Teachers should be paid as what they are. Babysitters. They only deserve $3 an hour.

[MedicalAdmin]

Are you sick of high paid teachers? Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.


Teachers should only be paid less than minimum wage. They are nothing more than glorified babysitters. And we should pay them the same way.

That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM
with 45 min. off for lunch and plan — that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now how many do they teach in day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 peryear. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children
X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!



And it ain't teacher pay.

The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your
kids!)

[hedgehog]

1. Kick - and you should really cross post to GD with this!

[ananda]

2. With the assault on education and teachers now occurring...

many high school and middle school teachers are
looking at a daily load of 175 plus students.

[phleshdef]

4. We had teachers teaching 6 of the 7 periods per day at around 30 per class.

Thats like 180 students and that was 12-15 years ago. 175 students as a daily load is normal.

[leveymg]

3. Look, I know the title is snark, but that's all most people read.

The rest of the piece is a commendable debunking of RW talking points. It's also a repost of someone else's OP - please identify it as such.

[MedicalAdmin]

8. I wrote this myslef over 15 years ago when I was a teacher...

and when I was a union rep. I posted it back then too - er, actually it was published in a union newsletter. So I think that it is OK that I posted it.

If you can find the OP, I would greatly appreciate it. I am of the opinion that good ideas cannot be overexposed. I looked but found bupkiss.

[leveymg]

15. Are you Meredith Menden? Because if you are, you're all over the web today

Saw one just like it (also unattributed) earlier this morning, and the one below posted by Kpete links to a DailyKos repost by sboucher of the same:

kpete Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Donate to DU! Tue Feb-22-11 12:45 PM
Original message

Tue Feb 22, 2011 at 12:18 AM EST
Are you sick of highly-paid teachers?
by sboucher

A friend on facebook shared this with me, and it's a hoot. Read on.

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do -- babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and planning -- that equals 6-1/2 hours).

So each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....

That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6-1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary (nationwide) is $50,000.

$50,000/180 days = $277.77 per day / 30 students = $9.25 / 6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student -- a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.

Meredith Menden

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/22/948224/-Are-yo...
action is my duty, reward is not my concern

Donate to DU and give valentine hearts to your friends! Click here.
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[MedicalAdmin]

18. Nope - I'm not.

I honestly wasn't aware that something similar had been posted or written. I wrote this, with a few edits, about 15 years ago and it was published in a union newsletter. I never trademarked or copyrighted it and I don't care that it, in part or otherwise was used by someone else. As far as I know it has been used in various forms many times and I have seen variations on this theme many times over the past decade or so.

It's silly hyperebole, but it does make a point. That on a person to person basis that we pay children more. Sure it's not an apt analogy, but it was never meant to be.

I really don't care one way or another but perhaps I should erase the OP just to keep everyone happy. Waddayathink?

[faubluewave]

20. Daily Caller's got a college student checking protesters's salaries

http://davemontrose.blogspot.com/2011/02/exposing-all-them-overpaid-wisconsin.html

[palm_to_forehead]

5. Bad Ass.

I'm going to get a gig as a waiter since they only get $3.00/hr here but since they serve 20 people an hour that comes out to about $60/hr.

That's how it works right?

[MedicalAdmin]

9. Nope - I was a waiter too.

YOu would only be able to clock the actual time you spent waiting on those folks, which, unfortunately only clocks out at a minutes on the hour (unless you are doing full french service in which case you are NOT serving 20 people an hour).

I hope this clarification of "the rules of the world if I ran things" works. Thanks.

[palm_to_forehead]

10. Wait, but that's not what the OP said.

I mean, if you serve 20 people an hour, you should get paid $3/hr for every one of them right?

[MedicalAdmin]

13. Yup - for every hours that you were actually serving them.

But not for the time that you aren't serving them. Let's say 5 minutes out of every hours. So you would get paid 1/12 of 20 x $3 or $5 per hour. I am all for wait staff being paid at least minimum plus tips. It's hard work.

[palm_to_forehead]

14. You obviously didn't read the OP

A person is supposed to get paid an hourly wage for every person they are serving/taking care of.

[MedicalAdmin]

16. Read it? I basically wrote the same thing 5 years ago ...

... back when I was a union rep for my teachers unions (another life). Waiting isn't teaching. Waiting is hard work, but it isn't as hard as teaching and it doesn't require advanced degrees, CE etc. Did the real point of the OP kinda whoosh over your head like a jet?

Having said that, as long as we are playing what if games, then I hereby crown myself "lord of all I survey" and grant you a base salary of $90 per hour. Plus tips. And food. And a new car. And 3 former villiage idiots/teabaggers to shine your shoes. And 2 bottles of single malt scotch. And a free subscription of any magazine of your choice as long as it is "Yes."

[palm_to_forehead]

17. No, it didn't.

Yes the preposterousness (not a word, I know) of it did you.

[MedicalAdmin]

19. Um... what?

I'm not sure what you are asking, or even if you are asking something.

Can you clarify?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

6. That's not how minimum wage works.

I guess you'll be proposing that Obama is paid minimum wage ($7.75), presiding over 300 million people for 8 hours per day for about 250 days/year?

OBAMA D'ZERVES LIEK... 4.65 TRILLION DOLLARZ ANNUAL CELERY!!!1!

No, that's not how minimum wage earnings work. But I suspect you knew that.
Teachers make significantly more than any minimum wage employee ever could in a single year.
Average Teacher Salary: $50,000/yr
40hr/week minimum wage: $16,120/yr
80hr/week minimum wage: $40,300/yr (1.5X overtime pay)

EDIT: Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation, has an annual salary of $1,267,670. Given that he presides over some 88,000 employees for 250 work days, are you upset he only makes $1,267,670? I mean, after all, by your logic his compensation is about 0.7 cents per hour. WAY less than minimum wage.

Heck, I guess my manager, (who has 30 employees under him) makes about $1.67/hr taking home only $100,000/year. Poor guy. :cry:

[MedicalAdmin]

7. Honestly I was just trying to make a point.

We do pay babysitters about that much and if you factored in the number of kids times the base rate of pay ... well you get those numbers. Does this exist in nature. Obviously not.

But I respect anyone who can get in front of 30 hormonally challenged kids and actually teach and motivate them. And we should pay them accordingly. In no way can you equate what a manager does and what a teacher does. Employees are mostly self regulating and need little minute to minute direct supervision and feedback. Students do. And yes, Balmer is WAY overpaid. Your boss - maybe and likely not.

Another point. I don't think that teaching is a profession for the simple fact that it is not self regulating like medicine or law. Having said that I do think that many teachers behave as professionals and that they should be allowed to become a profession.

[palm_to_forehead]

11. I volunteer at a weekly workshop on Tuesday nights

for people who are looking to change careers or are currently seeking employment.

Each of the past two April-June time periods we've gotten new people in who were/are employed as teachers who want to look for a career change because of the stress and how little teachers make.

When they say they want to give up their $40,000/yr jobs the rest of the class (who are typically unemployed) jaws drop at why a person would give that up. Last year a guy was down right angry when we told him that he was actually making pretty damn good money at his high school science gig and he'd almost certainly take a pay cut if he went to the private sector.

[pansypoo53219]

12. obviously you learned commie

math from a TEACHER!

[HockeyMom]

21. I made $15/hour to clean 1 bedroom apartments

about 15 years ago. I think even "babysitting" is worth more money than cleaning toilet bowls.

[Modern School]

22. I'll Take the Pay--But I'd Like the Respect, Too

This posting was actually a reposting from http://blog.sittercity.com/2008/03/21/teachers_babysitters/, It was also reposted by Modern School and Education Matters (with credit given)

In any case, everyone should be paid enough to live a decent life and no one needs billions or even millions.