<p>Regarding the first message - why not apply that to doctors? They should be doing it for the love of healing, not the money. We could dramatically reduce the cost of health care if we paid them less.</p>
<p>I think we can all understand that we wouldn't want anything less than the best physician performing open-heart surgery on ourselves... so it's something we pay for. A high paying salary will attract more people, and, when there are more applicants for the same position, it is much easier to get higher quality teachers.</p>
<p>The class size thing is an issue of learning: you can assume that people in college will be near the same standard, but there is huge deviation in the lower grades. Also, those college professors lecture to 200 students, not teach them: they have a small army of TAs who run the labs, correct the homework, and grade the exams. There are also recitations, in which students are required to attend a smaller, TA lecture - max. about 20 students. You end up with small classes anyway. In many schools, only science and intro classes have such huge numbers; language and upper-level seminars are often capped around 15 or 20.</p>
<p>I really dont think that any student should be able to unbiasly comment on teachers salaries, mainly because we have to hear all the time from our teachers how bad their being paid. I like to think of it this way we pay $80 to take 80 multiple choice questions and 3 essays (using history test as an example), should we pay teacher the same rate? I think that teachers should be paid a decent amount of money, but unless their a great teacher they really dont deserve a 6 figure sum. I have had some great teachers which do deserve that sum (and many who dont deserve a 5 figure sum) but with corruption in the teachers union it keeps the great teachers from being paid the amount they deserve. For example my ap euro teacher is an excelent lecturer but i bet he didnt get paid more then my bio teacher whos class fealt like detenion where you had to do biology buisy work.</p>
<p>"I think that teachers should be paid a decent amount of money, but unless their a great teacher they really dont deserve a 6 figure sum. "</p>
<p>All teachers deserve a 6 figure sum. It should be the norm for the profession. Good teachers should be paid even more.</p>
<p>Its appalling how many of you are dismissing the importance of education. Being a teacher is one of the most important jobs in this country. Important job should equal solid pay. Doctors (health) and lawyers (indvid rights) are paid out of job importance, why should teaching not follow suit?</p>
<p>I live in one of the richest districts in NY and it pays its teachers the least. It's ridiculous, we lost like 20 teachers last year because of my district's stinginess. ugh.</p>
<p>Doctors (health) and lawyers (indvid rights) are paid out of job importance, why should teaching not follow suit?</p>
<p>It isn't job importance (who would be the judge?). Higher skill levels receive higher pay because those skills and education are less likely to be held by most people, so it's somewhat of a supply-and-demand issue.</p>
<p>For example, nearly any adult can flip burgers. However, not many can (legally) perform surgery. The more qualifications (or perhaps the more education a job requires), the higher the salary can be charged. In other words, if one of our family members needed an operation, it is much easier to hire a doctor than to complete medical school, an internship, and all of that so that we can do the job ourselves. </p>
<p>Like it or not, it takes less time and education to become a teacher than a doctor. That fact isn't addressing the importance of education, only why doctors are generally paid more.</p>
<p>I'm not explaining this as tersely as I wish, but hopefully you get the idea.</p>
<p>I absolutely don't agree with that and don't know many who do. There are terrible teachers in the world, just as there are exemplary ones. Why would you universally reward every teacher, even the ones who definitely don't deserve it (and shouldn't be in the teaching profession at all)?</p>
<p>It's amazing to me how much students don't care about their education. Teachers are imperative in education, and many are acting arrogant, like they have no use of those "teachers". Let's see how well you can get through school without any assistance from anyone else. While there are some teachers who are terrible, most deserve thousands more than they already make. My mother works with severely mentally retarded children and she make about 45k after 24 years at the same school. I almost cannot believe how much you take for granted the necesity of teachers.</p>
<p>Thanks, celebrian. It really is a lot easier to read.</p>
<p>I do have a question for your mom. Since many, if not most, severely (not mildly) retarded children most likely will not be able to hold jobs as adults or possibly even be able to take care of themselves, what is the educational goal for them?</p>
<p>Some of them will go out and hold jobs, but the goal is to get them as independant as possible. Not all of them will go out into the work force, but reaching a level of independance is very important. Some students are only moderately disabled, and many of them lead lives near "normal". Autistic students particularly will go off into the work force, some of them become teacher's aides, as several are at my mom's school. A lot of other students are part of programs talking about how mentally retarded individuals are people as well, not just someone you can disregard as important. </p>
<p>Celebrian, can the type of people you describe be labeled "severely" mentally retarded? I know someone who teaches first grade, and a severely mentally handicapped individual was placed in her classroom to integrate him with the other students. The problem is that he did not speak with words, could not walk, could not feed himself, and was unable to take care of his own toileting needs. He frequently burst out with very loud screams and other noises. Unfortunately, the child's presence was very disruptive to the other students' learning, so I'm curious to know what benefit comes from trying to educate a child like that, who is quite different from a mildly retarded individual.</p>
<p>Compared to what I do for a living. Investments.....I believe in general teachers are underpaid. I have a good friend that is a high school teacher and he earns < 1/3 of what I earn. However, he has traveled to more foreign countries than I can name in the last twenty years as he always has had his summers to do as he pleases. In addition, he has time off for inservice days(what the heck are those?) and more holidays than I receive. He has a better pension and retirement plan than I have. so those benefits have to be factored into the equation ,so to speak. </p>
<p>I entered my field for the money mainly and grew to like it later. If I hit the lottery tomorrow ,I would try to be a teacher. In my old age now - ha!, I have discovered that money isn't everything.....</p>
<p>well my mom works at a school specifically for mentallly retarded children, so integration isn't a goal that happens until later, it would be like placing someone who is completely deaf in a classroom full of hearing students, someone who has never been in that environment, everything must be graudual</p>
<p>Hi celebrian, I was gone for several days, so I wasn't able to respond.</p>
<p>I appreciate your time, but there isn't a response which addresses my original concern: how can a severely mentally retarded individual be educated? If a person physically cannot control very basic bodily functions (that even an average 3-year-old could), how can he learn more advanced ones? It seems biologically impossible.</p>
<p>Songman is spot on with the benefits. Because of unions, (I can't say all because I don't know that for a fact, but generally) teachers have excellent benefit packages and pensions. They often receive substantial discounts when traveling. Teaching is an extremely important profession, but "pay" doesn't always come in the form of direct money into the pocket each week.</p>
<p>Hmmm... it's a touchy subject but overall I do not think that I could make a generalized statement that all teachers are underpaid. I think that for the most part, most teachers(in my region at least) are paid a fair wage. The amount of work for a teacher varies by their teaching style and the subject they are teaching but I will use my math teacher as an example. He teaches four classes a day, gets to school at 7am leaves by 3pm... that's an 8 hour day. He doesn't take our tests home to grade, he doesn't collect homework, he has his plans from the years before and he doesn't coach/sponsor any after school activities. Eight hours a day times five days a week- thats a fourty hour week which is perfectly reasonable. He works about 42 weeks a year(typical school year minus the Christmas, Easter, Fall, etc breaks which the "real world" doesn't get off) and makes 60-65K. When you do the math, that isn't too bad. When I look at the quality of people that are teaching, they aren't the top of their class, so to speak. I don't think that a teacher should be compared to a doctor or lawyer as they aren't the same caliber. Also, what makes people think that doctors or lawyers make tons of money? Take into account their hours, insurance, stress levels, and such. </p>
<p>With all that said, I think that if there was a way to compensate good teachers for their extra effort, that would solve alot of problems. There are great teachers and horrible teachers and unfortunetly they are, for the most part, all paid the same. </p>
<p>And the arguement about the importance of teachers compared to their pay: that's unreasonable. Think of trashmen, plumbers, bus drivers, mechanics, etc. All extremely important but not paid 6 figure salaries. The fact is that everyone cannot make tons of money and younger generations are thinking that they can. </p>
<p>To end this, I will also say that I am sick of hearing how underpaid teachers are from my very own teachers...</p>
<p>i believe you are a bit of a fool Joev, i am currently a highschool english teacher in wilmington, NC and i have recently recieved my masters degree…yet i only make 3000 dollars more a year than my colleague who only has a bachelor’s degree…i also work 10 months out of the year not 9 i do not know where you got your statistics but and i am required to do things during the summer i do not simply get to take 2 months off. Also I am interested to know…Musicians and athletes love their fans right? if they really truly love their fans then wouldnt they go play football or music for a fraction of what they do now? </p>
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<p>Regarding the “we should increase class sizes from 30 to 200” comment:</p>
<p>College classes with nearly 200 people in them often have several TAs. These TAs can answer questions and talk with the professor on your behalf, but more importantly they can also grade tests/papers. It is beyond impossible to assign papers of meaning or have anything other than multiple choice tests if you are the only person in charge of a 200-person class. So, unless you plan on paying for TAs to work in high school classes, the idea of enlarging class sizes won’t work at the high school level.</p>