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Comment by bkaid | Hacker News Reader

I never understand why people get overly emotional about teacher salaries but not other public positions like fire, police, military, etc. While I empathize (my mother and 2 sisters are teachers), they do only work 9 months out of the year, and less than 40 hours per week. And teachers insist on remaining unionized, basically ensuring bad (non-criminal) teachers can't be fired once they get tenured after 2-3 years in most states. And the degree needed isn't difficult or technical to earn compared to laywers, doctors, engineers, etc. So I think their salaries at their current levels are justified.

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Teachers do not work less than 40 hours per week. A ton of time is spent on grading, prep, helping slow students, school meetings, complying with NCLB requirements, etc.

According to the BLS, the average full time teacher works slightly less than 40 hours/week (see Table 2). This includes time at the workplace, at home and at another location.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf

Ah, right. I made a very stupid mistake in thinking they teach students for ~7 hours/day. I was also biased by my (probably) above-average experiences with teachers.

I looked at the chart for percent of teachers working on a given day (orange and gray one). The orange alone gives 9.5 hours per day. That alone is more than 40 hours per week.

Which chart? They are numbered, you know.

[edit: I'm guessing you are referring to chart 6, but that data is restricted to "days when they did at least some work".]

Number 6. Sorry, the color description was completely useless.

Edit: I'm tired, and I'm making a bunch of stupid mistakes. Figure 6 and figure 5 are directly at odds with each other. I can't account for the discrepancy, so I'm going to reduce the signal to noise ratio, and get rid of some of my other comments. I apologize to everyone for spamming stupidly.

Are these data averaged across the entire year (including summers)? The summary is not clear about that, although it does include data from summer interviews.

If it is averaged across summers, you can have a teacher working 50 hrs/wk during the school year, 0 hours during the summer and have the average come out to less than 40.

From the third paragraph of the article I linked to:

With the exception of chart 1, all estimates presented are restricted to persons who were employed during the week prior to their interview and who did some work during that period. Thus, a teacher who was on summer or semester break during the week of the survey is not included in this analysis.

A great way to answer questions about an article someone cites is to actually read it.

I had read the article and read that section, but it doesn't answer my question - all that says is that teachers on break weren't included in the study, that doesn't say whether or not the data taken from the teachers included in the study were averaged across a (working or school) year just across the interviewees.

But thank you for your respectful response.

In the ATUS, interviewers collect data in a time diary format, in which survey participants provide information about "yesterday."

So no, it's not averaged across a year (unless the teacher worked a full year).

While the typical office workers averages 40hrs a week in the office, how many hours are they really productive? If they had to record only the hours that they're productive at tasks, would it come close to 40hrs?

"I never understand why people get overly emotional about teacher salaries but not other public positions like fire, police, military, etc."

Firefighters and Police were notably excluded from the recent anti-union legislation legislation they passed in Wisconsin. My guess is because if they had included the Police then who would have kept order in the capitol building? The police would have been out there on strike with the teachers.

First, firefighters and police were not excluded from the bill; they were explicitly included under the rubric of "public safety employees" (as opposed to general municipal employees).

Second, the difference in treatment contained in the bill is that public safety employees can collectively bargain on hours, working conditions, and wages, whereas general municipal employees can only collectively bargain on wages. I'm no expert, but perhaps a firefighter sleeping in the firehouse so he can hop on the truck at 2AM faces different concerns than the secretary to the tax collector.

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It's a general observation of most "professional" employment that the actual working hours exceed the paid hours. It's definitely true of lawyers in large law firms (I have been one) that there are many hours that keep the lawyer busy with work that are not necessarily billable to a client. And, yes, I know both teachers and lawyers (I have pursued both occupations, although my teaching has not been full-time permanent employment in a government-operated school).

"You don't know any teachers"

He said his mother and two sisters are teachers. Am I missing something?

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