I read recently that the average teacher salary in Boston is $81,000.
In Chicago, the average salary is $71,000.
Nationally, the average salary for teachers is about $51,000.
The cost of living in different regions and cities affects teachers’ salaries.
Many in the media think that it is an outrage that teachers are paid “so much.” I think that anyone who says this on radio or television should disclose their own salary. I have no doubt that it is a multiple of what teachers in the same region are paid.
Why aren’t they shocked that the head of K12, the online company, is paid $5 million to deliver a shoddy product? Why aren’t they furious about the charter school leaders who take home $400,000? Why aren’t they in perpetual outrage that Rush Limbaugh is paid $50 million or so to talk on the radio? Why aren’t they ranting about CEO salaries?
Why the objection to teachers having what is really a decent middle-class income? Teachers have a college degree and many have a master’s degree; some have a doctorate. They are doing one of the hardest and most important jobs in society. Recent surveys by the Gates Foundation and Scholastic and by Metlife estimate that a teacher typically works 11 hours a day.
I say that teachers deserve every penny they are paid, and more.
What other profession would be satisfied to be paid so little?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m pretty sure the average teacher salary in Chicago isn’t $71,000. It’s what I make in Mass, with 20 years experience and a science masters, and my salary is far above average.
Somebody posted a comment somewhere that Rahm got that number by including the salaries of any administrators who also hold a teaching certificate of some kind, and their tremendously inflated salaries skewed the average number. They aren’t even union members, as far as I know, so let’s ask how that their salaries are so high.
Numbers matter, and deception through deliberately mis-characterized statistics is fraud. We wonks have a special duty to blow the whistle. Can somebody post sources for Diane to pursue?
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In my state, we have “Utah’s Right to Know,” which supposedly shows salaries of all public employees by name (charming invasion of privacy, but that’s another post). So, I looked up my name and, according to that, I make nearly $20,000 a year more than I really make. Where do they get these numbers?
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They have that in California too. Our local paper posts our salaries each year.
I think they get the bigger number because I think they include the cost of our benefits.
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Had something similar happen with me in my state. When I asked my school’s leadership team about the discrepancy between what was on my contract and what was reported to the state, they said that they included the cost of my health insurance as part of my salary when reporting to the state. The school does pay 100% of the insurance, but none of that is detailed in my actual contract. I have no idea if that’s legal, but that’s what’s going on here.
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Nice try Jennifer – the extra 20k is your benefits, all paid at the expense of the TAX Payers!
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The goal is to create Wal-Mart workers. Paid just enough to live on the edge and the loss of one’s job could cause disaster. A friend who is retired said that when a teacher is hungry enough she/he will do whatever the principal directs. So teachers will just follow the directives and do as they are told if they want to keep their jobs. The amount of education won’t matter. They are just teaching what other people direct. The wages will be at a level that the teacher must follow the directives to keep the job.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/opinion/kristof-students-over-unions.html?smid=fb-share….. Diane, can you have a chat with Mr. Kristof? He is such a wise man, can do so much good. He needs a full update. Perhaps he will follow your example and reverse course. Thank you for all you are doing for the profession. I’m not a teacher. I’m a mom with three children who love learning and have many many more years in the public educations system. (note: mine attend an instrumentality non-profit charter school in WI. We are parent- led and our demographics generally match the district and we are accountable to our school board. We do however fall short on enrolling special education students and we are showing some achievement gap challenges. We are funded exactly as the other schools and our teachers are union teachers.)
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I had a twitter exchange with Nick Kristof on Friday. I sent him several research studies on why VAM doesn’t work. If he reads what I sent, he might be less certain in his views. I think he was listening. But as I know from my own experience, it is hard to change your views. He is wise about many things, and maybe he will change his.
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Did anyone post this link yet? It’s to a great video about Chicago’s schools. Apologies if it’s been noted and I missed it. If you haven’t seen it yet…it’s a must see…very well done and very informative.
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Man is that opinion piece a whack job. You can count Kristof in the same camp as Friedman-Pinos-progressives in name only.
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sadly, he’s usually so good about doing research, about looking at the bigger picture, i feel like he needs to do a road trip right into Chicago and hike around for a while to get the full immersion like he would overseas, etc.
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People forget that teachers live in or near the communities where they teach. We buy homes, pay taxes, buy cars, gas, food clothes and so on. If we are paid less, where would we live, shop and so on. We are members of these communities and help to support these communities( not just financially). What should we be paid? If as mitt Romney said, Middlesbrough class is &200,000 tp 250,000 a year, I am already not in middle class.
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Someone needs to reprint this blog in the local newspapers for all public to see.
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An article in the New York Times asks if it pays to become a teacher:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/does-it-pay-to-become-a-teacher/
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Thanks for the link to that article. I noticed that the study dealt primarily with those who have a four-year degree. Many teachers I know have additional education. I have a master’s degree and a J.D. I call upon all of my education — as well as my years in the classroom — to serve my students to the best of my ability. Why do many “suits” in powerful positions and pundits on TV want to make the public believe I am greedy for wanting to be paid a decent wage? Why do they suggest that our educators should not care about education and needn’t bother investing in their own education?
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We have no choice; we must get Master’s degrees in order to keep our jobs. I would like to see a study that shows American wages for jobs requiring Master’s degrees. I think people think because I teach second-grade my skills are somewhere at that level. Yes, I teach basic addition and subtraction, but I also help the children begin thinking algebraically.
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After nearly 20 years teaching high school math I went to graduate school for a PhD so I could teach future math teachers. I was working for a project at the university (back to Peace Corps pay…) to pay my way. The university had an outside consultant come in to reclassify all the non-tenure track workers. My job with the project required a masters degree and 6 years of teaching experience. The consultants set my pay at $17/hour. When I finished my PhD and took a job at another university, I took a cut in pay from what I had earned in public schools. Not sure I’ll ever be able to retire…
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I am going to start keeping a list of all of the charter school operators’ salaries I find. Then every time there is a news story or comments on an internet story about bloated salaries of school district officials, I am going to copy and paste that charter list. I wonder if they will express the same outrage. Probably not…
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Great idea! Please send it to us, too!
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Great idea. Please share!
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I don’t have a list yet. I am going to start noting them when I see them.
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Send them here, so Diane can post them for all of us to see! While you’re at it, include Wendy Kopp’s salary, Michelle Rhee’s salary at Students First, and their husbands’ salaries and positions (which I have forgotten). Thanking you in advance!
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The for-profit company that is operating the entire school system near me fired all the teachers and hired new ones back at half price. I can’t wait to see how this is going to work. I have heard that teachers are walking off the job at the end of the day. Cheaper is just not always better.
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Can you tell us your city and/or state?
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What state are you in, that allows a for profit corporation to run a district? Michigan?
Diane
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Please watch….when there’s a contract call us maybe, Chicago teachers:
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Hopefully this is not common, but there is at least one newspaper web site that reports the following information of every teacher, instructional assistant, and principal in my state:
Salary:
Insurance:
Mandatory Benefits:
Certificated FTE:
Certificated Experience:
Academic Credits:
Status:
Reporting District/ESD:
Present Age/Sex:
In-Service Credits:
Excess Credits:
Highest Degree: Master’s Degree –
All one has to do to for this invasion of privacy in type in our names.
Read more: http://data.kitsapsun.com/wa-school-staff/
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They did this with college employees in Florida.
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The Chronicle has a search engine for higher ed faculty salaries and how they compare to the median: http://chronicle.com/section/Faculty-Data/133/
Moving from K-12 to higher ed doesn’t necessarily mean a better salary, especially if you can’t get a tenure track position.
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I just retired as a teacher in Toronto, (Canada LOL). The Canadian dollar is above par at the present time and Toronto teachers max out at $96 000. We are actually angry about that. The interesting aspect of this is that on average, Americans spend more per student than Canadians but Canadian wages are higher. What are you spending the money on.
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You have universal health care. We pay our own with salary deductions and taxes. You may spend more per child if you figure this in? Am I right? Here health is business. 😦
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Yes we have universal health care and Canadians would shoot anyone who tried to take it away. It is the most popular thing government has ever done up here. It does not cover dentistry eye glasses or drugs. Teachers benefit plans usually cover these.
The teachers pension here is based at 70% of the average of your best 5 years so teachers who can finish with 5 years at $96 000 can get a $65 000 pension. Many do and then take other work.
We are having a war up here because the “Liberal” government is demanding a 2 year pay freeze for all public service employees.
Canada has a social-democratic party (NDP) to the left of the Liberal Party that is in second place in national elections and governs 2 provinces, soon to be 3.
Canadians simply do not generally believe that their should be “profits” in health care. Doctors do not work for the state but the state is the single-payer of bills for doctors and hospitals.
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I would bet that someone is also playing with numbers. Are “mean” incomes being compared with “median” incomes? Isn’t median income generally accepted as the fairer measure?
What about the inclusion of healthcare? Or the fact that in some states, like Connecticut, teachers are not allowed to ever collect social security– they must rely on the state retirement system, which is chronically underfunded?
We do not ever get the footnotes on these numbers. Of course professionals with three degrees make an above average salary in a community.
Americans have been duped into the fantasy that one day they may be rich, and so have ceased to support middle class jobs and taxation. Such a stance will guarantee a wider stratification of society and an expansion of poverty.
And all this is being pushed by the reform movement and other pro-corporate forces as a way to help the poor. Torturing those who have actually chosen to dedicate their lives to the poor is probably not the best way, though, is it?
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Thanks for bringing up the point about Social Security. Friends from other states are shocked when they find out teachers here in Connecticut (and some other states) are not a part of the Social Security system.
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Yes, and in Illinois the state legislature, in a bipartisan effort, is attempting to take the pension system from the new teachers and diminish the pensions of the current retirees. They blame the pension payouts for making Illinois broke, rather than switch the taxing system (we’re one of six states that still has a flat tax) and closing corporate loopholes (because the corporations would move their businesses to other states). Even though we have already paid into our pensions, and, as taxpayers, continue to pay, this is yet another arena where this entire problem is the fault of the greedy teachers, and you better believe that they are trying to turn private sector, middle class people against us.
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“teachers are not allowed to ever collect social security”
That’s how it is here in the Show Me State. I can’t collect any Social Security even though I paid into it from the age of 16 til I was 38 (didn’t start teaching until I was 38). Can’t even get a refund. Oh, well as long it the $$ go to a deserving person I don’t care.
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The consultants who have been brought in to lay off teachers and make no-bid software, consulting, and textbook deals in my city make $900/day. http://www.jonathanpelto.com
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Now David Brooks has used the salary thing: “The average Chicago teacher makes $76,000 a year in a city where the average worker makes $47,000 a year.” I’d like to know what he means by “average worker” as teachers are professionals with advanced degrees. What an insult!
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“Tired” asked above for Wendy Kopp’s salary.
Teach for America’s 2010 Form 990 – it gives compensation of the officers of their organization; compensation most likely includes benefits as well as salary.
Wendy Kopp, $350,630
Mathew Kramer, President, $292,230.
E.M. Rossy, Chief Financial and Infrastructure Officer, $213,838
8 VPs, compensation ranges from $149,077 to $232,619
TFA has 30 Directors, or Members of the Board of Directors. This includes John Legend.
Total revenue: $213,486,624.
Related tax-exempt organizations: Teach for All in NY and Leaders for Educational Equity in NY.
To find this kind of information:
http://www.guidestar.org
Register and login
Search for the organization you want to find; I did “Teach for America” to find the above info.
Click on the Form 990 tab. Select the latest year that is available for that organization. It was 2010 for TFA.
Wade down through the information to find compensation of officers, revenue, types of expenses, and so on.
Jack, former director of an international non-profit, and current public school teacher
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Google “Chicago public school salary PDF” they pay their truck drivers get over 70$K. Puts things in perspective.
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I teach 5 preps a day, including two AP courses (Lang and Lit), receive no stipend for two college-level classes, function in an environment of rural poverty in the heartland of the country where a stipend is offered for “doing homecoming” but not for academic achievement, and I do it for $33,579.00 a year (currently) without union representation – literally no advocacy for us at all here.
When I hear the pundits spew their garbage about national averages, hear them rail their sweeping generalizations about teacher’s unions, and demonize dedicated and successful folks like us, I want to gag. And I want to lash out back at them, but alas, teachers like me have virtually no outlet, no megaphone, and as I said, effectively no voice.
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It’s a weird world where $250K is “middle class” but $70K is over paid.
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Let’s just have teachers ask for babysitting salaries: 30 kids times 6 hrs./day times 180 days times $3/hr. = $97,200! A bargain for parents at $3/hr.!
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