@rosea Can you unionize at your school? Move to a state that pays teachers more? Use your teaching degree for work for a corporation? Teachers will never be paid appropriately in this country until they refuse to accept/work for the wages offered. Just like nurses leaving the bedside until working conditions/wages improve, teachers need to leave the classroom.
How am I supposed to keep up with inflation? (school teacher)
- Thread starter rosea
- Start date
audiovoxjunkie
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@how2group $67k for what is effectively seasonal work -- and damn important, don't get me wrong -- is an incredible salary.
resjudicata
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and a little scared 
too.orangelight
New member
@rosea From an egoism perspective (which your title question implies) you will have to either obtain more income or lower your costs.
You've been at this job for almost 9 years. What have you done in addition to that job to increase your income? You should seriously consider moving in to a different line of work and your experience as a teacher is valid. You won't be "starting over".
You have nearly a decade of experience in project and personnel management. There is a company out there that would love to have your foundational experience even without industry specific experience and likely for much more than you currently make.
Please before anyone comes at me with societal issues, government malfeasance, poor policies etc...the question asked was "How am I supposed to keep up with inflation?" and that implies the individual wants to take some sort of action.
You've been at this job for almost 9 years. What have you done in addition to that job to increase your income? You should seriously consider moving in to a different line of work and your experience as a teacher is valid. You won't be "starting over".
You have nearly a decade of experience in project and personnel management. There is a company out there that would love to have your foundational experience even without industry specific experience and likely for much more than you currently make.
Please before anyone comes at me with societal issues, government malfeasance, poor policies etc...the question asked was "How am I supposed to keep up with inflation?" and that implies the individual wants to take some sort of action.
paradoxbrown
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lostinwebspace
New member
@paradoxbrown Not sure why you're downvoted. No doubt OP is losing to inflation, like literally everyone, but teachers are often under contract for less than 200 work days per year at less than 8 hours per day. The district I went to school in starts at 45,000 dollars roughly for 187 days at 7 hours per day. Meaning teachers in the district are contracted at 34 dollars per hour year one. The issue is that teachers get months off and weeks off more than other jobs. Meaning they have time to work a second job to supplement that, and make more money than your average joe.
marshallmea
New member
@lostinwebspace Unless you’re a teacher, please do not say things like that. First of all, I don’t know one teacher that does not either stay well past their “seven hours a day” (which, by the way, it’s normally 8 hours) or bring their work home. That 8 hour day is actively teaching with normally about an hour prep time and 30 minute lunch.
One hour is not enough time to grade 90-100 assignments, tests, projects unless it’s perhaps just multiple choice. However, most of the time it’s not just MC because that would only show recall, not actual comprehension and analysis.
And that is just the grading. Not the constant meetings that are normally one to two times a week during that prep time (so you lose out on that because those meetings are always useless), the lesson preparation, the test and assignment creation, along with extra things such as Professional Development, staff meetings, or any extracurricular activities you sponsor. All of which (normally except coaching) is unpaid.
In those 190 days, teachers work MORE than someone who works full time 50 weeks of the year (we will just assume they get 2 weeks off PTO or at least get off all the major holidays).
In those 190 days, if we take the median and multiply it, you would get 2,052 versus the person working 40 hours a week for the 50 weeks out of the year (again, assuming they get PTO, days off for holidays) who works 2000 hours.
So yes, theoretically, they have “more time” but that “more time” is about two months (June and July) where they are preparing for the school year or recovering from working the same amount in 38 weeks that most people work in 50-52.
https://www.tasb.org/services/hr-services/hrx/hr-laws/typical-teacher-works-54-hours-per-week.aspx
One hour is not enough time to grade 90-100 assignments, tests, projects unless it’s perhaps just multiple choice. However, most of the time it’s not just MC because that would only show recall, not actual comprehension and analysis.
And that is just the grading. Not the constant meetings that are normally one to two times a week during that prep time (so you lose out on that because those meetings are always useless), the lesson preparation, the test and assignment creation, along with extra things such as Professional Development, staff meetings, or any extracurricular activities you sponsor. All of which (normally except coaching) is unpaid.
In those 190 days, teachers work MORE than someone who works full time 50 weeks of the year (we will just assume they get 2 weeks off PTO or at least get off all the major holidays).
In those 190 days, if we take the median and multiply it, you would get 2,052 versus the person working 40 hours a week for the 50 weeks out of the year (again, assuming they get PTO, days off for holidays) who works 2000 hours.
So yes, theoretically, they have “more time” but that “more time” is about two months (June and July) where they are preparing for the school year or recovering from working the same amount in 38 weeks that most people work in 50-52.
https://www.tasb.org/services/hr-services/hrx/hr-laws/typical-teacher-works-54-hours-per-week.aspx
lostinwebspace
New member
@marshallmea If you want to do unpaid work for your salary job where you're contracted for X amount of hours that is a personal problem. I will continue to say this because it's true. Teachers are OVER paid if anything. Statistically they do not produce results and yet whine constantly about supposed underpayment. Yet they make much more money per hour than your average worker when you break down the actual numbers. For the district I went to school in the schedule was based on 7 work hours, likely one hour of unpaid lunch. Others are probably different but it doesn't defeat the point, teachers are contracted to work 500 to 700 hours less than the average American. Their hourly pay is much higher. Not to mention they reap benefits better than many private employees do. They have it absolutley made in the work life department, if they're of average intelligence to actually use that advantage.
Frankly, anyone dumb enough to do unpaid work on a regular basis should probably not be working in a sector meant to educate young people because they've shown they're too dumb to make basic rational choices.
Frankly, anyone dumb enough to do unpaid work on a regular basis should probably not be working in a sector meant to educate young people because they've shown they're too dumb to make basic rational choices.
@lostinwebspace What do you mean by teachers not producing results? School quality (and student engagement levels) vary widely from place to place, but the US is still pretty much average when it comes to PISA scores, and American Asians and whites are among the best performers in the world. Ghetto schools are shit and most of the students there aren’t interested in learning, but non-ghetto students are doing pretty good, relative to the rest of the world.
And how are you going to finish all of the work in a regular 8 hour day? Maybe a math or science teacher could fit lesson planning, meetings, and grading coursework into 40 hours per week, but anyone teaching a writing intensive course would not be able to do it. For instance, an AP Lang teacher at my high school probably had to grade multi-page papers for 100-150 students every week or two, and AP history teachers also gave out at least one big assignment every week, and they had to grade tests every month or so and two large finals per year, and some of the teachers offered study sessions over the weekend before the AP test. And it wasn’t like they just checked for completion, either, as they read through everything and criticized all your mistakes. And while college professors have TAs to help grade, high school teachers have to grade every assignment themselves. During the school year, many or most teachers are absolutely working over 40 hours per week.
I don’t get why you keep emphasizing 7 hours each day. Yes, teachers get an hour off every day for lunch. Most people do. I work 9-5, which is 7 hours of work and 1 hour for lunch, but it is still counted as 8 hours per day, and pay is still divided by 8 instead of 7.
I would not say that most teachers work significantly less than your average worker. Like, at 36 weeks per year and around 50 hours per week (highly plausible for a language arts or history teacher), that is around 1800 hours, about the same as the median American worker (~1810 hours). Yes, they can work during the summer, but irregular jobs likely don’t pay that well for someone who‘s not a hot-shot programmer who can get some sort of contracting gig. Some probably teach summer school, but there is less demand for that than regular school, and many likely just end up doing unskilled service work.
And how are you going to finish all of the work in a regular 8 hour day? Maybe a math or science teacher could fit lesson planning, meetings, and grading coursework into 40 hours per week, but anyone teaching a writing intensive course would not be able to do it. For instance, an AP Lang teacher at my high school probably had to grade multi-page papers for 100-150 students every week or two, and AP history teachers also gave out at least one big assignment every week, and they had to grade tests every month or so and two large finals per year, and some of the teachers offered study sessions over the weekend before the AP test. And it wasn’t like they just checked for completion, either, as they read through everything and criticized all your mistakes. And while college professors have TAs to help grade, high school teachers have to grade every assignment themselves. During the school year, many or most teachers are absolutely working over 40 hours per week.
I don’t get why you keep emphasizing 7 hours each day. Yes, teachers get an hour off every day for lunch. Most people do. I work 9-5, which is 7 hours of work and 1 hour for lunch, but it is still counted as 8 hours per day, and pay is still divided by 8 instead of 7.
I would not say that most teachers work significantly less than your average worker. Like, at 36 weeks per year and around 50 hours per week (highly plausible for a language arts or history teacher), that is around 1800 hours, about the same as the median American worker (~1810 hours). Yes, they can work during the summer, but irregular jobs likely don’t pay that well for someone who‘s not a hot-shot programmer who can get some sort of contracting gig. Some probably teach summer school, but there is less demand for that than regular school, and many likely just end up doing unskilled service work.
lostinwebspace
New member
@manasa Urban schools are a large chunk of America's schools, and those schools do not do well overall. And most public education in America is rather inefficient and outdated in the way they operate.
I took AP classes in high school. I'm sure grading essays did take longer, but I'm unsure what school you went to that had 150 kids kids in AP English. My school had 25 to 30 in AP senior english, and in my AP history classes the largest number was 20, lowest number was around 12 or 13. And this was at a public urban high school with around 1600 students. Additionally, at the school I went to teachers could opt to have a senior assistant. Not as useful as a college TA I'm sure, but it's a program my school had.
Again, if you're working over your contracted hours that is your fault. Nobody is putting a gun to your head and making you grade all the work you assigned for 50 hours per week. Nobody. It's not in your union contract. It's not implied in the pay agreement. Additionally, I've never heard of AP teachers being forced to work weekends for a study session. Sounds like a choice they make. This is a trend here. Teachers making the choice to do extra. It's kind and generous of them to do this if they wish, but it is not required and is not related to their payment. Now perhaps these teachers who do this, show merit, and should receive a merit based raise, however their unions would not accept that.
I'm emphasizing 7 hours per day because at least where I'm at, they're paid for 7 hours. I work 8 hours per day at my job. My actual shift has a 30 minute unpaid lunch and two 15 minute breaks. I don't perform work for either of those. So I'm on site for 8.5 hours and paid for 8 hours of my time. Most people I know work under that format. Teachers do not. They have a pay agreement for less than 40 hours per week, and for far less days ler year.
I took AP classes in high school. I'm sure grading essays did take longer, but I'm unsure what school you went to that had 150 kids kids in AP English. My school had 25 to 30 in AP senior english, and in my AP history classes the largest number was 20, lowest number was around 12 or 13. And this was at a public urban high school with around 1600 students. Additionally, at the school I went to teachers could opt to have a senior assistant. Not as useful as a college TA I'm sure, but it's a program my school had.
Again, if you're working over your contracted hours that is your fault. Nobody is putting a gun to your head and making you grade all the work you assigned for 50 hours per week. Nobody. It's not in your union contract. It's not implied in the pay agreement. Additionally, I've never heard of AP teachers being forced to work weekends for a study session. Sounds like a choice they make. This is a trend here. Teachers making the choice to do extra. It's kind and generous of them to do this if they wish, but it is not required and is not related to their payment. Now perhaps these teachers who do this, show merit, and should receive a merit based raise, however their unions would not accept that.
I'm emphasizing 7 hours per day because at least where I'm at, they're paid for 7 hours. I work 8 hours per day at my job. My actual shift has a 30 minute unpaid lunch and two 15 minute breaks. I don't perform work for either of those. So I'm on site for 8.5 hours and paid for 8 hours of my time. Most people I know work under that format. Teachers do not. They have a pay agreement for less than 40 hours per week, and for far less days ler year.
hollins423
New member
@lostinwebspace Oh, you sweet summer child. You know absolutely nothing about the education profession and it shows. Please go substitute in a school and then come back and tell us teachers about how we are whiny and overpaid. Teachers do not work for 7 hours a day and call it quits. I'm glad you work in a profession where you can clock out and call it a day, but that is not the case for teaching...at all. Nights, weekends, early mornings...that's just the start. Doing 12 months of work in 10 months and then being paid during the summer, yea that's because some districts allow teachers to stretch their check over a 12 month period. The teachers choose to make LESS money each month to make up for the time off. Teachers are still working (ongoing professional development, early preparation for the upcoming year, etc.) during the summer too.