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E Cogniac said...

I'm sorry, did you say 'public school teachers' and 'overpaid' in the same sentence?

Fail.
Incorrect usage of language and perhaps should be a federal offence punishable to an entire day in a classroom. ANY classroom. The entire day.

Let's review...we take 'your' offspring for the better part of their day and the better part of their lives to adulthood and 'teach' them?

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Walt G. said...

Is the chart adjusted for type of degree and length of service? It could be more public school teachers have advanced degrees, endorsements like special education, and experience. It's not unusual to pay professionals for those qualities.

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E Cogniac said...

Walt, could potentially be a factor but that's probably not responsible for the numbers.

Possibly due more to the aggregate;
The more diverse the population within the fortress, the more alcohol has to be purchased to get a teacher to return...on the second day of school.
Can we get those stats from the video posted? I want a closer look at the parent satisfaction comparison. Isn't asking them like asking patients where all the healthcare money is going?

In my humble op, comparing public and private dollars is akin to stating that minnow and roe are both bait. You can catch fish with both but I wouldn't recommend serving the former as an appetizer in Washington.

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PeakTrader said...

E Cogniac, do you know if those teachers were drunks or party animals before or after they became teachers?

Walt says "... It's not unusual to pay professionals for those qualities."

It's also not unusual to fire professionals after they fail to meet low performance standards, unless you're a public school teacher. It's cheaper to hire a babysitter.

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E Cogniac said...

Peak: Actually I don't think many of them drink. They don't have time to watch football and drink beer. Too much homework to mark.

They do party though...June 30 to Sept 1st. The rest of the year it's bed by 9 or 10.

Ah, yes it's true that there are some bad apples that should be fired. That's everywhere I suppose. But should they hire babysitters or parents? At least babysitters are paid to mind the kids.

I wonder how the parents are doing on those performance scores?

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geoih said...

Quote from E Cogniac: "Let's review...we take 'your' offspring for the better part of their day and the better part of their lives to adulthood and 'teach' them?"

You certainly seem impressed with yourself. Maybe you should consider a career change, if your job is that difficult for you.

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Walt G. said...

"It's also not unusual to fire professionals after they fail to meet low performance standards, unless you're a public school teacher."

You need to hire the right people in the first place and then hire people who can implement and document the written and well-defined due-process policies. Properly documented discharges that strictly follow policies are difficult to beat or result in lawsuits. That means you can't write up an employee you don't like and let the principal's pet teacher get away with the same violation. Union reps will find the chink in the armor but only if you put the chink there. I can show you how to fire people you want to stay fired. Why don't we expect the same professionalism from management and the human resource department that we expect from the employees?

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E Cogniac said...

Oooo you guys are scary. Sprewell, Paul, Geoih...

No, actually I am not terribly impressed with myself...but the kids seem to be! Working in Kindie and Grade 1 at the moment. Trying to teach them to sit still for 10 seconds without being a nuisance, think, read and write and love to learn...in a fun way of course.

But that's okay, we can stop the lesson and deal with your behaviour, I'm sure the others will wait. I actually learn more from the kids and online, than I did in my formal training, and frankly I'm not motivated by the pay, but that's the way it is these days...the teachers are learners and the learners are teachers.

I'm not quite sure what you are teaching us though? Hmmm.

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Richard Rider, Chair, San Diego Tax Fighters said...

As a taxpayer advocate, I help review public school district finances when they seek support for their school bonds.

Recently a tiny district we were reviewing told us that they had only two teacher openings last year. They had 542 certified teacher applicants.

Seems to me that suggests that compensation is far higher than necessary. And remember, the bad teachers are all but impossible to fire.

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Dr. T said...

The 34% difference is only for salary. Public teacher benefits, especially retirement, are far greater than private teacher benefits. I estimate that total compensation of public teachers is 40-50% greater than private teachers.

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E Cogniac said...

Richard,

# of job openings vs the # of applicants does make logical your conclusion. A logical conclusion would be that your district has no job openings...not due to overpayment of the present employees.
Suggestive of low job turnover which might suggest contentment in the job, but who knows for certain?

Are you qualified to assess finances of that nature and then assess the value the job? Have you been in the place of employment and observed the job. Has your org conducted any studies, surveys, science of any kind?
I don't question to be challenging just for the sake of, but to learn what you base your statement upon as I am very curious regarding the stats you present and the conclusion you make.

Dr. T
I agree that retirement is an issue that probably requires much study and debate. I know of many retirees who do supply teaching and get paid a higher wage, than the up and coming teachers.
With the aging and healthy population this is going to cause some dramatic shifts economically for school boards. The young and fresh can't get experience and the old and experienced are draining the coffers. What to do about it is another question, that few seem able to wrap their head around.
Fair retirement compensation for devoted long term skilled work however...we'd have to decide if the job is valued in society first and on what parameters no?
Do we value heart surgeons, paramedics, police? What is a life worth? What is a child's education worth and is it 'just' math and language or an impressionable mind we are dealing with? Is a psychiatrist or a psychologist valued? How about a youth counsellor for troubled youth that need to be turned around? Are they valuable members of the work force? Or are those working on Wall street more valuable? What about actors and hockey players?How do we attribute so little value to those responsible to nurture minds in society? Now, what about those teachers? These are the questions that need to be analyzed...long and hard before considering if teacher's pay is adequate or inadequate or comparable to counterparts outside of the public school system. At least I would think they would be much more valuable questions to economists in general as well as the consumers of policy and wisdom?

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E Cogniac said...

I don't believe teachers do what they do motivated by the pay. Their heart is in it for the kids and some misguided attempt to confuse economists.

I personally don't understand why there is abiding interest between private and public. They seem to me at least, to be serving two consumers, relatively the same thing?
Can someone explain?

"I'd like a large coffee."
"A Grande?"
"Just a big coffee, thanks."
" One Grande, coming up!"
(they inevitably turn to someone else and say "Grande")

Funny, I always seem to answer with "Thanks for the large coffee"

Pinball whatshisname always orders the Grande. I always order the large coffee. Basically we are both tired grumpy and need one when we reach for the sugar. He tips though? Is that the difference?

As for his kids, when he and the other parents pull in someone at the road radios to someone at the door, to go get his kids and no one has to park. It's all very organized. When mine finish the bell rings, it's complete chaos and mine walk home and text their friends and tell me they were late because they were stuck in traffic at the lights...where Pinball was lined up for 10 minutes.

As for the money and fame...of the teachers...historically in various countries and perhaps still, teaching was considered a noble and honourable profession. What happened? These days, I wouldn't be surprised if my Vet's lab tech is paid more to study my dog's stool!

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Walt G. said...

"Third, the dirty little secret is that the undergraduates who major in education are usually the poorest performing students in the university."

If teachers are so overpaid and have such a cushy job (9-month school years), why are the best and brightest students choosing other fields to enter?

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PeakTrader said...

Walt says: "If teachers are so overpaid and have such a cushy job (9-month school years), why are the best and brightest students choosing other fields to enter?"

Because the best and brightest don't want to just take up space and go through the motions, which is why they're the best and brightest in the first place.

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Walt G. said...

PeakTrader,

Are you saying that current teaching assignments, as designed, are not challenging enough?

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PeakTrader said...

Walt, it depends. Putting in the minimum effort to meet low standards is a huge challenge for some people.

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Walt G. said...

Your logic seems like a non sequitur to me.

-Teachers are overpaid.
-Teaching is easy.

--The best and brightest do not want a highly paid and easy job.

This seems like a huge disconnect to me. I have to disallow my assumptions about incentives to accept that logic. What am I missing in your statement?

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morganovich said...

wlat-

public school teachers have a byzantine regulator structure to which they must adhere, little control of the curriculum, and are not paid for performance.

why would the best and brightest want to enter a career in which they can express little creativity and are not paid for doing a good job?

those who can perform want to be paid for performance, not lumped in with a bunch of rent seeking clock punchers.

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morganovich said...

also:

private schools have better teachers than public schools and provide a better education.

if these better teachers work for less, then clearly teachers are overpaid.

in any career, "overpaid" is relative to the costs of labor. if i hire a guy to shovel snow for $50/hr when i could have paid $20 for the same work, he was overpaid even if his annual income is still low.

overpaid is always a relative term.

comparing a teacher to a cardiac surgeon is irrelevant in terms of "overpaid" even though the latter makes multiples of the former's salary.

it's a different skill and talent set.

however, public and private school teachers have the same skill set, so they are directly comparable.

bottom line: if public schools paid for performance instead of seniority, they'd get better teachers for less money.

the fact that teacher's union so vigorously oppose any kind of pay for performance scheme pretty much tells everything you need to know about where their priorities lie.

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PeakTrader said...

Walt, perhaps you can understand JFK.

Delivered at Rice University in Houston, Texas on 12 September 1962.

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."

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Hydra said...

Cogniac is right though. May father was a teacher, and he was never much motivated by money, more than the family needed.

By the time I was 25 I made more than he ever made.

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morganovich said...

a thought experiment:

imagine 2 people.

one is smart, hard working, and aggressive.

one is of mediocre intellect, lazy, and unmotivated.

now imagine two jobs:

one is competitive, challenging, and pays (well) for performance and promotes based on achievement.

the other has zero competition, is stable, and pays based on time served without regard to achievement.

now ask yourself, which sort of person would be attracted to which job?

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Walt G. said...

PeakTrader,

That’s a great quotation. Thanks for the inspiration and the explanation.

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PeakTrader said...

Hydra says: "Cogniac is right though. My father was a teacher, and he was never much motivated by money."

I wonder what motivates the teachers in Wisconsin?:

Officials say it'll cost $7.5 million to clean up glue, tape, posters left from protesters
March 3, 2011

"During testimony, a representative from the Attorney General's office said it would cost $500,000 to remove all of the posters and garbage. He says it would cost $6 million to restore the marble inside of the Capitol building and another $1 million to touch up the marble outside of the building.

Officials with the Department of Administration say normally, tape isn't used on the walls of the Capitol by rule because of the historic nature of the building. Easels are normally used for signs."

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PeakTrader said...

I'm sure there's lots of frustration on both sides, from the people who pay and have no money and from the people who are paid and want more money.

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Dr. T said...

morganovich said: "... I think the teachers' union is changing their stance on pay for performance, but the metrics are in question. Remember, the people who are judging the performance often used to be teachers themselves...."

The teachers' unions remain vehemently opposed to merit pay even when the standards for determining merit are completely objective. Here is one proposed method for assessing teachers in lower grades (students have just one teacher all year). The method takes into account the pre-existing abilities of the students.

1. Acquire each student's end-of-year knowledge and ability assessment from the previous year. (Test new students at the beginning of the year.)

2. Measure student's knowledge and abilities at the end of the school year.

3. Calculate average increase.

The average student should move up one grade level per school year. If the average increase for the students in a teacher's class is 0.9-1.1, then the teacher did an acceptable job. If the average is above 1.1, then the teacher should be paid more. If the average is less than 0.9, then the teacher should be paid less. If it is less than 0.7, then the teacher should be fired.

This merit pay system is completely objective, but not one teachers' union supports it.

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Walt G. said...

"you make it sound like managing teachers is somehow terribly difficult. it's not."

Well, then it should not be too difficult to hire good teachers that you will not need to fire. I don't doubt some teachers are bad, but if they hire good teachers and support them, and give them students supported by good parenting, the talk about firing them will not be a huge problem. Very few employees go to work wanting to be bad employees.

I can tell you from experience that the bad employees will self-destruct and get themselves fired or kill themselves no matter how hard someone tries to help them. Documentation and strictly enforced policies make that happen quicker. It's a cop out to say due process protections keep bad employees from getting fired.

morganovich,

And the increasingly number of parents who divorce, start drinking or doing drugs, move, or lose their jobs will not affect the test scores from year-to-year? There's still a lot of variables there. I do agree, though, that teachers should be evaluated using multiple criteria, and teachers' unions should not stand in the way of that happening.

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claymonster said...

I wish teachers could be rewarded more handsomely for the thankless job they perform.
However, there MUST be performance-based evaluations and raises MUST be based on performance, not just years.
In my opinion, many people enter teaching because "it's the only thing they can do" (didn't do so well in college & switched to an Education major) -- but once they bond with the kids, see themselves making a difference, they get hooked. Certainly not all, but many. Then, the money isn't the main thing. The frustrations of curriculum mandates (teaching to a nationalized test instead of actually learning a subject), Administration types who don't care, stupid parents with no interest in their child's behavior, performance, or grades, etc. make it a bitter pill to swallow.
Also, if there's no collective bargaining, you end up like my sister - being kept to one hour a week below full-time so they pay NO benefits.
There's got to be a meeting in the middle. Our system is busted on both ends.

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hswalj said...

So why would anyone be a private school teacher?

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randian said...

"Also, if there's no collective bargaining, you end up like my sister - being kept to one hour a week below full-time so they pay NO benefits."

Welcome to the real world. Suck it up.

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PeakTrader said...

Hswalj says "So why would anyone be a private school teacher?"

Maybe, they can't be an overpaid public school teacher.

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9d1c2806-46cc-11e0-b5aa-000bcdcb5194 said...

Many left the comment that teaching is easy. Well I invite you to my classroom, do my job for a week. I will give you the state curriculum and you should have no problem doing such an easy job. Remember that those tests need to be graded and returned to the students in a timely manner. You'll have to take those home because you must be up teaching the whole time ~ I mean its easy anyway. Then you'll have to take some time out of your teaching to deal with a discipline problem or perhaps a child that came to school crying and only has you to confide in, you may have to make a few phone calls to parents and likely end up trying 2 to 3 numbers to finally get in touch with one parent. At the end of the day, take home your state curriculum because you'll need to plan for the next day - on your own time. Second day, exhausted because you were up late grading and planning, but now you have to enter that room and be exactly what each student needs you to be that day. It's easy....no sweat. I welcome any of you into my classroom for a week.

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PeakTrader said...

I'm sure some teachers do more than parents or babysitters.

A Day in the Life of a High School English Teacher

5:45 am Traffic. I am out the door and on my way. I leave this early because traffic even at this hour can be fierce.

6:15 Even at this really, really early hour, there are always a few other teachers around (with big cups of coffee). We usually run into each other at the copier.

6:15-7:20 Even though I make a point of leaving the room as tidy as I can at the end of the day, somehow I always sprint around the school as fast as I can just trying to get everything done before students show up. If I need to clean the board, I hit that first and then wipe down the desks with disinfectant.

I connect the laptop, check email, and scribble everything that the kids need to know on the board. Then I check in with my teaching partner. We spend a few minutes working together.

Kids start coming by to hand in late work, make up assignments, or just hang out with friends. It tends to be crowded and noisy even this early.

7:20-9:00 We have an alternating block schedule, so I meet each class every other day for the entire year.

My first class today is mixture of sleepyheads and hyperkids. I work hard to figure out ways to appeal to everyone’s learning style, but it is not always easy.

9:00-9:15 The whole school takes a break.

9:15-10:55 The second block is the same as first with a few tweaks.

11:02-11:28 Lunch. Our school is so large that we have several lunch periods.

11:33-1:13 Planning period for me.

We English teachers spend LOTS of time grading essays.

1:20-2:10 Last class of the day. This class meets daily and is much shorter than the others. The kids can be tired so it is challenging to keep them upbeat and focused.

2:10-3:45 It’s not over yet. I stay after school four days a week to help students make up work, get extra help on writing assignments, or just work on problems they are having with the material. Most of the teachers at my school stay after to offer extra help. It’s not really a formal arrangement, but it seems to work. Right before I leave, I make sure the room is clean and my desk clear. Even though I am tired.

My comment: Is this job really difficult?

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E Cogniac said...

It's interesting how those that seem to want to make a difference, try and keep trying.

They ask questions, they invite input, they offer their ideas. They discourse. They are both learners and teachers.

Some fascinating feedback evolving in the discussion tonight.

Then, (sigh), there are those that seem bitter, negative, it's all just misery and crap, and who to blame, and they have nothing to learn here, except to hurl insults and inflict injury and distract those that are trying to move forward on a path.

Sound a little familiar? Why by golly it's a math and social science class!

Or am I being an incompetent educator while at the same time learning a whole bunch from everyone?

We are rewarded...it looks like this :>, not like this $, or this %, and sometimes not even #'s can evaluate what a learner knows at all...sometimes it has to be pictures or symbols, or art or as Peak sometimes seems to be sharing with us, civil disobedience in the making.
Are you hungry Peak because you seem kind of grumpy?
But, being that this might be a math and social science class of some sort, it should always = ?
(something?)

Hey, I wonder if the Dr. is evaluating us!? We were supposed to be looking at those graphs and charts weren't we?
Shocking!
He's not even here.

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PeakTrader said...

E Cogniac says: "It's interesting how those that seem to want to make a difference, try and keep trying. They ask questions, they invite input, they offer their ideas. They discourse. They are both learners and teachers..."

And the ship is still sinking. Maybe, there's a bigger problem you overlooked.

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E Cogniac said...

Yes Peak!
Brilliant question!!!

The ship is sinking. I agree.

But why?

Can we agree to care at least and would you be open to talking about it?
I have taught in post secondary, high school and the elementary panels. I am losing my mind for caring. I am devoting my life and career to caring and to wanting to find answers.
And here I am and here you are.
I don't believe for one second that I am incompetent, overpaid, lazy, or worthless. Nor are most of my colleagues that I can see.
We half kill ourselves for those kids and still the ship is sinking.
And yes, burnout is high as is cynicism....but why.
It's just not what you and lothers I have seen here allude to Peak. It's just not.
I see some of the problems are, and others raise some good insight and ideas but it is far more complex and mysterious than blanket statements and negativity toward teachers. that's a cynical and incorrect analysis. You are better than Archie Bunker and so am I and society needs to be all in the family on this one. It's more important than healthcare, or flying to the moon or technology, or going overseas. Can you see my passion now?
The ship is sinking and it's not crappy lazy teachers that are overpaid.

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PeakTrader said...

E Cogniac, the answers are found in many sunken ships, i.e. bankrupt firms in the private sector.

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randian said...

"My comment: Is this job really difficult?"

No. You have a 7 hour "day" with a 2 hour break in the middle. If I went to my boss and demanded such an abbreviated schedule I'd probably get fired on general principle.

Get thee to the private sector before you complain about hard, long days.

I work hard to figure out ways to appeal to everyone’s learning style, but it is not always easy.

Wrong answer. Group students by learning style. then teach for that style all the time. You can satisfy both styles of learning without compromises.

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PeakTrader said...

How many people can be a teacher?

How many people can be a civil engineer, microbiologist, biochemist, CFA, CPA, MD, etc.

I'm sure there are many great teachers, who are underpaid.

However, there are much tougher jobs out there.

Even something like grad econ is most difficult, which, I suspect, most people don't know, and don't even know what economists really do.

Only 2,000 MAs and 600 to 800 Ph.Ds in economics are awarded in the U.S. each year.

In the Terminal MA program I was in, only two or three students graduated each year out of 30 students, and of course many more applied and weren't admitted (I graduated, I think, only because they wanted to get rid of me ).

It was a mountain of work, where you were required to think beyond your capacity to think, and within time constraints. Consequently, women would cry and men would snap at each other.

I studied very hard for the comp exams, reading the material over and over (the theories, terminology, and equations on one page of a book was so condensed, it could've been very easily expanded to well over 100 pages).

However, during the comp exams, the instructors would change a few things, and I was totally lost to explain the new meanings, and often felt like an idiot. I'm actually surprised they passed me

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