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Comment by stolenmerch | Hacker News Reader

Teachers make 13% more than the average salary across the U.S., yet public perception is that they are horribly underpaid. No one is getting rich being a teacher, but they are certainly paid a decent wage. It's a hard job but most jobs are hard. I know a ton of school teachers. It's true they put in extra work each night but every single one of them has the summer off to relax and recharge. They are also free to work another job in the summer to supplement their salary.

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National average is such a massively useless metric when we have such incredible variety in cost of living across locales

To say nothing about the differential between someone in their first year and their 30th year of teaching. (At least, I hope there's a differential! I haven't looked.)

The “average salary across the U.S.” also includes workers both in their first year and their 30th year of employment.

Right, but knowing how much someone gets at starting vs how much they get at 10, 20, 30 years is helpful too.

Is there a bulge of experienced teachers getting 100k/year that pulls the average up? Does the pay range max out at 80k no matter how long you are there?

This data is more useful than the average.

Shouldn't demand for teachers be roughly correlated with where everyone else is located? It's not like with tech where the employment is concentrated in particular areas.

> every single one of them has the summer off to relax and recharge

Tell me you don't know anything about teachers without telling me, etc.

"Relax and recharge" is hardly the story for most teachers. Those salary averages you cite obscure the reality that teacher pay is often determined by degrees and certifications. When do teachers pursue those, so they can advance past the lowest band? That's right: summer. Many have to make up professional-development days just to stay at their current level. (How much mandatory structured professional development has anyone here had to do since they started their careers?) A lot of curriculum development happens as unpaid summer work. Then there are summer jobs to make up budget shortfalls (exacerbated by having to pay for their own supplies during the year), reconnecting with families they hardly got to see during the year, and so on.

There are other highly demanding and poorly paid jobs, to be sure. One could make a reasonable argument that teaching is not uniquely bad. On the other hand, trying to argue that teachers are doing great because some get 13% above average for all those extra college years and they all get summers off is counterfactual to the point of dishonesty.

Teachers may make 13% more than the average salary across the US, but the job also requires a graduate degree, which often requires a year of student teaching that is unpaid.

If we use your argument about wages, teaching "should" only require ~2 years of college (~63rd percentile education level).

What about only public school teachers?

That would be interesting to see. In my experience, many private schools actually pay less.

My partner works at a private school where the students pay more than a typical university to attend - lots of business and celebrity parents. I was surprised to find out that some of the teachers are indeed paid less than they would be if they worked at a public school. If they've worked there a long time, then their pay is significantly better, so there is incentive to stick with it at one location.

However, the perks are better. For one, if they have children, they can attend the school for free. They also get very sophisticated lunches that only cost them $5/day.

Private schools usually pay less (they aren't unionized) but the working conditions are slightly better.

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