[thechat] P.o.Ws - Thought this was interesting...

Ben Dyer ben_dyer at imaginuity.com
Tue Jan 29 14:48:00 CST 2002


On 02:22 PM 1/29/2002, Dean Mah said to me:
>Ben Dyer writes:
> > Most teachers want nothing more than to be paid fairly, which just
> > isn't happening.
>
>Out of curiousity, what is paid fairly?

Well, as a comparison, the average teacher in the DISD (since I'm picking
on them today), makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $35K.  The
middle-class suburbs tend to pay slightly higher, maybe $3-5K more.  The
upper-class suburbs pay about $10K more.

Now, in the DISD, for comparison, an athletics coach will average almost
twice that (about $65K).  Even the security guards make about $3K more than
the average teacher.

Actually, you know what?  I've been hunting for some hard statistics online
as I've been writing this, let me use this one:

<http://sd.znet.com/~schester/facts/salaries.html>

Slightly older data, but the ratios should still be similar.

This has "Education" at around $25K/yr.  Behind Retailing, Accounting,
Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Nursing, Physical Therapy, etc.  (Not that
any of those professions aren't important, I'm just using them for comparison.)

I'm just saying that education is one of the lowest (comparatively) paying,
high skill professions in this country.

>My wife and I both work in the computing field and our starting
>salaries were at the same level as teachers, i.e., around $30K CAD.
>We had, as far as I can tell, fewer benefits and less holidays.  And
>up until this year, I never made more than $40K USD and I've been in
>the industry for 8 years.

Actually, I just want to raise one point here.  Lots of people have a
misconception that teachers get all this time off.  They don't.  Even
through summer vacation (which is shrinking in length every year, by the
way), teachers have to work to prepare for the year.  A teacher is always
working.

Anyways, I have lots of teacher friends, so I'm kinda rising to their
defense today.

(Also...sidebar...has anyone else noticed that teacher ages have decreased
significantly over the last...oh..20 years or so?  When I was in elementary
school, most of my teachers were in their late 30s and 40s.  Now, I have
several friends near my age, 22, who are teachers.  Weird.)

--Ben


Ben Dyer, Senior Internet Developer, Imaginuity Interactive
http://www.imaginuity.com/

     If you save the world too often, it begins to expect it.
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