Teacher asks why she is paid so little, posts salary on Facebook

[CharlesDavenport]

Fed up with low pay and nearly meaningless salary bumps, an Arizona teacher posted her salary to Facebook alongside an exasperated message, according to multiple reports this week. Whispering Wind Academy teacher Elisabeth Milich wrote her pay was not a living wage.

A picture of paperwork, apparently revealing her pay of $35,490 per year, showed her getting an additional $131 in pay the next year after taking developmental classes, according to Arizona newspaper The Republic. Milich has since deleted the photo.

"This is my new pay after taking a few professional development classes," she wrote in the post, via The Republic. "I actually laughed when I saw the old salary vs. the new one. I mean really, I need a college degree to make this? I paid 80,000 for a college degree, I then paid several hundred more to transfer my certification to Az."

from - https://www.yahoo.com/news/teacher-posts-salary-facebook-asks-173532523.html

My first reaction is to wonder if she didn't know what teachers make before spending $80K on college. My second reaction is that teachers in Arizona don't make ****.

You take what you get with a government job. The public school system doesn't require top talent and doesn't pay for it.

 

[Confluence]

What about her benefit package?


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[Ironcitysteelers]

What about her benefit package?


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Teenage boys? ;-)

 

[BLITZ]

yet we pay some of the athletes she will teach millions and they ***** about it. Teachers do get a ****** deal ,

 

[Superman]

hit. twice and twice more.

 

[IndySteel]

Looks like she has money to gamble and buy cosmos.

If I was the Superintendent of a school system I would offer this incentive to all teachers in the district: Get a license to carry, pass a firearm / live fire training course (paid for by the school) and stay armed during the school year. Your new salary is $50K.

And in Milch's case, she'd get a bump to $50K just for a blow job.

 

[Sarge]

Seems to me that you would research the salary for a prospective career. Especially if it costs $80,000 dollars for the degree. Teachers do get a ****** deal, but you would almost have to know going in that being a teacher doesn't pay well in some areas. I think North Carolina is like 49 out of 50 in teacher pay, and it shows.

 

[SteelerInLebanon]

Cost of living? Ohio average salary is over 56,000.

 

[Steeltime]

The $35,000 obviously does NOT include medical, dental, or retirement, which have a value of approximately $11,000 per year. Specifically, medical insurance for most government employees requires that they pay zero and get very good coverage for the entire family at a minimal cost, with very little deductible. That insurance is valued at more than $650 per month. The retirement does not require that the teacher even contribute and is valued at $250 per month. The dental insurance is value at about $50 per month.

So her compensation totals approximately $46,000 per year, where she works basically 9 months out of the year (excluding 2 mos. summer vacation, winter break, spring break and the endless myriad of vacation days that schools have).

That works out to 21 working days per month, or 189 working days per year. At 8 hours per day (teachers are specifically given time DURING their working day to grade tests, prepare homework, etc.), that works out to 1,512 working hours per year.

Her salary equates to $30.42 per hour.

Guess what? More than $30 per hour for a job that she can do for the rest of her life (unlike ironworkers for example), and where she has a very nice retirement package when she stops working after 30 years (in her late 50's)? Not bad when you actually run the numbers.

 

[steel dino]

Its a damn disgrace what most of this country pays teachers.

 

[tapeANaspirin2it]

I agree so many teachers are way overpaid. 6 hour workday for 189 days of the year. Benefits that cost them next to nothing and retire at about 55 with full pension for life.

This woman should ask what the longest tenured teachers make at the school. I bet it’s up near 70k.

Internet says typical starting salary in Arizona is about 32K. The average teacher salary in AZ is about 50k. By definition that means half the teachers in AZ make over 50k.

PA average is about 63k

http://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/


Teachers also have the opportunity to make extra by teaching summer school or they can just get a temp summer job.

This chick is probably only in her first or second year teaching and thinks she should be making the same as somebody in year 15.

 

[Confluence]

Teenage boys? ;-)

You win the interwebz today!!!


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[steel dino]

As compared to other occupations and with similar post -secondary degrees and credentials...

Teachers are not only under-compensated..... but usually under appreciated.

I like to live where some of you do...that a 50k salary makes for a "comfortable" way of life, and is considered an upper-tiered compensation level for middle class Americans..

 

[DBS1970]

I have a couple of questions.

First, is this her first teaching job and how long has she been with the school system? $46,000 is not a bad starting salary and that would be what her total compensation is as steeltime points out. 46 grand is not a bad starting wage. Especially with the pension and benefits package that state employees enjoy.

Second is the 35,000 and change her gross or net pay? That makes a **** ton of difference.

 

[Ironcitysteelers]

I remember when I first came out of school, while be it over a decade ago, I was making 35,000 and was happy. I was broke as **** but was in my way.

 

[jitter77]

Seems really low. My gf makes that much as a certified nurses aide. Some places offer your training for free then you just have to pay for the certification test which is like $100. Another girl who hasnt been at our place as long as my gf made about 45k due to all the overtime she had. If a teacher is only grossing around 35k that does not seem right...

 

[3 Hypocycloids]

Those hourly breakdowns are weak. Teachers have to spend time after school grading papers and tests, preparing lessons, etc. that wasn’t factored in, and there is a difference between total compensation and wage. If you are in a job that doesn’t include benefits as part of your total compensation, sounds like you have yourself a ****** job and a ****** employer. $30/hr ain’t the same as $30/hr total compensation....cmon man.

Also, they often have to purchase materials (like paper) for their classes because schools are underfunded.

Yes, teachers make **** money. So do social workers, which is why I transitioned out of that line of work and into healthcare data analytics.

 

[Sarge]

The United States spends the 5th most per student in the world, @ $12,731. Problem is, so much of that is spent on non-instructional bullshit. More than any other nation. Maybe if we spent money on the actual education instead of bussing kids 50 miles one way rather than letting them just attend in the district they live nearest to, teachers maybe wouldn't have to buy so much stuff for their classes if they had to buy anything at all. Our nation spends a lot, but our nation wastes an awful lot too.

 

[deljzc]

When your "owner" is the taxpayer, you're money is never going to be comparable to free market driven private industry. It's just not.

Governments will always pay enough to fill the spots, not enough to compete for the best of the best. And I'm not sure taxpayers in this country want it otherwise. Maybe they do, in which case we should discuss additional taxes for civil servants or find cuts somewhere else.

It is important to realize that while salary for civil servants is normally under as compared to private business, the "perks" of the job are normally substantially better. From vacation time to healthcare to disability to accrued overtime to whatever else, I can say unequivocally public servants get better benefits than middle-class private industry employees.

I also want to argue this is a "servant" job, which is why you are called a civil servant in the first place. In many ways it is altruistic to give back to the community and your choice of professions is reflective of that. Police don't make enough, fire fighters don't make enough, even nurses and doctors (which might become "civil servants" if we go to universal health care) will probably never get paid the same as people with similar investments in time/education/certification vs. those in the private sector. Not to mention the health risks and mental demands of being a public servant.

Fundamentally, we will never have enough taxpayer dollars to make it equal or "fair". Not when 40-45% of workers in this country are getting paid mostly from taxpayer money (some how, some way).

 

[CharlesDavenport]

Public school teachers get paid ****. No debating that. The product keeps getting worse as well. Not a happy situation all around. Sort of a post office situation.I wonder what the common denominator is?

 

[Supersteeler]

I started out at $21,000 in PA, and that was with a Masters Degree.

 

[tapeANaspirin2it]

The United States spends the 5th most per student in the world, @ $12,731. Problem is, so much of that is spent on non-instructional bullshit. More than any other nation. Maybe if we spent money on the actual education instead of bussing kids 50 miles one way rather than letting them just attend in the district they live nearest to, teachers maybe wouldn't have to buy so much stuff for their classes if they had to buy anything at all. Our nation spends a lot, but our nation wastes an awful lot too.

Exactly. Show me an underfunded school and i’ll show you a district where they either gave most of their budget to teacher salaries or wasted their money on non-essentials.

when a liberal says "invest in education" it means raise teacher salaries.

Just like when obama "invested in infrastructure ". It ended up just being payments to unions the they said OK, now guve us more money to build these bridges. Works the same with teachers in most cases.

 

[Booted]

 

[CharlesDavenport]

The United States spends the 5th most per student in the world, @ $12,731. Problem is, so much of that is spent on non-instructional bullshit. More than any other nation. Maybe if we spent money on the actual education instead of bussing kids 50 miles one way rather than letting them just attend in the district they live nearest to, teachers maybe wouldn't have to buy so much stuff for their classes if they had to buy anything at all. Our nation spends a lot, but our nation wastes an awful lot too.

Speaking of non-instructional bullshit - the principal at my kid's grade school says more than 20 minutes of direct math instruction is non-productive for the kids. So my fourth grader spends about 7 hours in school every day, and he gets 20 mins of math instruction, and the principal says this is a good thing. You should have seen my face when she told me this in person. I was concerned about it and went and saw her and she said it is by design and is a good thing. Its a long story, but like I told her, my goal now is for my kid to survive her school. He's smart. He'll be ok. This is the richest school district in GA. It's a joke.

 

[deljzc]

Public school teachers get paid ****. No debating that. The product keeps getting worse as well. Not a happy situation all around. Sort of a post office situation.I wonder what the common denominator is?

I am not of the opinion the "product" is **** because of the pay scale. I am of the opinion the Teacher's Union/labor agreements that prevent getting rid of the bad teachers and have salary ONLY based on tenure/education and not aptitude/success is the driving factor for bad teacher performance. The Teacher's unions across this country fight tooth and nail against any merit based salary scale and that prevents even OVERLY qualified individuals from private industry that WANT to be a public servant can't because our system is entirely based on a very narrow education/certification process that excludes and penalizes anyone that doesn't play by the "teacher union" model.

That's why charter schools are having so much success. My kids go to charter schools and yes, there is teacher turnover and yes, there are teachers that are reassigned to new grades when things don't work well. But they hire/fire/promote/pay based on aptitude AND experience/education/certification level. Not just the latter.

To me, bad teaching and burnout is entire the result of teacher's unions and bad parents. And neither of those things seem to ever be blamed or addressed.