The more I get that this seems to be how the US seems to be viewing and paying their teachers, the more I start to understand about the last two elections.
Pay average salaries, get average results.
Certainly, this forum should get that.
The statutory salaries presented do not include bonuses, vacation pay, sick-leave pay, or other additional work-related payments.
US time off is significantly worse than the OECD average, so that seems like an odd thing to ignore.
Also, It is important to note that this is number of hours spent teaching, and does not include additional teaching duties such as prep time, extracurriculars, or additional student aid time. yet they still make time comparisons The other end of the scale however is more interesting, showing that teachers in Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and the United States spend more time teaching than any other country.
It’s an oddly biased way of looking at things not in terms of total compensation, hourly wage, or even lifetime earnings but a hybrid chosen to presumably make some specific point. I wonder how else you could slice this up and how much it would change. Aka median vs average salaries etc.
PS: Plenty of ways to play with the number percentage of a medan salaries in each country is arguably the most relevant as it shows what kind of talent you attract and how important it is in each country.
All in all, being a (unionized) teacher in the USA is a pretty good gig for most people. You won't be rich, but you are secure and protected.
Now non-union/daycare/preschool teachers are a whole different story and they get the short end of the stick. For example, day care centers in the USA have generally been open throughout the pandemic, while schools are (in major cities) still shut.
A lot is said about teacher pay due to seniority, but only 1/3 make it even 5 years. It’s a vastly worse job than most assume.
In that case, people should be consistent. E.g., people point out that average teacher pay (about $60,000/year) is less than the average pay of college graduates as a whole (about $65,000/year). But if you adjust that for 10 versus 12 months, the average teacher pay is equivalent to $72,000/year. Teacher pay is either higher than public sector pay, on a per month basis, or its lower than public sector pay but offers a long summer vacation. It can't be both situationally.
The OECD includes Germany, France, Denmark as well as Mexico and Colombia - the US is most definitely unlike those countries.
On the one end, countries like Mexico and Colombia will have significantly lower salaries because cost of living differences.
Germany, France and the others will bring up the average, but the cost of living in those countries is impacted by the existence of a safety net and the structure of their school systems.