EPI: If You Appreciate Teachers, Pay Them More | Diane Ravitch's blog

EPI: If You Appreciate Teachers, Pay Them More | Diane Ravitch's blog

EPI: If You Appreciate Teachers, Pay Them More

The following post was published by the Economic Policy Institute, which is pro-worker, pro-union, and not funded by free-market billionaires.

As we near the end of #TeacherAppreciationWeek, it is worth remembering that one of the ways we can show our appreciation for teachers is to pay them a living salary.

EPI has been tracking trends in teacher pay for over a decade and a half. Our most recent report finds that, on average, teachers earn nearly 20 percent less than similar workers in other occupations. The size of the gap also varies across by state and can be as large as 32.7% less than other comparable college-educated workers.

Teachers typically have better benefits packages, but CONTINUE READING: EPI: If You Appreciate Teachers, Pay Them More | Diane Ravitch's blog

Does New Generation of Teachers Also Care about Pay, Benefits, Retirement and Tenure? | Cloaking Inequity

Does New Generation of Teachers Also Care about Pay, Benefits, Retirement and Tenure? | Cloaking Inequity

DOES NEW GENERATION OF TEACHERS ALSO CARE ABOUT PAY, BENEFITS, RETIREMENT AND TENURE?

Teaching is one of the most altruistic professions. Despite constant attacks on their profession and ongoing public criticism from some quarters in the modern era— teachers are the willing and expert caretakers of our nation. Education is the compass of our democracy.

As teacher shortages and high attrition continue to plague the profession, it is important to ask what is important to the new generation of teachers. Based on a recent request, we sent a survey to all of our new teachers in the the UK College of Education and asked about a few pecuniary and non-pecuniary aspects of the ongoing debates in the public policy. In just a few days, more than 100 of our University of Kentucky College of Education’s new teachers responded to inform our practice. Here are the questions and their answers.

SEE THE COMPLETE REPORT HERE:  Does New Generation of Teachers Also Care about Pay, Benefits, Retirement and Tenure? | Cloaking Inequity

The predominance of the peer reviewed research has indicated for quite awhile that pay, benefits, retirement and other factors are very important to new and veteran teachers. I think the comments to policymakers are also quite revealing and demonstrate that students are clearly discouraged by the current educational policy environment. This survey is not a comprehensive survey of all new teachers, but this sample of the questions does provide insight regarding the needs and desires of the new teachers that will enter (or not enter) our public schools in the near future.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Check out and follow my YouTube channel here.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

Does New Generation of Teachers Also Care about Pay, Benefits, Retirement and Tenure? | Cloaking Inequity

Education Matters: Area veteran teachers brace for pay cuts (draft)

Education Matters: Area veteran teachers brace for pay cuts (draft)

Area veteran teachers brace for pay cuts (draft)

While brand new teachers in St. Johns county get a six thousand dollar raise, veteran teachers, if they got the best and brightest bonus or school recognition money, are about to get a pay cut. Coming soon to Clay and Duval Counties.  

People who have dedicated their lives to the children of the area are about to either lose money or not see any notable pay raise. Welcome to Florida 

From News4Jax,

“It’s an unfair bill for veteran teachers. Although the people at the lower end of the pay salary scale will be moved up, veteran teachers are going to get a much lesser raise,” St. Johns Education Association Chief Negotiator Justin Vogel said.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2020/11/18/st-johns-county-school-district-union-agree-to-6500-raise-for-new-teachers/

The article talks about a two percent raise for veteran teachers. For me, that would be about a thousand CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: Area veteran teachers brace for pay cuts (draft)

The best way to improve schools? Invest in teachers. - Vox

The best way to improve schools? Invest in teachers. - Vox

The best way to improve schools? Invest in teachers.

A study of 150 interventions in developing countries finds that many education programs don’t work — but some do.

How do we improve schools so that kids learn more?

It’s a straightforward question — deceptively so, because improving schools, measuring whether you have improved schools, and writing down a recipe for school improvements that can be successfully used elsewhere is an astonishingly hard problem.

Philanthropists in the US have spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting massive overhauls of the education system, often without improving test scores even a bit. Investing in “small schools” didn’t produce the hoped-for gains; neither did pushes to video and evaluating teachers or personalized learning programs. Educators, meanwhile, have protested that test scores don’t even measure the thing we really care about, which is whether students are successfully learning.

Internationally, the situation is even worse. In many parts of the world, lots of kids don’t even get the chance to attend school — and the ones who do often attend profoundly inadequate schools. By age 10, 90 percent of children in low-income countries still cannot read with comprehension. Some schools combat extraordinary rates of teacher absenteeism. Kids can go years barely learning anything because of an inadequate educational environment.

Lots of things have been tried to improve education in the developing world. Nonprofits, governments, and researchers have bought students uniforms, paid their scholarships, bought CONTINUE READING: The best way to improve schools? Invest in teachers. - Vox

Teachers often pay out of pocket for remote teaching tech

Teachers often pay out of pocket for remote teaching tech

Teachers forced to “MacGyver” their own tech solutions

When states don’t reimburse teachers for supplies, they have to figure out ways to make remote teaching work and how to pay for it

Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Future of Learning newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Wednesday with trends and top stories about education innovation. Subscribe today!

When Audrey Green, a middle school teacher in Broward County, Florida, began the year working remotely with her students, she had a lot to think about.

She had to establish a personal connection with students she’s never seen face to face and help children develop tools to cope during a pandemic. And she had to handle emotionally heavy issues, like the student who hung around after class online because she said she didn’t want to be alone. All of that while also ensuring they were being challenged academically.

But before she could do any of the hard work of teaching students through a screen, she had to solve another problem. How would she set up those screens in the first place?

Teachers have long spent their own money to outfit their classrooms — on average, teachers spend $459 out of pocket on school supplies annually, according to an analysis of 2011-12 data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics. Some teachers get some of that money back: Several states provide at least partial reimbursement for these expenses and the federal government allows a $250 tax deduction, according to Alyssa Evans, a policy researcher at the Education Commission of the States.

But the national economic crisis means that teachers might be out of CONTINUE READING: Teachers often pay out of pocket for remote teaching tech