Teachers are overworked and underpaid too

[robinturner]

I'm not sure about who the "too" refers to, but just about everyone these days claims to be overworked and underpaid. I just grabbed these statistics (for the U.S.A.).

teacher $43,000
assistant professor $45,000
police officer $46,000
accountant $53,000
department store buyer $58,000
architect $60,000
computer systems analyst $71,000
engineer $75,000
attorney $83,000
full professor $84,000
doctor $120,000

Apart from the fact that teachers get less than people in other comparable professions, the massive hike from assistant professor to full professor is weird. I'm not sure how the American system works: in Britain you have junior lecturers (a.k.a. office boys), senior lecturers, professors, heads of departments, deans and various obscure things like fellows and chairs. In Turkey we have a totally incomprehensible system. Both have intricate systems of pay differentials, but I don't think in either system a professor earns almost twice as much as an ordinary lecturer (on the other hand, in Turkey there is a massive difference between state and private schools - I earn about three times what I'd get in a state institution).

Anyway, it shows that Microsoft can occasionally come up with something useful - the figures are from a good article at the Microsoft Encarta site.

Comments

Teachers

[thewasteland.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of the pay scale is reflecting upon counties, and states. For example, here in Florida (Orange County) teachers get paid $30,000 with a bachelor's degree and $32,000 with a Master's. Every year, you get less than a 6% raise.

[chr0me-kitten.livejournal.com]

the difference between assistant and full professor is not a matter of how much work that professor does, but a matter of rank. and that list forgot a rank--associate professor. a full professor has tenure and the higest rank in the university system (outside of emeritus, and you have to be retired for that). So the difference in pay is a matter of seniority, not job difference. the rank system goes as follows:

full professor (highest and tenured)
associate professor (usually has tenure)
assistant professor (entry-level, tenure track)
adjunct/instructor (lowest and non-tenure track)

Also, those stats have to be an average, 'cause most of the full professors I know don't make nearly that much.

[solri.livejournal.com]

So I guess I'm an adjunct/instructor - bleegh. On the other hand, if I hang around long enough and brownnose perform sterling services to the university, I have a chance of getting asociate professor status, even if I never do a PhD.

[slit.livejournal.com]

Maybe you noticed this, but that was written by Tamim Ansary, the guy who wrote the now-famous e-mail-turned-Salon.com-article against the invasion of Afghanistan a day or two after September 11 ("bomb them into the Stone Age? they're already there"). He's from Afghanistan and, after achieving instafame after that article, is now an education reporter for MSN. His stuff is really good, particularly his piece on standardized testing.

I just thought that was interesting. Carry on. :-)

[solri.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I remember that Salon article. Good stuff.