PAY TEACHERS WHAT THEY EARN! October 19, 2006
Disclaimer: Now that I've retired from teaching full time, I can write this. It's too late for me to benefit from this, but it's not too late for society to have more teachers dedicated to their profession and partly repaid for their schoolwork done at home.
I taught elementary (Title 1-Chapter 1) reading and math for 10 years. Those were some of my most enjoyable years of teaching. It entailed working with kids that were mostly affectionate and appreciative of the help that I provided. I worked about 40 hours per week at that job. This gave me lots of time to go back to the farm/homestead and do lots of chores. It was a low-stress job. I earned my pay of $8,500 per year, no doubt about it. And I never once carried a briefcase.
But I also taught 21 years as an English teacher. Let's get something straight: There is a world of difference in these two jobs. As an English teacher, if you want to be effective, you HAVE to put in a lot more hours than your peers. As an English teacher I worked an average of 60 hours per week. Big difference. Some weeks, after I had been in the profession for 5 or more years, I worked a full 80 hours, usually because of grading research papers or essays at home. Some weeks I only worked 50 hours because the grading load was easier, just the usual quizzes and tests. But averaged together it was about 60 hours per week for 21 years. Over those 21 years, if you add the extra hours, it comes to 27 years of 40 hours per week of work, the "normal" work week most Americans have. Therefore, I haven't taught 31 years total. I've taught 37 years over a 31 year period! That's 6 years worth of grading papers, etc., at home!
(Added Oct. 28, 2000: I just found this statistic and thought it interesting, so I've added it here: In The Virginia Journal of Education, Nov., 2006, p.19, they report that public school teachers spend an average of 50 hours per week on all their duties, including grading papers. I can only assume that when they say "public school teachers" they mean elementary and secondary teachers, including overburdened English teachers, and the average is the average of all those polled. Like I said, interesting.)
My normal week as an English teacher consisted of teaching the classes, sometimes with the same lesson plan, often with two or three different lesson plans because they were different classes (like English 9, English 11, Drama, etc.) Then I would often stay late at school for coaching drama or forensic arts until 5 p.m. I would drive home and check the mail. My wife often would find me napping with a Newsweek magazine on my lap when she arrived home. I wasn't physically exhausted. Teaching high school emotionally drains most teachers. I'd try and do one short chore, then I'd watch the news and eat dinner. By 7 p.m. it was time to open the briefcase.
How do you tell if an English teacher is trying to be effective in his or her job? Look for the ones carrying a briefcase or something with a lot of papers in it. It's a simple fact: In order to produce better writers you HAVE to assign more writing, AND that writing has to be graded so the students can receive feedback as to how to improve. Stand outside any high school and watch as the teachers head for their cars. I've done this hundreds of times. You can easily tell who is taking work home to be graded. Most teachers carry no bag, just a purse if they're female. But watch the effective English teacher carry a heavily loaded bag, briefcase, or box full of research papers, projects, essays, short stories, etc.
So I'd open my briefcase and grade papers until 11 p.m. most every night. (That's 4 hours, minimum per night.) Some nights I'd grade until 1 or 2 a.m. if I really wanted to get that batch of papers back to the students right away. After grading, I always had to do my lesson plans for the next day. This usually only took 30 minutes or so, after I had been teaching for 4 to 5 years. But during those first 5 years of teaching I often found myself studying what I had to teach the next day. This often entailed reading a selection or two, or intently studying pronouns or something so I wouldn't sound like a fool trying to teach the next day. And, of course, anytime I was given a new assignment- a different class level, etc.- that meant a whole different set of quizzes and tests to write, different books and pieces to read, different lesson plans, different everything! I usually went to bed after my wife was asleep.
I have to say right now that I owe a huge thank you to Debbie for being a partner of sorts in my career. (It's almost as if the school board got 1.10 teachers for the price of 1.) She would help me enter homework, quiz, and test scores almost every night when she could. I'd call out the name and grade and she'd enter it in my grade book. We found this was a lot faster than my entering them by myself. Deb was a professional bookkeeper and was gracious enough to average all those grades and help me do report cards for 19 of my 21 years teaching English. She double checked EVERY student's average, with only one mistake (easily corrected) in all those years. Not too many teachers can say they had the marital help I had. This help enabled me to do even more grading, test and quiz writing, etc. than normal. As for anyone possibly wondering about the privacy of a pupil's grade, Deb rarely connected a grade with an actual face of a student. She simply didn't know them, so that was never an issue. She maintained absolute secrecy about all school matters. Again, never a problem in my entire career.
That was my usual workday. I, like most folk, waited for the weekend when I could relax some. My Friday nights and Saturdays were usually my own. If I had a huge load to grade, I'd reluctantly start on Saturday afternoon, knowing it would make my Sunday easier. But, make no doubt about it, Sundays were for grading. Almost every Sunday for 21 years you could find me grading papers in my recliner. (I wore out 2 recliners this way!) I graded all day on Sunday, finishing, as usual, around 11 p.m. Can you imagine how many family outings I had to pass up? How many times my son would come to me with a football in his hand wanting to throw it around, and I'd have to tell him I couldn't? I'm in no way looking for pity, but just telling the truth. My family and not just myself had to make a huge sacrifice because of my chosen profession and my desire to do well in it. No doubt about it. I owe them all a big thank you.... and, I guess, a big "I'm sorry." With some hesitation, I can honestly say I partly neglected my family for one-seventh of their lives during my career. That was a hard sentence to type.
Was it worth it? Well, as a beginning English teacher in Florida in 1971, I got $7,000 per year and worked an average of 90 hours per week, starting out as an English teacher and coach. We had no kids of our own back then, but it still was not worth it. It was killing me, draining my soul. In 1985 I started teaching English in Virginia, at around 80 hours per week for about $17,000 per year, but with two kids of my own. It was an arduous struggle finishing 31 total years of teaching, but I ended at $40,000 per year and was averaging 60 hours per week. I have been put in Who's Who of America's Teachers a dozen times, and into the newer National Honor Roll's Outstanding American Teachers- 2005/2006. Unlike some teachers I know, I never once applied for or sought any honors. These were honors bestowed upon me by my previous students that thought I had made a positive change in their lives. God bless 'em! Many of my students loved me and the work I did for them. Most liked me, but you can't win 'em all. I'm sure a few hated me, school in general, and their English classes in particular.
So can I say it was worth it? Yes and no. I'm proud of the job I did. Not every teacher can say that. But I'm sad that I hurt my family by ignoring some of their needs during that time. There were many times I wished I had taught social studies, history, math, anything that didn't come with the required briefcase. (Don't get my wrong, I have talked to math teachers, etc. that have taken work home, but none, I repeat-none- can honestly look me in the eye and say they worked at home nearly as much as I did.)
Let's pay teachers for the work they do. How to do that could be a problem. Most teachers are an honest lot. If you can agree with that statement then you can agree with this one: Let the teacher who carries home work also have a time log to "punch-in" when they start grading, writing tests, etc. at home. When done they "punch-out," enter it on their time log. Pay $5.00 per hour just for work done at home to ALL teachers. Sure the English teachers will bring home the most extra pay, but I think you'll be surprised how many other teachers start assigning writing to be graded later by themselves at home. It is a well known fact that many teachers simply will not assign any work that requires them to grade much at home. They feel they aren't being paid for it, so they don't assign it. Very early in my career I witnessed an English teacher (of a school's brightest honor students) dump an entire day's worth of student writing into the trash can rather than take it home to be graded. (When I asked him why he'd thrown it all away the teacher said he had "checked it off" in his grade book as being done.) This gave me a bitter taste for lazy teachers not dedicated to their students. My idea could change all that. Or the dishonesty that rears its ugly head any time money comes into an equation could ruin this idea: Teachers could start cheating the time clock in order to earn more.
Another alternative is a form of merit-based pay: Simply pay teachers extra for the total work they produce. If a teacher says a set of papers took 8 hours to grade- a common fact with English teachers- give them compensation for the grading they did. They need it. Trust me. I've been there! I remember having to go to the bank to take out a $300 loan to fix my car's radiator because I simply didn't have $300. I remember buying my young son and daughter's clothes at Goodwill back before they cared about "style" or even "newness." I remember having my kids in the "free/reduced lunch" program in the elementary school where I taught. I know poverty. We lived it for years. As a family, we didn't get "comfortable" until I hit the $35,000 per year pay scale. That's a fact. By then it was almost too late to save much for my kids' upcoming college tuitions.
Let's crunch some numbers: If the average (English!) teacher works 20 hours per week at home on schoolwork, and is paid just $5 per hour for it, that comes to $100 per month extra pay. Multiply that times a ten month school calendar and you get $1000 extra pay for extra work. That kind of merit pay should not break too many school budgets. That money is deeply deserved by those teachers earning it, and I know it is needed by them. If you really want results, double that $5 to $10 per hour, and watch what happens! If just one wealthy, local philanthropist could start an experiment in one school to do this, and thoroughly document the amount of work done at each teacher's home, then publish the results, I think we'd all be surprised at the results. The students would improve in multiple areas, and the level of satisfaction by being just a bit compensated for their extra work would be evident in the teachers. More of those teachers would stop considering a career change! (Where's Bill Gates when you need him?)
We are at a point of crisis in education. We have to start paying teachers more or we'll see a steady decline in good teachers. I think we're seeing it already. Periodically I would encourage some of my pupils to go into teaching. Good candidates for the profession have told me to my face they don't want to enter teaching because they don't want the low pay that comes with it. Let's face it: Nowadays a teacher has to get a "calling" -much like a preacher- in order to enter teaching as a career. Let's at least pay these teachers more for the work they produce. Then we'll see an increase of dedicated professionals. The teachers deserve it, and the students deserve more dedicated teachers.
Disclaimer: Now that I've retired from teaching full time, I can write this. It's too late for me to benefit from this, but it's not too late for society to have more teachers dedicated to their profession and partly repaid for their schoolwork done at home.
I taught elementary (Title 1-Chapter 1) reading and math for 10 years. Those were some of my most enjoyable years of teaching. It entailed working with kids that were mostly affectionate and appreciative of the help that I provided. I worked about 40 hours per week at that job. This gave me lots of time to go back to the farm/homestead and do lots of chores. It was a low-stress job. I earned my pay of $8,500 per year, no doubt about it. And I never once carried a briefcase.
But I also taught 21 years as an English teacher. Let's get something straight: There is a world of difference in these two jobs. As an English teacher, if you want to be effective, you HAVE to put in a lot more hours than your peers. As an English teacher I worked an average of 60 hours per week. Big difference. Some weeks, after I had been in the profession for 5 or more years, I worked a full 80 hours, usually because of grading research papers or essays at home. Some weeks I only worked 50 hours because the grading load was easier, just the usual quizzes and tests. But averaged together it was about 60 hours per week for 21 years. Over those 21 years, if you add the extra hours, it comes to 27 years of 40 hours per week of work, the "normal" work week most Americans have. Therefore, I haven't taught 31 years total. I've taught 37 years over a 31 year period! That's 6 years worth of grading papers, etc., at home!
(Added Oct. 28, 2000: I just found this statistic and thought it interesting, so I've added it here: In The Virginia Journal of Education, Nov., 2006, p.19, they report that public school teachers spend an average of 50 hours per week on all their duties, including grading papers. I can only assume that when they say "public school teachers" they mean elementary and secondary teachers, including overburdened English teachers, and the average is the average of all those polled. Like I said, interesting.)
My normal week as an English teacher consisted of teaching the classes, sometimes with the same lesson plan, often with two or three different lesson plans because they were different classes (like English 9, English 11, Drama, etc.) Then I would often stay late at school for coaching drama or forensic arts until 5 p.m. I would drive home and check the mail. My wife often would find me napping with a Newsweek magazine on my lap when she arrived home. I wasn't physically exhausted. Teaching high school emotionally drains most teachers. I'd try and do one short chore, then I'd watch the news and eat dinner. By 7 p.m. it was time to open the briefcase.
How do you tell if an English teacher is trying to be effective in his or her job? Look for the ones carrying a briefcase or something with a lot of papers in it. It's a simple fact: In order to produce better writers you HAVE to assign more writing, AND that writing has to be graded so the students can receive feedback as to how to improve. Stand outside any high school and watch as the teachers head for their cars. I've done this hundreds of times. You can easily tell who is taking work home to be graded. Most teachers carry no bag, just a purse if they're female. But watch the effective English teacher carry a heavily loaded bag, briefcase, or box full of research papers, projects, essays, short stories, etc.
So I'd open my briefcase and grade papers until 11 p.m. most every night. (That's 4 hours, minimum per night.) Some nights I'd grade until 1 or 2 a.m. if I really wanted to get that batch of papers back to the students right away. After grading, I always had to do my lesson plans for the next day. This usually only took 30 minutes or so, after I had been teaching for 4 to 5 years. But during those first 5 years of teaching I often found myself studying what I had to teach the next day. This often entailed reading a selection or two, or intently studying pronouns or something so I wouldn't sound like a fool trying to teach the next day. And, of course, anytime I was given a new assignment- a different class level, etc.- that meant a whole different set of quizzes and tests to write, different books and pieces to read, different lesson plans, different everything! I usually went to bed after my wife was asleep.
I have to say right now that I owe a huge thank you to Debbie for being a partner of sorts in my career. (It's almost as if the school board got 1.10 teachers for the price of 1.) She would help me enter homework, quiz, and test scores almost every night when she could. I'd call out the name and grade and she'd enter it in my grade book. We found this was a lot faster than my entering them by myself. Deb was a professional bookkeeper and was gracious enough to average all those grades and help me do report cards for 19 of my 21 years teaching English. She double checked EVERY student's average, with only one mistake (easily corrected) in all those years. Not too many teachers can say they had the marital help I had. This help enabled me to do even more grading, test and quiz writing, etc. than normal. As for anyone possibly wondering about the privacy of a pupil's grade, Deb rarely connected a grade with an actual face of a student. She simply didn't know them, so that was never an issue. She maintained absolute secrecy about all school matters. Again, never a problem in my entire career.
That was my usual workday. I, like most folk, waited for the weekend when I could relax some. My Friday nights and Saturdays were usually my own. If I had a huge load to grade, I'd reluctantly start on Saturday afternoon, knowing it would make my Sunday easier. But, make no doubt about it, Sundays were for grading. Almost every Sunday for 21 years you could find me grading papers in my recliner. (I wore out 2 recliners this way!) I graded all day on Sunday, finishing, as usual, around 11 p.m. Can you imagine how many family outings I had to pass up? How many times my son would come to me with a football in his hand wanting to throw it around, and I'd have to tell him I couldn't? I'm in no way looking for pity, but just telling the truth. My family and not just myself had to make a huge sacrifice because of my chosen profession and my desire to do well in it. No doubt about it. I owe them all a big thank you.... and, I guess, a big "I'm sorry." With some hesitation, I can honestly say I partly neglected my family for one-seventh of their lives during my career. That was a hard sentence to type.
Was it worth it? Well, as a beginning English teacher in Florida in 1971, I got $7,000 per year and worked an average of 90 hours per week, starting out as an English teacher and coach. We had no kids of our own back then, but it still was not worth it. It was killing me, draining my soul. In 1985 I started teaching English in Virginia, at around 80 hours per week for about $17,000 per year, but with two kids of my own. It was an arduous struggle finishing 31 total years of teaching, but I ended at $40,000 per year and was averaging 60 hours per week. I have been put in Who's Who of America's Teachers a dozen times, and into the newer National Honor Roll's Outstanding American Teachers- 2005/2006. Unlike some teachers I know, I never once applied for or sought any honors. These were honors bestowed upon me by my previous students that thought I had made a positive change in their lives. God bless 'em! Many of my students loved me and the work I did for them. Most liked me, but you can't win 'em all. I'm sure a few hated me, school in general, and their English classes in particular.
So can I say it was worth it? Yes and no. I'm proud of the job I did. Not every teacher can say that. But I'm sad that I hurt my family by ignoring some of their needs during that time. There were many times I wished I had taught social studies, history, math, anything that didn't come with the required briefcase. (Don't get my wrong, I have talked to math teachers, etc. that have taken work home, but none, I repeat-none- can honestly look me in the eye and say they worked at home nearly as much as I did.)
Let's pay teachers for the work they do. How to do that could be a problem. Most teachers are an honest lot. If you can agree with that statement then you can agree with this one: Let the teacher who carries home work also have a time log to "punch-in" when they start grading, writing tests, etc. at home. When done they "punch-out," enter it on their time log. Pay $5.00 per hour just for work done at home to ALL teachers. Sure the English teachers will bring home the most extra pay, but I think you'll be surprised how many other teachers start assigning writing to be graded later by themselves at home. It is a well known fact that many teachers simply will not assign any work that requires them to grade much at home. They feel they aren't being paid for it, so they don't assign it. Very early in my career I witnessed an English teacher (of a school's brightest honor students) dump an entire day's worth of student writing into the trash can rather than take it home to be graded. (When I asked him why he'd thrown it all away the teacher said he had "checked it off" in his grade book as being done.) This gave me a bitter taste for lazy teachers not dedicated to their students. My idea could change all that. Or the dishonesty that rears its ugly head any time money comes into an equation could ruin this idea: Teachers could start cheating the time clock in order to earn more.
Another alternative is a form of merit-based pay: Simply pay teachers extra for the total work they produce. If a teacher says a set of papers took 8 hours to grade- a common fact with English teachers- give them compensation for the grading they did. They need it. Trust me. I've been there! I remember having to go to the bank to take out a $300 loan to fix my car's radiator because I simply didn't have $300. I remember buying my young son and daughter's clothes at Goodwill back before they cared about "style" or even "newness." I remember having my kids in the "free/reduced lunch" program in the elementary school where I taught. I know poverty. We lived it for years. As a family, we didn't get "comfortable" until I hit the $35,000 per year pay scale. That's a fact. By then it was almost too late to save much for my kids' upcoming college tuitions.
Let's crunch some numbers: If the average (English!) teacher works 20 hours per week at home on schoolwork, and is paid just $5 per hour for it, that comes to $100 per month extra pay. Multiply that times a ten month school calendar and you get $1000 extra pay for extra work. That kind of merit pay should not break too many school budgets. That money is deeply deserved by those teachers earning it, and I know it is needed by them. If you really want results, double that $5 to $10 per hour, and watch what happens! If just one wealthy, local philanthropist could start an experiment in one school to do this, and thoroughly document the amount of work done at each teacher's home, then publish the results, I think we'd all be surprised at the results. The students would improve in multiple areas, and the level of satisfaction by being just a bit compensated for their extra work would be evident in the teachers. More of those teachers would stop considering a career change! (Where's Bill Gates when you need him?)
We are at a point of crisis in education. We have to start paying teachers more or we'll see a steady decline in good teachers. I think we're seeing it already. Periodically I would encourage some of my pupils to go into teaching. Good candidates for the profession have told me to my face they don't want to enter teaching because they don't want the low pay that comes with it. Let's face it: Nowadays a teacher has to get a "calling" -much like a preacher- in order to enter teaching as a career. Let's at least pay these teachers more for the work they produce. Then we'll see an increase of dedicated professionals. The teachers deserve it, and the students deserve more dedicated teachers.
1 comment:
I for one appreciate your dedication and your desire to do the best you could by your students but I wholeheartedly understand the overworked aspect of teaching as well. It didn't help that you worked for one of the most underpaid districts in the state. No Child Left Behind definitely isn't helping, either - it's the number one reason I decided to stay in IT instead of going into education. I'm making as much money now as I could teaching - how sad is that? It just sucks that it's a socially accepted concept that teachers get paid jack and are expected to perform the most. Boggles the mind.
Post a Comment