The typical starting salary for teachers should be $40,000, the head of the country's largest education union said Sunday, pledging a renewed fight for higher pay.
But the National Education Association's challenge is enormous. Not a single state pays its new instructors an average of $40,000, with the U.S. average hovering close to $30,000 for beginning teachers, according to the American Federation of Teachers, another teachers union.
NEA president Reg Weaver, speaking to reporters at the union's annual meeting, said his officers will work with their state and local chapters to lobby state leaders and school boards.
Weaver, poised to begin his second three-year term as the union's president, said higher pay for veteran teachers and classroom aides will also be a political priority for the NEA. No cost for the ideas was given, but they would likely require hundreds of millions of dollars or more.
"The issue is where the money is going to come from," Weaver said. "And to respond to that, my answer is I don't care. I don't care where the money comes from. Because when this country thinks and decides that something is important, they find the money."
Teacher pay has long been a point of contention within education. Salaries are often seen as an important reason why schools struggle to hire and keep teachers, which is particularly true for young instructors, men and minorities, Weaver said. But an increasing number of states and districts want to make classroom performance or student scores a bigger factor in teacher pay.
Source: Yahoo News
It amazes me that teachers, whose hands nurture our most valuable assets, are payed so little, while sports stars and celebrities are paid millions and millions of dollars for work that is clearly less important. In this age of globalization we need to strengthen our education system and raising the starting salary of teachers, so that more people are interested in becoming teachers, would be a step in the right direction.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Matt
The lack of respect for teachers, and disdain held for those who protect them vis a vis unions is disgusting. I challenge any one who is married to a teahcer (I am) to tell tme these people are either properly paid or overpaid. They work obscene hours after the kids go home, and spend a significant amount of money out of their own pockets to supplement the learning, even in the best school districts.
Long live the NEA.
2 - Randy Kirk
The right gets hammered as being anti teacher. Not at all. We are anti administrator. Get rid of the 40%-50% of salaries in most districts going to admin, and the teachers will have plenty of money.
My son-in-law is a teacher. 4th year. His pay is pretty darn good actually. He supliments it with teaching summer school when he would otherwise be having a long vacation. But he is able to live in an upscale area, my daughter doesn't work, and they're doing ok. That said, pay him more. I'm all for it.
3 - Fei
I would be interested in hearing the cons of raising the pay of teachers.
4 - Fei
Randy Kirk: Where does your son-in-law live? Here in so. cal I think it would be pretty damn hard to live on a teacher's salry.
I have known people who really want to teach but opted out because of the low pay.
5 - Dave Nalle
What other industry which has comparable training requirements to teaching (a bachelors degree in a largely non-competitive major) has a starting salary of $40,000?
Even nurses, who are comparable to teachers in importance, but go through far more training, don't start at $40,000.
Death to the NEA.
Dave
6 - Randy Kirk
Dave, I'm on your team re the NEA, but I'm all for paying teachers a competitive amount to get the best we can get into the system. But lets also get rid of the really bad ones. My son is at Venice High in CA. It is a pretty highly rated school. Some of the teachers are terrific. Some of them couldn't put caps on my water bottles.
7 - Dave Nalle
Accountability is one of the important elements of the formula for good teaching which the NEA is 100% opposed to. That's one of the reasons why they have to be stopped.
Dave
8 - RJ
"I would be interested in hearing the cons of raising the pay of teachers."
Uh, higher taxes? And other gov't employees then demanding increased pay, which would lead to even higher taxes?
Teachers have a difficult job, but they are not exactly under-rewarded for their efforts. They have good benefits. They have great job security. They have their weekends off. They have their summers off. And 30 grand a year TO START is hardly chump change.
9 - SFC Ski
It might look like they have their weekends and summers off, but the teachers I know generall have to work after school hours preparing lesson plans, grading papers, etc, during the school year. Not too many teachers I know can afford to take the summer of and so teach summer school or take another job in the summer.
Another point is that teachers can't afford to live anywhere near where they teach, and the school district suffers for it.
If you want to attract quality teachers, you need to pay enough to attract them and keep them.
10 - dietdoc
A conundrum, certainly. Who gets (and deserves) more? I, for one, would certainly be in favor of rewarding teachers who do their jobs. I am strongly for certification.
As Pulitzer Pize-winning author David McCullough said on MSNBC Friday night, the problem (in his opinion) is, often, teachers get a generic educational degree with no special training in a specific subject. Then, they get to a school and are assigned to teach history or biology. The teacher may or may not like history or biology but that is what the school needs. And, thus, the problem begins.
The teachers I remember - e.g. Mr. Dorland Box, 11th grade physics and chemistry - loved the subject, themselves. And that passion, not the information presented in a lesson plan (I sincerely doubt they even had them in my day), is what "teaches" the student. In order to convey knowledge, the teacher must have a personal love of that subject. While I don't recall specific lessions and how they were taught, I do remember Mr. Box's excitement and passion for the subjects. He is most responsible for my love of learning all things scientific.
What I would like to see is something like the Peace Corps but done with real-world professionals. For example, I would, personally, love to spend a semester teaching human anatomy or just biology at the high school level. A certified teacher could supervise and do the appropriate documentation. I wouldn't need to be paid; I would just get a kick out watching the lightbulb go off in just one student who found the ramblings - and the fervor I have for the subject - exciting.
It is a sad fact of our society that the legal ramifications and, probably, the NEA themselves, would never allow such a program. But, there are many (I think) like me who would love to show students that learning is exciting and a lifelong love.
Cheers,
Ron
11 - Dave Nalle
There actually is a program like the one you describe to bring professionals in to teach in the schools here in Texas, passed over massive NEA lobbying against it.
The problem is that the hassles of working for the schools are so great that only those who can't work anywhere else are interested. They also need to get rid of the massive bureaucracy and meaningless paperwork and plain busywork teachers have to put up with. Retired professionals I know who want to teach just go teach at private schools because the public schools are too inhospitable.
In Austin the administrative budget just topped 50% of the total school budget. That, along with McCullough's complaint, is what's wrong with the system.
Dave
12 - Sister Ray
Sit in on some elementary education classes at your local university and see if you want to pay $40K a year to some of the airheads you will see.
13 - Big Time Patriot
"Sit in on some elementary education classes at your local university and see if you want to pay $40K a year to some of the airheads you will see."
Really, you have done that? Sat in on those classes? Which university specifically did you go to?
Or was that a rhetorical question, such as "Sit in on a larger corporations board meetings and see if you want to pay millions to have some guy fudge your companies financial returns and send the companies legal location out of the country to avoid paying American taxes (while conveniently not having to actually physically leave America and all its fine private golf courses)?"
On a more practical note, aren't almost all students airheads to some degree? If not, why do they need to even go to college? I'm more worried about the graduates, hopefully they learned SOMETHING while at college.
14 - Dave Nalle
>>Sit in on some elementary education classes at your local university and see if you want to pay $40K a year to some of the airheads you will see.<<
Man, Sister Ray, that's just cruel. No one deserves that.
>>Really, you have done that? Sat in on those classes? Which university specifically did you go to? <<
Well BTP, I have done exactly that, as part of a graduate course on teaching techniques which was required for my degree program. I did it at the University of Texas, but from what I understand what I saw is representative of other education courses. From what I coudl tell the students in the education courses were nice, but not terribly bright for the most part, and the courses were taught at what I'd call a 'remedial' level. Most of what they teach is nothing but obvious common sense, and they repeat the same information over and over again. Anyone who doesn't die of boredom under that regimen has to be missing a few braincells.
Sorry, it's not flattering to teachers, but it's my experience. Almost every good teacher I know went to college for something else and then went back and took the minimum required courses to qualify to teach.
Dave
15 - Sister Ray
I took some el ed classes at Ball State University in Muncie, IN, and a lot of the students were as Dave described above...nice, earnest people but not at the intellectual level you would expect for educators. Read the book "Ed School Follies," in which the author goes around the country to schools of education. She reports verbatim what she heard and saw.
16 - bhw
Ah, yes, using biased anectdotal evidence to malign an entire profession of people. Love it.
Hey, if the teachers are so bad, maybe the NEA is right about needing to raise their starting salaries. If all the smart people head off to better paying jobs in industry, what do you expect to find in our public schools?[/sarcasm]
17 - Dave Nalle
'biased anecdotal evidence' - also known as first hand, personal experience.
We're not supposed to believe what we've seen and heard attending education classes. We should believe the schools of education and the NEA instead.
That's just ridiculous, BHW.
As for raising salaries, it's meaningless. It's not the salary which is discouraging people, it's the working conditions, one of which is the NEA.
Dave
18 - bhw
What's ridiculous, Dave, is basing your opinion of all teachers [or just about] on your own, limited experience.
The first hand, personal experience of a man living in TX is not enough to define the intellect of teachers across the nation. Sorry.
19 - JR
SFC Ski: Another point is that teachers can't afford to live anywhere near where they teach, and the school district suffers for it.
I was thinking about getting a teaching job, and this one had me stumped. Long commute, or a home within toilet papering distance of my students? Hmmm...
20 - Victor Plenty
That's why you want to live in Texas or Montana, where it's legal to shoot them if they toilet paper your house.
21 - Dave Nalle
>>What's ridiculous, Dave, is basing your opinion of all teachers [or just about] on your own, limited experience.<<
Let's see, I have four friends who currently teach in the public schools who have given me first hand info from the teacher's perspective. I also know a superintendent and two school board members fairly well. I've also heard from people allover the country confirming exactly the conditions I've seen myself. It's not just my opinion, it's repeatedly corroborated reality.
>>The first hand, personal experience of a man living in TX is not enough to define the intellect of teachers across the nation. Sorry.<<
If I say it and people all over the country with similar experiences are saying exactly the same thing, it's just possible that it's true.
Dave
22 - bhw
Okay, Dave. I forgot myself for a minute -- now I remember that you know everything and everyone.
23 - Silas Kain
I come from a family of educators. Dave is not far off the money. Most of my relatives who are in education have chosen to go the private education route for their careers. Why is that? Well, the NEA is a good place to start.
Tenure has got to go unless there is a system of checks and balances that ensures that teachers remain fully qualified to teach. In Massachusetts we have the controversial MCAS tests. Teachers hate them. So do parents. But the bottom line is that kids in the public school system are graduating with few, if any, real skills to go forth into the world. At least with MCAS, we are setting some kind of standard for a kid to graduate from high school.
I'm all for teachers getting a decent salary for the education they have to endure to make it in their profession. That being said, the working conditions for teachers will not improve until PARENTS GET INVOLVED. There's the real problem. Apathetic parents have allowed teachers and television to become substitutes for parental responsibility. Responsible parents like Dave Nalle, who actually give a shit about the quality of education his kids receive, get treated like they're the enemy.
24 - Scott
"As for raising salaries, it's meaningless. It's not the salary which is discouraging people, it's the working conditions, one of which is the NEA."
I'm calling bullshit on that. The salary is what's discouraging people. If you can't see that then you're an idiot.
25 - bhw
Silas, I'm sad to hear that this is what you think of your family:
From what I coudl tell the students in the education courses were nice, but not terribly bright for the most part, and the courses were taught at what I'd call a 'remedial' level.