I think they start around 35K here and top around 70K.
ETA: I just checked the actual scale and it is 38K to 75K.
Interesting - that's significantly less than some ON teachers, definitely a lot less than principals. A girlfriend of mine and I just had lunch, she's an elementary teacher and said her top pay would be 88k. She's currently at 74k about 10 years in.
Is the pension in Quebec decent? ON teachers do have an excellent pension.
I think they start around 35K here and top around 70K.
ETA: I just checked the actual scale and it is 38K to 75K.
Interesting - that's significantly less than some ON teachers, definitely a lot less than principals. A girlfriend of mine and I just had lunch, she's an elementary teacher and said her top pay would be 88k. She's currently at 74k about 10 years in.
Is the pension in Quebec decent? ON teachers do have an excellent pension.
I think it is good, yes. They have good benefits but crappy pay. And good hours :::hides:::
My sister has been teaching HS for 11 years. She has a Masters in Education and is making close to $60K in a MCOL. She told me her pay will increase significantly now that she passed the 10-year mark. The principal at her HS has a Doctorate and makes $100K+.
Interesting - that's significantly less than some ON teachers, definitely a lot less than principals. A girlfriend of mine and I just had lunch, she's an elementary teacher and said her top pay would be 88k. She's currently at 74k about 10 years in.
Is the pension in Quebec decent? ON teachers do have an excellent pension.
I think it is good, yes. They have good benefits but crappy pay. And good hours :::hides:::
Most of my IRL teacher friends think their hours are amazing. But a lot of them were in other jobs prior to teaching so they didn't go right from school to teaching. I think the expectations are different.
In NC, teachers are paid an embarrassingly low amount. The starting salary was recently increased from $30k to $33k. The school district they are in can provide a bump to that, usually less than $5k/year. They also used to be able to get a bump with a master's degree or national certification, but I believe both of those have been taken away. They received no raises for six years. A teacher with 25 years experience makes $50k. There is a proposal to raise that ALL THE WAY to $51k. It is shameful.
And if you look at pre-k pay, which is state funded here, you'll find a lead teacher background requirement of at least a Bachelor's in the field, but only making minimum wage.
I have an Associate's, worked as assistant NC PreK teacher, and made minimum wage. The lead teacher in my room made the same. I worked longer hours than she did so they called it basically even.
I'm in regular day care now, everyone in the building is earning minimum. I will say, even earning minimum, this center is leaps and bounds better than the last center.
But yes, I'll totally provide extra supplies for forgetful parents. I have the money and time to spare, obviously.
Post by mccallister84 on Oct 6, 2015 15:34:38 GMT -5
It's hard to say exactly.
I'm in Maryland and in year 10 with my masters plus 60 my base is $62,088. First year teachers with a bachelors make $45,150. When I started first year teachers made $40,000.
I get a responsibility factor for being a DC - which is $4,506 this year.
I also bring in about $2,00-$5,000 extra over the summer between curriculum writing and days that I'm required to work at the school. The summer money varies greatly depending upon what's going on that summer.
The Boston Public Schools teacher's union is one of the strongest unions- teacher or not- in the country. Teachers here start in the low 50's and top out at $105k. I'm friends with a BPS principal in one of the worst areas in the city and she has shared with me lots of her opinions about the union and how it's antiquated processes, procedures and costs are really harming the students. I'd love to hear from a BPS teacher if they could share their take on it. (As a principal, she's not covered under the union contract and her job is annually renewable (zero job security) whereas it's almost impossible to fire a non-performing teacher in BPS from what she says. I do think those teachers have a sizable mandatory retirement contribution into the pension system.
I teach in the Boston suburbs, not BPS. We start around the low 40s and top out at a PhD around 90, and that's with 15+ years in the system. My district pays lower than the neighboring towns but we are surrounded by some very wealthy areas.
What she says about union rules are probably close to true. Firing a teacher because they stink is hard, if not impossible BUT you can fire a teacher for actual improper behavior and/or actions. While I recognize that many people find this troubling, the new evaluation system does not let teachers phone it in anymore. If they preform poorly on the new eval then their job will be in danger, union or not.
Also, it's important to remember that those union rules were put in place to protect old, expensive teachers who could be easily fired because they are costly. While I'm sure there are some teachers who suck, it isn't everyone.
And yes, we are required to put a lot of money into our pension. We have no say in the matter, the MTA controls our pension. It's a substantial contribution.
Our school district is still under contract negotiations that should have ended this past August. I believe the starting salary is around $50k and tops out around $105k. There is concern that we could lose valuable teachers to neighboring districts where the pay is considerably higher.
I know this isn't the popular thought and teachers hate when it's mentioned, but isn't it also true these numbers are for working ~17% less than traditional full time (52 weeks-12 holidays-2 weeks leave)?
A step 0 gets 37k in my city for 187 days.
Edit: I can't math. I'm now coming up with it being appx 21% less.
Lol. No. We just take our 10months of pay and spread it out over 12 months.
Which is financially beneficial to the districts, not the teachers (except those that can't budget, I suppose). And the required trainings during the summer aren't counted in that number.
Where I'm at now, teachers start at $37,000 and get a pay bump for each additional year, so it's decent. Where I moved from, teachers start at $34,000 and haven't seen a pay raise in almost 10 years. It varies greatly from district and state. I have a fellow teacher friend who has been teaching for longer than me, but makes less than me also.
We live in a LCOL neighborhood with really good schools. Our local elementary school has 408 children and the Art teacher, with 5 years of experience, great insurance (low cost), tenure and a pension earns $68K a year, with no club, team or activity requirements.
The city I'm in starts teachers with a BA and 0 experience at $43K, but that's high for the area. We have an awesome union and teaching in the urban schools is so much harder than teaching in the suburban. I look on it as hazard pay.
Once my PhD is recorded, I'll be making $49 as a first year teacher.
Post by firedancer10288 on Oct 6, 2015 18:02:49 GMT -5
Baltimore suburbs. I started at 38k in 2005. Now 11 years in with a masters degree and I make 53k. Our pay was frozen for 5 years, according to the published salary scale I should be making over 60k. there were a few years when my actually decreased due to insurance going up. Teachers that have been teaching in my district for 20+ years top out at about 75k.
Honestly, I saw several districts advertising salaries starting in the 27-28K range.
I think around Chicago, teachers may make more, but it's also HCOL. Where I am at, the pay isn't great. In my district, with an MA+40 and 28 years of experience, the most you can possibly earn is $75K. I would be thrilled with that salary in general, but I'm just using it as an example of how it takes a long time to earn something like that, and for most teachers here, they never reach that level.
(Put down your dukes, Tami. I'm not talking about you or about Texas.)
State pensions for teachers have been a contentious issue where I am so I thought it would be fitting to mention here, since the question is specifically about teachers pay in your area.
I live in Rhode Island where there are currently over 900 retired teachers receiving state pensions of over 2 million each. Yes, each.
Some of them retired early and started collecting in their 40's (before a new reform was enacted just a few years ago that raised the retirement age to 62, for state workers eligible to collect pension).
Just an example for fun, there's a retired teacher in Providence who who has been paid $478,871 since her retirement in 1990 at age 43. I don't shed many tears for the 20 or so years that she only made $35k as a hard-working teacher.
I'll come back and add some links.
ETA: I can't link directly to the search results page, but if you start here
But if that same teacher died at age 44, for any reason, that pension would have paid near-zero. Same pension plan -zero payout. Isn't that the whole gamble of a pension plan? The state is "promising" delayed payment for work, while hoping they don't actualy have to pay it?
Most of my IRL teacher friends think their hours are amazing. But a lot of them were in other jobs prior to teaching so they didn't go right from school to teaching. I think the expectations are different.
Clearly your friends don't teach where I did. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the thought of my hours being " good" when I was teaching. Probably cry. Again, add it to the reasons I left...
Required hours or hours you put in?
Once I had tenure, I could just work 8-3:05 if I wanted. (with about 2.5 hours of planning periods/lunch/break mixed in).
Now I'm in private school, it is different (and other places without or before tenure). Hell I just responded to 3 parent emails after returning from a 2-hour evening performance at school and am preparing to make an "explain everything" video for another kid to email home tonight. Next week I spend 5 days in another state with 80 thirteen year olds with no extra pay. And those are the expectations.
It is insane how different things are at different schools.
I live and work in FL. I have a Master's and am currently teaching for my 7th year. In my county, after five years/beginning of sixth year, I made 37,000. This year I started working for virtual school and make 48. ETA - working virtually, I work year-round, so no summers. I have to be available to answer calls from 8-8 M-F (they recently stopped making teachers answer the phone on the weekend ). The flexibility is awesome, but I'm basically a first year teacher again and work a ton of hours (I log 50-60 hrs a week right now).
OK so I *think* what illgetthere was saying is that if you extrapolate out a teacher's salary for the entire year that another job would work (a job that works year-round), the starting salary would be higher (about 21% higher) than is listed, since the listed salary is only for working part of the year. So where a teacher earns 37K for working 81% of the year, it's really the equivalent of earning 45K (or whatever) in any other job, which isn't so low.
And I get that. But I think the point is (at least for me), that if we value education, find it important, and want to entice masters or experts in their fields to become teachers, we need to raise the pay to do so. I'm not suggesting teachers make $150K to start out. And perhaps some districts DO pay a fair/respectable salary for teaching. Around here, I don't believe the salaries are enticing much of anybody. Yeah, we do have good teachers and many teachers do it because they love the job, etc., but you can love your job and still want to make a fair compensation.
I do work extra hours, yes, and I knew that going into teaching. I fucking love having holidays and summers off and feel fortunate I get those things. I hate getting into arguments about this because I do think some people are just martyrs about it (not saying anyone here is). But I think some of that martyring does cover up some legitimate concerns about the pay scale (among other things) that we could work on to attract better teachers on the whole and give the profession more respect. I think the vast majority of GBCN has a respect for teaching just based on what you all post here, but I have a much different experience outside of these boards IRL.
As far as pensions, we will be lucky if we get any of our pensions here in IL. Womp womp.
Most of my IRL teacher friends think their hours are amazing. But a lot of them were in other jobs prior to teaching so they didn't go right from school to teaching. I think the expectations are different.
Clearly your friends don't teach where I did. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the thought of my hours being " good" when I was teaching. Probably cry. Again, add it to the reasons I left...
One of them worked full time on a dairy farm prior to being hired as a teacher, another was a server. So I can see why teaching would seem like less hours in comparison. The holidays and summers off alone would be non-existent in both those fields. Like I said, the expectations are different.
That doesn't mean the teaching hours aren't brutal on occasion. I'm sure they can be.
Teachers start between 31k-34k. We're ranked 48th in the nation in teacher pay and have a severe shortage. The state department reported that districts are hiring people they never would have hired in the past and emergency certifications have increased 150% this year. I'm actually worried about the future of our schools if there isn't a significant increase soon.
I think state employees in general aren't getting paid enough. I'm honestly surprised some of these numbers are so high, because as an engineer working for the state, I will never make $100k, or even $80k. If you compare the $35k over 81% of the year starting salary to my starting salary, they're basically the same.