TIME magazine has made the discovery that teachers in America are underpaid.
North Carolina teacher Stuart Egan noticed that TIME had done a dramatic turnaround.
So did I. But I thought of TIME’s two cover stories lambasting teachers, one in 2008,the other in 2014.
That was then, this is now.
In this story, TIME presents a sympathetic portrait of teachers in America. This stands in sharp contrast to their heroic cover story about Michelle Rhee in 2008, written by Amanda Ripley and their cover story in 2014 about the “Rotten Apples,” the teachers who alledly could never be fired. The 2014 story referred to the Vergara case in California against teacher tenure, which was ultimately dismissed by the highest state court.
Maybe the news here is TIME’s abandonment of its war against teachers.
The story begins:
Hope Brown can make $60 donating plasma from her blood cells twice in one week, and a little more if she sells some of her clothes at a consignment store. It’s usually just enough to cover an electric bill or a car payment. This financial juggling is now a part of her everyday life—something she never expected almost two decades ago when she earned a master’s degree in secondary education and became a high school history teacher. Brown often works from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. at her school in Versailles, Ky., then goes to a second job manning the metal detectors and wrangling rowdy guests at Lexington’s Rupp Arena. With her husband, she also runs a historical tour company for extra money.
“I truly love teaching,” says the 52-year-old. “But we are not paid for the work that we do.”
That has become the rallying cry of many of America’s public-school teachers, who have staged walkouts and marches on six state capitols this year. From Arizona to Oklahoma, in states blue, red and purple, teachers have risen up to demand increases in salaries, benefits and funding for public education. Their outrage has struck a chord, reviving a national debate over the role and value of teachers and the future of public education.
For many teachers, this year’s uprising is decades in the making. The country’s roughly 3.2 million full-time public-school teachers (kindergarten through high school) are experiencing some of the worst wage stagnation of any profession, earning less on average, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than they did in 1990, according to Department of Education (DOE) data.
Meanwhile, the pay gap between teachers and other comparably educated professionals is now the largest on record. In 1994, public-school teachers in the U.S. earned 1.8% less per week than comparable workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank. By last year, they made 18.7% less. The situation is particularly grim in states such as Oklahoma, where teachers’ inflation-adjusted salaries actually decreased by about $8,000 in the last decade, to an average of $45,245 in 2016, according to DOE data. In Arizona, teachers’ average inflation-adjusted annual wages are down $5,000.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I teach 11 classes at three colleges and one university. …still making less than a FT professor teaching 4 courses.
The exploitation of adjuncts is scandalous
yes. obscene
And meanwhile, college administrators are routinely pulling down seven-figure salaries. Recently, there was a bit of a scandal here in Tampa about an adjunct who was sleeping overnight in a cubicle the university had provided and showering at the school’s phys ed facilities because she was, on an adjunct’s pay, homeless.
Typically, adjuncts are paid by the course. In some places, $2500-3,000 per course. Even if you teach five courses, how can you live on that? And these are Ph.D.s.
When I worked as an adjunct for CU Colorado, I was paid $2,500 per course. Here in NM, the adjunct rate was $1,700 per course. Fortunately it wasn’t my full time job, but that’s not much $$ for the amount of time and effort you put into teaching and learning…
Given the recent death of an athlete at my alma mater, University of Maryland College Park, quite a lot has been written about the school, which now has, according to its Wikipedia entry MORE administrative personnel than academic faculty, and of course they use more adjuncts now.
I know a fair number of college administrators at a variety of levels and institutions, and it is true that some chancellors/presidents have seven figure compensation when the value of university housing is included. Few of them, however, have a seven figure salary.
Outside of the top job, the only folks to have a seven figure salary at universities are sports couches and perhaps administrators in charge of medical schools. Provosts, for example, the chief academic officers at universities do not get paid seven figure salaries.
According to Forbes, the average compensation for the top 250 university presidents is $560,000.
https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2018/07/15/the-highest-paid-public-university-presidents-no-1-is-engulfed-in-scandal/amp/?amp_js_v=0.1&usqp=mq331AQKCAEoATgAUAJYAQ%3D%3D#origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&prerenderSize=1&visibilityState=prerender&paddingTop=54&p2r=0&horizontalScrolling=0&csi=1&aoh=15370117557364&viewerUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Famp%2Fs%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fsusanadams%2F2018%2F07%2F15%2Fthe-highest-paid-public-university-presidents-no-1-is-engulfed-in-scandal%2Famp%2F&history=1&storage=1&cid=1&cap=swipe%2CnavigateTo%2Ccid%2Cfragment%2CreplaceUrl
OK. Granted. Compensation, not salary. Mea culpa
My concern was less about the difference between salary and compensation than the statement that college administrators are routinely being paid over a million dollars a year. As Dr. Ravitch pointed out, the top 250 university presidents have an average compensation in the mid six figures, not close to seven figures.
It is a bit dated, but you can find salaries of other university administrators here:https://www.chronicle.com/article/Median-Salaries-of-Senior/130897
Oh. I see. OK to pay these guys 600,000 a year and those who teach the courses at their schools $1,500 a class. After all, the market.
Teaching Economist must have tenure. He doesn’t worry about the adjuncts who earn $15,000 a year.
https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensation?cid=sidebar#id=table_private_2015
hmmm. Only 66 of these people received over a million a year in 2015. I guess that’s not enough of them to call it “routine.”
Oh, and, the market
I mustn’t forget to keep uttering those magical, all-explanatory syllables!
Bob,
Three points. First it is dangerous to assume that a single year’s compensation for these folks is their regular annual compensation. For example, the highest paid chancellor in your link is Nathan Hatch. When he negotiated his initial contract, it included an amount of differed compensation be paid each year into a retirement fund. Ten years of these payments are listed as 2015 compensation because he vested in the retirement funds in 2015, not because he was really paid that amount in 2015.
Second, 66 out of the 1,400 people reported in your link is 4.7% of the people reported on in your link, just a bit higher than the 4.3% of Yankee at bats this season that have been home runs. If you are willing to say that the Yankees are routinely hitting home runs, then i suppose chief executives at colleges and universities might be said to be routinely pulling down seven figure compensation packages.
Finally, I did not take your statement about administrators to be referring only to chief executives, but also to other high level university administrators like vice chancellors, provosts, vice provosts, and deans. Did you mean to leave them out when you spoke of administrators?
Your concern about how adjuncts are treated is duly noted, TE.
You are right. TE often justifies harsh libertarian policies. He finds economic justification for letting the poor eat cake.
I’ve grown so tired, Diane, of the neo-Liberal defenses of the indefensible. Ruined rivers. The market. People with teeth rotting in their mouths because they lack insurance. The market. Full-time workers evicted from their apartments because they don’t make enough to buy food, pay the electric bill, and pay the rent. The market. Meanwhile, for decades now, almost all the value from increased productivity, which has almost doubled since 1975, has gone to the ownership class. Increasingly, I have no patience for people like this, the hireling court singers of those atop the New Feudal Order.
I can hear the response to what I just wrote. So freaking predictable. That increased productivity is almost all attributable to technological improvements and thus to capital investments, so why shouldn’t those who made the investment reap the rewards? At some point, the well-to-do keep pushing this toy until it breaks.
As Wallace Stevens put it, “Theology before breakfast sticks to the eye.”
It’s a matter of governance. Who will guard [against] the guardians? as Juvenal wrote. Well, clearly, no one.
Your concern about how adjuncts are treated is duly noted, TE. Oh, wait a minute. Mea culpa. There wasn’t any.
It would be helpful if you both could point out anything I said in these comments that 1) endorsed ANY “harsh libertarian policies” or 2) expressed any indifference to part time adjunct pay schedules.
As someone who has actually been a part time adjunct faculty member and has always been an “at will” employee of a university, my general advice for PhD students is to not accept a job as a part time adjunct. Do something else with your life.
As someone who has been employed in higher education for over three decades, my advice to institutions of higher education is that if you are employing three part time people to teach in a department, fire two of them and employ the third as a full time lecturer.
The only exception to both bits of advice is when the part time lecturer is a retired former full time faculty member that wants to do some, but not full time, teaching.
TE, you have a long history of harsh libertarian comments. I was not referring to this exchange, but to that history.
I think libertarians would likely reject many of my positions. First and foremost, my advocating a single player healthcare system on your blog, but overall the generally pragmatic positions I have stated over the years posting here would not be endorsed by many libertarians.
Yes. I have often found your comments carefully reasoned, nuanced, insightful, and supported by real evidence.
You never saw the Teacher-bashing comments I deleted.
Yikes. I try to remain respectful online with those with whom I disagree. Sometimes, however, I simply lose patience with those who are clueless about the extent to which people who don’t have middle-class and upper-middle class jobs struggle. The Libertarian faith that the market always has the solution for whatever ails us is exasperating because it is a kind of theology that its adherents think of as science.
Robert,
I agree, but I would also extend it to people who live in the United States and attempt to frame events in the developing world as simply extensions of events and issues in relatively wealthy countries.
Sorry, but forgiveness – if that is indeed what TIME is seeking, which I question – is earned first and foremost by admitting what you did and apologizing for it (publicly, if the offense was public, which in this case it was).
If I hit you across the face one day and then act nice to you the next, do you trust the appearance of my apparent friendship? Do you believe that I have turned over a new leaf?
My last school district started me at about $39,000 (for a Masters and the 3 years experience they would give me) and then docked me about $1000 because I was not hired in time to attend the week of unpaid, in-service for new teachers. Hired on a Thursday, I was at school on Friday to get my room and attend to any necessary details of employment. Monday, I started teaching self-contained English classes from freshman to senior with a schedule, room assignments, and no curriculum. When my first paycheck arrived, the deduction was included. I was too overwhelmed to protest. That was ten years ago in Illinois. I imagine that district is still among the lowest paid in the state. It is also among the neediest.
Too bad politicians don’t have to work 3 jobs to pay their bills. But wait, the system is rigged to their advantage(s).
http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/second-jobs-and-the-truth/2018/09/12 This article appeared in MD locals last week and there has been no response to it by teachers or the teacher’s union. I don’t know who this person is who wrote the op-ed and I don’t know his intensions, but it is clearly alarming that no one has given a rebuttal? I know that teachers in MD have some of the best salaries nationwide, but there are so many teachers who do NEED to work a 2nd job and many can’t afford to live in the district in which they teach. Something is brewing in MD and I don’t know what…but the silence is deafening!
I read your link, and one of the authors, James V. Shuls, is a member of the Show Me Institute, a libertarian “think tank.” Anything this guy promotes will be about the glory of “free market solutions” and the demolition of the common good. People like this will cherry pick what they present to the reader. For example, the teacher featured in the article worked other jobs because she had so much “free” time and could. There is no mention if this woman still lives at home, or if she has an affluent partner paying the bills. Perhaps she is a teaching “temp” just passing through, and she does a lousy job as a teacher. What this guy does not say is as important as the slant and spin he gives the post.
What amazes me is the lack of response to the article? The teacher’s union is silent….on just about everything. It’s an election year and about all we have heard is vote for Jealous to get rid of Hogan….and then we don’t get much out of the Jealous camp either? It’s crazy and I don’t understand. I don’t know if this is a political move to try and let Hogan burn bridges on his own….he has become somewhat of a mini Chris Christie.
It may not be that no one answered. It may be that the paper is refusing to publish it. It’s happened to me several times before when I’ve written to local papers on education issues.
This is from that hit piece/article by Shuls: Quote “That’s one of the great things about teaching that is often overlooked. Unlike a lot of other professions, teachers have an incredible schedule. Almost a year in advance, you know every single day that you are required to work. You know the start times, the end times, and you never have to worry about an unplanned business trip calling you out of town. Oh, and did I mention that you have summers off? It is exactly the type of job that is suitable for having an extra job.”
After reading that dreck I wanted to smash something against the wall. Nothing about all the hours that teachers spend in prepping their classrooms before school starts and after school ends. Nothing about the hours spent on lesson planning, grading papers, grading essays, grading tests, planning for projects, calling parents, meetings with parents, referring kids to the child study team and all the faculty meetings that are added on to the school day. This Shuls should rot in hell for a weekend or two.
Who cares what extra jobs a public policy prof gladly worked when a 1st-gr teacher because his ‘incredible schedule’ allowed it? I’m guessing he did that work early 2000’s, before the effects of NCLB testing had trickled into 1st grade, ditto SGO & CCSS/ aligned stdzd assessments. Those changes have dramatically increased non-teaching-hrs workload.
And he did that work pre-financial collapse. In 2014, MD pubsch teachers were struggling through 11% cuts to state ed spending since 2010. Today MD is still -2% per-pupil expenditure compared to 2010. Meanwhile COL index increased 12.4% 2010-17, so MD teachers have 14% less purchasing power than in 2010. Also, he no doubt had far less debt than today’s elem-sch teacher: student debt load increased 60% between 2003-16.
And that’s in MD, one of the better-funded-ed states. Yet he generalizes his obsolete data from a prosperous state to pooh-pooh the need for extra jobs by current teachers in worst-pd states.
Shuls has studied Maryland schools closely; perhaps he should have restricted his comments to the para questioning results of an an MSEA survey showing 41% of MD teachers have 2nd jobs. I would question that too. Every career full-time teacher I know does paid summer work [as I once did]. The MSEA survey does not distinguish between that & taking on 20+ hrs/wk extra work during school yr to meet expenses.
It’s almost impossible for many teachers to survive on the salaries that they are paid. An example: a teacher I knew, divorced with two kids, who got back and forth to school and the grocery on a bicycle with a sidecar for the children because she couldn’t afford gasoline and auto insurance. Those who work two or three jobs, and there are many–I don’t know how they do it. Teaching is exhausting physically and mentally. I worked at a C-level in a major publishing house and didn’t work half as hard, there, as I did as a teacher. The demands on teachers are great. They are treated like crap. And the pay is terrible. In the current climate, I council young people I know to do anything else. Sorry, but I do.
Yikes. Counsel. Lol.
Bob: “In the current climate, I council young people I know to do anything else. Sorry, but I do.”
I would never recommend that anyone go into education. I’m very happy that I’m retired. It was rough when I was teaching and it has gotten worse. I can’t imagine having the energy to teach full time and then do another job in the evenings. That is just plain sick.
It’s unimaginable. By the time I had risen at 5:30 to be at school by 7:00, taught my seven classes, and then graded and prepared lesson plans for hours, I was totally wiped. And then I would go in the next day and some lizard-brained administrator would write me up because the entries on the lesson-plans posting on my white board were in the wrong order, or I would receive a note from our “reading coordinator” saying that I HAD to teach “the entire novel of the Odyssey” to my ninth-graders, that I couldn’t use my judgment and excerpt it. With freaking 13 and 14 year olds!. Novel.
I can relate to this: “I worked at a C-level in a major publishing house and didn’t work half as hard, there, as I did as a teacher.” I spent the summer after my first yr teaching [5 levels of hisch Fr] acquiring office skills, planning a swift departure after second year. I knew I could not keep up that pace. I’ll never forget the vast sense of relief at having “in/out boxes” [i.e., clearly-defined tasks] & the load off shoulders leaving at 5 or 6pm w/o eve work ahead of me – that made adjusting to same job yr-round easy. It was a good 10 yrs in office job before responsibilities/ worries approached the same level as teaching 5 hisch preps. And by then my pay was quadruple.
After a long career in publishing, I spent three years teaching in a high school. Words cannot properly express the relief I felt when the last grade was posted. The kids were awesome, but the job is impossible, the demands absurd, and the compensation laughable, given those demands.
Time is just jumping on the bandwagon because they can see that the public is not buying their BS — and their magazine.
Same with the NY Times.
It’s all related to the bottom line.
It has nothing to do with journalism with these organizations. They don’t even know what that is.
What is “current” will sell more magazines. The editor is probably looking at potential sales targets, more than ideology.
This is nothing new. Early and mid career teacher have been working weekends and summers on second and third jobs for since forever. This wouldn’t be if teaching was a male dominated field. The general public likes to rail about our max salaries, rarely mentioning that it often takes 20+ years on the schedule to get their. My father’s starting salary in NYC in 1950 was $2,000/yr. I started teaching in 1980 at $12,500. I didn’t know a teacher who didn’t work extra jobs to make ends meet. By late career it changes for the better. The trade-off used to be job security, health benefits, and a good pension. Ha!
Pardon the typos, the caffeine has not kicked in yet.
I always worry when this type of thing happens. How long before the wealthy own everything and dictate everything? Does our media always have to be owned by billionaires?
……………………..
Time magazine to be sold to Salesforce billionaire Marc Benioff
NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) – Salesforce.com Inc. founder Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne agreed to acquire Time magazine from Meredith Corp for US$190 million (S$261 million) in cash, joining Mr Jeff Bezos among tech billionaires buying venerable print publications.. Read more at straitstimes.com.
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/time-magazine-to-be-sold-to-salesforce-billionaire-marc-benioff?&utm_source=google_gmail&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=addtoany
Billionaires already own the national media. They have their eyes on the public sector, including schools. That’s why we fight.
There is a severe teacher shortage in Indiana. Salaries for teachers in Indiana have gone down 16% since 1999-2000. The per-pupil funding – $7,538 – was 36 percent below the national average, according to a 2017 NEA report. Schools are also allowed to hire unlicensed teachers to make up at most 10 percent of their staff.
The following came from my Senator Niemeyer [R-IN] and Representative Slager [R-IN]. Forget about doing the decent thing and put more money into public schools. These students have to teach for 5 years after having received a scholarship. Then they can quit. They’ll learn why nobody wants to teach in today’s climate. This isn’t a solution.
…….
Scholarships Available for Future Teachers
Applications for the Next Generation Hoosier Educators Scholarship are now available.
Created by the Indiana General Assembly in 2016, the Next Generation Hoosier Educators Scholarship establishes 200 scholarships that pay up to $7,500 annually for students who commit to teaching in Indiana for five years after their college graduation.
To qualify for the scholarship, students must either graduate in the highest 20 percent of their high school class or earn a score in the top 20th percentile on the SAT or ACT. To continue earning the scholarship in college, students must earn at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA and complete at least 30 credit hours per year.
The deadline to submit an application is Friday, Nov. 30. After the deadline passes, applicants will be notified of their scholarship status via email by Jan. 4, and finalists will participate in regional interviews in March.
To access an application, click here.[It works on their sites.]