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Have you noticed that the same people who say teachers are so greedy they should be thinking about the students rather then then the money in there pocket. Also say wow patients are so ungrateful to the doctor who helped them. They should be more then happy to pay the doctor what ever he/she charges. They do not think how they or a loved one of there's might need medical help in the future.

You could just as easily flip both around and say. People should be willing to pay teachers the salary they want. They are so ungrateful not thinking about how the teacher helped them with there education or the fact they might have children or grand children who need an education. Doctors are so greedy they should be thinking about there patient's life rather then the money in there pocket.

Both teachers and doctors have to go to college to get there profession. I have come to the conclusion that either teachers should be payed more or doctors should be payed less.

To the arrogant and selfish people who would say "oh I just home school my child". I assure you most Americans can't afford that.

I very much agree with the base point that teachers are extremely under-respected, but I think your comparison with doctors is a wee bit off.

Doctors have more education.
Doctors have higher stakes.
Doctors perform much more difficult tasks.

Doctors deserve higher pay than teachers.

Do teacher deserve to be paid as much as a high end assembly line worker? No! They deserve much more.

They have master's degrees and perform a vital service, yet are lucky to get paid as much as a 10 yr veteran of assembly line manufacturing (with their possible high school diploma).

It's funny, because I was actually just thinking to myself what the difference is between a doctor and a professor (not so much a teacher, though). A doctor is one who has a doctorate and for the most part, those people are considered to be better because people often think of doctors as being able to perform surgery or something. I don't think it's even legal to perform a surgery unless you have a doctorate.

At 8/13/12 12:15 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

They have master's degrees and perform a vital service, yet are lucky to get paid as much as a 10 yr veteran of assembly line manufacturing (with their possible high school diploma).

Doctors don't get tenure.
Doctors don't receive special treatment by screwing up.

You would think that IF teaching is such an important profession, then teachers would be held to the same standards as doctors since, after all, teaching is just oh so important and vital to our country's future.

And those horrible construction and assembly line workers... how dare they actually produce something. How dare they make things for people to enjoy, like that air conditioned building the teachers in developed nations get to work in while those ungrateful construction people have to put up buildings in over 100 degree temperatures without AC while working with heavy equipment.

And, how dare they manage to do those things without going into college debt, getting student loans for an overpriced education and contributing to our education bubble.

You heard me Assembly line/Construction workers... FUCK YOU!

At 8/13/12 01:37 PM, Ericho wrote: It's funny, because I was actually just thinking to myself what the difference is between a doctor and a professor (not so much a teacher, though). A doctor is one who has a doctorate and for the most part, those people are considered to be better because people often think of doctors as being able to perform surgery or something. I don't think it's even legal to perform a surgery unless you have a doctorate.

While professors (PhDs) and doctors (MD, DDH, etc.) have a similar amount of education, doctors still work in a much higher risk area. If a professor screws up, little happens. If a doctor screws up a person can experience pain, illness, or worse things such as permanent side effects, disfigurement, or death.

Doctors are often paid more for the amount of skill needed to avoid to constant and dangerous side effects.

I'm not saying that teachers should be paid the exact mount as doctors but if some one has to go to college to get there job then they should be paid better then a minimal wage job. Also I don't know what you mean by factory jobs because most of them went to China.

Also when a doctor screws up he/she usually bribes a few people and every looks the other way. But when a teacher screws up hell fire rains down on him/her.

Example: Lets say a teacher has a relation ship with a student that is 18 and of legal age. Then the teacher and student are caught. The teacher gets fired and the News portrays that teacher as being a monster. If a doctor forms a relationship with one of he/her regular patients no one cares at all.

So teachers DO have accountability.

At 8/13/12 03:55 PM, Jmayer20 wrote: I'm not saying that teachers should be paid the exact mount as doctors but if some one has to go to college to get there job then they should be paid better then a minimal wage job.

You have no idea how much a teacher makes per hour of work, do you?

At 8/13/12 04:09 PM, Memorize wrote: You have no idea how much a teacher makes per hour of work, do you?

I would like to see the source this came from. Teachers don't make $66K a year, and they work hell of a lot more than 25 hours a week, or for 33 fulltime weeks.

At 8/13/12 12:15 PM, Camarohusky wrote: I very much agree with the base point that teachers are extremely under-respected, but I think your comparison with doctors is a wee bit off.

Doctors have more education.
Doctors have higher stakes.
Doctors perform much more difficult tasks.

Doctors deserve higher pay than teachers.

Do teacher deserve to be paid as much as a high end assembly line worker? No! They deserve much more.

They have master's degrees and perform a vital service, yet are lucky to get paid as much as a 10 yr veteran of assembly line manufacturing (with their possible high school diploma).

If there were no teachers, there wouldn't be, at least good, doctors. But with that being said each serves a different function in society and for some reason Teachers go under appreciated. Meanwhile you have people who provide media entertainment who get paid out the ass for appearing for 5 seconds in a commercial to endorse doritos.

At 8/13/12 06:32 PM, S3C wrote: The example you provided isn't a good one to demonstrate the accountability of the respective professions. It's moreso an unfounded opinion of you what you believe to happen when a teacher and doctor fail to follow the rules and regulations. If a teacher has sex with a student they are fired and if a doctor is guilty of malpractice they lose their medical license.

To clarify, a malpractice conviction rarely results in a doctor losing their license. The majority of convictions and settlements rarely even result in disciplinary action by the hospital. Not all malpractice is the same either. A doctor who fails to inform a patient about certain post op precautions is not the same a amputating the wrong leg. The former is quite common and rarely results in any disciplinary action whatsoever. The latter is extremely uncommon and is likely to result in termination from the provider and a possible (though not guaranteed) loss of license.

You are right about the teacher-doctor comparison. It's a good basic illustration, but has too many problems to stand up under close scrutiny. Comparing teachers to other jobs with similar salaries is a better way tomake the point. Most jobs with career wide average salaries in the 40Ks don't require any college degree, let alone a masters. These jobs also rarely require massive hours of homework. They also rarely require the worker to purchase supplies for their customer. They also don't require the worker to perform someone else's personal parenting duty.

At 8/13/12 04:09 PM, Memorize wrote:
You have no idea how much a teacher makes per hour of work, do you?

2 Questions. 1 what was your source for that chart? 2 is that per hour?

At 8/13/12 06:32 PM, S3C wrote:

what if you get a degree in bongo slapping? Going to college doesn't make you entitled to ANYTHING.

What you said is a very insulting thing to teachers. I think the education of our youth is much more important then bongo slapping. A modern civilization could not even exist with out education. Countries with out it are 3rd world countries and they live a miserable existence.

At 8/13/12 09:47 PM, Jmayer20 wrote:

At 8/13/12 04:09 PM, Memorize wrote:
You have no idea how much a teacher makes per hour of work, do you?

2 Questions. 1 what was your source for that chart? 2 is that per hour?

That is per hour.

The only reason you call it minimum wage (which is already idiotic based on their yearly salary) is because you're not taking into account for how many days/hours teachers work.

Last I checked, I didn't get a 2 - 3 week winter break from my job.

At 8/13/12 11:03 PM, Memorize wrote: Last I checked, I didn't get a 2 - 3 week winter break from my job.

How many teachers actually get to take that as a break? Not very many. It's time for them to prep for spring classes. Those lesson plans don't make themselves. Many high schools have their teachers grade tests and papers during the break as well.

At 8/13/12 11:50 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 8/13/12 11:03 PM, Memorize wrote: Last I checked, I didn't get a 2 - 3 week winter break from my job.

How many teachers actually get to take that as a break? Not very many. It's time for them to prep for spring classes. Those lesson plans don't make themselves. Many high schools have their teachers grade tests and papers during the break as well.

Oh no. How awful that they would have to grade papers... inside the comfort of their own homes... with a textbook that already has all of the answers in it.

And... oh God, not lessons plans that were probably already done well before the start of the school year, during a 3 month Summer Vacation... which couldn't possibly have lifted any sections from the previous year's lesson plan.

Oh how horrible... I feel their immense pain.

At 8/14/12 01:38 AM, S3C wrote: I'm not sure I follow what youre addressing exactly. The salary comparison was to illustrate why doctors may get paid more and how expensive their schooling is compared to teachers.

I mean that the teacher-doctor comparison is a good simple way to set up the point that teachers have to jump through a ton of hoops and in the end don't get paid well. It cannot be examined too much further than merely setting up the point as there are so many differances involved. Comparing teachers to other jobs in the $40K/yr area is a better way to illustrate the problem on a more in depth way.

There a numerous jobs that pay the same as teachers that require little to no secondary education or specialized skill. These jobs also do not have many of the same problems teaching has (mass disrespect from clients and society, over working, being forced to pay out of pocket because your clients cannot afford basic supplies.)

At 8/14/12 12:39 AM, Memorize wrote:
Oh no. How awful that they would have to grade papers... inside the comfort of their own homes... with a textbook that already has all of the answers in it.

And... oh God, not lessons plans that were probably already done well before the start of the school year, during a 3 month Summer Vacation... which couldn't possibly have lifted any sections from the previous year's lesson plan.

Oh how horrible... I feel their immense pain.

Your acting like it is easy to be a teacher, it is not. There is alot more to it then correcting papers. Not only does it require a good education to teach but it also requires skill and a disciplined mind to be a good teacher. It is not easy to deal with brats or punks (depending on the grade) every day. Its easy to claim some one is lazy or a job is easy if you never did it before.

At 8/14/12 12:46 PM, Jmayer20 wrote:

Its easy to claim some one is lazy or a job is easy if you never did it before.

Never said it was easy. Only that they are certainly not under-paid.

At 8/15/12 04:18 PM, Memorize wrote: Never said it was easy. Only that they are certainly not under-paid.

Compared to other countries, they are. The average American teacher of any level of education has the highest number of teaching hours of any developed country, and yet the pay for the average American teacher with 15 years of experience is only in eleventh place compared to other developed countries. If you take the wealth of the US into account, it looks even worse; comparing the ratio of salary of the average teacher with 15 years of experience to the national GDP per capita, the US is in a dismal 26th place among 33 developed countries.

So American teachers work more, get paid less, and given the wealth of the United States they should be making a hell of a lot more.

At 8/14/12 12:39 AM, Memorize wrote: Oh no. How awful that they would have to grade papers... inside the comfort of their own homes... with a textbook that already has all of the answers in it.

The only class I could think of where that's true is Math because every right answer will be the same.

And... oh God, not lessons plans that were probably already done well before the start of the school year, during a 3 month Summer Vacation... which couldn't possibly have lifted any sections from the previous year's lesson plan.

Oh how horrible... I feel their immense pain.

That wasn't the point, the point was that they have to work on their "breaks" and don't get paid for that work. I guess it exists in other jobs but not to such a substantial degree.

To Memorize and S3C

All right lets say for a moment that your right and that hard work and a good education should not automatically mean good pay. If those thing don't matter then tell me what DOES qualify as deserving good pay? What are the qualifications?

At 8/13/12 05:59 PM, Camarohusky wrote: ... Teachers don't make $66K a year, ...

I grew-up in a town of 1,100 ppl with a median family income of $26,000/yr. When my mother retired after 25 years of service she was making $72K/yr. Furthermore, I am her pension's death benificary so her pension will be paying out until I die. One of the things about teacher pay (along with ALL local government workers) is I think it should be based upon the local economics. If the average government worker is making more than the average local salary...things are unsustainable.

I'm also starting classes to go teach high school. I'm looking at getting a $20K student loan pay-back if I spend at least four years teaching in one of the poor school districts around where I live.

There are some benefits to teaching that translate into money. For example my wife and I are trying to have children. Once they get school age guess what? No child care costs because I take them with me and they can hang-out in my classroom or the playground like I did growing up waiting for my mom to get off work.

At 8/16/12 07:59 PM, TheMason wrote: I grew-up in a town of 1,100 ppl with a median family income of $26,000/yr. When my mother retired after 25 years of service she was making $72K/yr. Furthermore, I am her pension's death benificary so her pension will be paying out until I die.

Your mom is retired. By the looks of her salary and pension, my guess is she retired over a decade ago. You'll have a hard time finding many teachers who make that much and have that good a pension nowadays. New teacher salaries have shrunk like crazy, almost to the point where they're making as much now as a new teacher did in the 90s. And that pension? Poof! It's gone.

One of the things about teacher pay (along with ALL local government workers) is I think it should be based upon the local economics.

I don't disagree on this part.

I'm also starting classes to go teach high school. I'm looking at getting a $20K student loan pay-back if I spend at least four years teaching in one of the poor school districts around where I live.

And if I commit 10 years to public defense in a non-profit, I will get 100% of my remaining law school loans (now above $100K) completely erased. So? What would happen if we didn't give this out? Your neighborhood would have very few teachers and the teachers, who get paid less than their city coutnerparts, would spend the rest of their lives paying off their student loans. The loan abatement programs are not meant to cover for how terrible teaching is, or even to sweeten the pot for teachers. These programs are meant to bring competent and qualified teaching professionals to areas that otherwise would not get them. How many teachers want to work in Dufur and get paid $20K a year when they could get a job in Beaverton making $35K/yr? How many attorneys will work in defense offices for $45K a year when they could go elsewhere and make $60K-$100K a year? How many doctors would want to work in a small town for $60K/yr when they could work in a city for $100K? THIS is why those programs exist, not for the argument you are making.

There are some benefits to teaching that translate into money. For example my wife and I are trying to have children. Once they get school age guess what? No child care costs because I take them with me and they can hang-out in my classroom or the playground like I did growing up waiting for my mom to get off work.

So, we should dock the pay of any occupation that allows for the children to be cared for without paying for daycare? That's a pretty crappy reason to keep pay low.

Either way, even in the light least favorable to teaching it does little to change the general idea. For the amount of work, education, and responsibility we require of our teachers, they are underpaid, and extremely under-respected.

Doctors are way more important than teachers. Doctors are worth every penny and should be respected.

At 8/17/12 02:44 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Doctors are way more important than teachers. Doctors are worth every penny and should be respected.

How do you become a doctor? Oh right, you need teachers.

At 8/17/12 02:50 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote:

At 8/17/12 02:44 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Doctors are way more important than teachers. Doctors are worth every penny and should be respected.

How do you become a doctor? Oh right, you need teachers.

Teachers can't teach if they are sick.

At 8/17/12 02:53 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: Teachers can't teach if they are sick.

I take it you never heard the one about the chicken and the egg.