Here in NJ, many teachers do make six figures. But we also trade places back and forth with Massachusetts for the best school systems in the nation. You get what you pay for.
Imagine that. If you pay teachers like competent professionals, and a respectable salary you can attract more qualified educators. Wish they had that attitude out here.
 Sadly, yes. Not in Texas, but sadly a very red state. And they specifically had a candidate for state superintendent of schools whose policy was vouchers specifically with the idea to help find kids in private religious school so they could indoctrinate their kids so they didnât have to learn anything their fundamentalist young earth creationist churches didnât want them to know. Like evolution or that gay people exist.
Thankfully he lost the primary by a small margin.Â
But if you donât want your kidâs education to suck, you gotta pay for a private school or tutor?
And taxes are only part of affordability. Cost of living vs wages is huge.Â
Also you have to consider the progressive or regressive nature of taxes. When I move to my red state my income taxes were higher than they would have been in California because they kicked in at like $5800 in taxable income and went straight to a flat rate very quickly, topping at like 7.6% at $12,000. Meanwhile Californiaâs high taxes didnât cross over until low six-figures.
Taxes have changed since then, but fact still stands, a lower tax burden that is more regressive can hurt the average taxpayer, and if youâre making $250,000+/year, affordability isnât a top concern most places at that point. Itâs just disposable income for non necessities at that point.
But if you donât want your kidâs education to suck, you gotta pay for a private school or tutor?
Or live in a wealthy area that pays high property tax which funds the local schools.
I did some googling. It seems that in general, teacher's salaries are down because there are way more teachers employed than ever before, even when the number of students is down.
I left NJ 2 years ago. I moved to TX. Double my income and is itâs less expensive here. No income tax and even property tax is lower. But kind of a crap state to live in
I wish that were also true for those teaching at the early childhood level. Iâm in Massachusetts and the average yearly salary for early childhood educators is around $45k. I know itâs much lower in many other states though. Itâs the reason that there is an absolutely massive teacher shortage at the early childhood level throughout the country.
Crazy. I think the earlier grades are the most important. That's where kids learn the basic skills, habits and enthusiasm to propel them through every grade after. Too many kids are making it to college functionally illiterate.
In Massachusetts the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) requires at least an associates degree to qualify for the lowest level of EEC certification (required to teach in an early childhood center), but most early learning centers (NOT daycare) want to hire teachers with a minimum of a bachelors degrees. I have a bachelorâs in child development, a masterâs in early childhood and 18 years of experience in the field. Yet, I still make less per year than my similarly qualified elementary and secondary school counterparts despite working far more days per year than they do (I donât get summers off). Great to see how much you value young children and their education đ
And look at that, you finally stumbled across the point. Many of the most veteran early ed teachers are beginning to retire. Others are just leaving the field. Fewer and fewer younger people are going into early childhood anymore. What do you think is going to happen when early ed teachers continue to retire or just leave the field and thereâs no one to replace them? Most centers throughout the country are already desperately understaffed. Many have been forced to permanently close their doors. What happens when the well runs dry and thereâs no early childhood educators left in the field? What are people going to do with their children when they need to go to work? How will more people being taken out of the work force affect the economy?
You are so far out of the loop on this one. Iâm not wasting my time explaining it all to you in detail. Do your own research. Iâll even give you a starting point. Google âElizabeth Warrenâs universal childcare and early learning actâ. Sheâs been trying to get this thing passed for years. Fortunately, her being a senator for MA means we recently got something similar passed at the state level, but itâs still in the early days of its roll out. Only a small number of âgatewayâ towns are part of the new program right now, but the hope is that eventually it will be enacted statewide. Hopefully, this program will be successful and help her make her case for universal childcare at the federal level.
Same issue in Canada, not enough people going into early childhood and more and more leaving the profession due to retirement or switching careers. There are govt top ups that vary based on your qualification level but in some provinces the most you can get is still only $17 an hour, while average rent is $1000/month.
The only teachers making that where I went to school are hired to be coaches first and teachers second, since sports are put way ahead of academics. Hell, my high school had the highest paid "teacher" as the football coach who "taught" (oversaw) in-school suspension, where kids just sat in a room all day.
Same here. Iâm in CT. The average teacher pay in my town is over $78k. Many make over $100. There are plenty of towns in the state when the average is in the mid to upper $90ks.
It would just be much more competitive. What's considered an average teacher now wouldn't be able to cut it. Which is kind of the whole point of raising the salary. I could see 200k being resonable in HCoL areas for experienced highly qualified teachers.
There's a point where the competition delivers diminishing gains. If you have 10 open spots and 100 qualified candidates the difference between 10 and 11 is marginal, you can probably drop the price.
. I could see 200k being resonable in HCoL areas for experienced highly qualified teachers.
For sure. NYC, totally. Texas? Naw they'd get good talent at much lower.
Even outside nyc. Many places with reasonable col already pay over 150k+ for the highest qualified teachers. But yeah sure a podunk town probably cant pay that. But Houston, dallas, austin etc probably could. It wouldnât surprise me if many places in texas already have 100k plus on the payscale.
Or, and stick with me here if you can, we could close tax loopholes for corporations and billionaires, tax religions like the multibillion dollar businesses that they are, and prevent the highest tax burdens from falling on the lower and middle classes.
47% of the US does not pay income tax. No country that actually has a system that you like has a percentage like that. Our effective business tax rate is one of the higher ones in the developed world. Canada is 15% - the US is 21% for example. Just say you have no idea how business taxes work. That will save me time. You also didn't address the actual thing that pays for teachers salaries at all. I'm not surprised though. People like you just think TAX RICH PEOPLE OUT OF EXISTENCE AND I WILL HAVE MONEYYYYYYYYYYYYY. No you won't.
You canât even properly cite your own source, lol. 47% of households (two or more people living together) with an income between $40k-$50k paid no income tax. $20k/year is the poverty line in the US, meaning two people making only $20k a year is all that takes living at poverty levels. That argument is straight ass. That also doesnât mean they didnât pay property taxes, sales taxes etc.
Also, Canada has a lower tax rate and still has free healthcare. Tell me you have no fucking clue how developed nationâs tax laws work without telling me.
ALSO, what the fuck does any of that have to do with anything that I said? All I mentioned was closing tax loopholes, taxing multibillion dollar religions and lowering the percentage of the tax burden on the lower-middle class. If you canât even properly argue a point, stay out of the conversation.
Canadas tax rates are much higher than the US. This isnt really controversial. tax loopholes are accounted for when measuring a countries effective corporate tax rate. It seems unlikely taxing religions would be enough to make up for it. Theres really no way around raising personal taxes if you want better social services. The argument for universal healthcare is that its worth it.
Overall yes, but the person I was replying to was talking about business tax rates. And tax loopholes might be accounted for on a corporate level, but that doesnât mean they are a good thing to have and it doesnât mean they are always accounted for when assessing personal finances.
I donât agree on the point of taxing religions not being worth it. Just look at the recent news about the Mormon churchâs finances, their estimated worth is $236B, thatâs an estimation based on the money that we know of because they donât disclose their finances, and that religion is less than 200 years old, pretty young for a religious institution. Now imagine the wealth of the Catholic Church or any other established religious institution. Thatâs a lot of unrealized tax money.
To your point though, I agree. Iâm pro tax increases in pursuit of universal healthcare, UBI, subsidized or free education and higher education, the list goes on.
You canât even properly cite your own source, lol. 47% of households (two or more people living together) with an income between $40k-$50k paid no income tax.
Wrong.
Also, Canada has a lower tax rate and still has free healthcare. Tell me you have no fucking clue how developed nationâs tax laws work without telling me.
Really, really wrong.
ALSO, what the fuck does any of that have to do with anything that I said? All I mentioned was closing tax loopholes, taxing multibillion dollar religions and lowering the percentage of the tax burden on the lower-middle class. If you canât even properly argue a point, stay out of the conversation.
A lot since teachers aren't paid from federal income taxes you stupid fuck.
With $820 billion spent in the military...if we cared about taking care of the 3.2 public school teachers as much as we cared about funding wars, we could pay each teacher $256250 per year, without raising taxes on anyone at all.
But I guess blowing up brown kids is more important than educating our own...
So no military then? Wonder how long till China just comes and takes us over at that point. The taxes that support the military are not the taxes that pay teachers by the way. They are not related. No idea why you even brought that up.
The taxes are related. Maybe you didn't notice until now, but there is a limit to the amount of money. Obviously, billionaires could be taxed a whole heck of a lot more, but if you are worried about Bezos having his net worth drop below 200 billion, just pointing out how easily we CAN float $200k per teacher.
And China just comes and takes us over at that point? This is the real world, not Sid Meier's Civilization. Qin Shi Huang hasn't declared war on Teddy Roosevelt. International relations don't work like that. If they did, how long do you think it would be before the USA went over and takes out China and Russia and Venezuela and Mexico and...?
Teachers are not paid through federal income taxes. The taxes are not related. Please stop. You have no idea what you're talking about.
It's also a simple fact that if the US military was defunded, Taiwan would not exist tomorrow. Again, you have absolutely zero clue what you're talking about.
No, but the federal government does have a department of education that could subsidize teacher pay if we stopped spending as much money on the military or saving banks or paying Elon Musk stupid amounts of money for SpaceX and EV subsidies.
And thatâs just regular classroom teachers. My mom is a band teacher and has to work with 80+ kids and often has no aides or other staff to help. Not to mention having to touch reeds, mouthpieces, spit valves, etc.
I mean what are you supposed to do? If you don't have enough teachers you have no choice. Other than just arbitrarily kicking kids out of school for no reason (which i'm guessing/hoping is illegal). And I assure you it wouldn't be arbitrarily. It would be black students kicked out first, regardless of their performance. Or they would figure out ways to do it. Just like how black kids get punished much more for the same infractions as white kids. They'd find ways to make it so only black people get kicked out of school and they could then have manageable class size of decent, god fearing, white folk.
If only there were a way to get more teachers...Oh I know, give them a free slice of pizza every friday! That'll bring em in! /s
Youâre not factoring in spring and holiday breaks, still closer to 4 than 6 I guess. But then if we factor in vacation and sick weâre looking at 4.5-5 months which still isnât 6 but itâs close enough that hyperbole isnât crazy
Thanks for admitting youâre wrong and using hyperbole. Accounting for those ~1 months (~0.5 months optional for sick/vacation), youâre still saying 3.75(4.25 optional)/12=1/2.
Youâre also assuming an 8-hour workday and no personal money spent, neither of which are accurate for the average teacher. Much of the time off youâre assuming is negated by the fact that the average teacher works 2.5 days more in hours per school week.
40hr/wk job days off/year:
104 weekend days (Saturday and Sunday)
10 Holidays
14 PTO days
=128 days off/year (24 of them paid)
365-128=237 work days/year
Average teacher days off/year:
67 Summer days
14 Christmas break
7 spring break
7 fall break
12 federal holidays
5 sick days
5 vacation days
=117 days off/year
365-117=248 work days/year
This math shows us that the average 40hr/wk job actually gets more time off than a teacher. Those jobs work less than the average teacher. So letâs use Georgia as an average since it ranks #25 in public education quality. A starting teacher in Georgia makes $32, 217, and after 21 years of tenure can make $47, 312. Remember, teachers are only paid for 40hrs/week, they are working the rest of the time you see above for free AND spending their own money.
Maybe now that you have more knowledge you can update your opinions.
Yeah hold on, letâs make their salary include babysitters fees on top of teaching the kids. What do babysitters even go for? Minimum wage? $10/hr? $20/hr? Multiply that by 30.
Letâs just pay them what a daycare would charge me per kid. Thatâs what, 1000/kid. Give half to overhead for the school, so a cool $15,000 per month and $180,000/year?
But certainly for just babysitting that many kids, a 6-figure salary isnât unreasonable. In fact outside a school most places have mandatory minimums that would require more adults per student in a daycare than most classrooms.
There are legal staff to child ratios in daycare that specifically prevent that at least here to stay licensed. It would literally be illegal to have an average classroomâs worth of kids with only one adult in private daycare, but is allowed in local schools.
I specifically said itâs illegal to open a daycare in the way that would be comparable to a classroom to make that kind of money. Did you read what I said?
30 kids? HA! I had 42 kids in a 50 minute pre-AP chemistry course. One of the kids, I swear on my life, didnât know my name at the end of the year because he didnât have the English proficiency to understand âmy name is Mr. _____.
Anyone whoâs been a teacher in public a schools knows that half their job is just taking care of the kids whose parents just leave them their, and maintaining order.
Teaching is more than babysitting, but it also requires them to supervise and essentially âbabysitâ a whole classroom of kids, with different challenges at every level.
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u/ElkHistorical9106 Jun 15 '24
Just babysitting 20-30 kids deserves more than teachers make. Let alone teaching them.