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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thornir Alekeg" data-source="post: 2041302" data-attributes="member: 15651">My wife is a 4th grade public school teacher.  She has a Master's in Elementary Education.  She has not been teaching long as she changed from her science career to teach.  She had always been interested in teaching, but could not reconcile that with the low pay.  After she was laid off from a great paying job that she did not enjoy, we decided to have her go back to school, get her Masters and become a teacher.  It would be a bit of a financial hit, but with my job we would manage.  She earns around $40k.  She cannot earn extra by participating in other activities, other than becoming a mentor for new teachers, which gets you a whopping $600 a year.  As for whether the pay is too low, just right or too much, consider the following:A good early education teacher is not just teaching children to spell C-A-T, they are teaching the fundamentals of learning, how to learn, how to think, how to act socially in an appropriate way.  They are often the first line of defense in recognizing a child with a possible learning disability - and early intervention is extremely important in that.  They are responsible for so much.  In higher grades, there is more to teach, but there are other issues to deal with as well.Hours: Anybody who thinks teachers have it easy since the school day is only 6 hours long on average has no clue.  Those six hours are for teaching.  In addition there is the planning, the grading, and the adminsitrative work that must be done.  My wife always brings work home, and many times for the sake of actually being able to spend time together, I assist in grading objective tests such as spelling and math.Summers off: Yes, teachers get about 2 months off during the summer.  Of course part of that time is usually spent preparing for the next school year, and taking required Continuing Education courses.So does that all equal the pay they get?  For the importance of the job they do, the pressure they have to deal with and the amount of work they actually do, I would say no.  Unfortunately, like police officers, firemen, military personnel and many other public servants, they do not "earn" money for a business who can turn it back on their employees, they are at the mercy of the public tax system, and let's face it, nobody you ask is going to jump up and down and volunteer to pay more taxes.With all that I would agree that just "throwing more money" at the schools is not the ultimate solution to the education issues in the US.  Smarter use of the funds available is also needed.  Throw more money at a wasteful school and all you'll get is more waste.  Figure out how to make the system work best and how much money is needed realsitically to make it happen - it will be more that is the current average in the majority of schools.</blockquote>

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