Have you ever learned from a public school teacher who was drastically underpaid ...

[11 Bravo]

Poll question: Have you ever learned from a public school teacher who was drastically underpaid ...

who worked their ass off to provide a quality education to all of their students, who routinely stayed after contract hours to provide additional help to needy students, and who spent hundreds of dollars of their own money to supplement educational materials?

[Johonny]

1. does your family count if they were teachers?

[roguevalley]

48. does it count if you were that teacher?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

2. no, but i live with a private school teacher who does all that n/t

[CBR]

9. +1 My grandmother taught public school and my husband teaches

in a private school. They both work/ed their asses off.

[walldude]

3. I'd rec this a hundred times if I could...

Man this war on teachers needs to end.

[jpljr77]

4. Define "drastically underpaid."

I agree that teachers should probably be paid more, but "drastically underpaid" is histrionics on a "I want my country back" level, imo.

[donco6]

16. Well, our beginning teachers make all of $34,759

I'd say that's drastically underpaid.

[jpljr77]

20. Beginning where?

That matters, of course.

And don't tell a ton of 22-year olds in the U.S. that $34K (with great benefits), regardless of location, is being "drastically underpaid." I'm sure they'd take exception.

Where I'm coming from: I'm the son and husband of lifelong public school teachers. I know EXACTLY how much teachers get paid. Should it be more? Maybe. But this blind, union-line, "give us more, more, more" crap IS NOT helping the cause...that much I am certain of.

How many kids just out of college would kill for a $34K job with full benefits?

[donco6]

22. Denver, Colorado.

I'm not in a union - I'm in administration. Our teachers are pathetically underpaid, but there's no more money to give them. It's simply undeniable. To think you would try is kinda sad.

[DailyGrind51]

27. With tenure, pension, and health insurance, where do I sign up?

[donco6]

31. Just go here:

www.mapleton.us

[izzybeans]

33. You might want to sub first, see if you are up for the "daily grind"

[DailyGrind51]

34. I am state certified, 2 graduate degrees, & can't find a position!

I subbed for 3 years prior to going back to grad school for certification and the second masters. There is a glut of teacher candidates in Illinois much younger than I am (mid-life career change), and they can't find jobs either. They tell me that districts don't like to pay for the graduate degrees with only entry level experience, especially since I am nearing 60!

[izzybeans]

36. Where are you located?

roughly.

If I here of anything I'll pass it your way.

[taught_me_patience]

5. no - many of us do extra work for our jobs

that's normal life.

[texastoast]

7. So you work for the man for free?

There are laws in place that require that you be compensated for the time you put in unless you agree otherwise. At least, there are laws now (with a big thanks to unions for those).

[taught_me_patience]

11. It's called a salary

And if you've got projects that require you to stay late, you stay late. So, yeah, I guess it's working for "free". What's the big deal? Unions have had no affect on my working hours.

[texastoast]

49. I know

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4328664&mesg_id=4328914

Unions likely haven't organized in your place of business either. Until recently, my line of work feared the unions and kept them at bay due to better salary and working conditions.

Now, my company is in the "be afraid for your job" mode and squeezing every minute, every effort, and every dollar out of everyone, dumping more and more work on fewer people.

[mike_c]

17. that might be, but very few people in that income bracket work so MANY extra hours...

...in my experience. I'm not a public school teacher-- I'm a state university professor, and that's a whole different ballgame in terms of compensation. I make more money than most K-12 teachers, I suspect. But the workload is probably equivalent. I'm paid for a 40 hour/week workload and typically work close to DOUBLE that, and that's about normal for K-12 teachers too. My experience is that for most working people, a few uncompensated hours means just that-- a FEW uncompensated hours. But an extra 20/week? 30/week? 40/week?

If you think that's an unlikely workload, consider this: I work 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week during the academic year and about half that long, I'd estimate, during the summer. Summer work is completely uncompensated, of course. Assuming that I squeeze a couple of weeks out of the year for a genuine vacation, that works out to about 36 weeks x 40 hrs = 1,440 compensated work hours annually and (assuming the low end of 10 hrs/day work) it is (36 weeks x 30 hrs) + (14 weeks x 35 hrs) = 1,570 uncompensated work hours annually. In other words, like most in the teaching profession, I work significantly MORE uncompensated hours than compensated time-- and that's figuring compensation for the extra hours as straight time since my position is salaried rather than hourly, and using reasonably conservative numbers.

Now, I agree with you-- lots of people perform extra, uncompensated work, but I'd guess that few professions in equivalent income brackets routinely demand THAT MUCH uncompensated work. I'm not complaining-- I do this because it's what I like and MY salary is adequate for my needs-- but I think most people in jobs that pay $25K-$75K would not be happy to give away that much more time than they're paid for, not just occasionally, but routinely, day in and day out, for their entire working lives. You have to love your work to accept treatment like that!

[BlooInBloo]

44. Programmers routinely work 60-80 hour weeks...

But yah, most definitely not at a teacher's pay.

[paulsby]

6. hell ya

i also learned from private school teachers fwiw, who got paid less than public school teachers (Woefully underpaid).

good teachers everywhere

[flvegan]

8. My mother taught for 23 years.

So yup, yup, yup and yup.

And she certainly wasn't the only one. Being a teacher's kid means you know lots of the other teachers personally.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Ditto, plus husband taught, MIL was an ed tech, I subbed and so has my dad.

[Ysabel]

12. voted yes...

aside: are there (or have there ever been) any public school teachers not drastically underpaid ??

- i'm not really asking...

------------------------------------------------

edited to insert the word "public"...

[DevonRex]

13. Absolutely. My favorite teacher EVER was a black woman in the deep south

during the civil rights era. She was overworked, underpaid, couldn't go to the same waiting rooms in doctors' or dentists' offices, wouldn't have been allowed in the homes of children she taught. Except for the African Americans' homes, anyway.

Still, amid all that prejudice, she gave me an abiding love of science. And she was the reason I first began to question whether my parents and all the other white people in town were right or not in matters of race.

She was elegant. That's the best way to describe her. So dignified, so calm, with a quiet sense of humor, she found a way to make us love to learn. I'll never forget her and what she meant to me.

[Nikki Stone1]

14. K & R

.

[activa8tr]

15. Or we could ask, did you ever learn something from a drastically OVERpaid

Pro Ball player, Pro Golfer, Health Insurance Company Executive, Banker, Republican politician?

Let's let the argument go both ways.

Why do we pay any and all teachers so little and pro Golfers, (and all the others) so much?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

21. let's see...

teacher : annual audience ~300
athlete : annual audience >1M in person >10M through TV/Radio

teacher : price of admission ~$1000/student (which must also pay for building, buses, materials...)
athlete : price of admission ~$60 + ad revenue from TV and Radio

teacher : advertising sponsorships <$1
athlete : advertising sponsorships >$1 up to many millions $$$

I am not saying teachers aren't underpaid...they are (my wife is one). But athletes are paid for the most part from a MUCH MUCH MUCH larger pie...and if they didn't take it, someone else would!

sP

[Political Heretic]

42. not notion that a free market ascribes appropriate value is demonstrated to be absurd here.

teachers "products" cannot be easily measured - thus they are not valued the same as CEOs or Celebrities whose selling power can be clearly measured.

And yet, teachers are about 50x as important.

[ibegurpard]

18. absolutely

no one gets rich teaching school

[Javaman]

19. Yes, I have. My good friend that teaches 5th grade.

each time I talk to her, she schools me on how her school is continually short on funds and supplies and how she pays out of pocket for them. Just so she can have the tools to teach her kids.

Each year I donate note books and pencils to her class.

[demtenjeep]

35. I am sure she thanks you for that!

I love it when I get gifted pens and pencils, paper and glue sticks and colored pencils.

[county worker]

23. I went to Catholic school for grade school to college.

Don't forget to watch the University of Dayton in the NIT tonight!

[demtenjeep]

24. I teach in a Title 1 school

I am always supplying pencils and paper, bandaids, maxi pads and a whole host of things to my students. I do this out of my own pocket and do not plan to change. Many of my fellow teachers wonder why I do this and I tell them we have to pick our battles and fighting over why someone does or does not have a pencil is NOT a battle I want to waste time on.


Additionally, I provide colored pencils, glue construction paper and a lot of other project supplies so that my classroom remains hands on and exciting.

Last year, we were talking about the Oregon Trail and discussed the job kids had of finding and gathering "buffalo chips" for firewood. I made 300 chocolate no bake cookies and presented them to my students as "buffalo chips"

This year I made them all real buffalo burgers. Many of my students have never had much experience outside their personal realm of identity. I try to do all I can to broaden their horizens.

[donco6]

25. Thank You.

I wish things were different. But I'll bet those kids never forget about buffalo chips.

[demtenjeep]

28. I love my job. I live my job.

its funny, several kids really thought I might be having them eat "buffalo chips" The look on their face was priceless.

I had to tell several of them to trust that I would never put them in harm's way.

[donco6]

30. Dontcha wish you had a camera every second?

I've always wanted a good pic of the "light bulb" moment - but it's so elusive.

[demtenjeep]

32. yes, that would be great

every day is an adventure

[Turbineguy]

26. The one's who teach you a lot are by definition

underpaid.

[lostnfound]

29. 1 year of public and 11 years of private.. yes. nt

[datasuspect]

37. everyone knows public school teachers drive in welfare cadillacs and eat caviar off the constitution

[Motown_Johnny]

38. My mother was a public school teacher in Detroit for 38 years

so Yes, Yes I did

[bigwillq]

39. Yes

Many. I am a huge public school supporter.

[AnArmyVeteran]

40. Hawaiian Teachers forced to take 8% less!

Teachers in Hawaii, who were already underpaid, were forced to take an 8% reduction in salary. They barely had enough to exist before, but now a lot of them are thinking of leaving teaching. Meanwhile, the republican governor of Hawaii did nothing to tap into the huge revenue increases of companies like Tesoro Oil, which has a huge presence in Hawaii. Their stock went from $2 a share in August 2002 but immediately after Cheney and Bush started talking about war against Iraq, the stock of Tesoro went up to almost $140 a share. Did Tesoro discover any new oil fields? No. Did they develop a new way to process oil more efficiently? No. They did nothing other than profit off of the blood of our soldiers, who were sent to Iraq to be nothing more than low paid mercenaries only in Iraq to protect the financial interests of corrupt corporations.

Tesoro Oil in Hawaii made a fortune during Bush's War, but they aren't being asked to give an additional dime to help with the state shortfall in Hawaii. While teachers are teaching the children of Tesoro executives, they are now getting paid a whopping 8% less, while Tesoro workers became extremely wealthy for doing nothing other than to exploit a war and a political climate that favored industry under the Bush presidency and the republican controlled congress.

Hawaiian teachers can't even afford decent housing, or housing at all. To make ends meet they have to have roommates to share expenses. And to add to their burden are all the millionaires and billionaires who have 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 10th mansions in Hawaii driving up housing prices and further harming the poor and dwindling middle class. The republican governor of Hawaii doesn't give a damn about teachers. She is a prostitute to big business, as most conservative republicans are. It is sad how void conservatives are of empathy and compassion. They use every opportunity to screw the hard working people, while whoring themselves out to their corporate pimps.

[donco6]

41. That sounds awful.

I'm sure the cost of living must be horrendous there. I don't know how a teacher would do it.

Pretty soon, we're going to be back to the schoolmarm' being farmed out to families to live in the attic.

[Bluebear]

43. A refreshing alternative to that dreadful push poll.

[hfojvt]

45. not that I know of

They might have stayed extra hours, but I never heard about it. Except, of course, for the time I had to stay after school to finish my stupid art project. If that is considered "additional help" then I would like to "help" somebody upside the head. Also, teachers might have been buying supplies with their own money, but none of them ever told me about it. If they were, they should have said something to me, since my dad was on the school board.

[Greybnk48]

46. When I was in 4th grade, my dad and I went in to our local grocery store

and there was Mr. McGinty, my teacher and absolute hero, stocking shelves. His wife was our school nurse and (full time, in uniform), and he still had to have a second job nights and weekends. I cannot describe how this made me feel. He and my dad were buds and they just began chatting, but I was sick and angry to see him doing this (having to do this).

[4lbs]

47. The best teacher I ever had was my 4th grade teacher in my public elementary school.

Mr. Job was his name. I learned the most with him. However, he intimidated and didn't get along with the other teachers all that well. He was in his early 50's at the time, a heavy smoker, pretty cantankerous and condescending when he felt he was engaged with someone who was talking nonsense. Especially if that other person was a teacher that didn't seem to care too much about the students.

He was ex-Navy and fought in WWII in the Pacific. He developed a circle of specially gifted students where he tought advanced courses --- to 4th - 6th graders. He lobbied the school to allow me to be his student in the 5th and 6th grades as well, at least part time if not full time. So, in the 4th through 6th grades, I learned algebra, trigonometry, linear algebra, some pre-calculus, biology, chemistry, a little classical physics, and more advanced literature and American history. Where other kids were covering basic reading at a 4th or 5th grade level, we were covering Hemingway, Steinbeck, Shakespeare (pretty difficult for a 5th grader), O. Henry and Edgar Allen Poe.

He also was one who really lit into a student if that kid didn't do his/her assignments. During those 3 years I was with him, I only ever failed to do my homework just 3 times. Each time, he screamed at me at how stupid it was of me not to do my homework. Yes, he yelled at me in front of everyone. I learned very quickly that, hey, maybe I should be doing my homework all the time. He also cussed. Yes, in front of the other kids, and at me those 3 times.

He was pretty much a drill sargeant, but I responded well to that. My father met him during a school open house one year and he told my father how he treated the kids and me in classes and how he yelled at me the rare times I didn't do my homework. My father approved. I was learning and working very well with my teacher, and that's what my father cared about.

He saw that my mathematics and computational skills far exceeded anyone else's in the school and entered me, in the 5th and 6th grades, into a county-wide mathematics contest called "The Math Field Day." I competed against hundreds of kids from other county elementary schools doing a series of math problems over a 3 hour period. I "won" the contest, both years. He helped me with my preparation by giving me hundreds of sample problems to do, from trigonometry all the way up to pre-calculus.

He was also the only teacher to identify my best friend (at the time) as having dyslexia. All the other teachers simply thought my friend wasn't trying or didn't care. My teacher figured it out pretty quickly with one question: "John, what do you see when you try to read a book?" The answer: "The words get all jumbled."

Mr. Job died of lung cancer the same year I graduated high school. I went back to my elementary school to find out where he was (he had retired a few years before) to thank him for being a major reason I graduated and learned so much, and learned of his passing.

As far as I'm concerned, the school and county could have never paid him enough.