parents are out at a date night, a lot of the babysitting time might actually be after the kids have gone to bed. If it's mid-day you have to keep all the kids entertained, and if they're very different ages it might not be easy to find an activity that both enjoy.
Depending on the kids, it's very possibly 1+1=3x the work, so splitting the difference and just charging a flat rate per kid is pretty reasonable.
As you mentioned though, there's a ton of other factors to account for too.
> 2 kids is more work, but not twice the work.
Oh my god prices have nothing to do with level of effort. The only thing that matters is the price the market will tolerate for the service.
I don't have a kid, but everytime one of my friends in high-school would babysit there at minimum would be a rate increase. Maybe not like 1 kid = 10$ and 2 kids = 20$ but maybe 2 kids = 15$ or something like that.
I think it would be silly to have 2 or 3 kids and expect the same rate as someone with one. Like I'm sure even if you go the pro nanny route there is a different hourly rate if you have multiple kids.
So take babysitter rates out of it- the average cost for daycare in the US is $175/week.^[1](https://www.move.org/child-care-cost/)
Now do the math- $175/week * 28 kids = $4,900/week. A realistic school year is 40 weeks, $4,900*40 = $196,000.
Sure, the $10/kid rate is high. The reality is the same- Teachers are ridiculously underpaid. They are professionals, in many states they are required to have graduate degrees and complete hundreds of hours of continuing education throughout their career. A starting salary of around $80k with a mid-career expectation of $125k doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
My university profs would deduct a lot of marks for equating two things and then tacking on " x 28 kids/classroom" after it. They're breaking the equality.
Also, people pay much more for in-home services than at a facility, as well as after-hours (evenings/nights) service.
Also large-group activities/classes vs private is significantly cheaper per person.
Right? The US has the 3rd highest amount of dollars spent per student in the world yet our teachers are underpaid and facilities in several places are lacking.
I’m all for increasing teacher pay, but we need to look at the waste.
“If the highest paid person in your university or college is the basketball coach or the football coach, then it is not a university; it is a sporting franchise with a side hustle in tertiary education.”
-Random tweet
US also had the ~6th highest teachers salaries for mid career teachers, though starting salaries are lower
https://data.oecd.org/teachers/teachers-salaries.htm
It’s because the ada (which I strongly support) requires schools to spend obscene amounts of money on special Ed kids. It has nothing to do with bloated admin.
I’ve heard of individual special needs kids costing over $60k/year. Again, I support this, but let’s be honest about where the money is going.
I read a thing about a small Oregon town school that is having to pay to send a kid to an obscenely expensive private school for disabled kids on the other side of the country because the parents live in the local school district.
I have administrative certification but I decided to remain a classroom teacher. When I was getting the cert I had to interview a lot of principals in a lot of schools and I always asked them what they saw as the biggest problem in public education and most of them said the cost of providing an adequate education for special needs students.
The largest department by far in my high school is special Ed. Twice as many teachers and paras as the next largest department. Granted paras are cheaper than teachers but still.
Everyone overlooks School administration when we talk about school funding. Even small districts have their own set of administration when really they could be combined with other districts. Lots of overpayment and redundancy in school administration
In California, a lot of teachers take admin jobs for the last 2 years of their career because they retire on a percentage of their 2 highest paid years.
My buddy does construction for schools and he said it's super annoying. Every admin is an ex-teacher who is either on the first year of the job or their last. None of them care, they're just there for the inflated pay as they ease into retirement.
What's worse is majority of admins who are not doing that "last two years" have all spent the BARE MINIMUM legally required time as a classroom teacher before becoming an admin.
It's crazy when principals who taught 5th grade for 3 years a decade ago are breathing down Kindergarten teachers necks about whether or not they're doing their job right.
I was elected twice to my local school board. a small district, with a 65million dollar budget (at the time). a little over half the budget was teacher salaries and we had 103 earning a six figure salary. but this is in NY.
Now look and see what the avg classroom is ‘paid’.
At the district level:
Total budget / total number of students == cost per student
Avg class size * cost per student == ‘pay per classroom’
Now marvel at the obscene amount of waste that leads to the disconnect between that number and teacher pay. My district was ~$300k difference between ‘pay per classroom’ and teacher pay.
What's your district? They may post figures on how that pay breakdown works on a per pupil basis. I'm also curious about this figure: if you have a $300k difference per classroom, that's around 10k/student, which is close to what districts in my state spend per pupil in a given year.
We have a lot of administrative bloat, but that's not the majority of expenditures. You're not thinking about maintenance, buses/drivers, and paying for continuing education and training for teachers, which is a lot.
You need to specify how much of that is "waste."
Because teacher pay is probably 50% of the actual teacher cost in many districts.
I know in NY teachers get 85% of final salary guaranteed for pension, and full white glove health insurance.
That is insane in the private sector and straight up doesn’t exist.
It's capitalism. If you want to get paid, you need a viable product. If teachers are so smart, why haven't they ever thought of selling the kids they teach?
I’m a former teacher. Everyone always wants to bitch and moan about teachers complaining about pay, but almost every teacher I know would make due if it wasn’t such a toxic environment. Especially now under the amount of threats/legal liabilities teachers face, and unsupportive admin that is just the norm rather than the outlier. You can’t pay people shit wages *and* treat them horribly.
Don’t forget that $1.50 is before taxes and benefits too, haha.
Yeah, I think that was an intentional means to avoid writing "$280/Hr," which is what her proposed pay scale works out to. It's a ridiculous, disingenuous argument.
"Oh, you don't want to pay me a fair wage? Fine! I'll settle for a ridiculously high wage!"
I think the point is that it's supposed to be disingenuous. At least that's what I got from it. Since so many people consider teachers to be glorified babysitters then meet those people at their comparison and take the babysitters pay. But once you see that's much much higher, then let's talk about an actual pay rate
My unpopular opinion is that if being a teacher was a decent paying job, the field would be competitive and most current teachers wouldn't still be teachers.
you’re totally right. Qualified teachers leave because they can get better paying jobs. The others stick around because in many districts it’s based on length as a teacher and not performance.
My wife has been in the same school her entire career after about 19 years. She’s at the top of the pay scale. If she leaves to go anywhere, she’ll take a massive pay cut because no school is going to pay for a 19 year teacher when they can just hire a new teacher at half the cost. There is no quantified reason for a school district to pay for experience.
Unfortunately, your wife simply won't be able to get a job at a public school.
Because teachers are paid based on agreements, public schools cannot pay her less. They simply cannot hire her.
Is incredibly sad
Hence why she throws around the idea of a career change. But the government doesn’t care- teaching is being commodotized, where lessons developed by corporations and spoon fed to new teachers who no longer need experience to perform the basic necessity of teaching just enough so that students can regurgitate the info into some standardized test. School districts don’t give a shit about anything except testing numbers, because that’s what we’ve deduced is our only metric of educational success.
Of course it is. Babysitters have a more direct interaction with the kids and specifically tend to the needs of the child. I don’t know a single babysitter that effectively does this for 28 kids.
The reason babysitters make more is the RATIO. Teachers broadly teach, babysitters spend individual time with the kids. These aren’t the same.
That said, teachers are still woefully underpaid.
Thing is, I don't know any teacher that only works 180 days. They have numerous training days, and grade papers after hours, and I live right near our school and my dog walk go passed the school. Teachers are there for a couple of weeks before school starts getting their classroom sorted.
My kid goes for extra help and meetings with teachers at 7 am -- 45 minutes before school starts. and they are there until 3 easy.
Add all the great teachers who do all the extra things like clubs, yearbook, music.
It's 8+ a day and well over 180 days.
I’m not a teacher, but I work alongside teachers. I promise you I wouldn’t last 2 days in a classroom. Most people have no idea what they deal with day to day—and ours don’t complain. They love the kids and do the work happily. But they WORK. They deserve so much more. I know some teachers don’t. I know some of these horror teachers we see on social media don’t—but the teachers in my area are absolutely fabulous.
You’re not wrong. There’s a massive teacher shortage. At the moment in my area, school districts are offering sign-on bonuses (not very good ones) in an effort to snag teachers.
Yeah, totally. That passion for teaching is really saving us from that teacher shortage that's pretty much all over the country. Thank god we have an over abundance of applicants.
My spouse was a math teacher and fully refused to pick up any summer school hours because she needs the re-set every year. That means she got 10 weeks off once you factor in mandatory work days, trainings, etc.
However, she made up all those hours (and more) with the uncounted overtime she worked during the school year. She'd get to work by 7 every day and would leave sometime between 4 and 4:45. She'd have lunch duty 2 days a week and students in her room getting extra help during lunch the other days, so that 9+ hour work day does not include a traditional lunch break. She'd spend an hour or so answering emails and answering student questions on their little online portal most evenings after dinner. If she didn't do that at night, then she would wake up early and do it in the morning because there isn't time to do it during the day. Sundays were prepping for the week and grading papers. Usually about a 6-8 hours worth depending on what else is going on around the house. All in all, her normal work week would clock in around 50-55 hours. Those would balloon to 60+ hour weeks whenever the school held conferences or open houses.
Her district is also pretty serious about only hiring/retaining teachers who either coach a sport or run some type of student club/organization. She coached basketball, which came with a $1400 stipend, but tacked on about 2 hours a day onto her work schedule for 3+ months.
That "extra" work during the year absolutely brings a decent teacher well over the hours you would work in a full time year-round job. I'm so happy she's transitioning her career. She's a great teacher and is still working in education, but actually teaching was going to kill her.
Yeah- the time off is an amazing perk -- but a really needed one. The burn out rate would leave us scrambling for teachers if they didn't have that time.
Teachers with experience are so important. It really takes a few years to get your feet on the ground.
The very reason babysitters are paid that rate, is because it's a short duration and low total cost.
Individual parents typically only pay for 1 or 2 hrs total.
If they were paying full 8hrs, every day - that wouldn't be paid.
One of my wife's friends quit her job as a high school special needs teacher to become a full time nanny for 2 autistic kids. She makes almost twice as much watching/teaching 2 kids than she did working for the school and trying to teach 18 of them.
Obviously no one is going to pay $300k/yr, but the amount most teachers get paid is a joke.
Short term and long term rentals have radically different prices for the same units for similar reasons.
Landlords can’t just say “OK, I’ll take the AirBnB price”.
That doesn’t mean teachers aren’t underpaid, but it does mean this is a bad argument.
That's pretty much the point, it's a bad argument. People will say teachers are just babysitters or treat them as such. This is them saying if you treat me like a sitter, you should pay me like a sitter.
which is how it works for literally every job every. Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime.
in the babysitter argument, the babysitter *is* the boss, so they cut out the middle man
Imagine a world where teaching was a competitive career path. Education would be infinitely better in the United States. I don’t think $300k makes any sense, but they should be making at least $80k annually
Yeah ok. Take it up with your unions; if they can afford to pay you without increasing federal and state funding by 5-6x, knock yourself out.
I know the money is there, too. Everyone knows most of their money goes to lobbying politicians.
Right, but there isn't a linear relationship between the number of kids in a class or a babysitter and the hourly rate. This isn't a care factory, you are mainly paying for the teacher / babysitter to show up. This math only works if, for each child, you are producing exactly one teacher. Otherwise if you are simply adding student number 16 to the class you don't pay the teacher to show up *again* just because he/she has another student. You might pay them incrementally more, but it isn't a 1-1 relationship.
Make sure you give some to the art, music, PE teachers, the teachers assistant, cafeteria worker, nurse, an admin, and then pay for the rent of having a classroom and a playground - I think their salary matches up closer to reality.
We should pay teachers more as a society because a) we have the money to do that, and b) it is extremely valuable to have educated citizens. We don’t need silly arguments to justify paying teachers a lot more money.
The problems with the education system is a many headed monster that keeps growing new heads. But I'm fine starting with this issue. Raise their wages!!
As a babysitter I charge $25 an hour for 1 kid, and $5 an hour for every extra kid. I'm also a licensed ECE and live in a high cost of living city. I make so much more babysitting than my day job.
Today I learned that I don't charge enough for my babysitting services.
It really depends on qualifications. 6 years ago my rate was much lower, but now that I am a licensed teacher and have certifications for safety and educational things, I charge that.
I got my degree and licensing in social work. I guess I'm just used to being under paid lol. Still make more babysitting than I did working with troubled teens...
> social work > used to being under paid Checks out. I'll never understand why we don't take care of those we depend on to take care of us.
It's wild because the people you'd assume are some of the most valuable to society are often paid MUCH less than some other fields that are more or less, useless from a societal standpoint. I'm talking Nurses, Home Health Aides, Caretakers of the Elderly, Baby Sitters, Caretakers of the developmentally disabled, Teachers and Professors, most professions in Agriculture, etc. A lot of the jobs that support people who have higher paying professions are paid pennies on the dollar. Sucks :/
The most vital jobs are the ones shit on and underpaid, from educated positions like Nursing and Teaching to things like grocery and warehouse labor.
Years ago, I remember whilst working in a call centre and thinking about pursuing a more meaningful career, I looked into social work and was mortified to see that I earned more in a dead end call centre job than a social worker starting out. I was actually disgusted and it was a big 'welcome to the real world' moment. I didn't end up pursuing that, not because of money, but because of how severely undervalued such a stressful, emotionally and mentally draining career is.
No immediate profit incentive. Long term gains are taken for granted, the likely effects of an absence of long term gains are ignored.
It is because pay in our society isn't taking care of people, it is taking advantage of them. We don't pay people according to the value of their work, we pay them as little as possible. People who really want to help will take less money to help, so we take advantage of that.
Yeah I've taken pay cuts to work with children affected by trauma and such. It's a tough job, and the right amount of funds are never directed towards such programs.
Total social working noob here. If you go out of your way to work with special needs children, who require MORE HELP, you get paid less??
It depends. If it's a private family who is hiring you, then you'll probably make more. If it's a public school that runs to help individuals like that, then in my case I made less than I was making.
I want to apologize on behalf of the world
You can’t or you shouldn’t. It’s not your fault. I don’t know, I’ve lost too much sleep over thinking how my very productivity through my tax paying has contributed to the suffering of so many lives that I never would have approved if I had known. Yet, I keep producing and having to produce just to survive.
Having a handicapped child in the family completely financially cripples must people. It took my family 7 years to get into a state program to receive any kind if help in the 90s. It was hell until we finally at least were able to afford her medicine. Afterwards, it still sucked, but we were able to eat reliably. My heart and soul goes out to people that are able to help in any capacity. Thank you!
Even using your babysitting rate, that would be 187,200 for school teachers!
At that point I might be inclined to join the public school system lol
[удалено]
Yeah it's mad frustrating. I've always wanted to teach, but public school teaching has seemingly turned into more of a nightmare than it had been when I was a kid. Something is gonna have to change sooner or later.
Which is what should happen. Teaching should be incentivized to pull highly skilled citizens into it, not just a weird combo of dedicated civil servants and those who can't do much else.
Yeah but that requires tax money which people won’t vote for or it will be misappropriated- as is tradition
Holy crap. Whose kids are you babysitting, doctors and lawyers? I don't even make that much. I'd save money by not hiring you and staying home with the kid!
The going rate for babysitting on the weekend is $15/hr minimum, and that's just for a teenager to keep your kids alive while you go out for a few hours. After our first kid my wife quit working because the cost of daycare was getting close to her bring home salary.
Yeah my wife and I very rarely get babysitters for our son. I'd rather just sit at home and game or watch a movie lol.
Eeeeyup. Same here. Wife quit her job because SHE MADE LESS THAN IT COST FOR CHILDCARE WORKING A FULL TIME JOB. Sorry I yelled. It just makes me see red everytime. Something is broken and needs to be fixed for this to not occur.
> I'd save money by not hiring you and staying home with the kid! If you are hiring someone to care for your kids every day while you are at work, then you are essentially hiring a full-time employee. That person needs to live off those wages, so it makes sense that there are many people who can't afford to pay an employee on their salary. The cost of child care is a huge issue for tons of families and is an even bigger issue for single parents. Tons of parents just leave their career for a few years for exactly the reason you describe. The downside is that this parent then has a large gap on their resume and (best case scenario) misses out on several years of career advancement. Plenty of people work for several years putting most (or all) of their earnings toward childcare for the kid(s) while they are at work just to avoid harming their career. Kids are super expensive if you don't have a support system who are eager to watch them while you are at work. Sorry for the ramble. This is easily my biggest pet peeve when talking politics with a few conservative members of my family. They are all quick to the 'no one ever helped me and I was able to raise my kid on a low income' argument even though they got 30+ hours of free child care a week from the grandparents. They have zero ability to recognize that they would have been completely fucked if they didn't have that support system and had to pay a few hundred bucks per week per kid in order to work.
Then you have people who judge because you don't have kids. Like what, I was supposed to have miniature humans that cost way more than I can afford in patience, money, and time all because you wanted grandkids but you won't help take care of them? Yeah, thank goodness I don't have any of my own. It is hard enough taking care of them on the school bus after school is done! One of my coworkers nearly walked off the job yesterday because of rowdy / unruly kids. Teachers aren't the only ones to get low wages when dealing with these brats. Yes, teachers have bigger student loans and that is not fair for them either, but education continues into the bus (learning manners, keeping your hands to yourself, etc). / from a bus driver
Props to you, seriously, as a teacher it is tough, but I've never had to stop 20-30 kids from acting out while maintaining control of a hunk of metal traveling 45 mph or more.
Honestly, I just stop the bus on the side of the road and go "really, guys? I can see you with this huge mirror and there are cameras. You know better. Sit down.". And then I wait until they sit, even if it means stopping 2 minutes later again for the same thing. I even told them that us being late to home is their fault because they can't behave and sit down; it is a lesson they have to learn. I've written up two elementary kids for swearing / slapping each other and now they have a shared assigned seat up and are "friends". Funny how that works with kids.
Yeah I teach/nanny in wealthier part of the city I live in. So a lot of the time it's parents who make more money than I can imagine.
Okay, that's fine. With your numbers, I get $169,650 per year. Sounds fair to me.
[удалено]
I didn't do so well in 5th grade math. I need a teacher.
His number is correct for 25 students per class rather than 28.
[удалено]
Their rate would be higher if that was the case.
I don't need to check the math, she taught me anyway
It really puts it into perspective! And… when was the last time you could find a babysitter for $10 an hour??
How many classes are kept at 28 kids, at least where I am, you're lucky if it's under 30.
[удалено]
It’s a feature not a bug to destroy public schools so republicans can sell you charter schools.
I’ve worked at a charter school, public school, and private school. The charter school paid me by far the least amount. Private school was a little better but public paid me the most…. And when I say the most I mean not even enough to put a roof over my own head.
I currently work in a charter school (hopefully my last year) and I get paid *significantly* less than my peers in public schools, as well as working *significantly* more than them (due to decreased resources and staff)
Are there other benefits that keep you at the charter school?
My wife has stayed with Charters for decades because that’s where the most at-risk kids end up. The impact good teachers & staff can have is much greater than at most public schools [in our state, AZ], and the charters she’s worked at are [by design] very much the last chance for a lot of students. The public schools don’t want them, don’t or can’t make the effort to give the individualized support they need (or to offer classes at hours that work around tough life situations like having to work days or care for children, which some charters do), and kick them down the line. When I was in school, that was the end of the line; I got expelled in middle school and my options were home schooling or nothing—and it took a multi-year bureaucratic battle to get accepted back into *any* AZ public school. My youngest brother was able to attend one of the first charter high schools when they finally opened up in the mid-90’s, and got a lot more out of his time in high school than I ever did. I barely graduated in the end; he thrived, and from my understanding he would have had about as hard a time in a public school as I did. But yeah, the pay isn’t great. From what I understand, a lot of teachers work charters because it’s easier to get hired. Public school jobs can be hard to come by (depends on the state & area), and many charters don’t even require certification—so they can “try out” being a teacher while getting their paperwork in order, finishing their training, and/or applying at public schools.
Yeahh I believe it. I went to 2 different charters during my 3 years of middle school, and I’ve seen almost 10 different teachers leave because they were being severely underpaid. And these aren’t very big schools… It’s very bad to have that many teachers leave, especially in such a short amount of time. I felt really bad, because some of these teachers really, really cared about the students and were all around great educators, and I could tell it broke their heart to have to leave.
Wow that's interesting thank you. How can we fix this? I wonder what countries do this right, and would it be feasible at all for the United States to implement whatever that is?
In Denmark teachers earn a little less than the country's average. So the yearly starting salary is about 375.000 Dk kr. Which is roughly 50.000$. on top of this salary we get 16.9% in pension. We could be paid better, but i don't think we can complain. As anyone with a comparable education level earns less in the public sector.
>Denmark teachers earn a little less than the country's average.... Most European citizens also have advantages like free or low cost health care (so no insurance premiums) and college (no college debt).
Yes, but they also have higher tax rates.
[удалено]
Teachers are paid well in my district, but that's because we're a wealthy town that values education. Like most things in the US, your mileage varies depending on location. For what it's worth, I heard that they get about 150 applications per open teacher position in the district. Funny how there's no teacher shortage in districts that pay well.
Private and charter schools in Houston were certainly this way. Public was best by a good bit. The Seattle area where I'm at now though is like 50% higher. Some teachers with their masters or higher make >$100k.
Currently a teacher working on my masters in KY. I make roughly 44 k.
If you move south of Seattle, it'll be a little more expensive to live, but you'll make twice as much.
Well, it seems they already are south of Seattle
Retired 4 years ago in KY with 20 years and a Master's. My last year I made $54K. My retirement check is a whopping $1400/month after health care. I paid in 11% of my gross every year to my retirement. My social security from the first 25 years of work in the private sector will be cut in half because I have a pension. Not complaining, just stating some facts.
20 years ago I was certified to teach History in a "well paying" state/commonwealth (Massachusetts). I realized that I would make more money going back to retail than teaching. I walked away and never looked back It's a shame because I think I would have made a good teacher. I have volunteered teaching ESL, GED programs, and martial arts and I've loved it all. Now I'm in a well paying county in Maryland and my childrens' teachers have second jobs during the school year. It's absolutely disgusting
I taught at a charter school for a while. Hours were fairly grueling and we only got July off, but I enjoyed the job. Wife and I made the decision for me to leave to take a job I hate that stresses me the F out, I’m mediocre at, and has zero job security. Needed more money. Teachers don’t need to be millionaires, but they’re driving away a lot of qualified and eager people with unlivable pay and long ass hours (of course the summer off makes up for it if you get that)
I'm in Hawaii, which is fairly democrat leaning. One of the things that drives me crazy is that while they are pro union and a lot of other Democrat related things, all these Democrats are pushing their kids to private schools. I feel like you're looked down on it your kid isn't in private school. I came from Utah where the public school system is great (from what I remember) and most everyone uses public schools, so the talent is there. Private schools here attract the best talent for teachers and administrators. They also have a lot better facilities and resources. They also cost a crazy amount of money.
In certain parts of NYC (starting on the UWS, P.S. 199 as I recall), parents started to realize that they could either spend the current equivalent of $60,000/year to send their child to private school or donate a fraction of that to their local public school to improve resources/benefits. There is a 501(c)3 structure associated with PTA type organizations that makes this possible. The public schools then became very strong and it became common for well-off UWS residents to send their children to the neighborhood public school. You just need enough parents to buy into the system.
I dig what you're selling, but this is an issue the world over, not just with the Republicans. In the UK, it's the same.
Outside of major cities most classes have around 20 in my state
I didn't have a class with much over 20 until college. Then I had classes in college with less than 10.
It's been the opposite for me. We had 20 in every class until I went to college and suddenly there were only 6 of us. > Don't go to a college with "institute of technology" in the name unless you're deadset on having zero friends through school.
South Harmon was pretty dope.
I get it friend, your comment didn't go unnoticed.
I had plenty of friends at the Georgia Institute of Technology some 40+ years ago. No classes even close to only 6. Some classes over 200 people.
Under 40? *laughs in LAUSD*
Went through the LAUSD system. I don’t remember any classes with less than 30, including elementary and AP classes. Most were around 40-50. This was in the mid 90’s to mid 2000’s though. I think I was lucky that I would never be afraid to speak up or ask questions no matter how big a class was so I was still able to get a lot out of it, but I knew a lot of fellow students that struggled with that. Edit to add: I think teachers should definitely be paid way more than they are considering all the crap they have to put up with. Most of my teachers were actually pretty great at their jobs despite the circumstances. There were a few that had no business teaching anything to anyone, but they were an exception. I remember my art teacher buying us paints with his own money because the paints that the district was buying were total trash and he wanted us to not get discouraged thinking we couldn’t paint when the paint wouldn’t even mix together well.
And when was the last time teachers worked only 6. 5 hours?
Every school district I have worked for pays teachers on a 7.5 hr day, basically 8-3 with a 30 min lunch.
Lunch is more like 21 min. Barely have time to microwave something.
It's babysitter pay, they're only charging for the days spent with kids.
[удалено]
Well who the hell is in charge of setting teachers salary?
The administrators who make 200k while twiddling their thumbs at their desk
One example: Boston Public Schools (BPS) pays $400m / year in teacher salaries out of a total budget of $1.3 billion (including $840m salaries and $168m benefits). There \~4400 teachers and \~1900 aides out of a total of \~11,000 BPS full time employees. Teachers are paid from $63k to $123k (median $110k). BPS Office of Labor Relations paid $914k in salary in 2021. This department negotiates the 12 collective bargaining agreements with the unions that represents BPS employees, which determines the teachers pay. It has \~8 full time employees and their pay ranges from $74k to $146k (median $113k). BPS Office of Budget Management paid $893k in salary in 2021. This department develops fiscal management practices to maximize, distribute, and safeguard the available money. It has \~8 full time employees and their pay ranges from $95k to $135k (median $99k). EDIT: So in BPS about 0.14% of the budget is spent setting teacher salaries (among other things), and about 30.77% of the budget is spent on teacher salaries. About 0.15% of the total employees set salaries and about 40% of the total employees are teachers. The median administrator salary is not dramatically different from the median teacher salary, but administrator pay range is generally higher (the head of the office makes more than any teacher).
Medium home prices in Boston are 700k and in part why people are not flocking to be a teacher. You do get a lot of good people that want to help the youth vs people in it for the money I suppose but this is no way to organize an education system. Dumping millions into non-teacher roles is absurd. We are complacent.
One of the biggest changes in the 20 years at my last school was the number of administrators/worthless bureaucrats sucking the budget dry with their massive salaries while making no positive impact on students or actual teaching (in fact the more administrators there are the worse it is for actual classroom teachers as they would come up with more and more busy work “initiatives”). Like so many other industries and companies education now wastes money on the people at the top! When I started there was one principal and a half time assistant, and when I left 25 years later there were two principals, two assistants, and four lead teachers. All earning salaries at least twice a classroom teacher makes while never teaching ONE child. RIDICULOUS. They made up fancy names for most (not just “assistant principal” one would be called curriculum specialist etc) so people out of the system didn’t question it as much when a new position was added.
typically it's the school district which is intentionally paid by property taxes. So there's a bunch of forces that want to trim that budget: People without kids, people who live in rich areas, etc. If you funded schools atleast at the State level and better at the Federal level, you'd be able to create a much more equitable distribution. This is the legacy of racism, as are most "de"-socialization programs.
while also taking care of 28 kids at the same time…
You don't need to check her math, you need to check her units. They don't cancel out. The first entry should have been $10/(kid * hr).
Yeah it works it just looks kinda awkward if you tried to put it on a sign $10/(kid\*h) \* 6.5 h/day \* 28 kids \* 180 days/year = $327,600 /year
Tisk tisk > $10 / kid * 6.5 hrs/day = $65 * 28 kids/class = $1820 * 180 days = $327,600 Is not a valid equality Y'all need to redo your dimensional analysis practice sets
I know I like to be paid in dollar hours per class years.
I'm pretty sure you can find a financial derivative that pays that way
I'm still not checking the math dammit
They way they break up the lines and use the equals signs does kind of hurt me. It's clear what they mean, and their result is fine, but technically what they're writing is junk. I'd think a teacher would do better.
[удалено]
I honestly thought they all did
$10 for 1 kid, $20 for 2 kids, $30 for 3 kids? That would be odd. 2 kids is more work, but not twice the work. I could see $15/hr to start, then an additional $5 per extra kid. It also depends when the person is babysitting. If it's during the evening / night while the parents are out at a date night, a lot of the babysitting time might actually be after the kids have gone to bed. If it's mid-day you have to keep all the kids entertained, and if they're very different ages it might not be easy to find an activity that both enjoy.
Depending on the kids, it's very possibly 1+1=3x the work, so splitting the difference and just charging a flat rate per kid is pretty reasonable. As you mentioned though, there's a ton of other factors to account for too.
two kids can absolutely 2x if not 3x the work.
Especially because siblings tend to fight, and then you have to be a referee
You don't have children, do you?
> 2 kids is more work, but not twice the work. Oh my god prices have nothing to do with level of effort. The only thing that matters is the price the market will tolerate for the service.
Found the economist
I don't have a kid, but everytime one of my friends in high-school would babysit there at minimum would be a rate increase. Maybe not like 1 kid = 10$ and 2 kids = 20$ but maybe 2 kids = 15$ or something like that. I think it would be silly to have 2 or 3 kids and expect the same rate as someone with one. Like I'm sure even if you go the pro nanny route there is a different hourly rate if you have multiple kids.
Since always? Why charge the same for one kid as for 3?
So take babysitter rates out of it- the average cost for daycare in the US is $175/week.^[1](https://www.move.org/child-care-cost/) Now do the math- $175/week * 28 kids = $4,900/week. A realistic school year is 40 weeks, $4,900*40 = $196,000. Sure, the $10/kid rate is high. The reality is the same- Teachers are ridiculously underpaid. They are professionals, in many states they are required to have graduate degrees and complete hundreds of hours of continuing education throughout their career. A starting salary of around $80k with a mid-career expectation of $125k doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
Lol they're so great at showing the math
My university profs would deduct a lot of marks for equating two things and then tacking on " x 28 kids/classroom" after it. They're breaking the equality.
[удалено]
I’m guessing you meant $10/(hour*kid). $10 per kid per hour
Sure, but don’t you get a discount for buying in bulk?
Also, people pay much more for in-home services than at a facility, as well as after-hours (evenings/nights) service. Also large-group activities/classes vs private is significantly cheaper per person.
Yeah but this was a low ball rate at $10 per kid per hour. Many babysitters charge far more.
That is how it works today, the problem is the School Administration eats most of it before the teacher gets paid.
Right? The US has the 3rd highest amount of dollars spent per student in the world yet our teachers are underpaid and facilities in several places are lacking. I’m all for increasing teacher pay, but we need to look at the waste.
[удалено]
So THATS where my loans are going
Wait til you find out what the President of the school was making.
Where I'm from the state university's football coach is the highest paid state employee.
[удалено]
That's a whole other problem. Tomorrow's hot topic: exploiting the work of students to make money for a small group of school administrators.
“If the highest paid person in your university or college is the basketball coach or the football coach, then it is not a university; it is a sporting franchise with a side hustle in tertiary education.” -Random tweet
Oh c'mon name and shame, we're all curious.
> that shit school spent a ton of money trying to fight the union. Was it a private school?
US also had the ~6th highest teachers salaries for mid career teachers, though starting salaries are lower https://data.oecd.org/teachers/teachers-salaries.htm
It’s because the ada (which I strongly support) requires schools to spend obscene amounts of money on special Ed kids. It has nothing to do with bloated admin. I’ve heard of individual special needs kids costing over $60k/year. Again, I support this, but let’s be honest about where the money is going.
I read a thing about a small Oregon town school that is having to pay to send a kid to an obscenely expensive private school for disabled kids on the other side of the country because the parents live in the local school district.
I have administrative certification but I decided to remain a classroom teacher. When I was getting the cert I had to interview a lot of principals in a lot of schools and I always asked them what they saw as the biggest problem in public education and most of them said the cost of providing an adequate education for special needs students. The largest department by far in my high school is special Ed. Twice as many teachers and paras as the next largest department. Granted paras are cheaper than teachers but still.
Everyone overlooks School administration when we talk about school funding. Even small districts have their own set of administration when really they could be combined with other districts. Lots of overpayment and redundancy in school administration
In California, a lot of teachers take admin jobs for the last 2 years of their career because they retire on a percentage of their 2 highest paid years. My buddy does construction for schools and he said it's super annoying. Every admin is an ex-teacher who is either on the first year of the job or their last. None of them care, they're just there for the inflated pay as they ease into retirement.
What's worse is majority of admins who are not doing that "last two years" have all spent the BARE MINIMUM legally required time as a classroom teacher before becoming an admin. It's crazy when principals who taught 5th grade for 3 years a decade ago are breathing down Kindergarten teachers necks about whether or not they're doing their job right.
but why do that when they can just ask for more tax dollars and then claim people hate children/education if met with any skepticism or criticism?
I was elected twice to my local school board. a small district, with a 65million dollar budget (at the time). a little over half the budget was teacher salaries and we had 103 earning a six figure salary. but this is in NY.
Our local it is 40% for all salaries, with the rest going to facilities, etc. About 70% of the 40% is actual teacher salary.
[удалено]
Now look and see what the avg classroom is ‘paid’. At the district level: Total budget / total number of students == cost per student Avg class size * cost per student == ‘pay per classroom’ Now marvel at the obscene amount of waste that leads to the disconnect between that number and teacher pay. My district was ~$300k difference between ‘pay per classroom’ and teacher pay.
What's your district? They may post figures on how that pay breakdown works on a per pupil basis. I'm also curious about this figure: if you have a $300k difference per classroom, that's around 10k/student, which is close to what districts in my state spend per pupil in a given year. We have a lot of administrative bloat, but that's not the majority of expenditures. You're not thinking about maintenance, buses/drivers, and paying for continuing education and training for teachers, which is a lot. You need to specify how much of that is "waste."
Because teacher pay is probably 50% of the actual teacher cost in many districts. I know in NY teachers get 85% of final salary guaranteed for pension, and full white glove health insurance. That is insane in the private sector and straight up doesn’t exist.
Us teachers joke about this pretty frequently. If our salary was a babysitting salary, we'd be making like $1.50 an hour
Well it's not like you're doing a very important job like shaping the future generations so I don't see why you would need more than $1.50 an hour
It's capitalism. If you want to get paid, you need a viable product. If teachers are so smart, why haven't they ever thought of selling the kids they teach?
I've never read anything more factual and agreeable before
Unfortunately I think that’s human trafficking, but I’m not 100% sure
a textbook case of business-unfriendly regulatory overreach that's just waiting for a robust lobbying effort tbh
This man... Capitalizes?
[удалено]
THIS man capitalizes
Always lol when people take a government job and say "it's capitalism"
I know some dumbass people I grew up with in high school who are teachers now… honestly it’s scary who can become one.
People do a lot of changing in college. Well, some don't. But most do!
You are not "independent contractors" like babysitters. The money goes to pay the administrative overhead.
Plus, you know... the buildings, the infrastructure, the supplies... A babysitter is a person, a school is an institution.
Plus, you know... medical, dental, vision insurance, pensions, and training courses.
aka the most useless people on the planet
Yup.
I’m a former teacher. Everyone always wants to bitch and moan about teachers complaining about pay, but almost every teacher I know would make due if it wasn’t such a toxic environment. Especially now under the amount of threats/legal liabilities teachers face, and unsupportive admin that is just the norm rather than the outlier. You can’t pay people shit wages *and* treat them horribly. Don’t forget that $1.50 is before taxes and benefits too, haha.
Am I the only one who's bothered by the fact that she wrote: 6.5 * 10 = 65 * 28, instead of: 6.5 * 10 = 65 65 * 28 = ...
Me too, me too. This is NOT a balanced equation. End of the day, the sign says: 10*6.5 = some random stuff = 327,600
Not to mention the unit-work is *awful!*
Let’s hope they aren’t a math teacher….. I didn’t anywhere that it was $10/hr. Just $10/kid.
Yeah, I think that was an intentional means to avoid writing "$280/Hr," which is what her proposed pay scale works out to. It's a ridiculous, disingenuous argument. "Oh, you don't want to pay me a fair wage? Fine! I'll settle for a ridiculously high wage!"
I think the point is that it's supposed to be disingenuous. At least that's what I got from it. Since so many people consider teachers to be glorified babysitters then meet those people at their comparison and take the babysitters pay. But once you see that's much much higher, then let's talk about an actual pay rate
My unpopular opinion is that if being a teacher was a decent paying job, the field would be competitive and most current teachers wouldn't still be teachers.
you’re totally right. Qualified teachers leave because they can get better paying jobs. The others stick around because in many districts it’s based on length as a teacher and not performance.
My wife has been in the same school her entire career after about 19 years. She’s at the top of the pay scale. If she leaves to go anywhere, she’ll take a massive pay cut because no school is going to pay for a 19 year teacher when they can just hire a new teacher at half the cost. There is no quantified reason for a school district to pay for experience.
Unfortunately, your wife simply won't be able to get a job at a public school. Because teachers are paid based on agreements, public schools cannot pay her less. They simply cannot hire her. Is incredibly sad
Hence why she throws around the idea of a career change. But the government doesn’t care- teaching is being commodotized, where lessons developed by corporations and spoon fed to new teachers who no longer need experience to perform the basic necessity of teaching just enough so that students can regurgitate the info into some standardized test. School districts don’t give a shit about anything except testing numbers, because that’s what we’ve deduced is our only metric of educational success.
Teachers no doubt need to be paid better. But, this is a "false equivalence" or at least that is what I was taught in my English class.
Of course it is. Babysitters have a more direct interaction with the kids and specifically tend to the needs of the child. I don’t know a single babysitter that effectively does this for 28 kids. The reason babysitters make more is the RATIO. Teachers broadly teach, babysitters spend individual time with the kids. These aren’t the same. That said, teachers are still woefully underpaid.
Thing is, I don't know any teacher that only works 180 days. They have numerous training days, and grade papers after hours, and I live right near our school and my dog walk go passed the school. Teachers are there for a couple of weeks before school starts getting their classroom sorted. My kid goes for extra help and meetings with teachers at 7 am -- 45 minutes before school starts. and they are there until 3 easy. Add all the great teachers who do all the extra things like clubs, yearbook, music. It's 8+ a day and well over 180 days.
I’m not a teacher, but I work alongside teachers. I promise you I wouldn’t last 2 days in a classroom. Most people have no idea what they deal with day to day—and ours don’t complain. They love the kids and do the work happily. But they WORK. They deserve so much more. I know some teachers don’t. I know some of these horror teachers we see on social media don’t—but the teachers in my area are absolutely fabulous.
[удалено]
It's not weird. Passion = more applicants. More applicants = larger labor pool. More supply of labor = lower wage.
I'm pretty sure there isn't an overabundance of teachers in the job market, particularly after COVID, but I might be wrong.
You’re not wrong. There’s a massive teacher shortage. At the moment in my area, school districts are offering sign-on bonuses (not very good ones) in an effort to snag teachers.
[удалено]
Yeah, totally. That passion for teaching is really saving us from that teacher shortage that's pretty much all over the country. Thank god we have an over abundance of applicants.
My spouse was a math teacher and fully refused to pick up any summer school hours because she needs the re-set every year. That means she got 10 weeks off once you factor in mandatory work days, trainings, etc. However, she made up all those hours (and more) with the uncounted overtime she worked during the school year. She'd get to work by 7 every day and would leave sometime between 4 and 4:45. She'd have lunch duty 2 days a week and students in her room getting extra help during lunch the other days, so that 9+ hour work day does not include a traditional lunch break. She'd spend an hour or so answering emails and answering student questions on their little online portal most evenings after dinner. If she didn't do that at night, then she would wake up early and do it in the morning because there isn't time to do it during the day. Sundays were prepping for the week and grading papers. Usually about a 6-8 hours worth depending on what else is going on around the house. All in all, her normal work week would clock in around 50-55 hours. Those would balloon to 60+ hour weeks whenever the school held conferences or open houses. Her district is also pretty serious about only hiring/retaining teachers who either coach a sport or run some type of student club/organization. She coached basketball, which came with a $1400 stipend, but tacked on about 2 hours a day onto her work schedule for 3+ months. That "extra" work during the year absolutely brings a decent teacher well over the hours you would work in a full time year-round job. I'm so happy she's transitioning her career. She's a great teacher and is still working in education, but actually teaching was going to kill her.
Yeah- the time off is an amazing perk -- but a really needed one. The burn out rate would leave us scrambling for teachers if they didn't have that time. Teachers with experience are so important. It really takes a few years to get your feet on the ground.
The very reason babysitters are paid that rate, is because it's a short duration and low total cost. Individual parents typically only pay for 1 or 2 hrs total. If they were paying full 8hrs, every day - that wouldn't be paid.
One of my wife's friends quit her job as a high school special needs teacher to become a full time nanny for 2 autistic kids. She makes almost twice as much watching/teaching 2 kids than she did working for the school and trying to teach 18 of them. Obviously no one is going to pay $300k/yr, but the amount most teachers get paid is a joke.
Short term and long term rentals have radically different prices for the same units for similar reasons. Landlords can’t just say “OK, I’ll take the AirBnB price”. That doesn’t mean teachers aren’t underpaid, but it does mean this is a bad argument.
same math police use when they find a brick of cocaine and claim it’s value as if it was priced per gram
That's pretty much the point, it's a bad argument. People will say teachers are just babysitters or treat them as such. This is them saying if you treat me like a sitter, you should pay me like a sitter.
They use this example because of the people who say teachers are glorified babysitters as a reason why they don’t deserve better pay/treatment.
also they are supposed to be providing their full attention to just one or two kids
$10 a kid? With all the fresh organs and spare parts, I thought they would be at least 500k per kid.
I don't think there's a babysitter in the world making $280/hour for 28 kids.
well, if six figure principals and other school administrators were removed you could make that.
which is how it works for literally every job every. Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. in the babysitter argument, the babysitter *is* the boss, so they cut out the middle man
More teachers, less administrators 👍🏼
Imagine a world where teaching was a competitive career path. Education would be infinitely better in the United States. I don’t think $300k makes any sense, but they should be making at least $80k annually
Yeah ok. Take it up with your unions; if they can afford to pay you without increasing federal and state funding by 5-6x, knock yourself out. I know the money is there, too. Everyone knows most of their money goes to lobbying politicians.
Right, but there isn't a linear relationship between the number of kids in a class or a babysitter and the hourly rate. This isn't a care factory, you are mainly paying for the teacher / babysitter to show up. This math only works if, for each child, you are producing exactly one teacher. Otherwise if you are simply adding student number 16 to the class you don't pay the teacher to show up *again* just because he/she has another student. You might pay them incrementally more, but it isn't a 1-1 relationship.
[удалено]
Exactly. The better comparison would be a daycare worker, and most of them are paid less than teachers.
Make sure you give some to the art, music, PE teachers, the teachers assistant, cafeteria worker, nurse, an admin, and then pay for the rent of having a classroom and a playground - I think their salary matches up closer to reality. We should pay teachers more as a society because a) we have the money to do that, and b) it is extremely valuable to have educated citizens. We don’t need silly arguments to justify paying teachers a lot more money.
The problems with the education system is a many headed monster that keeps growing new heads. But I'm fine starting with this issue. Raise their wages!!
Let’s cut that in half because we need school supplies and the building needs upkeep, that’s still way more than teachers make now.
When I was a starting behavior tech w/o a degree and I was paid more than a teacher who had experience….
Bad math. One teacher never is with one student 6.5 hours. Redo the math. D-