Public school teachers like to point to what professional athletes get paid as evidence that Americans do not value our children and that teachers are under-paid. I want to be contrary and argue the point.
Looking just at salaries and not including any benefits, a public school teacher in a state with weak unions might average $45k/year and work for 40 years. That nets out to $1.8 million dollars of wages during their career. Inflation is being ignored for this analysis.
There are approximately 17,000 football players on NCAA sanctioned college teams who graduate every year. 259 of them get drafted. Taking into account a average career longevity of 3.3 years (which is probably extremely generous since many of the players who are drafted never play a day in the pros) and an average annual pay of $2.1 million average, annual salary for those who DO get contracts, that works out an average of $97k of life-time income when diluted by ALL of the NCAA, draft-eligible players who graduated in a give year.
If you follow the logic, an average teacher in a non-union state gets paid NINETEEN TIMES MORE over his/her career than the equivalent athlete who majored in FUTTBALL.
And that comes at the price of bad knees, bad backs, concussions and so on. And unless the athlete invests his money wisely, even the ones who do grab the brass-ring and get a contract will watch their income evaporate through their working years and not last very long into their post-pro lives.
Bad Joe, Bad.
ReplyDeleteDon't confuse me with the facts, I got MY FEEEELLINGS on the line and mah UNION.
Teachers should be paid and regulated by the towns they work for.
That way the cause and effects of their teaching will affect their paycheck.
Michael
Teachers in Michigan are paid and regulated by an elected school board of the district in which they work. I don't know of any other arrangement in any other state. I'm not sure of the point you are trying to make.
DeleteHave you taken a look at the real results of the teaching in America? Like what's our cost per student and the actual level of education?
DeleteElected Boards are just as bad as any politicians and as easily led by "Social Democrat" nonsense.
Woke crap instead of how to balance a check book issues.
THATS MY POINT.
My retired teacher sister in law just announced on fb that she voted for the ho. Oh, well I'm not surprised.
ReplyDeleteMost pro athletes are broke within the first three years too...
ReplyDeleteI keep hearing people talk about low teacher salaries, but the actual teacher salaries I know of pay considerably better. I'd like to see actual data on real salaries to see how low or high they are.
ReplyDeleteJonathan
I remember growing up of the teachers bragging of going to exotic places like Europe, the Balkans, Caribbean, Japan for the summer. I don't remember my parents being able to pay for an extended vacation. We went camping, one year disney and I left after the first 15 minutes disgusted and sat in the car in the parking lot reading me books until the rest of the family came out. One year we went back to Michigan for a family reunion for two weeks. Yeah, under payed my flat foot.
ReplyDeleteSame complaints here. The next town over the border from us posted teachers and admins salaries this year. Many were getting well over $100K/year. Principals and superintendents getting triple that. But they need an increase or they threaten to shut schools, lay off teachers. The town says they will cut the library or garbage pickup to pay for school costs. It’s absolutely crazy.
ReplyDeleteAnd they have to have all the left wing agenda tolerance going on too.
Southern NH
When a athlete doesn't meet standards, they are cut. Teachers, not so much.
ReplyDeleteWe are told here in KY we don't pay teachers enough. Possibly but I have yet to see any data that says they move out of state to teach.
We could pay teachers more if we decrease the number of non teaching administration employees. Here in Kentucky, less than half of the staff are teachers.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_213.40.asp
I read recently that in many states, all increase in school staffing is administrative, to comply with ever growing state and federal edicts. In some states, the administrators are approaching half of school district employees!
DeleteJonathan
Time to bust up the teachers unions - Weingarten is as bad as any Dem - and Dept of Ed. Put control and funding back to the local level. Get rid of school tax and charge parents for their own kids (as was done when "education" meant something)
ReplyDeleteI once pointed out to a teacher that she could easily get the big bucks that sports figures made. All she had to do was get 14,000 to 20,000 people to pay to come watch her teach her lesson. 40 times a season!
ReplyDelete