<p>Is it just me or are teachers really overpaid for working just nine months a year. If these people love the kids so much, theoretically we could pay them half what they make now, and they would still do it. Plus people always complain that class sizes are too big, say 30-35 students are too many. Look at college, some classes have more than 200 students!! This could also work for high school. Just a couple thoughts on ways to save money on the useless public education system.</p>
<p>Oh man. Teachers are insanely underpaid. How do I know? Both my parents have been teachers, several friends' parents are teachers, and I'm on good terms with my own teachers. They're all overworked and short on cash.
Have you ever complained that a teacher assigns too much homework? Do you have any idea how much work teachers have to do? Why would anyone want to save money on the education system? The ideal would be to save money and improve the quality, not turn teaching into a sort of McDonalds $7.50 an hour job just so that students get the impression they're receiving more attention. Fact: teachers have to pay to get through grad school. Fact: most people are discouraged from majoring in a subject where they'll end up teaching, a moneyless job. Is it really that surprising there aren't enough good teachers? As it is, only a few dedicated people who actually want to teach, and quite a few people who found themselves at a dead end anywhere else, are teaching now. I don't see how you plan to reduce the student:teacher ratio by cutting their pay, it's not much incentive.
By the way... because they only work 9 months (not including what preparation they do over the summer), teachers might end up jobless those other three months.</p>
<p>I do agree that the requirement that teachers have to get a Masters degree is total BS. I just have a problem with all these people who major in easy, crowded fields like English and History teaching and complain there are no jobs. You know why we have not so many Science and Math teachers in this country? Because those degrees are hard!!! I just want people to be realistic in their job goals.</p>
<p>You sound like a lunatic. You can't compare college professors to high school professors. On average, college professors make almost twice as much money as a high school teacher and that is not including publishing deals that are far more available to the college professor. High school classes around 30-35 were small for my high school with one particular class that had over 60 kids in a room made for 30. My teacher never complained, he loved his job. History/English aren't junk majors that people go into that cause them to "stumble" into teaching. As an example, my dad was an English major and he's a lawyer. Before you make brash claims about lowering an already low teacher wage, take a better look at the existing circumstances. The wages are already quite low and there is a breaking point that we are pushing.</p>
<p>You honestly sound like a slavedriver in your first post: "If these people love the kids so much, theoretically we could pay them half what they make now, and they would still do it."</p>
<p>Can you please re-state what your plan is? As I understand it, cut wages, cut any degree requirement. Public schools are desperate for more teachers. = really bad teachers. </p>
<p>If you think the public school system is useless, it's because it hasn't helped you. If it hasn't helped you it's probably because you haven't had good teachers. Can one really good teacher handle 80 students well? No, probably not. But four or five really *<strong><em>ty teachers aren't an improvement. Far from being useless, K-12 is actually supposed to teach you a good deal. Instead of lowering the value of a high school education even further so that students can *</em></strong> around and then shuffle along to college to actually learn anything, something could actually be done about the public education system.</p>
<p>You seem to be relying on an almost saintlike devotion on the part of teachers. While there are some amazing teachers, very few of them are interested in screwing themselves over by teaching for nothing. I know, I know, shocking - they can't be manipulated into ruin. They happen to be human and it's hard to support a family teaching.</p>
<p>How many teachers only teach? Most are babysitters, litigators, personal therapists, secretaries, and probably dozens of other occupations as well, all under the guise of "teaching." In many schools, teachers have to contend with violence. It's amazing any teaching occurs with all the circus sideshows that are present.</p>
<p>However, here's the worst part. How does one person teach a room full of children who do not all share the same manner of learning? It's simply an impossible task.</p>
<p>Some teachers are lousy. Some are overpaid. But I dare you to find a profession where those statements do not apply to some percentage. However, without intricate knowledge of the entire teaching system, it's ignorant to say that, as a whole, teachers are overpaid.</p>
<p>All teachers are grossly underpaid. Where are your values? Furthermore where are the values of America? Is sports entertainment really worth a $10mil pay per player while education is only worth 40-80k per teacher?</p>
<p>All teachers are grossly underpaid.</p>
<p>You can't accurately say that anymore than someone can say that all teachers are grotesquely overpaid.</p>
<p>"All" and "Never" sentences can be disproven 99.999999999999999999999% of the time! Unless you know the salary of every teacher, your statement is opinion (and there's nothing wrong with that) but not a fact. It's imperative to know the difference.</p>
<p>It's not a matter of overpaid or underpaid, its a matter of marginal incentives. $300 for each student that makes a 30% improvement in their SAT scores, for example.</p>
<p>chances are if i became a teacher right out of college i'd make more money than i will as a non teacher out of college - with only working 9 months a year. many teachers work over the summers, at least where i live.. just for something to do.</p>
<p>teachers are SO underpaid, my mom is a special ed teacher, so i take offense at your comment, and 2nd, these people who spend their days bringing up the next generation need to be paid much more, maybe in private schools they get what they deserve, but in public schools, they are being paid well below what they should be</p>
<p>and btw, my district is well-respected, the public school all the central ohio teachers want to teach at, but it's rare to find an opening due to the quality of the teachers here</p>
<p>Celebrian, I realize that this is simply an internet forum, and of course, we all type quickly and make mistakes. However, a rudimentary display of knowledge of capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure will make your message much stronger.</p>
<p>I believe that teachers are underpaid.</p>
<p>"Plus people always complain that class sizes are too big, say 30-35 students are too many. Look at college, some classes have more than 200 students!!"</p>
<p>There are big differences between college students and high school students.</p>
<p>If I EVER had to take a class with 200 students, I would transfer from that school right away. That's DEFINATELY not the environment that I want to be getting educated in. Heck, if I had more than 30/40 kids in a class, I'd be miserable. I will never understand how people can do classes like that. Actually I take that back, I wouldn't even be remotely interested in going to a college that I heard had 200 students in a class anyway.</p>
<p>I recently had to teach my English class for a couple of periods. The assignment was to pick a short story from a list and present everything remotely related to literature about it. I chose Graham Greene's "The Destructors," and let me tell you, between preparing the outline/handout for the class, annotating my copy of the story in great detail, figuring out how to present it all seamlessly and making it fresh/notboring, I was entirely convinced that teachers should be paid more.</p>
<p>If I EVER had to take a class with 200 students, I would transfer from that school right away.</p>
<p>I would, too. However, a university lecture hall is for adults, which is an entirely different matter. It is (hopefully, factually) assumed that undergraduates do not need to be spoon-fed and can study and think on their own. I've taken dozens of university courses and never had a professor refuse to further explain something that I didn't understand after class. It's my humble opinion that if an undergraduate needs to hold mommy's hand, then he isn't ready for higher education.</p>
<p>That's DEFINATELY</p>
<p>I may be shocked the first time I see the word definitely spelled correctly. Of course, we all make spelling mistakes, but for some reason, many American students do not know how to correctly spell that word.</p>
<p>-"All" and "Never" sentences can be disproven 99.999999999999999999999% of the time!</p>
<p>All your base are belong to us.</p>
<p>Sorry, couldn't help myself. Carry on.</p>
<p>generally they are underpaid and must eke by on budgets. however, some shouldn't be paid at all.. i've had teachers who did nothing but "class here's the worksheets" everyday and he sat there and played on his computer. he never corrected our work either.</p>
<p>i will never be a public school teacher.. i think the whole public school teaching thing is.. well i have probs w/it.</p>