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$101,091: Annual Compensation for Average Milwaukee Teacher

Kandahar said:
That makes it even worse. If they're getting paid $100K for nine months, then the REAL annualized cost to the taxpayers is closer to $130K.
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No. See Simon's post.


The driving factor in ALL government salaries should be supply and demand. The fact that they are performing a task that you deem important is irrelevant to the fact that there are plenty of qualified teachers out there.
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And I disagree. The volume of qualified teachers has nothing to do with the importance of the job.

This argument might have some merit if paying teachers such exorbitant salaries actually meant that more capable teachers would be recruited and student performance would improve...but it does not, because the unions also ensure that there is no merit pay and no one ever gets fired for anything.
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Exorbitant is your opinion. And I already said that I agree with the difficult of getting rid of bad teachers. I disagree with the lack of merit pay, too.
 
The Giant Noodle said:
I know EXACTLY what a teacher does. I could walk into a school and have little problem on the first day doing what they do..... and thats with zero training. My good friend is a teacher.... I dated two teachers. What they do is EASY! Even my friend said "its a cake walk"!!!!
So YOU sir can not tell me otherwise!!!
Sure their job is important..... a truck drivers job is VERY important. A guy that plow the road when it snows.... THAT job is very important. A salesmans job is very important! A soildiers job is VERY important.

Your view of teachers is WRONG!!!!! Wrong wrong wrong!!!!
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Then you are not a regular person

Teacher dropout rate higher than students' | TimesDaily.com | The Times Daily | Florence, AL

Nearly half of all teachers quit during their first five years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics,
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The burnout rate is very high.
 
Kandahar said:
Yes you can, because the taxpayers are not getting any service from the teachers for 25% of the year.

If other public agencies decided that they were going to start taking summers off, but still charge the taxpayers the same amount as before for their salaries/benefits, wouldn't you see a problem with that? Similarly, it makes perfect sense to annualize teachers' salaries to determine how much we're paying teachers in proportion to the benefit they provide.
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Year round schooling is something we should be doing, but don't blame it on teachers, we inherited that from the harvest schedule.
 
The Giant Noodle said:
I know EXACTLY what a teacher does. I could walk into a school and have little problem on the first day doing what they do..... and thats with zero training. My good friend is a teacher.... I dated two teachers. What they do is EASY! Even my friend said "its a cake walk"!!!!
So YOU sir can not tell me otherwise!!!
Sure their job is important..... a truck drivers job is VERY important. A guy that plow the road when it snows.... THAT job is very important. A salesmans job is very important! A soildiers job is VERY important.

Your view of teachers is WRONG!!!!! Wrong wrong wrong!!!!
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Screaming "you are wrong" makes absolutely zero impact on me. You could NOT walk into a classroom and effectively teach. Understanding a topic does not mean you can teach it.
 
Kandahar said:
Yes you can, because the taxpayers are not getting any service from the teachers for 25% of the year.
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If they receive 100k in compensation per year, then over the course of a whole year--the annualizing part--they receive 100k.
I hope that makes sense.
 
Kandahar said:
Yes you can, because the taxpayers are not getting any service from the teachers for 25% of the year.
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Nor are the teachers receiving salary for that 25% of the year. That equals things out.

If other public agencies decided that they were going to start taking summers off, but still charge the taxpayers the same amount as before for their salaries/benefits, wouldn't you see a problem with that? By the same token, it makes perfect sense to annualize teachers' salaries to compare how much we're paying teachers in proportion to the benefit they provide.
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If teachers are paid X amount per year, they are being paid for the time they are working.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
And that's a shame. I look at monetary compensation as a refection on the importance to society... and I see certain areas of public service, professions that are an intregal part of holding together the fabric of society as being the most important. Those that should be compensated the most would include those in the military, teachers, the police, firefighters, and physicians.
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But doctors jobs are difficult. They EARN their money. Same with the military. Very tough job! Police... meh. It depends where their jobs are. Its not easy, not nearly as hard as military or doctors. Teachers.... very easy. Fire fighters..... usually a cake walk. Its rare when its difficult. Hence why so many police officers hate fire fighters. There was usually a rivalry there. Police saying FF'ers sit on their ass and cook 95% of the time and the time I worked with them I found that to be 100% accurate.
 
Question, is this a thread discussing teacher salary or an episode of "the world according to The Giant Noodle"?
 
Simon W. Moon said:
If they receive 100k in compensation per year, then over the course of a whole year--the annualizing part--they receive 100k.
I hope that makes sense.
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If they receive $100K in compensation per year, but only provide the taxpayers with their service for 75% of the year, then this masks the true cost of the service relative to the amount of service rendered.

Just like if I do some consulting work for Client A and charge them $300 for four hours of my time, and then do some work for Client B and charge them $300 for two hours of my time, who paid more? Yes, their bill was the same amount of dollars...but I think it's pretty obvious that Client B paid a lot more.

By the same token, it's perfectly fair to annualize the cost of teachers for comparison, since unlike most other employees they are providing no services for a significant fraction of the year.
 
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CaptainCourtesy said:
Nor are the teachers receiving salary for that 25% of the year. That equals things out.



If teachers are paid X amount per year, they are being paid for the time they are working.
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Which is a WHOPPING 30 hours a week..... nine months a year. They dont deserve a penny more than $27K a year. Dude! Thats TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS AN HOUR!!! Thats MORE than enough! If they worked like a normal person ....... 40 hours a week...... 12 months a year they would make $48K a year at that wage! And that is at my $27K amount! These people are making $60 a freakin HOUR!!! How in the HELL can you say they deserve that!?!?!? Working in retail is twice as difficult (according to my friend who is a teacher)
 
Kandahar said:
If they receive $100K in compensation per year, but only provide the taxpayers with their service for 75% of the year, then this masks the true cost of the service relative to the amount of service rendered.

Just like if I do some consulting work for Client A and charge them $300 for four hours of my time, and then do some work for Client B and charge them $300 for two hours of my time, who paid more? Yes, their bill was the same amount of dollars...but I think it's pretty obvious that Client B paid a lot more.

By the same token, it's perfectly fair to annualize the cost of teachers for comparison, since unlike most other employees they aren't working for a significant fraction of the year.
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I disagree, because if they worked more months of the year, likely their salary would go up to compensate.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Actually, I think this is completely appropriate compensation.
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There is no way you can defend teachers being paid over $100,000 per year. When you factor in where the United States ranks in the world in education verses how much we spend per pupil, we are grossly overpaying our teachers. Our teachers are not getting the job done and their pay needs to be reflective of this fact. The adage 'you get what you pay for' is obviously not applied to teachers.
 
Kandahar said:
If they receive $100K in compensation per year, but only provide the taxpayers with their service for 75% of the year, then this masks the true cost of the service relative to the amount of service rendered.
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The cost is still 100k/yr. It is not masked.

Kandahar said:
By the same token, it's perfectly fair to annualize the cost of teachers for comparison, since unlike most other employees they aren't working for a significant fraction of the year.
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Annualize it all you like, but when you annualize something which already has its rate expressed in annual terms, you're not changing it. Annualizing 100k/yr yields 100k/yr.
 
The Giant Noodle said:
Which is a WHOPPING 30 hours a week..... nine months a year. They dont deserve a penny more than $27K a year. Dude! Thats TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS AN HOUR!!! Thats MORE than enough! If they worked like a normal person ....... 40 hours a week...... 12 months a year they would make $48K a year at that wage! And that is at my $27K amount! These people are making $60 a freakin HOUR!!! How in the HELL can you say they deserve that!?!?!? Working in retail is twice as difficult (according to my friend who is a teacher)
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Except for going in early and late to get the classroom ready for lessons. Providing their own materials, such as paper. Grading papers after hours and on weekends. Lesson planning. Meetings with parents or the administration. Required extra curricular activities, such as fund raisers. Training to maintain certification. etc.

Teachers do more than simply show up at a school.
 
According to my calculations.... we are paying these teachers $92.59 a FREAKIN HOUR!!!
No WONDER why States and cities have no money!!!!! Thats just for teachers! Now Im REALLLY PISSED!!!!!!!!!! :2mad::alert:2mad::badpc:
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
And I disagree. The volume of qualified teachers has nothing to do with the importance of the job.
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No, but it should have plenty to do with their compensation. As long as there exists a volume of qualified teachers, they should NOT command such high salaries. Simple supply and demand.

CaptainCourtesy said:
Exorbitant is your opinion. And I already said that I agree with the difficult of getting rid of bad teachers. I disagree with the lack of merit pay, too.
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Saying you oppose merit pay and total job security is one thing...but the fact is that it exists right now. Well let's get those problems straightened out before we pay out $100K for nine months of services (or for more accurate comparison with other employees, $130K for twelve months of services). Otherwise, we're just paying huge salaries for a position that requires minimal qualifications, has near-total job security, and has a surplus of workers willing and able to do it.

Maybe THEN we can talk about paying teachers more to recruit more capable teachers.
 
megaprogman said:
I disagree, because if they worked more months of the year, likely their salary would go up to compensate.
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Right, that's my point. The real cost of a teacher is about $130K per twelve months of services rendered.
 
The Giant Noodle said:
According to my calculations.... we are paying these teachers $92.59 a FREAKIN HOUR!!!
No WONDER why States and cities have no money!!!!! Thats just for teachers! Now Im REALLLY PISSED!!!!!!!!!! :2mad::alert:2mad::badpc:
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As I pointed out, your calculations likely do not take into account much of what teachers do.

This is likely more accurate

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=High_School_Teacher/Hourly_Rate
Multiply it by 2 for benefits if you want.
 
Kandahar said:
Right, that's my point. The real cost of a teacher is about $130K per twelve months of services rendered.
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No, the real cost is 100k because that is what is contained in the paychecks and benefits. What you are doing is similar to looking at a part time employee and calculating their wage as if they were full time, which they are not.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
The cost is still 100k/yr. It is not masked.

Annualize it all you like, but when you annualize something which already has its rate expressed in annual terms, you're not changing it. Annualizing 100k/yr yields 100k/yr.
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By this logic, teachers could decide to take off three months in the fall too (while keeping the same salary/benefits), and the cost to taxpayers wouldn't change. In dollar terms, perhaps that is true. But in the value that they got for their tax dollars, it most definitely would.
 
megaprogman said:
Except for going in early and late to get the classroom ready for lessons. Providing their own materials, such as paper. Grading papers after hours and on weekends. Lesson planning. Meetings with parents or the administration. Required extra curricular activities, such as fund raisers. Training to maintain certification. etc.

Teachers do more than simply show up at a school.
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Ohhhh GEEEEEE.... thats so HARD. They have to buy paper n' stuff!?!? And they have to expand their SIX HOUR work day sometimes!?!? Awwwwww :( BOO FREAKIN' HOOOOO!!!!!! Especially when they are getting paid almost a $100 an HOUR with their pay and benefits!!! Tax payers are getting robbed!
 
The Giant Noodle said:
Ohhhh GEEEEEE.... thats so HARD. They have to buy paper n' stuff!?!? And they have to expand their SIX HOUR work day sometimes!?!? Awwwwww :( BOO FREAKIN' HOOOOO!!!!!! Especially when they are getting paid almost a $100 an HOUR with their pay and benefits!!! Tax payers are getting robbed!
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One example I can think of is the fact that my sunday school class is full of teachers and the general consensus is that they do work related activities outside of work somewhere around 15 or 20 hours a week. The special Ed teacher is doing around 30.

At least according to their little side conversations with each other that I hear.
 
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The Giant Noodle said:
But doctors jobs are difficult. They EARN their money. Same with the military. Very tough job! Police... meh. It depends where their jobs are. Its not easy, not nearly as hard as military or doctors. Teachers.... very easy. Fire fighters..... usually a cake walk. Its rare when its difficult. Hence why so many police officers hate fire fighters. There was usually a rivalry there. Police saying FF'ers sit on their ass and cook 95% of the time and the time I worked with them I found that to be 100% accurate.
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Again, this is nothing but your unsubstantiated opinion. Teachers jobs have a lot of difficulty to them. Understanding the topic, understanding how to teach the topic, understanding how to teach the topic in a variety of ways to a variety of different learning styles, understanding how to manage a classroom, how to manage difficult kids, how to keep kids focused/interested, etc... You have no idea what it is like to be a teacher.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Again, this is nothing but your unsubstantiated opinion. Teachers jobs have a lot of difficulty to them. Understanding the topic, understanding how to teach the topic, understanding how to teach the topic in a variety of ways to a variety of different learning styles, understanding how to manage a classroom, how to manage difficult kids, how to keep kids focused/interested, etc... You have no idea what it is like to be a teacher.
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Except there's a problem with this reasoning:

None of those skills are actually required to either find or keep a teaching job. In fact, no skills of any kind are typically required, other than having a piece of paper saying you have a degree in Education. In some cities, even regular attendance at work isn't required to keep a teaching job.

Yes, I know that you agree that it should be easier to fire teachers. But let's look at the system as it currently is, instead of the way we wish it was. Right now, there is absolutely no reason that teachers should be earning $100K for a job that requires almost nothing of them. Hopefully that will change if the union is busted, but one thing at a time.
 
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