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brainwashing is hard work. 70k may not be enough

I always thought being a teacher is not so bad. Work 9 months and full benefits. Even at 40k a year, that would in reality be over 4k a month w/benes. Makes me wish I had gone into teaching. If you want more money, you can take on a summer job. Maybe tutoring or something similar or something totally different. But I do think teachers are important in society and I do not diminish what they contribute.

There is a shortage of certified/credentialed high school math and science teachers - I suspect that factors into your cousins pay.

There are other factors - if your cousin has an advanced degree, that ups the base pay. Years of service ups it.

Your cousin may not do outside prep work - but my sister (elementary school) works about 80 hours/week. I think there are some lazy teachers and there are teachers like my sister... You can't lump them as all the same and generalize.

My sister left a much more lucrative career to follow her passion to teach. She's pretty much maxed out on salary and still makes about half what she was making in the private sector.

They are always looking for qualified physics/math teachers. Supply and demand you know.

And teaching is a hard work. It looks easy but it's not...

Actually, you can look up teachers salaries on salarywizard.com. 70k a year is about right for a teacher with 10 years experience. They start in the high 30s to low 40s in socal.

It's not really hidden.

Though, I do believe he is maxed out at that salary.

It's not a bad gig and should not be for what they do. However, your definitely not on the road to riches.

Considering Software Engineers with 10 years experience are being offered $70k salaries these days I think paying that to a high school teachers is ludicrous, it should be more like $30k considering it is only for 9 months of work.

I can't wait for this economic downturn to end so people will stop envying math teachers. I couldn't imagine trying to live in the OC on 70k. With a degree, he probably regrets his career choice as far as pay goes for 8 out of every 10 years, it just looks good right now but over the long haul, the pay will always be it's major detractor as a career choice.

Who cares what anyone gets paid, their work hours and their job compared to yours. Make a list of the ten jobs you think are easy and overcompensated, then go be one of those.

If being a math teacher was such a great gig, then why aren't people lining up to be one, except for during economic meltdowns, they are begging for teachers.

I think he just regrets living in the OC

70k doesn't get you the benz, the implants or the armcandy GF

My vote is to pay teachers very well but tie it to independent performance reviews. ( Careful with this item as it needs more details which begets a new thread)

If you really want to complain, how about the $100-150k salaries for the 2-4 vice principals/high school. And even with that, there hands are tied in expelling problem kids. So are they really necessary at such a cost?

Not to mention the layers of staffing at the District level, State Board of Ed is even fatter.

the difference is that teachers (mostly high school and middle school) usually have to work with problem kids as well as good kids, while it seems easy it isn't, my roomie used to be a teacher, he couldn't take it, if it wasn't the bad kids, it was the bad kids parents yelling about the teacher being too hard, and he taught typing!

When you are a teacher you see just how messed up some kids are because of their idiotic parents, and the miracles you are supposed to make as the kid just doesn't want to listen or learn, and when you try to stand up for yourself the principle tells you to stop making waves.

While you do get time off, the job isn't what I'd exactly call easy either

I would say anybody that has to spend 6 hours a day with alot of children is earning money. To me being a teacher working those hours 9 months a year is A HELL of alot harder then being an engineer and writing code all day.

other humans, particularly the youth, can be annoying. It's never too late to be teacher though. Have at it.

Samle sizes of 1 are typically not good for applying results to general populations.

As long as there are some market forces involved, he is neither under or overpaid.

I disagree. The amount of knowledge, creative thinking and deadline pressures you have to deal with on some of these Engineering projects is far greater than any high school teacher will experience I can tell you that.

How much knowledge do you need to put kids in line? How much knowledge and experience do you think one needs to fix a mission critical multi million dollar system that breaks down in the middle of the night and needs to be resolved before the start of business next morning?

Comparing the two is just ridiculous!

Wow - so you think a software engineer with less formal schooling (assuming a BS) and the same amount of experience should be paid double what a HS teacher receives? No wonder our schools are in such bad shape. My personal opinion is that shorting the people who are teaching the next generation is pretty short-sighted thinking. I'd love to see those careers pay significantly higher so that they could attract the very best applicants away from private sector.

In any case, while some companies may be offering $70K for an engineer, I can pretty much say with a certainty that they won't be doing that for very much longer. My company tried to go the cheap route on contract engineers over the past year, paying roughly those rates. We recently convinced corporate HR that it was a losing proposition to try to lowball engineers, after losing 5 of them to competitors willing to pay normal market rates, most of them only 3-4 months after hiring. Our rate for a 10 year experienced engineer is back into the 90K+ range again.

@kev374:

"How much knowledge do you need to put kids in line? How much knowledge and experience do you think one needs to fix a mission critical multi million dollar system that breaks down in the middle of the night and needs to be resolved before the start of business next morning?"

Did you teach yourself the math and science required to be able to "fix mission critical" systems? If not, aren't you glad your math and science teachers were paid more than 30K a year....c'mon those are fast-food manager wages, dude!!

Also, teachers are working with valuable "systems" as well, if you consider that each human will be around for an extra 50-70 years beyond high school.

When you begin to think of yourself as doing God's work, err..working on mission critical systems, lest ye never forget that Enron and pets.com both had mission critical systems, too (how'd that work out for everybody??)....most of us believe that fat, donut-eating geeks, who live for Comic-con (not teachers) are the ones who are overpaid;)

IIRC, SD Realtor IS in fact an engineer (as are many on this board). I think he does realize. I think you don't realize how difficult dealing with 150+ teenagers (assuming 5 classes of 30 teens each) can be on a daily basis. I may retire into teaching some day, but it will be because I enjoy imparting knowledge and think I can make a difference - it won't be because I think the job is "easy" - because it isn't.

My niece is in the IE (Corona/Riverside area) and she's pulling in over $90k for 9 months teaching 1st freaking grade.

Yeah, I'd say that some of our teachers are just a tad overpaid.

Actually no it is not. I have been an ASIC engineer for over 20 years with work at General Instrument, Motorola, 2 startups, IDT and AMCC. I have been in both roles of designer and manager. I also have a few kids as well.

I have faced those same deadline pressures, code release dates, tapeout dates, yada yada. I have seen 1 line of code ruin entire mask sets. So it goes. I have had to patch code in the middle of the night as well.

I also have kids and understand the challenges of raising them. The bottom line is, if you have kids, your teacher will spend more waking time with your kids then you will over a year for most working folks. You may want to call them a glorified babysitter if you want.

For me working a 60 or 70 hour week surrounded by engineers and writing code/running sims/ etc is easier then kids. I think that for 80 or 90% of the engineers out there, the same would be true. So you can talk about the pressures and such, and validate the job in that manner, however I think the teaching job would actually be harder for you. Your skill set of writing code may not necessarly translate to the tedium and patience required of teaching.

I think the overpaid card can be applied to alot of professions. I know a plumber who works for the city of San Diego who makes over 100k. I call my attorney and ask for a simple letter and it costs 150 bucks. I know countless directors at large firms who pull over 200k. I know countless guys who have been from one failed startup to another and are just retreads who make money hand over fist... Check into how much money the orange vested guys who sit on the asphalt trucks eating a donut while you sit in traffic make.

I think the argument can be expanded in a big way. Do I think teachers are overpaid? Well I guess it can be argued yes... however I think it can be extended to alot of other "professions".

Maybe it is because I have kids and when you have kids you start to think in a different manner and you start to place value on those who influence your kids... maybe not.. .I don't know... it is just different thats all. Back in the day when I was a guy writing code with no kids the world revolved around me. I was smart and my coworkers were smart and I viewed most other people in other professions either as morons or as people who couldn't hack what I could do. They couldnt achieve the degree I had and they certainly couldn't keep up with me writing code or designing ASICs...To me accountants and economists were failed engineers, doctors and bio guys were engineers in a different field, everyone else was someone who couldnt do what I accomplished. Maybe it was just me... probably was...

Things started to change when my wife opened her small biz and then when I opened my brokerage in 03 and started meeting alot of people from what I call the real world. Wildly successful people who took risks and some made it and some didnt...

Anyways sorry for the deviation... to me alot of people are overpaid... even realtors.

I spent two years teaching HS math and CS between 1996 and 1998. I would do it again if I had to, but it was way more stressful than the rest of my career, including 15 years of software engineering.

Has she been teaching for 25 years? That's how long you have to teach in Corona-Norco USD to make over 90K/yr. Is she in a different district?

Every skill is different. Teaching skill may be hard, if you do not have passionate in teaching. Same thing is applicable to coding or programming. If you have passionate of the work, that skill is not hard. As per my knowledge university professors and associate professors are not paid well. But still they are in teaching because they are passionate of their work. One of my friend (actually he is my class mates professor) worked as associate professor for 7 years. He has couple of master degrees in engineering and a PhD. He said earning 100K is not easy in teaching (university). He resigned and changed his career to IT. He passed 100K mark with in a year.

Hobie is on the money with the above. My poor mother works in the Clark County (read Vegas) school district. I won't say what she does for her safety but year after year she deals with principal rejects (meaning the inept ones) that get put in to the administration areas. They often lack the general skills to do this kind of work and are placed into position that they have no familiarity with. Those wrecking the department and angering others who, while are just uneducated clerks, having beening doing the job for years and know the process. Mean while they draw 120K plus... As much as 180K for certain positions (put as my mother admits those top position usually have excellent ppl fullfilling those spots) have little stress (because they bet the slaves and throw them under the bus) and draw good retirement packages when well trained administrators could be doing the job for half the salary and competently do the job.

P.S. I have dated many elementary teachers (maybe a school boy fantasy thing?) and the committed ones always seem to work 40 plus. I couldn't do thier job. More power and more money to them...

And yes... During the last recession I thought about becoming a Math teacher... They simply cant find ppl to do the job...

CE

I don't have kids but have worked as a tutor on a indian reservation (read combat duty) and while I agree with what you say SD about pay I don't think to say that teachers have the same training as us engineers. That simply isn't true or even close!

But to have to deal with kids... Man that is so much more difficult (in a different way) to deal with.

I just take objection to the training...

Still love ya though! :P

CE

I totally agree with this. When you do something you're good at and likes, it's not hard, but to do something you don't like, it's quite hard. I think nursing jobs are crazy hard and can't picture myself being able to do it for very long. My wife, who's a nurse, on the other hand thinks engineering is crazy hard and can't picture herself sitting at a desk for 8+ hrs. a day, everyday. Yet, we both like our profession, so we think what we do isn't crazy hard.

Americans are all overpaid, not just teachers. Try maintaining the same living standard in any other country on the equivalent wages and you'll quickly see how you have it good here in the US.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/11/news/int...

TB

The point is NOT if teachers / firemen / police etc deserve their pay and pensions etc. The real question is can we afford them? I don't have a Rolls Royce, not because one is not worth the money, but because I cannot afford one and probably would not buy one if I could.

Something has to give ...

technically, teachers don't have an 8-5 job. After school and at home, more than often they are preparing for tomorrow's teaching day and/or grading papers, reading projects,etc.

So the 3 years of teacher training in addition to a bachelors is weak?

Also, very few teachers work 6 hours a day or 9 months a year.

Generally that only applies to very unmotivated elementary school teachers or those on a part time schedule.