What did or do you want to be....

[luke strawwalker]

Here in Taxachusetts (not really) we value education a bit more than other parts of the country. You can pay $50K-$60K per year to go to a private university in Boston (includes R+B), but you can also live at home and attend a 2 year community college for $4K per year and/or a 4 year state college for $8K per year. (The 4 year state colleges were initially state teachers colleges.) So for about $32K you can earn a BA or BS in education and obtain certification to teach grades K-12.

We also pay our teacher a reasonable starting salary of ~$30K which is ~$14.50 per hour on a 52 week year or ~$21 per hour on a 185 day mandated year. Teachers must earn tenure after 3 years in a school system or they loose their jobs, but they also have to earn a master's within 5 years, and they take at least one continuing education class per year to maintain teaching certificates which are renewed every 5 years. Teacher who let their certificates expire are ineligible for retirement benefits so there is a great insentive to stay current. Experienced teachers that stay in the system are well rewarded and are earning $75K per year after 10-15 years. They also can retire at 75% of top 3 years pay after 30 years at 55 or older. (Perhaps a bit too generous but they must contribute 11% of salary into retirement benefit contributions.)

But that's what it takes to rank near #1 in most educational testing comparisons.

Bob

Interesting but a bit too socialist IMHO... the "tenure" thing cuts both ways--it means that it's a lot harder to get rid of bad teachers and more hoops to jump through getting in. $75,000 is rather rediculous for a teacher IMHO. Of course here in Texas we have the 'career ladder' which ups teacher pay every year based on how many years they've been teaching. It also means that the longer you've been around, the more they want to get rid of you because your pay is higher, and the harder it is to find another teaching position. Most schools want to hire "wet behind the ears" recent college graduates so they get them in the bottom of the pay scale-- which is about $22,000 a year here in TX IIRC. My wife is making around $47,000, but she's working in a large suburban Houston district on the other end of the county abutting metro Houston-- so they pay MUCH better... when she first got back in, she was looking at the local district, but they pay about $10,000 less... rural district and all (stupid "cow college" I call it... some of the crap that goes on around here would boggle the mind!) Thankfully they started allowing teachers' kids to go "in district" with them, so even though we live 30+ miles away, my first grade daughter can go to a better school than the local podunk outfit. In fact she's in the best elementary school in the district, and it's like NIGHT AND DAY compared to our local podunk outfit!

Ranking #1 is pretty good, but considering that the US as a whole is halfway down the world rankings, there's plenty of room for improvement! Guess it's the same everywhere-- ALL the focus is on standardized test results... Oh, it LOOKS good, but doesn't have to BE good... guess that's why kids at McDonald's can't make change anymore... (yes, literally!)

That sucks about the retirement thing... heck, you pay in, you should be able to get that back. I had to pay into teacher retirement for the 9 years I drove a schoolbus, though I'd have MUCH rather payed into SS like every other job I've ever had. Oh well. Here, you pay into state teacher retirement if you're a school employee (there are 3 districts in the state that pay into SS, or pay into BOTH SS and teacher retirement, so unless you work for one of them, you can't draw BOTH (double dipping) though I've heard that rule is being changed... which makes sense... very few people teach their entire careers anymore. My wife worked retail management for nearly 20 years, part of that time teaching too (in Tennessee, which pays pretty crappy, or did then) and has taught now for four years. I've worked lots of different jobs, and payed double SS being a 'self employed' farmer for all these years, and drove a bus 9 years for the local podunk outfit, paying into teacher retirement.

Also, your 'rate of pay' figures aren't taking into account all the extra time you have to put in... my wife was told beginning this year they have to 'card in' before 7 am or they go on 'the list' for the inevitable round of layoffs that will surely come at the end of the year... they've already RIF'd everybody on a growth plan year before last, chopped another 5 positions from just HER dept. at HER high school, and increased class sizes to 36-38 kids. Before, when it was 30-31 kids per class, she would be at school til 5 pm at least a couple days a week, and then work on grading and stuff til nearly 10pm after getting home. They're "supposed" to get off work at 3:30-4 pm (yeah right) and until this year they were more lenient about the 7 am thing (though that was the "official" report time, so long as you were in class before the bell rang they were cool, but they had too many showing up late, so this year they've "cracked the whip". With the HUGE layoffs and NOBODY is hiring (you retire or don't get your contract renewed you can pretty much forget finding another teaching job nowdays) they've got EVERYBODY running scared and using that to armtwist everybody into doing a bunch of extra crap... Upping class sizes means grading and special ed mods are just that much harder and take up that much more time, along with discipline issues, parent contacts, and all the other crap. Thankfully Betty was tapped to do ESL and "reading" classes this year, along with Pre-AP English, so that got her a couple classes with only 6 kids in it (ESL/reading) and only Pre-AP instead of having to teach regular English or Honors English along with Pre-AP... which is a different curriculum and "the bad kids" (what I call "the general prison population"-- pre-AP kids HAVE to WANT to be there to get into the program, and have to behave somewhat and try in order to STAY in the program-- not true of the "general prison population" who are just in school because they'd be arrested for NOT being, and do everything they can to slack off and make trouble). I'd bet Betty's putting in close to 80 hours a week, minimum. Summers off are nice, though...

God bless those with the patience and temerity to do it... I know I couldn't put up with it... I wouldn't fawn over troublemakers on the bus, so I got canned for trying to enforce the rules, like, oh, making them stay seated so they didn't get killed or broke all to pieces if we got in a wreck, and stay quiet enough that I could actually drive and watch the surrounding traffic and concentrate on my driving so we didn't get in a wreck in the first place. Oh well... like I said, some of the stuff I've seen would curl your hair...

Later! OL JR

 

[Hobie1dog]

a musician, but I didn't practice enough

 

[Steven]

I became a drummer in a local rock band in Phoenix in my twenties. Had dozens and dozens of relationships with women. Drag raced at Beeline Dragway since my teens. Bought many a car that gave me a thrilling driving experience. Made all the time necessary to enjoy all my hobbies and finally having the finances to afford a continuation of this lifestyle in spite of the economic downfall. Understanding street smarts has been an advantage here, not book smarts.

 

[Rob Campbell]

I watched "The Invaders" as a kid and thought it would be cool hunting down aliens trying to invade the Earth, so I wanted to become an architect. Then I found out what architects actually do. I became an aerospace engineer instead.