Education Does Pay Off
February 29, 2008
– Comments (8)
There is an article about improved learning outcomes in Ontario, enormously improved outcomes.
BC and Ontario have very different resources for education for high school, at least from my perspective.
Older teachers in BC talk about I guess the glory days for education. Teacher's taught 3 blocks, 3.75 hours per day, and they had classroom support for students who needed extra support for 1.25 hours per day. BC students did well.
Cuts came along, before I was a teacher, and BC changed that teachers teach 3.75 hours one day, and 5 hours the next. It meant that "maximum" teaching load for a high school teacher went from 180 students to 210 students, and there was no longer extra classroom support for students. For each hour you teach, when you are very experienced, there is about a hour of work outside of the classroom. For new teachers it can be as much as 3 hours outside the classroom.
I think teachers have the worst deal of any industry for how pay works for inexperienced workers compared to experienced workers. If you go work at industry X and you don't know the industry and your work output is half the guy that has been working for the industry for 10 years, well, the industry is paying you buy the hour, so you get 8 hours of pay and hence the reduced pay for inexperienced workers is justified.
Teachers teach the same number of classes and students from the beginning and where industry absorbs the cost of inexperience in other occupations, teachers absorb 100% of the cost of inexperience. It simply isn't uncommon for new teachers to be working 70 hour work weeks. I've worked 80 hour work-weeks for two months straight. Think that's good for kids? No other profession has 40% leaving in the 1st five years and what a load of crap that it has to be a special calling. The workload is simply beyond reasonable and the isn't that great.
Teachers in BC say they work an average of 51 hours per week. Teachers are over worked and opening their classrooms for extra help just doesn't happen much in an overworked environment. It especially doesn't happen with the amount of public bashing teachers get, yet they know they are putting equivalent to 25% of their pay into philanthropic work. My pay for hours worked has worked out to as low at $10/hour and when I cut back my hours so it worked out to about $18/hour I was viewed as a lazy teacher. I simply would not advise anyone to go into teaching the pay, expectations and appreciation, at least in BC, are beyond reasonable.
The starting pay is 62% of the pay people think teachers make, as the top pay is all that is ever reported in the, and it takes 11 years to get to that top pay. When you average the wage over a career, teachers that get their own classroom right away make about 8% less than what is stated in the media, and if you average in those average two years of under employment when teachers first start, well, the average wage is about 10% less. I calculated salary grid for other occupations and on average, workers make 2% less than the top wage on the grid over a lifetime career when you take into consideration the reduced pay for new workers. In BC nurses had the second highest pay grid for reducing average wages, it was 3%.
Ontario has class size limits that limit the maximum teaching load to about 170 students and teachers teach 3 blocks per day, not the 3-4 block rotation like in BC. Ontario had cuts where they went to the 3-4 block rotation and what is reported in the story is the improvements in students from going back to 3 blocks per day. Teachers there also make about 17% more and home prices are about 20% less.
In BC average home price to starting wage for teachers is about 13 times the wage.
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