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A comment on "There's no reason only poor people should have the experience" - TED video of Bill Gates. Parent comment

Re:"There's no reason only poor people should have the exper... by Goladus on Friday February 06, 2009 @09:14AM (#469733)
Some teachers are paid very well, it depends on the district really. When I lived in upstate NY, I remember hearing that a few of the teachers in my school district made almost 100k, which is terrific for the cost of living in that region.

And there are a lot of reasons other than financial, that people choose to become teachers.

From my observations on decent school systems (I haven't seen the TED speech yet), the biggest feature of schoolteachers is complacency. It's not that they aren't intelligent, it's that they aren't ambitious. People go into teaching in order to have a safe, comfortable, predictable career path. And in many cases that's what it is, and the result is that teachers wind up living in a different reality.

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Re:"There's no reason only poor people should have the exper... by scott_s on Friday February 06, 2009 @11:31AM (#469919)
You're probably thinking about this NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/fashion/01generationb.html

An important point is that the teachers in the 100k range have been teachers for 30 years. Starting salaries are much different.

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Re:"There's no reason only poor people should have the exper... by derwiki on Friday February 06, 2009 @02:45PM (#470229)
My father retired with half the salary of my entry-level software engineering job. This was after 30+ years. Go Coshocton, Ohio.
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Re:"There's no reason only poor people should have the exper... by Goladus on Sunday February 08, 2009 @06:31AM (#472097)
No, actually, I wasn't thinking about that article, though it's a pretty good one. I was thinking about a much smaller, suburban district and the average there is probably closer to $50k.

And yes, starting salaries are much lower-- as they are for most graduates in most other industries.

I wasn't arguing that being a teacher is going to get you rich. But at least in NY, one makes enough to live comfortably. If you can handle dealing with kids on a daily basis, it isn't a bad career choice at all. Of course, NY State's public schools have a good reputation.

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