Comments about ‘Teachers not overpaid’

I am curious why they leave the profession so soon? Is it too much work, grading papers of a class of 32? Are they undervalued? 40% take second jobs to make ends meet.

It's interesting that the attrition rate is so high for new teachers, but what happens when teachers manage to stick with it for longer than five years?

"Perhaps the Heritage Foundation is grasping at straws to promote its political agenda of destroying all public services, including education."

I think the author hit the nail on the head.

"Teachers are not necessarily underpaid, but they are undervalued. If you were to weigh the value teachers have to society, then they should be paid higher than most other professions out there. Sadly, our nation does not value education."

Actually I think our nation does value education, that is until election time then all those pin headed academics turn into monsters according to some politicians. But, as stated in the first sentence, we don't value educators. We will pay the admission fee and buy all the overpriced merchandise that helps to pay multi-million dollar salaries to professional athletes. But if you ask any of us to contribute that same amount to the salaries of educators, suddenly our pockets are empty and we plead poverty. Shame on us.

Teachers get two and a half to three months off every year. I am sure they put in over 40 hours of work during the school year though. They make a decent salary more than people that work in stores and such. And know there salary before they choose there proffesion. Some go into the proffesion do to the extra time off.

Good there are teachers out there I don't think I consider them overpaid though.

Look, teachers are underpaid, plain and simple. Want to attract more talented people to educate and train your children, the future of this nation? Raise the pay, with accountability, and you will have astounding outcomes. Pay them as little as you possibly can, the outcome with your children will be mediocre. We are our worst enemies, selling our birthright for a bowl of pottage. Penny wise and pound foolish. This situation speaks volumes about our society here in Utah and in the U.S. generally.

Why we even give space to an organization like the "Heritage Foundation" is beyond me. It is like giving space to the "utah tax payers association". Both organizations are just fronts for politicians with an agenda.

No sane person thinks a teacher is overpaid.

The author of this letter is correct. If it was such a great profession, there would be a long line of candidates for the job. People really do see it as a noble profession. The reality is we can't find enough math or science teachers so often we get teachers that are less than qualified.

No retirement plan, no vision or dental insurance, ever diminishing health insurance, low pay, and no respect. That is what a new teacher in Utah has to look forward to. No wonder we have a hard time getting teachers.

Look to Finland for your ideas on how to treat teachers.

"Perhaps the Heritage Foundation is grasping at straws to promote its political agenda of destroying all public services, including education."

It is comments like these that cloud the dialog. The tendency to jump to the most unreasonable conclusion in order to demonize the other side of the arguement simply discredits the author. Too bad. I really think that we should be having a dialog as to the real compensation vs work performed by our teachers.

We should be considering the 8am-4pm, 9 month year, lots of holidays myths that surround the profession and look at the real costs (including opportunity costs and societal value) of being a teacher. I do believe that there is a "have your cake and eat it too" element to the profession, but I also think there are many unrecognized contributions as well. It would be nice to see a study where all factors are condsidered.

"Perhaps the Heritage Foundation is grasping at straws to promote its political agenda"

Bingo!

The Heritage Foundation study was not peer reviewed. There was no checking of methods by an anonymous and impartial group of scientists, which is the primary safeguard against flawed research being published in reputable journals. It's easy to lie with statistics. It's easy to cherry-pick facts and methodologies that you suspect will give you the answer you want. And it's very easy to sell this stuff to folks who are just looking for any bit of evidence to support their pre-conceived notions.

The Heritage Foundation has been known for quite some time to have an anti-public services agenda. They never let facts get in the way of their opinions.

Most teachers are female. Many leave to raise a family.

All of us switch jobs when we find that our value is higher than our present employer wants to pay us for.

There is nothing wrong with teachers changing jobs. If they find something else that better suits their needs, they should change. Who among us stays at a job forever just because society labels us a mechanic, a lawyer, a doctor, or an astronaut?

Good teachers can find higher paying jobs just like good mechanics can find higher paying jobs.

Saying that all teachers should be paid more because SOME teachers are leaving would be the same thing as saying that we need to pay more for car repairs because some mechanics are leaving.

Let them leave. Let them follow their dreams to do what they must do to care for their families. That's why we work.

My dream job would not take care of my responsibilities, so I work at a job that does take care of my responsibilities. I think that most of us do that.

Many teachers apparently leave public education for a job at a parochial school at a much smaller salary. Why is that? I think teaching at a public school must be a nightmare, especially in Junior High. Children can abuse teachers but teachers are afraid to say "Boo!" to obstreperous children.

I bet there are teachers who are underpaid, and others who are overpaid, but I wouldn't teach at a public school for love nor money.

"Most teachers are female. Many leave to raise a family."

Why have males left this profession?

Again, repubs cannot get around this issue. Teachers are severely underpaid. People are leaving this profession because they cannot make ends meet. They are constantly under assault from government leaders wanting to cut their benefits and from conservative media (like the Heritage Foundation) that will stop at nothing to promote their private sector agenda.

Teachers are not overpaid. This has been debunked a number of times now.

The Heritage Foundation has no credibility. Those who insist that teachers are overpaid, are clearly not letting facts guide their opinions but opinions/conservative agendas guide their "facts."

In that case, please keep your ill-informed opinions to yourself.

Why high attrition in the profession?

* not the low pay
* too much emphasis on tests and useless strategies which surround it.
* too much rights given to misbehaved, and under performing students.
* too much micro management

How much does a babysitter make? A teacher with an average class size of 25 is basically babysitting them for 7 hours except they're also teaching them. So what does a babysitter make if you leave your kid with them for 7 hours? Then multiply it by 25. Do teachers make more or less than that a day?

To "Derek Smith" many teachers quit because of the rules and regulations placed on them by the government starting with the federal government down to their local school boards. Many are leaving the teaching profession because parents don't care what their kids learn, only that they get good grades.

You have the plethora of federally and stat mandated testing. There are all the rules regarding what can and can't be taught. There are the liability laws that tell teachers they can't touch a child to stop them from doing something at the same time teachers are held responsible for any harm coming to the kids they teach.

The teachers that I know are all frustrated with all the testing and the rules that prevent them from doing anything useful.

Mike Richards -- when someone is forced to leave their "dream job" in order to make a living, isn't that really a kind of tragedy?

re: one old man,

It's a tragedy only if you consider your job more important than your family.

From the earliest times as Americans, we sought a way to make things better for OUR FAMILIES. Only recently has the hue and cry been that we need to satisfy ourselves. That selfishness led us to the problem of people demanding that others pay more taxes so that THEY could satisfy themselves in THEIR chosen occupation.

Make no mistake about it, selfishness and self-concern is at the bottom of this.

Ask your neighbors which job they would have LIKED to have had. Ask them whether they actually worked at that job. In conversations with my neighbors, not one worked at the job that he would have liked to work at. EVERY ONE of them worked at jobs that provided for their families. They did not consider themselves "special". They did not put their "dreams" above the needs of their family. They were fathers and providers who knew what it meant to sacrifice for their families.

Degrees did not matter when it came time to provide. They did what they had to do, not what they wanted to do.

My simple solution and pay scale for teachers is this (and I think teachers would go for this).

A simple wage of $2.00 per hour per child. I mean, nobody could argue that is too much right, don't most people at least pay their babysitters $2.00 per hour. I'm sure day care cost more than this. I'm sure the boys and girls clubs for older children cost more than this, whether they charge the government or the families directly.

I wouldn't even make benefits apart of the package.

I know say a high school teacher with 40 students per class for 1.5 hours of teaching per block times three teaching blocks is making $360 per day.

I think an elementary teacher that has 30 students a day for 6 hours would get that $360 daily rate.

Just my giving simple babysitting wages I have solved the crisis. I wouldn't even demand teachers try to teach lessons. Because honestly, if the general public can't come up with more than a babysitting wage for any teacher, how much teaching can we fairly expect?

Worf:

I think your reasons 2-4 are correct. But I think #1 is wrong. Teachers are leaving because of pay and shrinking benefits. For decades women have definitely dominated elementary education. That hasn't changed over time much. In the field of secondary education things have changed. For example, when I went through the secondary education program at BYU, there were actually more male secondary education candidates than females. Now it's about 75-80% female vs. male in secondary education and while females dominated elementary education even then, males in elementary education now are an endangered species. I think the lack of males in both elementary and secondary education is highly problematic.

But in reality worf, it isn't so much that low wages are driving teachers away from education (plus the other three items you mentioned), the bigger problem is that many people, including the male teachers I think public education desperately needs, aren't even considering the profession in the first place. And the primary reason is the pay.

So expect increasingly more females in the profession. Not the males are necessarily better teachers, but more female teachers means less male role models and higher teaching turnover.