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Comment by planetzero | Hacker News Reader

One of my relatives retired from teaching a couple of years ago. She had guaranteed raises every year and ended up making close to $100,000/year.

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Good for her! Unfortunately, your anecdote is not representative. Many older teachers are getting forced out because, well, they're expensive and new teachers are underpaid.

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

> Unfortunately, your anecdote is not representative.

Of teachers starting today? Probably not.

Older government employees often had ludicrously lucrative compensation packages compared to what we have now.

It may or may not depending on what group we're talking about.

> Many older teachers are getting forced out because, well, they're expensive

Do you have information for that one, the link provided just lists starting and average salaries.

What you describe as "ludicrously lucrative", I prefer to describe as "reasonable".

I mean, couldn't I equally well say that the compensation packages we have now are ludicrously miserly?

fyi for anyone curious on that source.. those numbers come from america's largest labor union and professional interest group for public school teachers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Education_Association

And that's with a 3 month break every year. But still, dealing with kids every day is hard work. I know I wouldn't want to do it as a career. I thank those that do.

On the east and west coast, I've met quite a few teachers, and none have a 3 month break every year. Maybe a few weeks, but they are frequently tasked with continuing education or some other task during the summers. And during the year, they're always working 12+ hour days.

I think the "always working 12+ hour days" thing is a myth. My wife is a teacher and I would say her and the teachers she works with will occasionally work extra hours, but by far it's mostly 7.5 hour days (8:30am - 4pm).

I think that's the difference between a good teacher and an average one. My wife was a teacher (left because of the poor salary). She worked 12+ hours a day five days a week (we made sure to keep weekends open but we were there on weekends too sometimes). You could see which other teachers were there 12+ hours. It was the ones that sent the most prepared kids to her class. There was an obvious quality difference between the kids who had teachers that worked 12+ hours a day and those that didn't.

Depends on the grade and subject. Some teachers have a whole lot more grading to do than others. And some grading or planning is slower-going than others. Also some schools are better about keeping time clear during the day for teachers to plan & grade than others.

New teachers are the ones that get the 12hr days. I knew a teacher that told me the early days were hard since he had to develop the lessons and there was a learning curve too but at some point, his days got shorter and it got more enjoyable.

The three month break is a myth. Teachers are generally required to spend weeks doing prep before the year starts and weeks closing out after the year ends. There are also recommended to required activities during the summer. They also typically have to work during the summer because $40-50k is not enough money to live on, in most places.

> The three month break is a myth.

My girlfriend of the last 5.5 years is a teacher. I can only speak on her experience, and what I've got to know from her colleagues. That said, the three month break is hardly a myth.

> Teachers are generally required to spend weeks doing prep before the year starts and weeks closing out after the year ends.

They stay a few *days after schools out, not weeks. And, most of them recycle lesson plans from the previous year. No one is spending weeks on lesson plans. If they are, it's passively, not 40 hours a week. From what I've been told, most of them download/purchase full plans off the internet.

> There are also recommended to required activities during the summer.

They get paid extra for this stuff too. My girlfriend runs a club, does detention, and works the ticket booth at football games. She gets paid for all of them. Her contract states one extra curricular activity per year. It's all during the school year in her case.

> $40-50k is not enough money to live on, in most places.

$40-50k is the average salary in the US. Outside of major metros, $50k will afford you a nice life (I live in one, most people here would kill to make $50k).

> $40-50k is not enough money to live on, in most places.

But it's not just the pay. They get very nice benefits too.

Yes, it's not a luxurious job but it's a good middle-class job. All workers cry poverty when it comes to pay but for the most part U.S. teachers don't fall in that track.

Along with the other commenters, the 3 month break isn't accurate. It tends to work out closer to about 7 weeks off. I do agree that I also could never do their job! (Source: My wife is a teacher)

>7 weeks off

not 12 weeks but 7 is still nice...

Still low for required education. Also, the raises haven't matched inflation; but that's a larger problem across all jobs.

The required education doesn’t help the students so why reward it? Education degrees and continuing professional education have no reliably detectable effect on teacher effectiveness. Experience does, up to six years, and subject matter expertise does, so teachers with a Master’s in Chemistry get better results than ones with just a Bachelor’s but the qualifications most people are talking about are in pedagogy, which has no effect. And it’s not like it’s a secret that the average Ed school degree is a joke, even if you don’t count the bloated Master’s degree that is an Ed.D.

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