Such a huge
topic, where to start?
Where to
focus?
How about salaries
of teachers? Okay, let’s start there.
Michigan
ranks quite high on the salary scale nationwide. Our elementary teachers
average $57,958 a year salary and a decent benefit package as negotiated
through their union. (A union to which they pay very high dues for membership.) Secondary teachers average $55,000. I have no
idea why the difference or if these are accurate salaries in my rural area, but
I do know that in this economy it isn’t bad pay for 9 months work of 60 hour
weeks, but no one is going to get rich or support their family in high style on
that income. They will pay their bills and some will work summer jobs to stay
afloat. New York teachers make about
$13,000 more than Michigan teachers. $68,000 is a little more respectable
except that the cost of living in New York is probably higher than that of Michigan. Point is these are the professionals to whom we’re
giving our children for 8 hours each of 5 days for 9 months every year for 13
years.
To verify
those salary numbers you may check out the following link…
Each month
the teacher spends about 160 hours with your child. That works out to $40.28
per classroom per day. So let’s say there are 25 children in each
classroom. That’s $1.61 per child per
DAY. Your weekly childcare bill is $8.05
per child. Now in this daycare, they will also be given instruction in math,
English, history, social studies and science and many other fields. The kids sometimes
make friends for life under these teachers guidance and most definitely they
advance their ability to live in the world as adults one day at a time and one
year at a time. That makes your child’s
education one big value, if you ask me.
Our teachers
are not only underpaid by a large amount, they are more importantly undervalued
and grossly underappreciated. I know some are awful and should not be alone
with a child EVER and classrooms are a vast waste of time with those
undedicated and uncaring individuals. I believe them to be in the minority,
however, and that the schools are filled with mostly teachers who want to help
form your child’s mind and fill them with information they will use every day
of their lives. They will help prepare your child for college or help train
them to a particular trade to help assure their futures as contributing adults.
For all of this, you are paying $8.00 a week!
Yep, they deserve a big raise and they deserve your respect. They have
mine.
Maybe one
day this week, thank a teacher. They are not working for a paycheck to support
an elaborate lifestyle, they are teaching because, for the most part, they love
teaching your children.
Now, how
important is your child’s education these days? How many people do you know who
have graduated with a degree in xyz and are working in a completely unrelated
field, if they are working at all? I am
afraid I know several. It is a mystery to me why just having attended college
and graduated with some diploma and some degree makes you the perfect candidate
for some job that you never even considered actually doing. Never wanted to do
and don’t really want to do it now, but you have bills to pay and this job is a
big paycheck. Common.
I guess the
education is important. It’s a job. It’s the key, apparently, to obtaining the
higher paying jobs with a future even if you have no idea in what field to
study for the world four years from now, when you will walk out with your own
degree in biology to accept the job at Dow Chemical in the Human Resources
Department.
Education is
never wasted, can’t really argue that.
Jo
