nynetguy's comments

Are Teachers Over Paid?

29 Sep 2009 01:02 PM

My apologies but please ignore the 7th paragraph from my above post.

Are Teachers Over Paid?

29 Sep 2009 01:00 PM

I created an account here just so I could post this because this is a discussion that I had just yesterday.

My position is that teachers, specifically New York City teachers are not only overpaid they are grossly over paid.

The starting salary for a NYC teacher with just a BS and no experience is $45,530. Also, teachers are only required to work a maximum of 6.3 hours a day. Yes there are lesson plans to create, tests and projects to grade and parents to discuss but does that actually ad up to an additionaly 2.6 hours each day?

Giving the benefit of the doubt that meants that the starting hourly rate for a NYC techer who works 180 days for 9 hours a day is $28.10 an hour. Without the full 9 hours that the rest every other civil servant such as a cop or firefighter works would over inflate that hourly rate to $40.15.

So in that regard alone NYC teachers are grossly over paid when one simply compares the total amount of hours they work in a year (1,620 given the benefit of the doubt) compared to the 2,250 hours for other position such as police or firefighter.

NYPD starting salary is about $32,000 dollars by comparison.

Now, as to the claim that "why would I get a degree for a job that pays inimum wage." The average starting salary for a corporte attorney is lower than that of a cops at around $26,000 dollars. Of course the eventual upside there is that the lawyer will eventually move on to a lucrative private practice where the money is.

By contrast the average national sallary for a government attorney position (for 2005) is $46,158. Not all that far away from the starting salary for a NYC teacher with a degree and no experience but when one considers that the average attorney is going to end up working like a dog by putting in 12-14 hour days, sometimes for weeks at a stretch with the fact that the teachers work far less than the base 2,250 hours a year is that in anyway fair?

As for continuing on for your graduate degree that the school system did not pay for. Show me any profession that provides this for their personnel please. Sure, some companies offer some form of tutiotn reimbursement but only at a percentage and the degree sought has to be of something that owuld benefit you at the company. Additionally should you leave the company within a certain number of years you are most likely liable to pay the company back for every dime they reimbursed you for. My last company, as an example offered 60% tutiton reimbursement (not covering any books, labs, etc.) for a Master degree but you had to stay at the company for 5 years or pay back every dime reimbursed.

I have presented these arguments to a number of my friends who are teachers and not one of them can provide me with a solid, provable argument as to why teachers are underpaid so I put the challenge to you here.

Detail the number of hours the average teacher spends on their job. In the school teaching, development days, lesson planning, test/project grading, parent interaction, etc. Break it out so we can see how many hours are allotted to what category. If you can absolutely show that teachers work a full year of 2,250 hours (which is extremely doutful).

Second, assuming that you were able to complete the first part above you would then still have to explain why a teacher, who graduated college with soley a BA and has no experience is deserving of a greater starting pay than a college graduate who graduated with a BA, passed the LSAT, got accepted to law school, passed and obtain their law degree, studied for and passed their Bar and then passed their Character and Fitness evaluation.

I look forward to either no response or one filled with anecdotal arguments at best.