Tue May 15 13:29:04 MDT 2007

I'm sorry, but have you ever held the job? 

The average work week when I was teaching was far greater than the 40-50
hours per week I put in as a tech writer. My starting salary was roughly
$22k, *during* the dot com boom of the 90s. I worked 12 - 16 hour days
on average, as many days a week as I could manage. A good teacher will
need to put in far more hours per week than the students are in the
classroom, a fact not generally addressed in the type studies you
reference below. In addition to the sheer number of hours and volume of
work (lesson plans, prep, class time, grading of papers, conferences, et
cetera), teachers are often expected to pick up the pieces when it comes
to classroom supplies. Vacations are usually spent either recovering
from the school year or taking additional classes and training with the
hopes that maybe one can become a better teacher. Unpaid, I might add.

I will refrain from continuing, except to add one last statement: for
the work they are expected and required to do, teachers ARE grossly
underpaid.

Respectfully,
Nicole

-----Original Message-----
From:
techwr-l-bounces+nicole.hales-crotchett=lmco.com at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+nicole.hales-crotchett=lmco.com at lists.techwr-l.
com] On Behalf Of Combs, Richard
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 11:24 AM
To: Joanne Wittenbrook; techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE:

Joanne Wittenbrook wrote: 

>   I am amazed that schools can attract anyone to the career 
> of teaching. When I was doing a job search I checked out the 
> State Employment listings. A math teacher with a masters 
> degree was being offered a starting salary of $18,000 a year 
> in the public schools. A truck driving teacher at a State 
> vocational school was offered $35.00 an HOUR. It says a lot 
> about what we value.

Where is this? Do they have paved roads and electric lights there? :-)

Starting pay for teachers in Denver is $34,000. A recent Washington Post
article (http://tinyurl.com/2bt2qm) listed starting salaries from $32k
(Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC) to $45k (NYC). 

A job listing (http://tinyurl.com/2w9ua9) for math teacher at a rural
school in Montana offered $22-35k plus signing bonus. The only academic
qualification was "Current Montana Certification."

In Texas, where teachers average $42k, they're starting a merit pay
pilot program that provides bonuses of $3-10k
(http://tinyurl.com/rg3jt). The teachers' union opposes it because they
prefer that everyone get equal, but lower, pay instead of some getting
more than others. 

According to a 2004 Hoover Institution study
(http://tinyurl.com/2cugn9): 

"The case that teachers are underpaid is a weak one. Teacher pay is
actually quite reasonable when considered in context. The average
teacher salary in 2001 was $43,300, compared to the average full-time
worker salary of $40,100.1 While a starting salary of $30,000 may seem
shockingly low to some, it's actually higher than what many Ivy League
graduates earn when starting in the policy world, advertising, or
similar nontechnical jobs. According to the Chronicle of Higher
Education, for example, those 2002 graduates of journalism and
mass-communication programs who were able to land positions earned a
median salary of $26,000 if they had a bachelor's degree and $32,000 if
they had a master's."

"Economist Richard Vedder has observed that the Bureau of Labor
Statistics National Compensation Survey shows that teachers earn "more
per hour than architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers,
statisticians, biological and life scientists, atmospheric and space
scientists, registered nurses, physical therapists, university-level
foreign-language teachers, [and] librarians." In fact, the Bureau of
Labor Statistics reported that the average pay per hour for all workers
in the "professional specialty" category in 2001 was $27.49, while
public secondary school teachers earned $30.48 and elementary teachers
$30.52 - or about 10 percent more than the typical professional."

Teaching doesn't generally pay as well as tech writing or engineering
(or medicine...), but the claim that teachers are grossly underpaid and
practically indigent is a myth. 

Richard

------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------

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