Text 7445, 96 rader
Skriven 2006-11-08 21:30:00 av JOAN MACDIARMID (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av HAP NEWSOM
Ärende: RE: Teacher's salaries
==============================
 Hi, Hap,

 -> HN> Lots of people think it's just an "easy" job, and teacher's pay
 -> HN> reflects that lack of respect for the profession

 -> It's strictly local - the school boards negotiate with the
 -> teachers.  In some towns the teachers are well-paid, in others
 -> they're treated less well.

 -> HN> I have no idea what you'd call well paid, but nationally teachers get
 ->HN> less "bang for the buck" for attaining a teaching degree as opposed to
 ->HN> other professions with a 4 year's bachelors degree.

 There is a productivity problem with the comparison of
 the teaching profession with other professions. The
 productivity of many classes of workers has risen
 profoundly over the years, so that fewer workers
 making the big bucks are needed to sustain the same
 or larger output, partly because of computers and other
 technology augmenting the worker's efficiency. But
 teachers only handle about 20-30 students at a time,
 depending on the grade level. So many are needed for
 a given school population, and the system cannot afford
 high salaries for all of them. When I attended school
 in Alabama, the normal class size was 30-32 students.
 (I was in a very crowded system as the town was growing
 faster than the schools could accommodate.) Around here,
 the teachers union is advocating class sizes of 20 or
 so, so 50% more teachers might be required for the same
 student population. There is only so much money a
 community can allot for education, so more teachers
 for lower class sizes means less pay per teacher.

 HN> Now if Anne graduated today with a mechanical engineering degree her
 HN> mean  pay would be $70,000 (more than she's making after 15 years of
 HN> teaching and  having a master's degree), or an areospace engineer mean
 HN> pay:$85,450, or a  biomedical engineer, mean pay:$75,380, or a nuclear
 HN> engineer:$90,690. Or a  biochemist:$75,320, astronomer:$101,360,
 HN> economist$80,900, political  scientist:$84,820.computer
 HN> programmer:$67,400, accountant$58,020.

 And how many of those does our economy support
 as compared to teachers? And those engineers are
 expected to produce income for the private (usually)
 companies that hire them. If not producing a profit
 for the company, they are let go. Also, engineers
 are very vulnerable as to job availability. You
 live in WA, did you envy aerospace engineers during
 the several massive layoffs from Boeing over the
 past few decades? If one takes a degree in astronomy,
 how many jobs are available? (Those are probably
 mostly University professors, so earning a lot of
 their incomes through teaching, BTW, but some have
 classes of 100-200 at a time at the introductory
 levels, at least.)

 Teaching is at least likely to provide good
 job availability and portability to any location.
 It is chosen because one wants to do it. If Anne
 studied a field like engineering because it paid
 well, but she didn't like it, she would probably
 be a poor engineer for lack of interest, and
 perhaps underemployed. (And don't sell engineers
 short, I considered switching to an engineering
 major in University, and chickened out while
 studying the curriculum requirements. Chemistry
 looked easier.) Face it, some careers pay better,
 but are riskier to follow because of low demand
 and high competition.

 HN> So far I've yet to meet a "well paid" teacher.

 Depends on your outlook. I also point out that
 teaching was mostly a woman's profession in the
 K-12 grades for many years; it is automatically
 downgraded for pay because of that. The logic
 was it was something the wife could do while
 the husband earned the real family income, and
 the portability of a teaching degree did make
 following a husband through job transfers easier.
 And who cared about the unmarried "spinster"
 teachers for whom it was the sole income?

 Sorry for the rant, but I thought a few points
 needed to be made. Years of education does not
 equal automatic entitlement to a certain income.
 There are market rules of supply and demand, and
 also "what the traffic will bear".

 No room for a recipe, sorry.

 Joan MacDiarmid

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