Teacher salaries

[Glen Miyashiro]

Isle teacher pay at bottom in survey of 50 U.S. areas

Honolulu teacher salaries were the lowest out of 50 U.S. metropolitan areas in 2003-04 when adjusted for the cost of living, and likely will remain so despite a planned pay raise, according to a nationwide analysis.

Hawaii's average public-school teacher salary of $45,467 for that period -- the most recent complete set of data -- ranked 26th in the country, according to the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis,which compiled the inaugural study.

However, Hawaii's high cost of living reduced that figure to an effective $27,048, dead last in the survey, it said.

(Star-Bulletin (http://starbulletin.com/2005/08/16/news/story4.html))Dead last?! Man, I knew our teachers had it rough, but DEAD LAST?!? :mad:

[Surfingfarmboy]

Man, that is outrageous how the cost of living in Hawai'i discounts the value of the salary public teachers in Honolulu earn. According to my calculations, a public teacher in Honolulu would have to earn at least 76,000+ dollars just to be on an even playing field with the public teachers from the metro areas from which the comparative data was compiled.

[Miulang]

And that's why a lot of Hawai'i teachers work second jobs (some I know are entertainers) because they need the extra cash to supplement their piddly teacher's salaries, if they have families to support. It really is a shame that teachers can't make more money for the amount of time they have to spend not only in the classroom, but in the preparation of class materials. :mad:

Miulang

[Palolo Joe]

It's not like the teachers are the only ones forced to pick up a second job... there are lots of other Oahu residents who work two or three jobs just to make ends meet.

[Miulang]

It's not like the teachers are the only ones forced to pick up a second job... there are lots of other Oahu residents who work two or three jobs just to make ends meet.
Of course lots of residents of Hawai'i have 2 or 3 jobs. But outside of teaching, I don't know of many professions that require you to work overtime without being compensated for the extra work.

Miulang

[Palolo Joe]

Ummm... almost any job that pays a salary instead of hourly wages?

I've got friends in sales, promotions and office administration who are expected to get their jobs done, whether it takes eight hours or 18.

Getting promoted to a management position also sucks for some of my friends as well. Managers don't tend to get paid by the hour, so they end up staying the longest to make sure things get done.

And this is all on Oahu, not some city on the mainland.

[scrivener]

I've got friends in sales, promotions and office administration who are expected to get their jobs done, whether it takes eight hours or 18.
I think one difference here is that good teachers get paid the same as bad teachers. Bad workers in most salaried positions end up jobless (or in human resources!), and while good salespeople or managers get promoted to other, higher-paying positions, good teachers just remain good teachers.

I also don't know if it's fair to compare teachers to most others who need to work two jobs. We're talking about a profession here, with certifications and degrees. I can only think of one real profession that routinely makes less than teachers -- social work -- but even that's changing nowadays.

[MadAzza]

Ummm... almost any job that pays a salary instead of hourly wages?

I've got friends in sales, promotions and office administration who are expected to get their jobs done, whether it takes eight hours or 18.

Getting promoted to a management position also sucks for some of my friends as well. Managers don't tend to get paid by the hour, so they end up staying the longest to make sure things get done.

And this is all on Oahu, not some city on the mainland.

Damn straight. Many of the folks I work with are in this boat. Lots of folks in journalism — including some of the more dedicated union (nonmanagement) folks — put in much more than their eight hours. Same goes for many other professions, of course.

Seems to me teachers' jobs would be much easier if more parents would put more effort into making sure their kids do their schoolwork, and if they would otherwise encourage their kids to learn (read, explore, etc.). They also need to discipline their kids better so teachers don't have to put up with their bad behavior. You couldn't pay me enough to put up with some of those brats.

[Miulang]

Damn straight. Many of the folks I work with are in this boat. Lots of folks in journalism — including some of the more dedicated union (nonmanagement) folks — put in much more than their eight hours. Same goes for many other professions, of course.

Seems to me teachers' jobs would be much easier if more parents would put more effort into making sure their kids do their schoolwork, and if they would otherwise encourage their kids to learn (read, explore, etc.). They also need to discipline their kids better so teachers don't have to put up with their bad behavior. You couldn't pay me enough to put up with some of those brats.
Yeah, but how many of us would want the responsibility for the health and safety of some 20 or so kids for 6 hours a day or have Master's degrees and still get paid squat for all that responsibility? Teachers don't go into the profession to make money...they do it for the love of training young minds. Teachers spend countless hours during the school year outside of the classroom, preparing lesson plans to keep the kids interested in their studies, correcting homework assignments and tests, and very often they spend their own money for supplies that aren't on the school board's list of supplies. The have to continually take enrichment classes in order to stay certified. About the only people who get paid less than K-12 teachers are the preschool teachers. They're not just jail wardens or zookeepers. Their job is to prepare kids for learning in elementary school. A kid's later success or failure in school is determined by how well they do in preschool. And it's no wonder that many teachers burn out so quickly.

Miulang

[MadAzza]

Yeah, but how many of us would want the responsibility for the health and safety of some 20 or so kids for 6 hours a day or have Master's degrees and still get paid squat for all that responsibility?

Um ... well, yes, isn't that pretty much what I just said? ("you couldn't pay me enough" ...)

[craigwatanabe]

If they're not doing this for the money (and they knew it even before they went to undergraduate school) then why are they arguing that higher pay means better teachers? What they're saying is that if you pay me more, then I'll teach better.

If higher wages means better recruitment of qualified teachers then that means these qualified teachers are either holding out for the big bucks or they're leaving a school that pays lower to one that pays higher.

It is all about the money.

[Eric]

My wife is a public school teacher, so I'm biased.

If they're not doing this for the money (and they knew it even before they went to undergraduate school) then why are they arguing that higher pay means better teachers? What they're saying is that if you pay me more, then I'll teach better.How about, "if you pay me more, I'll make enough so that I don't have to work that second job and can spend more time prepping my curriculum and grading papers"? My wife doesn't work a second job, but she has colleagues who do.

If higher wages means better recruitment of qualified teachers then that means these qualified teachers are either holding out for the big bucks or they're leaving a school that pays lower to one that pays higher.

It is all about the money.It's not just about the money. The money is nice, and is certainly welcome, but if my wife just wanted money she'd have stayed in that title exchange job she had before she landed her teaching job. Bigger bucks for sure, but that's not what she wanted to do.

[Palolo Joe]

It's not just about the money. The money is nice, and is certainly welcome, but if my wife just wanted money she'd have stayed in that title exchange job she had before she landed her teaching job. Bigger bucks for sure, but that's not what she wanted to do.I may only have a bachelor's degree, but it still cost me money to get it. My student loans were issued with 12-year terms. The burden was there.
,
If it's not about the money, then leave it up to the union reps to negotiate come contract time - but keep in mind that a teacher's strike is the worst thing possible in the minds of the general public that supports you.

I do my job because I love it, just like a teacher does - so I can respect Eric's wife's decision to go with a job she truly has a passion for. I put in overtime and don't get paid for it. I take work with me when I'm on vacation.

I could move to the mainland and get paid twice as much as I do here, but I choose to stay and play an active role in my community, not armchair quarterback from thousands of miles away with a bunch of woulda, coulda, shouldas.

[scrivener]

keep in mind that a teacher's strike is the worst thing possible in the minds of the general public that supports you.
I couldn't agree more. It's one of the reasons that, although I am not against unions in theory, I am extremely displeased with teachers' unions and refuse to belong to one. This has cost me, too, as if choosing this profession weren't enough, because it means that I choose to teach at smaller, independent schools that have difficulty paying me what the state would pay me (in this, my tenth year, I'm going to make four thousand less per year than a first-year teacher with a Bachelor's degree).

If they're not doing this for the money (and they knew it even before they went to undergraduate school) then why are they arguing that higher pay means better teachers? What they're saying is that if you pay me more, then I'll teach better.
No. What they are saying is that good teachers will be more likely to stay in the profession, and that more people will be drawn to the profession to begin with, meaning schools will have a better selection from which to choose. The good teachers will be good teachers at any salary, and the bad teachers will be bad at any salary. With higher pay, though, the bad teachers will have more difficulty hanging on to their positions.

I have seen some of the best teachers I've ever known leave the profession, filled with sadness that they can't take care of children, houses, and elderly parents on what teachers get paid. I can't believe that the engineering profession deserves these excellent teachers more than the children of Hawaii, and yet the market says it does. I've said it before, but I know a lot of engineers, and I only know a very small number who could be good teachers. Yet, I know lots and lots of teachers who could be engineers.

What it should come down to is how much we value education in our society. We are one of the few nations in the world that tries to guarantee a public education for every child, so far as to pay enormous amounts of money for students who require extra care and attention (this is why our test scores seem so low compared to nations who don't provide education to everyone). That seems to say that we think education is important.

I don't have numbers, but I have a lot of the same anecdotes you have. Our classmates who valued education and got the most out of it typically are productive members of society. Our classmates who ended up in jail, on drugs, destitute, or dead were typically the ones who never fully took advantage of the educations that were available. Paying more for education now, I believe, means paying less for prisons, drug programs, and public assistance programs later.

PS: I would like to make it clear that I am not complaining about my own pay. I decided to stop doing that this year.

[tiptoetulip]

Seems to me teachers' jobs would be much easier if more parents would put more effort into making sure their kids do their schoolwork, and if they would otherwise encourage their kids to learn (read, explore, etc.). They also need to discipline their kids better so teachers don't have to put up with their bad behavior. You couldn't pay me enough to put up with some of those brats.
Parent involvement definitely helps. Teachers these days have to pick up the slack from parents, and it's not isolated to any particular area. A lot of complaints, not enough support---it all adds up to STRESS. What is rewarding about teaching is being able to "make a difference" as cliche as that is, and being able to affect some, if not all, of my students. I'm learning to realize that teachers CANNOT do it all, we're only human, it seems.