[geeks] Teachers

[Doug McLaren]

On Wed, Sep 05, 2007 at 09:39:09AM -0500, Dr. Robert Pasken wrote:

| > I don't make $64K per year working 52 weeks per year!

Do you have 40 years experience in your field?

Perhaps you should consider another field.

| > The average income in the USA was reported to be less than $50K gross per
| > year in the local newspaper!

And after forty years, let's hope he's above the national average!

Or are teachers, even experienced ones, supposed to get paid below the
national average?
 
| Sure you can! Have you been a teacher for 40 years? Do you have a
| Ph.D.(a true Ph.D. not a Ed.D or purchased Ed.D) in mathematics or a
| science? A starting teacher (B.S. in science or math) makes $24,000.
| Just like a starting day laborer in Missouri starts at $32,000 a year
| and a Journeyman Electrician makes $82,000 a year

That $82K/year figure sounds awfully close to a $40/hr figure
multiplied by 40 hrs/week by 52 weeks, which is often not how they're
paid.

It takes several years for an electrician to work his way through the
apprentice program to become a journeyman.  In any event, it's not
such an outrageous figure.

| (my electrician neighbor)

I don't know where you live, but in Austin, the pay scale for teachers
is here --

   http://www.austin.isd.tenet.edu/inside/hr/salary.phtml

First year teachers get just under $40k/year.
Forty year teachers get $60,390/year.

That's pretty sad that forty years of experience only gets you a 50%
raise.  I've only been in the IT industry for 16 years or so, and my
pay has gone up by a factor of six or so since I started.

What's also sad is that a Masters or PhD is only worth an extra
$820/year.  

These are Austin ISD figures, but the rest of the Texas is relatively
similar.  Still, I'm impressed to see that teachers are starting out
at $40k -- that's a lot better than it used to be.  When my wife
started out as a teacher about 8 years ago, some districts only paid
$15K/year to a first year teacher.

Side note -- subsitute teachers only get $70/day.  They get $5/day
extra if college graduates, and $5/day more if they're certified Texas
teachers.  If they work 31-60 days, they get $20/day more for those
days, and 61+ $40/day more for those days.

So if you're a certified teacher working as a sub, and you work every
single day, you get only $20,640 for the entire year.

-- 
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzied.us                 Sauron is alive in Argentina!