The high cost of low teacher salaries - 62% work a 2nd job

At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.

So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. :wow: For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?

We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html

Lets get the minimum wage bumped up to a living wage. Then we won't have to worry about teachers being unable to make a living wage.

A person in the private sector probably needs to sock away a minimum of 15% to accumulate these assets needed to retire. That seems to equalize the lesser pay to me.

32 years. The health insurance I have is paid by ME, not a retirement benefit. My health insurance is through a large pool of CT Retired Teachers. What makes you think retired teachers get free health insurance?

Because they have no clue.
They're too busy listening to the reich wing

I should know because my parents get free health care benefits as retired state workers.

They get great benefits, more take home pay in their retirement as middle management than I get now since I sock away a considerable percent for retirement. And they retired at 55...both of them.

And with a paid off mortgage it's all gravy. Even medical costs are no big deal because their double coverage of health care (retirement plus Medicare) means pretty minimal out of pocket expenses. And their pensions have no state tax and they are reimbursed for their Medicare premiums.

The only state to have one.

the teachers have in Ct. They also get free Blue Cross to supplement their Medicare, SS, and are also reimbursed for their Medicare. Unfortunately, the teachers don't have the same benefits. I have a friend who was a secretary at the local Community College. I think she had one year of secretarial school post high school and her retirement is so much better than the teachers in my school district have even though the teachers have to have a Master's. (BTW, CT teachers' pension are subject to state income tax, but when I moved to FL, it was like a raise in pay because FL has no income tax.) I'm sure your parents realize how lucky they are.

Teachers sure don't go into the field to make big bucks and I am so disgusted to hear how they are being vilified. I can honestly say that if it had not been for our Union, CT Ed Assn and NEA, I wouldn't have even earned $50,000 my 32nd year of teaching. My first year of teaching was in Michigan and I earned $4,300 per year and was still told that teachers earned big bucks!! And my first year in CT, the toll takers on the Turnpike earned more than teachers.

I am paying for my future pension now and when I retire I get the privilege of paying an outrageous amount for health insurance. I don't 'get' anything I don't pay for.

Where do you come up with this shit?

Where would that be? My wife is in her fifth year teaching. She started in Ohio at $26,000. Now, with a master's degree, she's making a whopping $36,000 per year with no raises for the past two years.

If I didn't have a decent salary she couldn't live off that in South Florida.

and added 10 furlough days.
Teachers are just rolling in dough,they are.
My partner is retired military.It would be tough for him to make it on a teacher's salary alone.

One that you don't have to share w. strangers.

...but that doesn't make the national average go up much more. How the hell can a teacher in NYC, Chicago, Boston, San Fran make it on $30K or $40K per year.

There's a huge problem with kids getting out of college as teachers and then after a few years go into the private sector. They simply want to make more money. Therefore the turnover is bad which is a negative for the kids.

Keeps salaries low, workforce pliable and pensions nonexistent.

Quality of the product is irrelevant as the pols sent their kids to private school.

A "good" teacher is one with no experience ... and the low salary at step one.

http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state

Teachers in rural areas tend to make less than those in large metro areas; these are averages.

Unfortunately, teacher pay varies wildly from state to state / region to region

Our teachers are the only ones remotely on par.

I don't believe it. They are so invested in creating and propagating mythology about public school teachers that it's hard to fathom this.

Gotta be the online version only.

Plus summer school, making it four jobs in all.

Nine out of Ten American families earn a combined household income of about 35 grand a year. Nine out of ten. And while I am somewhat sympathetic of the "plight" of teachers, a starting salary of forty grand, plus benefits most American's can only dream of, and all for nine months work, hardly makes me shed a tear.

Nor does it help their cause when it is the nine of ten who are being asked to pony up more.

That's a good 11k below market. You're going to have a hard time attracting talented people at that bargain basement price.

It really doesn't make sense to compare teacher salaries to the salaries of people who don't have a degree.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/10/pf/college_graduates_salaries/index.htm

Students who will graduate this spring are receiving job offers with starting salaries averaging $50,034 per year, up 3.5% from last year, according to a survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

It gives the figure that you stated, but when it breaks it down by major, only engineering and finance are above that average. Everything else including business, accounting, and liberal arts are below that.
I am kind of skeptical about starting salaries of teacher's averaging $40,000 per year also. In both states that I have lived in: Ohio and Wisconsin it is considerably lower. Regardless, I think that it generally hurts attracting and retaining talent when teachers make below average wage for their education. Many teachers also majored in some subject and might be qualified to make more money in that field or find something easier that pays about the same.

I find it hard to believe that 90% of American families make less than 35K combined.

And when you find that source, what education level do those families have making that amount of money. Because a goodly portion of teachers have a Master's degree.

If you get outside major metropolitan areas, where the cost of living is higher anyway, you find that salaries for starting teachers drop dramatically, into the mid to upper twenty thousand dollar range.

Oh, and you're simply wrong about "Nine out of Ten American families earn a combined household income of about 35 grand a year." According to the Census Bureau, the median household income runs right around fifty thousand dollars.

Yes, the benefits are fairly decent, but are outstripped by many professions in the private sector. And if you think that teachers only do nine months work, you obviously don't know many teachers.

Another teacher basher who wants to drag everybody down to your own sorry level, rather than raise yourself up.

$40,000 is not a lot for someone with a masters degree. Shove the right-wing talking points and right-wing "statistics"