I like page 6. Page 6 is for a 227 work day year, close but not quite equivalent to a typical private sector work year.
Salaries range from $49,594 for a first year, BA level person, to $102K qfor 17 years, MA and 90 credit units of ‘training’.
That 183 work day calendar an pay rate does not include paid holidays nor any accumulated vacation, sick time that they are paid. See the following school schedule calendar
Private sector workers start with a 260 work day year. Anywhere from 6-10 holidays, So 254 to 250 ‘work’ days.
Apples to apples 183 days not including holidays maps to ~250 work days in the private sector. We need to compare total comp per day ‘worked’.
Per attached schedule, they have 13 paid holidays which results in 7% more money for those 183 days. So that $39,982/yr pay schedule first year, BA only teacher, not including sick time, vacation, is getting $233 per day worked (in annual pay) or, equivalent to the private sector person making $233/day for their 250 work days or $58,443/yr. Not a bad entry salary.
Likewise that 17 year, BA only teacher, equates out to $92K/yr for 250 days of work. The heavily credentialed 17 year vet is making the equivalent of $120k/year of the private sector.
That’s assuming the private sector persons sick time, vacation time and benefits are on par. LOL.[/quote]
I didn’t work for San Diego, so not sure about them, but we did not get paid vacation time where I worked. We only got *unpaid* days off during regular breaks, and many of those days were spent planning, grading papers, and buying materials for which we were not reimbursed (easily in the hundreds of dollars per year, if not over a thousand). Couldn’t find my own paperwork, but checked online where they show 10 sick/personal leave days, total. Not sure about holiday pay, but don’t think we got 13 paid holidays, either.
That calendar does NOT include days spent doing prep work, grading papers, attending CE classes (usually unpaid, often mandated, though districts will often pay for the classes themselves), etc.
Another thing you need to consider is the fact that teachers are “always on” when they are working. There are no coffee breaks (recess is almost always spent dealing with students) and you are interacting with people 100% of the time. You don’t get to check your e-mail or check your favorite blogs or chat with your nearest coworker. There is no downtime. In my old school, we only got a 30 minute lunch break during which we would have to escort our students to the lunch area; deal with shoelaces, missing money/tickets, etc.; try to eat our own meals; and use the single-stall teachers’ bathroom which always had a line because it was often the ONLY time you could use the restroom during the workday.
I’d say teaching is like working a convention or acting in a live play (as a character who is always on stage). You always have to be cheerful, cannot ever utter a wrong word, no matter how freaking horrible some students can be (you could easily be fired, or even have your name in the local newspaper if you don’t act in the most politically palatable way!). You always have to stay on script…can’t lose your cool or say what you really want to say, no matter what’s going on. You have to keep smiling and being pleasant…all the while keeping everyone motivated and learning, even though they all have different abilities, drives, work habits, focus, etc.
If you’ve ever hosted a birthday party with 20+ kids and you were the only adult, imagine having to control and teach them at the same time (you have to keep them constantly motivated to learn, and make sure they pass those standardized tests with flying colors, too!)…all by yourself and under the watchful eye of some of your biggest critics. And imagine that some of those kids are extremely violent, the kind who throw desks and chairs across the room, or stab other students with pencils they’ve sharpened to a fine point, or shout “fuck you” on a regular basis (but don’t lose your temper, you must never do that!).
If you think that these teachers are overpaid, can you show us an example of another profession where people regularly earn less after 17 years in a position that requires a master’s degree and where they have the kind of responsibility and stress that teachers have to deal with on a regular basis?
I could tell you so many truly hellish stories about teaching, both from my own experience and from situations I’ve seen with other teachers. You cannot even begin to imagine what some of these teachers have to deal with.
I worked in corporate management before becoming a teacher, and I had to work those 80-100 hour weeks with deadlines and a never-ending stream of problems that had to be solved. While it was tough, it was also exhilarating. I did my job very well, and got plenty of praise, money, and promotions — started out as a part-time, temporary receptionist (can you get any lower?) and left as the Director of Operations in charge of over 300 people and millions of dollars in product that we sold every month. It was stressful, but nowhere near as stressful and exhausting as teaching was. As I’ve mentioned before, even if you’re the very best teacher in the world, you cannot promote without leaving the classroom. It is a very different kind of job, and I think that most of the people who criticize teachers haven’t a clue about what teachers do for a living.
FWIW, I was a very good teacher, known to be one of the best disciplinarians (which is why I always got the toughest students) and one of the top reading teachers, and I always got excellent reviews from parents, administrators, and other teachers; but the amount of energy and work that had to go into this would not allow me to do it for 12 months a year. Teachers might work fewer days on paper, but they expend far more energy and do more work than most people do in those 250-260 days per year. As much as I hate to say this, I don’t think I’d ever want to teach again, especially given the political climate and the attacks from the privatization movement.
