Why doesn't the governments pay teachers more to teach?

Question

Federal and State Governments

Answer 1

First, there are many types of teachers. There are teachers of primary and secondary school, required education, hired by governments. There are teachers of the same that are employed by private agencies. There are tutors, college instructors, and people who teach specific trades or skills.

I understand your question to be about the payscales for public elementary & secondary teachers. This question is partially a question of ethics, but it is largely a question of economics. Recall that the definition of economics is "the allocation of scarce resources". Those resources include time, money, facilities, and other things which are finite in scope.

Do private schools (grammar & secondary) pay teachers more? Are their outcomes better because of the pay or because of other conditions (such as student selection, parental involvement/expectations etc)?

What is the supply/demand situation (lots of teachers, few jobs)? In my home state (MN) there are teacher shortages, but only in specific areas (science, ESL, special education). All other areas have an overabundace of people hoping to get a teaching job: these overabundances tend to depress wages.

Look at the standard working conditions. Teaching is a job of much frustration, but so are other jobs. On the other hand, there is tremendous intrinsic reward in teaching. Compensation for a job can be of either intrinsic or extrinsic forms (or some combination thereof). Jobs that are highly intrinsically rewarding have a tendancy to be less economically rewarding because they attract many more people who are believably content with their wages due to job fulfillment.

The standard workyear for a person with a BA degree is 250 days (50 weeks, 5 days / week). The standard workyear for a teacher is 185 days (Sept - June) plus another 20 days or so during the summer of inservice. I won't count extra education requirements or advisements because may professions require ongoing professional certification and education and do not compensate for it (its part of being a "professional"). That brings the average teacher workyear to 225 days, giving them a whole extra 25 days "off" that nearly every other profession works. While teachers can use their time to plan courses etc. there is no requirement that they do so, nor is it strictly necessary for hired job objectives. I do not say this to denigrate teachers in any way, just to be objective about the demands. Assuming a teacher earns a salary of $35,000 and works an 8 hour day for 225 days / year, the salary comes out to just under $20 / hr in wage equivalents, certainly not a ********* amount in job markets where some BA degrees are earning only $13 / hr.

Certainly an entire extra 5 workweeks of vacation is worth something that monetary compensation makes up for in other jobs. In addition, many parents find teaching a convenient lifestyle for raising children because it involves little travel, steady hours, and a parent generally home the same hours as the children. This is another example of intrinsic benefit to a job that monetary compensation is often voluntarily sacrificed to obtain... or in other words, other employers, lacking this inherant reward of the job in their offerings, are forced to give higher wages by the market because too many people make the choice not to work for them if they don't.

One of the greatest drawbacks of choosing the teaching profession is the lack of advancement opportunity. Only one principal presides over dozens or more teachers. A good teacher has nowhere to go to expand their challenges and opportunities, only another year of the same thing.

Also, efficiency needs to be considered: under current teaching models, teaching is a paradigm of one instructor to a handful (6 - 30) of students. Most industries realize wage increases through greater efficiency, that is, one employee accomplishes the work formerly accomlished by two or three employees. Education has experienced a shift in the opposite direction, towards decreased efficiency (small class sizes). I'm not saying this is "good/ bad", just that it is. It may be that changing the models of education from teacher/student to a mentor / student-directed-learning model (with technological assistance) could help improve this ratio. There may be other solutions, but certainly as long as we have a very large number of teachers needed for only a few students, there will be a necessity of economics as well to not pay more than the market (in this case the number of available teachers) will bear.

Returning to the concept of a few specialities being in higher demand: most union wage scales demand "equal pay for equal work", while defining equal work in terms of hours and not in terms of the job itself. This means that salary increases or bonuses cannot be used as a tool to attract potential teachers to fields in which they have high noneducational demand and potential or in which greater effort is required. Some subjects are pretty much static and require less educator effort to maintain with competence (English grammar has a very slow rate of accepted change compared to computer science, for example). Very few school systems, and none public that I am aware of, are able to recognize this inherent difference in the fiels and compensate accordingly, or offer different teaching duties in reflection of the varying amounts of time required for a particular field preparation.

I apologize for the long answer, and am sure I've left some important details out of this problem, but I wanted to provide you with my thoughts on what I see as a complex issue that goes far beyond feelings of "right and wrong".

Answer 2

In Oklahoma the teacher pay is really low. I have been in education for 20 years or so and finally am making 35,000 a year. With 4 years plus 20 hours that is not much pay, even for 180 some days of actual classroom teaching. That doesn't include all the summer workshops that we have to go to and clinics that we go to. Without the teachers, where would we be at this time. Home school, but how did those parents learn to read and write. Enough of the soap box, teachers deserve more money. Please excuse all of the grammar mistakes...........math teacher here!!

Answer 3

Depending on the state, or for that matter, the nation, some governments do pay teachers rather well and some not so well. In the public school system, teacher pay is a part of local, state and national budgets. Tight budgets make for lower pay. Some teachers also find it difficult to afford housing in the districts in which they teach, a problem that some school districts are addressing by helping teachers with housing allowances and guaranteeing loans.

Answer 4

Not so in most districts in Michigan.

A teacher in public schools with a bachelors can expect to make $40 to $50 thousand a year. With raises nearly every year, education money and payroll & healthcare for 12 months a year for life.

Not bad for working 180 days give or take. And if you are smart and take advantage of your free education, once you earn a masters degree you can expect around $70k a year.

I think we pay enough. If the parents of the students don't live that well, then the people their tax dollars pay shouldn't either.

Answer 5

Somebody should have paid your teacher more given your poor grammar.

Some teachers are paid fairly well, others not. Simple fact is that teacher salaries (k-12) come mostly from local taxes. More pay = more taxes.

Most could probably pay more to teachers if they'd reduce some of the darn administrative costs in the districts.

Answer 6

Because teachers are paid from local taxes. Everyone wants teachers to get paid more, but when the politicians say, "okay, we'll give them a $10,000 dollar raise, but we have to raise your property tax by $500" people say, "forget it." The government can only pay what they tax from people. The more they pay, the more they tax. The only way to pay teachers more, is to find alternative sources of revenue, like taxing billionare sport/entertainment stars.

Answer 7

The income can be pretty good, especially considering the school teachers work 9 months out of the year. However, the stress level and planning involved in running a classroom may seem 'excessive.' Teaching is a calling: it's not about the wages!

Answer 8

Feminists argue that low pay in the 'caring professions' (nursing, teaching etc.) is a legacy from the days when those professions were 'women's jobs' and seen as a natural part of women's emotional nature; i.e., done for love not money. It's gradually changing for the very depressing reason that more men are becoming nurses and teachers.

Here's an article that outlines the arguments: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1536107,00.html

Answer 9

~They actually get a pretty good income. People never think it's enough because it's hard to teach children, and being patient.~

Answer 10

Because they make enough already.