Morgan Langdon
Prof. Sansing
English 0097
17 March
Draft 1
Work cited
How does the U.S compare to the other countries in terms of educator salaries and other components?
How does the U.S compare to other countries and other components? From the article Agreements Mythbusters by Victoria Tasmania Australia teachers would be over $20,000 a year due to inflation. The teacher awards has increased to around to $63,842 - $88,337 but the union - won scale was long way behind from $ 75, 726 - $112.333. Australia is focusing on the workload reduction because the teachers need to have schedule time alone but if they do that its going to effect the rate of pay per hour in the classroom.
In the article Paying Teachers More like Doctors by Beth Aviv during the time 2012 in the United States it says "teachers are being ask to give up or ruduce benefits, salary gains, and pensions". A lot of teachers work outside of school hours would be able to have an opportunity to bill for actual work performed. If you are a high school english teacher your bill might look like when buying things for your lesson or other things. If you are planning for curriculm and writing lessons plans your cost will be $9,842.
Morgan Langdon
Prof. Sansing
English 0097
2 April
Final Draft
How does the U.S compare to the other countries in terms of educator salaries and how they are compensated ?
I want to be a preschool teacher and I have always been curious why teachers don't get paid more for their hard work and impact they have on children. Teachers have such an important role in the development of children so you would think they would get paid more for their efforts. I thought it would be interesting to find out what other countries pay their teachers compared to what teachers are paid in America as well as other ways them may be compensated as a teacher. The following are three articles I found discussing compensation for teachers in America, Australia and Italy.
In the article Paying Teachers More like Doctors by Beth Aviv written in 2012 in the United States it says "teachers are being asked to give up or reduce benefits, salary gains, and pensions". However, lot of teachers work outside of school hours during and throughout the summer. Why can't we bill for services much like doctors do? For example, teachers could bill for purchasing items for their class, time spent planning for curriculum and writing lessons or taking students on a field trip. This would be similar to what doctors bill for when they are seeing patients. However, in America most teachers are being paid on a salary. Which means no overtime for planning, purchasing items with their own money and extra meetings with families. Beth Aviv lists a breakdown of how teachers could be paid. For example, you could be paid $761 to photocopy materials, $440 for teaching how to write a short story or $1850 to meet with parents, administrators and counselors. She lists compensation for every job a teacher does throughout her day and what they should bill for each job.
From the article Agreements Mythbusters by Victoria Tasmania Australia teachers want their salaries to reflect the increase in cost of living. However, this has not been the case. If their salaries reflected inflation their salaries would have increased over $20, 000 over the past two decades. Their base salaries have increased only 9.3% but that is not enough compared to the expectation of increasing over $20, 000. Instead of increasing their salaries, the focus has been on reducing their workload to reflect their compensation. This is quite different than what American teachers are experiencing. They are working more and more without getting paid extra. Australia wants their teachers to not work as hard so their salaries reflect their work.
In the article Merit Pay for Schoolteachers in Italy, 2015-2016: A New Regime of Education Accountability by Daniele Checchi and Paola Mattel teachers are getting paid based on their "performance-related pay policies for teachers." This idea was initiated due to poor performance of students and a high drop out rate in Europe. Although, this sounds like a good idea it was very controversial. Committees were formed to select teachers and individual bonuses which caused a lot of debate and opposition. This Performance-related pay (PRP) was "introduced as part of a broader education reform package aimed at improving the quality and performance of teachers and overall accountability of the Italian education system". Again, sounds like a good idea but hard to effectively implement.
After exploring how teachers are paid or compensated for their work in America, Australia and Italy it is very different how they approach teachers pay. American teachers are paid salary but has been suggested they begin billing as doctors do for their services. Teachers in America are overworked and often use their own money to pay for things. In Australia, the goal was to reduce the workload so their wages reflect their work. Despite getting a raise it did not reflect the cost of living and inflation. And finally, in Italy they wanted teachers to be paid based on their performance in the classroom. This approach became very controversial. These are all very different approaches to compensating teachers for their hard work. As I prepare for becoming a teacher, I love the idea of getting paid for my services as Beth Aviv suggested. Wouldn't it be nice for teacher's salaries to be reflective of the impact they have on the lives of children?
Work cited
Tasmania Victoria) "Agreement Mythbusters"
(Aviv Beth) "Paying Teachers More like Doctors"
Checchi Daniele " Merit Pay for Schoolteachers in Italy, 2015-2016: A New Regime of Education Accountability