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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 27, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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This is a personal anecdote. I always hear that teacher are very underpaid in relation to the value they bring but having worked as one for some years and knowing personally some teachers, that doesn't seem true. Most are quite lazy and relaxed on the job and mostly they seem unfirable, and they use the relative low hours to get a second job, generally private tutoring. Now, there's a disconnect between my lived experience(TM) and the rhetoric. Was I just unlucky in my encounter? I would like to research and read more regarding this but all I find is article about how teachers deserve the highest pay.

In Alberta, they make around 90k a year after 10 years of experience, 100k typically if they have 6 years of university. I know that it's pretty busy at first with lesson plans and marking, but my understanding is that many teachers eventually optimize tests/plans/etc. and manage to reduce that time quite a bit as they get more experienced (Scantron for the win?). This combined with an excellent pension, weekends off, summer off, 2 weeks for christmas, etc. etc. It's also very difficult to be fired, and your job is pretty much secure as long as there are kids to fill classrooms.

Attached some stats from Calgary Public School district (though salaries are set by the province IIRC)

https://local38.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/Salaries%20and%20Benefits/2022-24%20SALARY%20GRID%20ALLOWANCES.pdf

low hours

Do teachers work low hours during the school year? AFAICT, they do not:

www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/06/12/do-teachers-work-long-hours/amp/

Teachers look underpaid if you compare 180 day a year teachers to jobs working more like 250 days a year. If they use the 70 extra days a year to earn money at something close to their teaching wage, they seem pretty competitive in most areas. They'd look pretty highly compensated if they earned a competitive 250 day/ye wage in 180 days.

The people who say teachers are "underpaid (they are paid slightly lower than the highest paid countries if you take GDPc into account., But they are not underpaid by any reasonable comparison)" in the US, are not making a quantifiable argument. They are making a vibes-based argument.

These same people think education is that which turns beast into man, incompetent into competent, and savages into civilized. There's also a grand narrative aspect to it; teachers shape the minds of the owners of the future. In their world, teachers getting paid anything less than infinite (or engineers or worse programmers or even worse businessmen) is a tragedy. Because ____________{uncharitably they are growing their [very very valuable!] tribe because the ideology that puts formal education above all else is perpetuated by... educators}.

A similar argument is people who argue doctors are underpaid because "they save lives". Unfortunately, economics doesn't work that way, water keeps you alive but it costs less than an iPhone.