…of teachers’ salaries
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While I agree in principle with the purpose and some of the content of the article, “The Teacher Salary Myth” on Coyote Blog has to say about public school (prisons for kids) teacher pay, this comment revealed an area where Coyote Blog is sucking swamp gas through a sewer pipe:
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“… the “9 months” [per year work] estimate is only approximate, and doesn’t count the fact that teachers typically work a shorter work week than many other professionals….”
1.) “9 months”… “only approximate”? I’ll say. Now, I can’t speak for all public school teachers, and I know from personal experience that many are lousy, lazy bums, but… OTOH, I know more than a few that are not. The good ones I know (and I know more than a few*) are “on the clock” for the better part of eleven months of the year, and for the other, well, that’s absorbed in Christmas, Easter, etc., and a couple of weeks real vacation in the summer. In other words, about what most other workers get. Don’t even try to give me the old “they only work from September through May” b.s. I know better, from both personal experience and intimate acquaintance, backed up by reading policies and guidelines for more than one public school disctrict.
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2.) “…the fact that teachers typically work a shorter work week than many other professionals….” Oh? Let’s just take my wife as an example. When she was a sixth grade teacher, sure, she only worked five days a week, officially. Then there were those required “volunteer” days on weekends (kinda like the boss wanting salaried white collar employees to “come in on weekends” eh?) and the 7:00—4:30 (with lunch acting as time to be “prison guard” on kids) official times always becoming 6:00—midnight or thereabouts when all the paperwork (grading and remote administration-mandated documentation), planning, parent contacts, etc. were added in on a normal weekday.
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(I’ll not even get started on the extra extra work over “vacation,” staying late daily, weekends, etc., that her next teaching gig after sixth grade entailed… just to do what was right by the students. And she’s not the only teacher of her stripe.)
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Don’t give me that crap about “shorter workweek.” No “business lunches” or “water cooler” or “coffee break” times. Sure, a planning period (sometimkes three times a week), where lazy bums collecting a paycheck and not teaching goofed off in a so-called “teachers’ lounge”—while the real teachers (or those still trying to be real teachers) actually used the time for—gasp!—planning.
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The unfortunate thing about “The Teacher Salary Myth” is that much of its analysis hinges on the myth of the nine month work year and the “shorter work week” assumed by the author.
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And so it fails to convince me, since I know better.
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Now, if Coyote Blog wanted to address “teachers” who are thieves—incompetent lazy bums taking paychecks for work they are not doing—then I’d be on that train. I know more than a few of those. But then, we’d need also to start a discussion of the work ethic of white collar workers in general, if we were to be fair in comparing compensation… and I doubt Coyote Blog really wants to go there.
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I am no fan of the “prisons for kids” experience (see here and here, too) we have called “public education, but a flawed fisk of teacher pay/benefits isn’t the proper road to take in fixing the problems.
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*”more than a few”–let’s see: I’ve worked with (in the past) a couple of hundred. Have family and extended family for at least a generation on either side of me filled with teachers, and I know far more I have met and gotten to know since I left the field. All-in-all, it’s quite likely I know far more teachers and their experiences than anyone (including those who are teachers) else who responded to that article. The particular arguments that teachers work a shorter work year and shorter work week just do not wash.