Having lived with a teacher my entire life and understand what kind of BS they have to go through on a daily basis from those outside the educational system who could give two shits less about what their little bastards are doing day in and day out in the classroom, I feel that they're being compensated quite well

I think what some people don't realize is that districts with high average salaries just shows that they have a lot of experienced, educated, involved educators.

You may start out at 30,000 with just a bachelors. However, having 10-20+ years experience, a masters+ degree and coaching a few sports, and advising some clubs can make you rack up some big money. I knew a guy when he retired coached 3 sports and was an adviser for 2-3 clubs/organizations. I think he was pulling in 70-80K at the time of retirement. He also showed up to school at 6am and usually didn't leave until around 630-7pm. I think we are at a point where teachers are making just about the right amount of money. I don't have a problem with my paychecks anyway.

^^^

This is correct. My Dad retired in '09, he had years of afternoon D-hall, coached girls basketball and softball for many years and advised the foreign language club. I don't know his exact salary, but it was definitely between 85,000 and 90,000. More importantly his pension benefits are unreal. An annuity that pays out his retirement salary and healthcare benefits would likely eclipse $1M. Guy is a millionaire, go Dad!

Pick6;620257 wrote:switzerland of ohio school district. probably the poorest district in the state, with the area not much better. I might be a couple thousand off, but im sure its no more than 22k.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks.

200 days a year? Boo-hoo. And the whole "10 hours per day" is another boo-hoo, most professionals average closer to 50 hours per work week now.

More food for thought: the median FAMILY income is about 45k, so really a teacher making 50+ has nothing to complain about. Unfortunately, the "200 days" comment is kind of unfair, too, because it's very difficult to find a decent job for 2-3 months in the summer to supplement income. But when you factor in pensions/benefits teachers are indeed well-paid. Sure, most don't start off close to those numbers but neither do other college grads, where many professionals start in the 30-40k range. That gap is usually at least made up for in pension and benefits, and with better job security and 200 days not anything to whine about.

And, personally, my opinion is its the highschool and college teachers who deserve the big bucks. I've mentioned this before, Freakanomics doesn't really find a correlation between academic success and school/teachers, at least on the grade school level. The dominant factors are, in fact, socioeconomic in that students of educated and better-off parents tend to perform well regardless of school, with parent involvement probably the biggest predictor. Not to diminish the qualification and ability of a teacher, but for me the actual impact tends to be grossly overstated. Sure, we've all had teachers who had very positive impacts on us in many ways, but what is that effective rate? If it's something less than 1 in 4 (something that seems reasonable), well I'm not sure I like those odds enough to reach deep into my wallet.

You want another dagger in this argument look no further than the performance of home schooled children. How do you explain that? Is it that teaching isn't all that difficult and a lay person can do it well? Or is it that they receive more attention? Or is it that home schooled children tend to come from the types of families Freakanomics finds a correlation of success with? Or is it simply because the parents are extremely involved?

I simply struggle to justify that teachers should be paid more than the average person, unless they are teaching advanced courses in high school. Now, I think most sports coaches tend to be considerably underpaid for the effort and importance of what they do, with arguably a greater influence on the type of person these young men and women become. So if the average teacher pulls in 45-50k, and then can get another 20-25k for coaching a few sports and advising a few clubs....yeah, that sounds about right, say they spend 50% more time then 50% more pay is about right.

Original link is fixed.

http://www.toledobladedata.com/caspio/

oh boy, 200 days a year @ maybe 8- 10 hours a day. Teachers are well compensated for what they do and all the time they get off. Wow @ those making over $80k doing it. Just another example of why we do not need unions this day in age.

I worked nearly 300 days last year at a minimum of 10 hours a day, most 12 hours. I am salaried and get paid the same no matter how many hours I am there.

Full disclosure, I am married to a teacher and have 4 other teachers in my close family.

Still waiting for some one to point out a person on the link i provided or a pay scale on one of the contracts on the 2nd link to prove that these people are actually making 70k+ just teaching. I am really interested. would be willing to relocate.

The_end_of_overlook;620759 wrote:Still waiting for some one to point out a person on the link i provided or a pay scale on one of the contracts on the 2nd link to prove that these people are actually making 70k+ just teaching. I am really interested. would be willing to relocate.

I saw it and even looked up my Dad. The info is accurate but it reports their BASE comp. It doesn't provide the salary increases for extra activities.

Also, forget salary, your link provides pension information. I suppose I was wrong, my Dad's pension isn't worth $1,000,000, according to your link it is only worth $900,000. My bad. At any rate, I think most people in the private sector would prostitute themselves for that type of pension.

Mrs.Hits was a fifth grade teacher for a few years back at the turn of the century, She was at school an hour before the kids came in , an hour at least after. Plus extra curriculars that she needed to attend, parent teacher conferences that had to be prepared for, daily lesson plans at nite, and grading papers. She never made more than $32K. Over paid? Uh, No.

BTW it took a minute to look up Karla Andrews at Dublin City. $80K+ salary BASE, $1.4M pension and a yearly pension benefit of mid $50K.

Holy shit, the more I read that link the crazier it gets. Those pension benefits don't take into account healthcare costs and assume an 18 year retirement. Considering many teachers can retire at 55 that is an extremely low figure. No wonder we are in a fiscal mess, there is no way these costs were ever funded properly. Forget whether teachers' salaries are too much, how in the world are we paying for the retirement obligations?

Manhattan Buckeye;620915 wrote:Holy shit, the more I read that link the crazier it gets. Those pension benefits don't take into account healthcare costs and assume an 18 year retirement. Considering many teachers can retire at 55 that is an extremely low figure. No wonder we are in a fiscal mess, there is no way these costs were ever funded properly. Forget whether teachers' salaries are too much, how in the world are we paying for the retirement obligations?

we are paying for their retirement. thats why we will never see ours (gen Y anyway)

Manhattan Buckeye;620915 wrote: Forget whether teachers' salaries are too much, how in the world are we paying for the retirement obligations?

True of most government pensions. But govt pensions aren't alone in assuming too high of a rate of return (9% a year, typically, while historical rates averaged about 10%). But over the last 12 years (before the tech bubble burst in 2000), the annual compound rate of return has averaged just 1.8% and that's why these government pension have huge shortfalls. To put that in perspective, such a rate means the funds are 44% of the fund size with an expected return of 9%.

Some more fun math: Since most private sector jobs don't have pensions any more, how much do you have to put away for 30 years to retire with a 401k worth $900k? Given a 9% rate of return and a 5% company match...about $4-5k per year (with a good company match). And the medical benefits are probably worth another $1k per year.

So the retirement/pension benefit is worth $5-6k per year for a teacher. But the real kick in the nuts is the fact returns are what they are the last 12 years and Joe private sector's 401K is actually only worth about $400k while the govt worker's is guaranteed at $900k. So, ahhh, Joe, I'm sorry but we're going to have to raise your taxes to bail out these govt pensions.

It's those last 10 years of so before retirement when the power of compounding is really kicking in and a lot of people with nice nest eggs got crushed because the investment gain over that time is basically 0. Sad part is there has been no real safe place to put your money because historically uncorrelated assets all got destroyed - real estate, equities, bonds, even commodities are -6% over the last 5 years. Sure, you could have been in gold other than the fact it was one of the worst places you could have been the prior 20 years.

Scarlet_Buckeye;620640 wrote:Original link is fixed.

http://www.toledobladedata.com/caspio/

I'm not going to lie, but i don't like the fact that myself and a bunch of colleagues have their salaries posted on a website for everyone to see.

When taxpayers are paying your salaries and funding your pensions, we are more than entitled to that information. Especially when all teachers do is whine about how underpaid they are. Facts are facts.

That still doesn't mean that I'm not uncomfortable with it.

Scarlet_Buckeye;622298 wrote:When taxpayers are paying your salaries and funding your pensions, we are more than entitled to that information. Especially when all teachers do is whine about how underpaid they are. Facts are facts.

No one with whom I work whines. Facts are facts.

Thats funny scarlet, I am sitting on our schools negotiating committee for our new contract and we arent expecting a pay raise this year. We see what is going on, I love my job. I dont whine a bit about my pay, for the work I do and the area I am in I am paid pretty well for what I do.

Scarlet_Buckeye;622298 wrote:When taxpayers are paying your salaries and funding your pensions, we are more than entitled to that information. Especially when all teachers do is whine about how underpaid they are. Facts are facts.

Really? Interesting. Didn't know all teachers did that...

bigkahuna;622300 wrote:That still doesn't mean that I'm not uncomfortable with it.

Do a job that isn't funded by tax dollars then.

redstreak one;622395 wrote:Thats funny scarlet, I am sitting on our schools negotiating committee for our new contract and we arent expecting a pay raise this year. We see what is going on, I love my job. I dont whine a bit about my pay, for the work I do and the area I am in I am paid pretty well for what I do.

I saw a lot of districts that "sacrificed" and only took 1% raises this year or last year. Are you kidding me?

There are districts where teachers are overpaid and ones where they make shit (though those seem to be in terrible areas economically speaking and the benefits and pension sort of balance out a bit).

ccrunner, other people are taking pay cuts, not maintaining income against inflation. That's where the animosity comes from. People who aren't teachers see a lot of "damn I only got a small raise" instead of "I wish I made a bit more but at least I got a raise at all" and it can rub them the wrong way when they're taking large pay cuts.

I think teachers need to be paid well because they're a valuable trade and are highly educated. However I know there are some situations where teachers think they have it hard and they don't that make people a bit angry.

Not all teachers complain about pay and not all teachers are overpaid.

I didn't realize there were so many teachers here. Maybe that one guy was right and they really are here to hook up with students.