‘Exhausted and underpaid’: teachers across the US are leaving their jobs

Re:‘Exhausted and underpaid’: teachers across the US are lea... by adolph on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @06:02PM (#28858223)

Agreed, thinking through this thread is tedious because you avoid convergence and add tangential topics. The BLS report claims teachers don't work more than 40 hour weeks (chart 2) which doesn't jive with the Gates claims. Therefor the BLS must think that teachers have their work completed within 40 hours a week, which is a culturally accepted number of hours in a work week, even if a salaried employee does not have a min or max number of hours unlike an pilot who has agreed to be paid by flight hour. willcipriano's baseline is two weeks different than the BLS's. That doesn't change the math much (4%), within the natural variability of salaries.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:‘Exhausted and underpaid’: teachers across the US are lea... by eesmith on Thursday October 14, 2021 @05:15AM (#28862024)

Thing is, I looked at several different sources, with conflicting numbers, which is why I wrote: "Different sources give different times, and I am not able to tell how to interpret all of the sources."

Take Chart 2. That is teachers "who were employed during the week prior to their interview and who did some work during that period".

In Chart 1 we see at least 50% of teachers did at least some work in summer. Eg, if they did 1 hour of work in that week then the average in Chart 2 would be lower than the hours spent on a typical school day, which is what I believe the Gates report concerns. What I want is "hours worked in a year", which that BLS report doesn't give.

Looking around more, I found https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED575193.pdf ("Results From the 2015–16 National Teacher and Principal Survey"). In it I see "On average, regular full-time teachers in public schools spent 53 hours per week on all school-related activities, including 27 hours that they were paid to deliver instruction to students during a typical full week. Public school teachers were required to work an average of 38 hours per week to receive their base pay (table 5)"

Curiously: "53 hours per week" if interpreted as 53 hours per 5 day work week = 10 hours and 36 minutes per work day, which is very close to the Gates report of 10 hours and 40 minutes. I .... think I'll trust the Dept. of Education when they use a 7 day week instead of a 5 day work week.

If this is correct:

  53 hours/school week * 9.5 job-related months
     (9.5 = two months for summer + 2 weeks Christmas)
  = 53 * (9.5/12) * 52
  = 2182 hours / year

which is above the ~2,000/year for a bachelor's degree (at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28825539 I cited "Those with a bachelor’s degree or higher worked 8.0 hours per day" giving 20000 working hours per year.)

Thus:

  HS teacher pay per hour worked = $62,870 / 2182 hours = $28.81/hour
  median bachelor degree = $72,830 / 2000 hours = $36.41/hour

Do you think 21% lower is still within "the natural variability of salaries"? Bear in mind that median is used because it's a robust measure, which should be less influenced by 'natural variability'.

You haven't explained how "inefficiency" has any relevance, much less how you measure it. You haven't explained why the "objective overall measure" is a relevant measure. You added tangential topics like union power.

[ Parent | on HN ]