Slashdot Mirror
Higher Pay for Math and Science Teachers
Coryoth writes "Following up a previous story, it seems that the Kentucky effort to provide increased pay to teachers with qualifications in mathematics, physics, and chemistry has been gutted. Teachers objected to differential pay, and that portion of the bill was removed. At the same time California has just put forward a similar measure, with differential pay for teachers qualified in mathematics and science. Shockingly 40% of mathematics teachers in California are not fully qualified in the subject — a higher percentage of unqualified teachers than any other subject. Is the Californian effort any more likely to succeed, or is it destined to be similarly gutted? Is there a solution to the woeful lack of qualified mathematics teachers that the Teachers' Union will find acceptable?"
The myth of the underpaid teacher is a myth of the wealthy liberal. Consistently, teaching pay/hour is similar to private sector employment that has similar requirements. In fact, if you WATCH the debate about teacher pay, you will ALWAYS HERE "a first year teacher makes $XX,XXX" where the amount sounds really low to middle and upper middle class parents whose kids are being taught by them.
This ignores the fact that a first year teach is generally 22-23 years old and right out of school. If you compare their salary to a receptionist, admin assistance, or other "just out of school" jobs available to liberal arts school graduates, you'll find that teacher pay is comparable, even without normalizing that they work 2/3s of a year (summer + winter break + spring break + extra holidays comes out to 4 months off out of 12). In that other third, they can teach summer school, tutor, work another seasonal job (depending on part of the country), or just spend time with their family.
In addition, the average kindergarten parent sees that number for a first year kindergarten teacher and thinks, "I couldn't live on that." They don't think, "wow, that's about what I make 5 or 6 years ago when I was right out of school."
Teachers that have established themselves for a number of years will make, after 25 or 30 years, $80,000 - $90,000, which may not seem like good money compared to software engineering, but when you consider that most 55 year old engineers have trouble finding employment, it's NOT a bad career path. They have an AMAZING pension, like all public sector employees. If you look at their lifetime earnings, it's NOT bad pay.
The fact is, if you take two 22 year olds right out of school with degrees in English and mediocre grades, and one becomes a public school teacher and the other takes a clerical job in the private sector, the latter MIGHT make a few more dollars in the first years, but the expected lifetime earnings for the teacher is MUCH higher. In 30 years, those two people are 52 years old. The former is making $90,000, and now has a pension of $60k - $75k built up, while the latter is at the mercy of the market for their 401k, but probably doesn't have the $1.2m saved up to buy the annuity that would match the pension benefit, because even if they are now making $100k-$120k/year as HR manager, they have 13 more years of slaving away, while the teacher can call it a day whenever they want.
In fact, the teacher, who has never worked summers (or has and made more money), has had summers to write, maybe has been working on a novel, etc. Teachers have it good and are well paid... not as well paid as medicine, but certainly as well paid as administrative assistants, receptionists, and other jobs often held by people with similar qualifications in major cities. The only area where teachers are paid poorly is in relatively uneducated areas, where your support staff don't have college degrees and teachers are comparatively only slightly less educated that lawyers.