If public school teachers were the highest paid professionals...?

Question

Creating an environment in which teachers are truly well-trained, qualified and fully motivated to teach and encourage children's natural intelligence would make the future a better and brighter place.
My question is: Do you think, as a teacher, that being paid lucratively would improve your classroom, your motivation and your students? And do you have any other thoughts on the subject?
Thank you.

Answer 1

I'll tell you, I have the opportunity right now to pick up a teacher's certification. Low cost, fairly quick, and I'd be VERY good at it. I'd love it, too.

You know what, though? I can get paid much more doing other things. It's all well and good to say "dedication to children," but that doesn't put food on the table and it doesn't keep my family financially secure.

When you look at the amount I could make elsewhere, I'd be paying 5 figures a year to become a teacher. Not happening.

And I'm not the only one.

Answer 2

I agree that my husband and I are able to pay the bills, and we don't have to pay for insurance. That's a blessing. However, the stats you have don't match up at all in NC where we teach. The students attend school for 180 days, and the teachers obviously work more than that (I think we work about 2 more weeks, give or take). Your 5 hours stat is completely unfounded. You're probably taking out planning, lunch, and before & after school duties. I'm required to work from 7:45 to 3:15, which is 7 and a half hours. None of that time is free, including lunch (I'm watching students then), so my required time is that of a typical 40 hour work week. I'm sure you know that most teachers exceed their required time a lot, and we don't get paid extra for that. I don't get paid extra for attending PTO meetings, committee meetings, and other required functions outside of the normal school day. I sponsor and afterschool club and get no compensation of any kind. I'm also the head of my department and receive no compensation for that either. Coaches, at least in my area, don't get paid anywhere close the figures you've got. Our average salary isn't $65,000 either. Like I said, I'm able to pay the bills and am blessed to have a job that will always be needed, no matter how trying times may be. I'm hardly, however, in the highest paid profession.

Answer 3

Ummm, to the poster above me who thinks teaching is so competitive... There is a National Teacher shortage! We can't fill the positions we have, and the situation is NOT getting better!

As for a huge pay increase... I think that it would make the classrooms better because then there WOULD be intense competition to have the jobs and keep them.

Only the teachers who did a very good job motivating students to learn, would be able to stay long-term. And so, it would make us all more aware of our strategies and what really works!

Also, sadly, people in this World tend to respect those who earn very large salaries... And so making EFFECTIVE teaching very lucrative, would raise the level of respect for teachers overall, and this would overflow into classrooms as well.

The thing is, in raising the pay in a huge way, you might weed out some of the people who really have a passion for teaching -- and this would be a bit sad from the students' perspective! Not everything worth learning is listed in the curriculum, and some teachers who might be excellent at inspiring a love of learning, or instilling a will to overcome problems, could potentially not be those with the highest standardized test scores.

The trick would be to evaluate teachers on all the right levels, in order to decide who stays and who gets the boot!

Answer 4

I actually think that if we wanted to be truly successful, we'd need to reconstruct our schools, and get rid of a lot of teachers.

Let me explain. You can pay me 30,000 a year or 100,000 a year, I will still only be able to do so much with 30 children in a class. You can't just pay a teacher more and expect better results. If I have 10 kids in a class, I can do so much more... but if I'm paid 30,000 to do it, I may not know what to do with my 10 kids.

What I believe needs to happen is that we have head teachers, that supervise about 4 apprentice teachers. Each apprentice teacher will teach no more than 12 kids at a time, and they will not make their own lessons, but will teach the lessons created by the head teacher. The head teacher will spend their days between the 4 classes. So one teacher will be paid as a professional and have a masters degree, and 4 apprentices will be paid much less and have like an associates degree.

The basic idea though is that giving me more money regardless of my qualifications and happiness will not change things if I have too many children to do dynamic lessons.

Answer 5

I think it would not affect me all that much. I am already fully invested in my classroom. I have a profession that I consider a calling. So for me, the increased pay would be nice, but would not change much.

This is not to say I don't think there would be some benefit. One problem we suffer from is lack of candidates. I do think increased pay would bring some people into the profession who are currently looking elsewhere. Math and Science educators are in demand nation wide.

I teach in an urban Los Angeles school. It is week two of the year and we have three openings still. These classes will be covered by a substitute until we can find someone (three someones) chances are they will not be covered this year ... it has happened before. We will probably have to farm the classes out to teachers to teach extra periods and hire a long term sub. The classes in question are:

Mathematics and two sciences (surprised?) And this is not three periods, it is three lines (this means three teachers sets of classes)

A mathematics major makes quite a bit in other fields. We sure could use some at my school.

Answer 6

I am an anomoly. I left a lucrative job to become a teacher. I took a $20,000+ cut in salary to work 30+ more hours a week; and you couldn't pay me enough to get me to go back into the business world!

I do the best job that I can do. More money wouldn't make a difference. I think that all good teachers (and yes, there are some good ones out there) feel this way.

In my humble opinion, I think that a lot of the problem with students not doing well in school is that education doesn't seem to be valued in our society. We award role-model status to absolute train-wrecks and then are surprised when our children emulate that type of behavior. We, as a society, seem to be enamored of those people who display the lowest-common denominator type of behavior (i.e. drunk, disorderly, offensive, inappropriate, insubordinate, lewd, etc.). When society turns its back on this and starts to focus attention on those people who strive to make the world a better place, and begins to value education, I think that THEN we will see a change. Until then, more money for teachers isn't going to make a difference.

Answer 7

I think if teachers were given a vast increase in pay, it would raise the scrutiny for teachers. Some teachers wouldn't deserve it, and maybe then union walls could be broken for the benefit of students.
To answer your question, I'm already highly motivated, but part of the fact that I get paid a good teachers' salary for a new teacher 43k definitely helps me feel like it's worth it. And if I wouldn't make very much teaching, I could easily switch fields to something else, but for me it's worth it to make a little less and have more fun and more security.

Answer 8

I am not quite certain about "highest" paid professionals, but I do feel that teachers definitely should be paid as professionals, comparable with engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc. I feel that the bar should be set higher to become qualified to be a teacher and that the compensation should then be commensurate with that of any professional.

The ultimate effect would be that people with an interest and natural talents toward teaching would actually want to become teachers, and we would have better teachers overall in the schools.

I am not a teacher, but I feel strongly that changes in teacher education and certification, and corresponding increases in teacher compensation, are critical to the future of public education and society as a whole. It should be harder to become a teacher, but more lucrative, with greater incentive to follow that career path.

Answer 9

i don't want to be greedy, but i do think it would be better to be paid more. a person acts and performs as seriously as they think other people view them. by under paying someone, you send them the message that their job doesn't matter that much.

more than that though....i think there needs to be more promotional opportunities in the school system. as well as more chances for recognition and demotion. it's kind of crazy that you can win a Disney Teacher of the Year award and NOT get a pay raise. what other kind of job does that??? the pay scale based on experience is a little annoying. it makes people feel like no matter how well they do, it doesn't matter.

also, it's practically impossible to fire a teacher whose worked longer than 3 years. in the business world, if you suck, you get fired. so....why isn't teaching that way?? and i DON'T mean base this off student test scores. i don't think it should be the teachers fault if a kid comes in pissed and blows a state test. but there has to be another way to assess teachers, and get rid of the bad ones!!

bottom line, in the real world, success is rewarded with recognition, promotion, and salary increase. so why is it any different with teaching??

Answer 10

Michigan tried this little social experiment and as a cost/benefit analysis it has failed miserably.

Our teachers are the 6th best paid in the country, but our students are still ranked in the middle of the stats. We have received NO benefit from their extra pay and great benefits. First year teachers in Detroit make around 50K annually and the drop out rate is still estimated to be around 70%.

Throwing money at problems never fixes them, and as long as teaching is a union environment we will not be able to change things. Unions protect unions, and those that pay union dues, they do not believe in firing non-performers, they don't allow those that don't care to be removed. We end up with the lowest common denominator, which is exactly what we get out of the students being graduated.