https://usatodayhss.com/2018/twenty-...RLkPY4h2R9ebYU
And the average teacher's salary in Texas is $49,780. Is it any wonder we can't attract companies like Amazon because we don't have a large enough educated workforce?
I can say that the Coach at Westlake , Lake Travis , and Highland Park even with those salaries it would still be very very difficult to actually live in those immediate school districts as the home prices , property tax and others are just so high. I know Dodge got paid well during his time at North Texas but other than that I am not sure how they could live in those districts even with those salaries.
Look, I agree teachers should be paid more because it’s a tough job. But let’s not pretend like they’re grossly underpaid.
Teachers work 9 months a year. They also have EVERY holiday off, they get a full week for thanksgiving and several weeks for Christmas. They have opportunities to earn extra pay by becoming department heads, master teachers, administrative positions, sponsoring programs at the school and/or coaching, tutoring, doing Saturday school, etc. Teachers also have an incredible retirement program that is sponsored by the state.
When you look at their pay on an actual hours worked rate, it’s not bad at all.
Teaching degrees are also very easy to come by. My direct experience in school tells me that very few people start off going for a teaching degree. Majority of people I know who went for more challenging degrees and changed majors, changed to teaching.... there’s a ton of teachers. It’s also a supply and demand thing....
Fire away
You Have No Clue what being a teacher is like
Surratt making $154,900 a year. That’s living like a King in ETX. Some people think it’s too much, but my opinion you can’t put a price on what Surratt has done for this community. I know it’s only HSFB, but it’s actually a lot more than that. Hope they give him another raise this year.
Correct. I’m not a teacher - but teachers also have no clue what it’s like to do other jobs. I acknowledged being a teacher is tough, but try making million+ dollar decisions daily, trying being directly responsible for peoples’ safety, try going to school for 10+ years and racking up 200k in debt to be qualified for a job, try not having 3-4 months a year off, try going for a job that there aren’t people lined up out the door for. There’s reasons other careers pay better....
Teachers know what they’re signing up for, work wise and pay wise. So I’m not sure why they’re first in line tout how tough their job is and complain about their salary.
Want more money? Go get qualified to do something else. If enough people quit being teachers and there’s a shortage, they’ll be forced to pay teachers more. It’s simple economics. Unpopular opinion but that’s fine.
Fire away....
I’m married to a teacher of 25 plus years teaching. Who did not choose her career field because of all that time off. Or a lack of intelligence to do something else. That time off is spent going to TEA mandatory curriculum seminars plus getting ready for the next year. And believe me with what they have to put up with today and the future it’s only going to get tougher.
If you think teachers are overpaid you have no idea what they really do and the hours that are put in. A very disrespectful post on this thread. I also understand that the Columbia Brazoria community has voted down several school bonds through the years. How important do you think the schools are. Not looking at getting into a peeling match. Just find the post above out of line. Good day all
Please point to where I said I think teachers are overpaid.....
As for CBISD, they should pass those bonds.
I chose to live in Katy and pay astronomical district taxes so that my son could go to the best elementary in the Houston area. The teachers in KISD of course are paid better than majority of their peers.
I said quite the opposite as a matter of fact. See above.
I just told you to look at the salary on an actual hours worked standpoint. Teachers aren’t the only ones who put in long hours day to day.
50,000$ over 9 months is the equivalent of 66,666$ over 12 months....
The landscape in college was different 25+ years ago.
The reality is nowadays teaching is considered a fallback option for tons of students in college. It’s unfortunate and I wish that weren’t the case. Of course that’s not everyone, not even the majority of teachers. But it floods the market, keeping pressure on wages for those who are in it for the right reasons and do a good job.
I would love for the quality teachers that we have to be paid accordingly, and in some places they are. We have teachers in KISD fresh out school that are making 55-60k. That’s nearly a starting engineering salary.
No degree or job is worth pursuing if you don’t do it the right way. I wouldn’t be taking a bottom tier HISD teaching job if I were a teacher.
Especially in the lower classification schools
Priorities in this country are a joke. Coaches making twice as much as teachers proves it beyond doubt.
What is the proper salary for the ones charged with the education of our future. It’s not what the average teacher is paid now or even close. I know lots of Professional educators that work second jobs to make ends meet. And the choices 25 years ago are no different than now. You don’t pick a career choice based on failure.
How much should a top notch coach make? I was raised on a teachers salary. Nothing but respect for what they do. But what salaries would you have our teachers making. You will probably be the same one voting no if they tried to raise your taxes to increase teacher salaries.
Saggy you just keep digging a deeper hole
And it’s only the HC/AD making that type of money. All the other coaches are making pretty much teacher wages. What should we pay our school administrators? Should they not make twice what a team we makes? Does a manager make twice what a laborer makes? Yea I think so. Same principle.
Tons of people do pick careers based on failure.....
I’m sorry you don’t believe it, but Texas A&M has something like 80% dropout rate of their engineering program. Those students end up somewhere.... business school, teaching, polisci, sports therapy, nursing, etc. The same is true for med school, law school, etc...
I don’t know what the right number is. It depends on roles, responsibilities, talent, location, class size, and the teaching market mostly.
Should we raise taxes to increase teachers salaries? I’m all for that. I have absolutely zero problem paying a higher property tax to give teachers a higher salary. But I know I’m in the miniority. Would be no problem for me to pay a extra hundred bucks a month tax if everybody would agree to the same %. Then we could pay our teachers closer to 6 figures.
In the dfw teachers get paid well but most teachers have worked other jobs so they can compare.
LOL, I guarantee I’m the only one on this thread that has put my money where my mouth is. I voluntarily chose to live in Katy where we pay 1.5% on top (nearly half of my entire tax rate) directly to the district. That equates to over $5000 a year for me that I’m voluntarily giving to the schools.
I did that so my son could go to Katy ISD, one of the best districts in the state and by far the best in the Houston area. The athletics and education are better, and so are the teaching salaries coincidently...
It is refreshing nothing against engineers or Aggies. My son in law is an aerospace engineer
I don’t post very often here. Usually on High School Sports Network instead. Good luck with your stance on this Saggy
Both my parents were teachers and my dad was also a coach. Two of our four boys are teachers/coaches. My maternal grandparents were teachers and one of my aunts. All of them went to school with the intention of teaching. Every holiday off? Not so much! Many times it's either a mandatory work day or a learning center meeting day. For my job, normal work day is 8-5 with OT over 40. For coaches, during season, the day may start at 7 or before and not end until 8. And then there's classroom prep. Many teachers work a 12-month allotment of hours in 10-months. So when they get that 2 months off, they have earned it!
I grew up thinking everyone ate supper at 7:30 or after. :doh: Not so much lol.
My wife and I are both teachers. This is what we both went to college for. I actually do not have a problem with what we make. We cannot afford the best of everything but at the same time can provide for our kids. Would it be nice to earn a little more, of course, but I did not go into this profession to get rich. I take exception to the thought that we only work 9 months and such( I actually teach summer school in my district). I understand people who work other jobs have long hours also, doesn't mean teachers cannot want for more. I am originally from the north, up there the only folks who get more grief than the teachers are LEO's(whom I have tremendous respect for).
Cannot compare a teacher's salary to an AD...an AD is an admin position. Compare them to what Supt and Principals make and they are usually right in line with those in their respective ISDs
Coaches, do not get paid to coach. They get paid to teach and are thrown a little stipend for the coaching part. a Coach making 45K to coach...is really making 40K to teach and 5K to coach. They get paid along the same lines as teachers in their ISDs.
I think the salary is what the market demands. Its not the coach's or AD problem.
I had a friend that was coach/AD in a small desolate West Texas town almost 30 years ago. While visiting one summer we marveled at his then teaching salary of almost 60 thousand dollars! He laughed and said he loved it...followed by...and they let me teach a class, drive a school bus , and come back to empty the trash.
Exactly. And I’m not going to pretend teaching is the only fall back option. Engineering is a fall back option for some students pursuing pre-med and vet degrees for example. The bottom line is that there are absolutely tiers of difficulty in college nowadays
I recognize this is just one source, but bestcolleges.org says the 3 easiest degrees to obtain nowadays are:
1) Special education
2) elementary education
3) secondary education
The most difficult are:
1) biology (pre-med)
2) comp sci
3) civil engineering
4) mechanical engineering
I wish they would make the teaching degrees and certifications more difficult to come by (i.e GMAT or MCAT). If you raise the bar, it drives down retention rate and improves the quality of candidates and forces higher wages.
Somewhat surprisingly, I looked up some data that shows around 33% of students change their major in college. I would’ve expected that to be a little higher
This article is such click bait....head football coaches for the most part are on administrator contracts and not teacher contracts.....as TXBroadcaster says their salaries are in line with principals and others in administrative positions in school districts...yes teachers are underpaid but unless we are cutting admin salaries across the board head coaches/AD contracts shouldn't be cut either
Cutting AD/head coaching saleries would not increase teacher saleries in my opinion.
What about those who are extremely smart, valedictorian and salutatorian in fact, choosing to be a teacher or a registered nurse? Both are making over a 97 average in college, but that is what they have chosen as their careers. Does that mean they are just not smart enough to become doctors or engineers? NO!
As the spouse of a teacher for 22 years, I can tell you that you really have no clue about the time teachers put in at their jobs. While it may be true for "some" teachers to only work about 9 months out of the year, it is not true for the vast majority of them. I've seen my wife work from 7:15 AM to 10:00 PM five days a week, and then at least 8 hours on Saturdays getting lesson plans together, grading papers, entering grades, etc. That doesn't include the continuing education classes they have to take during the summer. Suffice it to say, she used to work 12 months worth of hours in the "9 months" you're talking about. While her salary is "decent", it wouldn't be worth it for most people. You absolutely have to WANT to do it. Putting up with poor excuses for parents and state mandated testing guidelines, etc. is a whole other thing. The idea of getting rich is definitely not why teachers do what they do. If that were their intent, they definitely chose the wrong career. My wife worked 40 hours a week while working toward her degree. She knows what a "regular" job is for sure. I have nothing but respect for teachers, and yes, I believe they should be paid more. Incentive pay is extremely tough to gauge due to varying student abilities, so I wouldn't know the first "fair" way to make it valid.
I don’t think you understood the point of my post.
I’m not saying all teachers aren’t capable of doing other jobs. Vast majority certainly are. And for those who excel, they would have no problem getting the certifications even if the bar were raised substantially.
What I’m saying is they should make the degrees and certifications more difficult to get. That would force out the mediocre candidates, and the ones who aren’t doing it because teaching is what they love. This would drive up wages for teachers like your wife.....
I think everyone on this thread thinks I’m the bad guy because they aren’t actually reading what I’m saying. I’m saying good teachers are victims of the lax requirements to be a teacher.....
I understand what you're saying about incentives and making it tougher to become a teacher. I don't necessarily agree, though. I just take exception to the insinuation that people only take teacher jobs or nursing jobs because they weren't smart enough to do anything else. That may not have been the way you intended it, but that's the way it came across. That, and the "9 months a year" lie for teachers. My eldest daughter was valedictorian of her class, makes the President's list every semester in college, and yet she actually wants to become a teacher like her mother. She knows she won't get rich doing it but that is her chosen career path, and she will graduate in the spring. My youngest daughter was salutatorian (should have been valedictorian, but that's a whole other story) and has a 98 average in college right now. She has always wanted to be a registered nurse, and I know that she will be. She knows she faces extremely long hours, though the pay is good, but that is what she wants to do. They certainly have my blessing, though either of them are smart enough to be anything they want to be, including a doctor, engineer, accountant, etc.