Are You Sick of Highly Paid Teachers?

By dianeravitch

January 20, 2014 //

Thanks to Jennie Shanker for tweeting this to me.

It appeared in the Daily Kos.

It shows how to adjust the wages of teachers.

Categories Humor, Teachers

34 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

Arthur Goldstein says:

January 20, 2014 at 9:14 am

Of course we’re all sick of overpaid teachers. Thankfully, we have grassroots organizations like E4E and Students First to stand up for more work for less pay. This will benefit not only us, but also our students. And what more could any parent ask than to have their children work low-paid, no-benefit jobs for the great folks at Walmart, who fund all the programs that make this possible?

Reply
- Robert Rendo says:
  
  January 20, 2014 at 11:12 am
  
  It’s NOT as bad as what you make it out to be, Arthur.
  
  If we educate children as you describe it, there will be plenty of ensuing jobs AT Walmart that will employ them after 4 years of community college and they will need these jobs to pay off their $70,000 of community college debt, for by that time, public colleges will have lost most of their subsidization . . . . .
  
  (Nothing against community colleges. . . . many of them are, in all seriousness, great facilities.)
  
  Reply
NY teacher says:

January 20, 2014 at 9:29 am

OVER paid babysitters?
Lets do the math:

100 students X 40 minutes/day = 4000 minutes

4000 minutes divided by 60 = 66.7 hours of babysitting

At the standard rate of $10 per hour, hmmm, lets see . . .

That would be $667.00 per day

$667 X 180 days = $120,060 per year.

I wont be offended if you call me an UNDER paid babysitter.

Reply
- Louisiana Purchase says:
  
  January 20, 2014 at 11:07 am
  
  I have nearly 225 students. WOW! The pay would be amazing! I teach 8th and 9th grade history and geography, including Advanced Placement. The AP website states that AP teachers should have less students or more planning time. I actually have more students and less planning time! I’m a “bargain,” I guess.
  
  Reply
  - NY teacher says:
    
    January 20, 2014 at 12:13 pm
    
    Just think, if they paid you babysitting wages you’d be firing Trump.
  - Louisiana Purchase says:
    
    January 20, 2014 at 5:43 pm
    
    That would be AWESOME! And I just recounted. I have 243 students. In a core class.
MathVale says:

January 20, 2014 at 9:52 am

I went from a $100,000 private sector job to a $30,000 teaching job. Not complaing as I love teaching. We get that teacher bashing frequently in our state. The voters swept in a bunch of far right extremists that are anti-education. Teachers get no support from voters who seem oblivious or could care less. Our state has sunk from 9th in job creation to 47th. We were recently polled as one of the least educated states. It is a downward spiral.

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sharsand2013 says:

January 20, 2014 at 10:41 am

I would like to figure out a better calculator for executive pay, which on average has gone from one or two million per year in 2008 (the infamous year most of lost half our reitrements) to ten to twenty million per year in 2013 according to Morningstar (that’s average). We need to have a calculator that deducts how much was spent on their yachts, vacation in Europe, buying art at auction, shopping for tailor-made suits, shmoozing in country clubs with their co-one percenters, playing golf, putting their names on hospital and university wings, meeting with lobbyists, being honored as big contributors at some neo-con, right-wing, libertarian, or other such organization events, firing workers, cutting the pay and healthcare of those left, making sure workers are independent contractors with no protections or part-timers only, sitting at meetings trying to figure out how to make smaller and shoddier and more expensive products, marking up products and then putting them on sale for 30 to 50% less and still above reasonable costs, developing plans to move factories overseas in unsafe buildings and $1.00 a day for workers, contributing to the campaigns of libertarian politicians. If you deduct all that, they may get the same as teachers–on average $30,000 to $50,000 per year.

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- Dienne says:
  
  January 20, 2014 at 10:45 am
  
  I believe it was Switzerland that had the “1 in 12” campaign – no executive should be allowed to make more in one month than his/her lowest paid workers make in a year. Sort of arbitrary, I suppose, but as good as anything and it makes sense to me (and, I suspect, most people). The bill didn’t pass, but it had made a respectable showing – I think it got close to 40% support. We need a campaign like that here. I’d even be willing to back off the campaign for a higher minimum wage if the execs were limited to a maximum wage.
  
  Reply
  - 2old2teach says:
    
    January 20, 2014 at 2:04 pm
    
    ” I’d even be willing to back off the campaign for a higher minimum wage if the execs were limited to a maximum wage.”
    
    I don’t think I would be quite satisfied. I still think people ought to be paid a living wage. Even knowing that those that have would find plenty of ways to beat any attempt to introduce them to reality, I’d go for the living wage first.
Robert Rendo says:

January 20, 2014 at 10:56 am

It’s true that teachers are vastly and unspeakably overpaid. But we are NOT spoiled to death, and are polar opposite from being rottenly selfish.

Just listen to all the horrors I have to put up with, day after day, week after week.

Sometime I wonder if I should have chosen another profession, really I do . . . . With all the horrific hardships I have to absorb and put up with.

I am a public school teacher, and as I leave the heliport from my 7,000 square feet $114,000,000 town house from the upper East Side every morning in Manhattan to go to work, I can’t help but think. “I’m exhausted! How many more charity balls must I attend and black tuxedos must I wear on top of a full work day of teaching English language arts?”

It gets worse.

After a routine weekend tennis match in the Hamptons and a few yacht parties, I actually have to take MY precious weekend time off from all this socializing and call several of my student’s parents to both praise their children and remind them to bring in their book baggies every day so they can receive a new guided reading book. I have to do ALL of this in between shrimp canapes and vintage Dom Perignon. And I have to make sure I don’t talk with my mouth full.

Do you have ANY idea how humiliating it is to be sharing a croissant just flown in from Paris with Gweneth Paltrow on my hedge fund manager friend’s ship out in Montauk Bay, and then all of a sudden having to whip out the old cell phone and speak to a parent?

It’s enough to want to make you die. Oh, the stench of embarrassment.

And then there are all the off shore tax havens that prevent me from paying any taxes on otherwise taxable income that I have to contend with when I am not prepping lessons. I actually have to call ALL of these banks in Bermuda, assuming the customer reps are not already tied up with Bloomberg on the phone, and I have to be the one to keep on top of them to make sure they are handling my $75 million dollar portfolio in the best possible manner.

What a drudgery. Do any of you have ANY idea of the fatigue this creates?

Never mind the time I have to take right after faculty meetings to call the contractor who is in the midst of building my summer home in Switzerland in a beautiful city known as Basel. You have NO idea how difficult it is to deal with a contractor with an ego the size of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. This contrator is such a narcissist, and he thinks he can dictate anything to me just because HE worked on 13 homes for Ted Turner, and yet I’M the one paying HIM!

Don’t you just HATE when that happens?

In conclusion, I see myself as vastly overpaid, but never self centered because I really do perform all my school duties with the utmost of excellence and professionalism while STILL having to contend with managing all the vast, excessive wealth I have accumulated being a public school teacher who educates low income English language learners.

Accumulating all this wealth is an absolute drag, but someone has to do it . . . . . . .

Reply
- Louisiana Purchase says:
  
  January 20, 2014 at 11:10 am
  
  And we have a winner!!!! Thanks for the chuckle. Keeps me from crying, I guess.
  
  Reply
  - Robert Rendo says:
    
    January 20, 2014 at 11:14 am
    
    And I was trying to make Ms. CartwheelLibrarian laugh, who was quote cross with me in the past, and I hope I can be forgiven and am back in her better graces . . . .
  - Robert Rendo says:
    
    January 20, 2014 at 11:16 am
    
    I’m sorry, Lousiana Purchase.
    
    I’d respond to you with something substantive, but it takes time to write well, and I’m off to a debutante’s ball in Dallas. If I don’t get out of here now, the pilot on my private jet has threatened to withold the Lobster Thermador and the stewardess who serves it.
    
    You know how that goes.
    
    Gotta run . . . .
  - Ms. Cartwheel Librarian says:
    
    January 20, 2014 at 8:51 pm
    
    Robert:
    
    Laughing!
    
    Funny thing is I WAS a debutant (New Years Eve 1969 Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles Music Center.)
    
    Lotta good it did me.
  - Robert Rendo says:
    
    January 21, 2014 at 3:53 pm
    
    Graciousness and manners never hurt anyone . . . Certainly, you walked away with that . . . . ?
  - Ms. Cartwheel Librarian says:
    
    January 21, 2014 at 6:33 pm
    
    Yes, after I rose from my full court curtsy.
    
    Fortunately I have never had to do another.
- NY teacher says:
  
  January 20, 2014 at 12:10 pm
  
  RR
  You completely forgot to mention all the PERCS!!!!
  
  Reply
Robert Rendo says:

January 20, 2014 at 12:55 pm

How could I?

Ah, yes, those PERCS.

A must-have for EVERY multi-millionaire public school teacher like myself.

I should NEVER have complained so much knowing I have all those PERCS that plump up my already behemoth profits.

Selfish of me.

I apologize to the tax paying public . . . . . .

Reply
Old Teacher says:

January 20, 2014 at 12:56 pm

Robert, amazing! You maintain your humility while trolling among the proles. (You forgot to mention the indignity of mingling with us underlings.) You even dress and act like one of us. This schizoid existence can lead to psychological stress and personality splintering, do be careful. The reformers have trouble with this, perhaps they can advise you. Thanks for the laughs, I must attend my royal banquet on my Weber grill, gourmet hamburger, (stuffed today).

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- Robert Rendo says:
  
  January 20, 2014 at 1:03 pm
  
  Old Teacher,
  
  Certainly, you must know that with vast privilege comes social responsibility.
  
  I personally have invited a group of 25 inner city, low income families to join me on my inherited estate in Lattingtown, New York (the north shore of Long Island) for a full two weeks of civility, comfort, security (but only for two weeks!) and culture. Ocean front views prevail, so how can that not turn people around and give them the tools and hope to get out of poverty!
  
  AND, I personally went out of my way to shop at Williams Sonoma and purchase a duck warmer for each of the families.
  
  I just know my benificence and nobless oblige will turn these lives around.
  
  You too must have hope and courage.
  
  There’s nothing we cannot do if we put our minds to it . . . . .
  
  Reply
  - 2old2teach says:
    
    January 20, 2014 at 2:13 pm
    
    Is there some special magic to warming a dead duck? Can I keep a hotdog warm in it instead? I can’t say I have ever had an occasion to keep a dead duck warm. Now your low income guests might be able to use a pigeon warmer…
  - Linda says:
    
    January 20, 2014 at 2:27 pm
    
    All of you are cracking me up. I just made tea and it is coming out my nose. How gauche. I suppose I’m off Robert’s summer retreat list. Damn it!
  - Robert Rendo says:
    
    January 20, 2014 at 3:15 pm
    
    Linda,
    
    I’d put you back on the list as one of our benefactors, but you refuse to philanthropize and improve society. I asked for half a million from you, and you offered me a coupon for Pearson products worth $25 dollars.
    
    It’s selfish wealthy people like you who are the demise of our precious democracy.
    
    And you call yourself a PUBLIC school teacher . . . . . .
Robert Rendo says:

January 20, 2014 at 3:13 pm

2old2teach,

You obviously have very low standards, which is a slight against my guests. Don’t you want better for them, as does Michelle Rhee?

I say let them eat duck . . . . .

Reply
- 2old2teach says:
  
  January 20, 2014 at 5:13 pm
  
  “I say let them eat duck . . . . .”
  
  I think I’ll keep my mouth shut…
  
  Reply
JonBoy says:

January 20, 2014 at 5:53 pm

So there I was, bitching up a storm to my buddy about my measly beginning teacher salary ($28K)and trying to make ends meet with 2 kids in full time daycare to the tune of $400 a week. He looks me in the eye and says, “You should hear yourself Jon! How much money do you teachers expect, it’s not like you produce a product that society uses or anything!” He, the bean counter for a weapons of mass destruction defense contractor didn’t get it.

Twenty years later I finally make a half decent salary, about 1/3 of his, and he, the terminal bachelor, still doesn’t get it.

Some people never will I guess…

Reply
Robert D. Shepherd says:

January 21, 2014 at 2:54 pm

Superb, Robert! Your public-spiritedness is a model to all of us who work in K-12 education! I, too, believe that having worked as a teacher, I have a duty to give back some portion of the admittedly vast wealth that I have accumulated by that means.

In that spirit, I am announcing my new Common State Standards in Medicine initiative. I have given a grant of 2.5 gazillion dollars to Achieve to hire David Coleman to write new standards for the medical profession based on the teachings of Galen and on the 1858 edition of Gray’s Anatomy. These will ensure that by 2024, sickness will be completely eliminated.

I have also made a grant to MFA (Medicine for America) to conduct two-week training sessions for pimply adolescents who will replace our so-called “doctors” for two-year stints before going on to their real jobs in investment banking.

Of course, this is an interim measure. I am hard at work developing our new computer-adaptive physician software, which will eliminate altogether the need for doctors by keeping all patients’ medical records in a national database that the software can reference in order to do examinations, prescribe treatment, perform surgery, etc. There is, of course, a great deal of money to be made, of course, with this software, so it’s a win-win. If you would like to join me at our investors’ conference in Cabo San Lucas on April 1 (the date is not, of course, an accident), let me know and I will reserve a suite for you.

Sorry this note is so brief. Gates on the phone again. Of course HE wants in on this action!

Reply
- Robert Rendo says:
  
  January 21, 2014 at 3:49 pm
  
  Allow me to join you, my philanthropizing friend.
  
  We need a spiffy PR-oriented name for our campaign . . . . . . Maybe “Doctors without Borders and Credentials” . . . . ?
  
  Why not hold a charity auction to fund raise more money to finance your project?
  
  We can start the highest bidding for vinatage fermented venom squeezed from Michelle Rhee’s very own fangs and stored in Waterford crystal jars . . . .
  
  Do I hear opening bids at $300 . . . . . ?
  
  Let me get Gwyneth on the phone (yes, THAT Gwyneth!) and see if she’ll ring up some of her friends to attend. By the way, her daughter Apple is actually very well behaved, contrary to the way the media portrays her and unlike her vicious, wheat and dairy-free mother . . . .
  
  Reply
  - Robert D. Shepherd says:
    
    January 21, 2014 at 4:02 pm
    
    Doctors without Borders or Credentials! LOL!
    
    Careful with that Rhee venom. It is second only to that of the Australian blue sea snake in potency. But I don’t have to tell YOU about potency, Robert, not after that party at Berlusconi’s!
  - Robert Rendo says:
    
    January 21, 2014 at 4:53 pm
    
    Robert,
    
    That was SOME party at Berlusconi’s, and I reassure you, all the footage and publicity photos show me with adults 25 and older, unlike the soiree’s host . . . . .
  - NY teacher says:
    
    January 21, 2014 at 8:26 pm
    
    RR
    I’m a tad concerned about my Cayman stash. Suggestions?
Robert Rendo says:

January 21, 2014 at 8:55 pm

NY Teacher,

I suggest investing in Apple, which has many offshore subsidiaries producing and selling Apple products.

Remember that “offshore” = “tax free”.

Just try and avoid any Apple satellite companies that run manufacturing facilities in provinces in China, which may use child labor and would make you and your shareholders richer than you already are, but would also tarnish your image . . . . .

Image makes you money; substance is for cry babies . . . . . and people who don’t want to reform education.

As a filthy rich public servant making millions a year teaching grammar, tier 2 and 3 vocabulary, and gently reminding five year olds not to pick their noses, I hope this helps . . . . .

Reply
- NY teacher says:
  
  January 21, 2014 at 9:21 pm
  
  Quite helpful, thank you so much.
  I must run now, Jeeves is calling me. Apparently the FedEx man is at the door with my shipment of Petrossian caviar – fresh from the Caspian Sea. I decide to try the Ossetra this time, its delectably fresh and fruity, with a firm, juicy grain and a distinctive nutty taste. I was beginning to tire of the Sevruga, the smaller beads did allow for an intense, robust flavor of sea, green nuts but the dark grey-brown color was clashing with my new china.
  
  Reply