Comment by childofteacher | Hacker News Reader

Comment by childofteacher | Hacker News Reader

The 10-month working year is a core issue here. It's hard to convince voters and other government workers that teachers deserve a X% or XX% raise, when teachers receive 2.5-3x (summer break, plus other holidays) more paid leave than the average American. That paid leave is worth something: I think many people would choose a job with a $50k salary and 10 weeks of leave over a $60k salary and 3 weeks of leave.

The obvious fix would be to get rid of the summer break, and give teachers a ~20% increase in salary to compensate them for the increase in working days. This would solve other problems as well: Summer break causes serious childcare problems for working-class families, and research indicates that it probably hurts educational outcomes as well. However, this is unlikely to happen for various reasons: It would stretch (or over-stretch) the limited budgets of local school districts, and summer break is politically popular and has relatively powerful state-level lobbying from tourism-related businesses.

I've long been a proponent of the "block" schedule, but this would be a side benefit too.

People are forgetting the economics of this and focusing in too much on the "teachers are heroes" thing. Teachers are paid what the market will bear. If the market pays too low, prospective teachers find other things to do. If the market pays too high, there will be more teachers coming in to the market. It's simple economics.

As for the "teachers are heroes" thing: yes, they are heroes and so are firefighters, police, military, nurses, doctors, PAs, social workers, counselors, pharmacists, EMTs and other first responders, rehab administrators, volunteers, those doing compulsory community service, those doing volunteer community service, medical technicians, lab technicians, anyone working for a nonprofit, public works employees, linemen(and women), sewage treatment operators, and anyone else working in a job that keeps the public safe and educated and healthy. All of the aforementioned should be paid well for their services as long as the market will bear it. Why society has chosen to put teachers on a pedestal over the others - I'm not sure. They're all important. Let the market do what it's supposed to do and things will settle themselves.

My wife spends most of her summer 'break' working, including multiple weeks of it being required to be in the classroom or at district offices.

Additionally, during the week, she works waaaay more than 40 hours a week, so even the time during the summer she isn't working I think is really just averaging out from her overtime during the school year.

I wouldn't have a problem with her pay if she actually worked as much as detractors seem to think all teachers do, but her pay:time ratio is awful.

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