Educational system reforms

[Rlh04d]

No one on here lives in Hawaii, except for you. Most of us live in Wichita, which has a drastically cheaper COL.

The better comparison for most of us would be your salary for the same gig at McConnell (much lower pay right, due to much lower COL?), contrasted with a USD 259 teacher with the equivalent years of service. The gap would close immensely, I'm guessing.

I said that I personally would have had to take a 50% paycut. You responded in a way that implied my statement was false. You could simply admit you were wrong. It's not very hard :)

(See my post below for a comparison of salary at McConnell compared to the average Kansas teacher. Although I'm not sure even that is fair -- if you were actually comparing the 18 year old looking at "should I join the military or go to college and become a teacher?", the average person at McConnell would be an E4 or an E5 making nearly what I put below by the time the teacher graduates college and possibly gets hired on at a starting salary. I would guess the average Airman at McConnell would be an E6-E7 with 12 years in the military by the time a teacher was making the average teacher salary in Wichita, which would increase the gap immensely, I'm guessing.)

[Rlh04d]

So you are/were an E-5?

The rate of non-taxable benefits you are receiving in Hawaii is because the cost of living is so high. I would say you are over valuing what you think you are saving in tax savings (once you got done itimizing you probably would be paying very little) and not accounting for what the high cost of living in Hawaii is actually doing to reduce standard of living. Then if you are married, even if your spouse has a college education it is a lot more difficult to find a job, and if you do if won't pay likely at your experience level (because they know you will be likely transferred in 2-3 years). So there is another reduction in your standard of living due to having a military job.

I did a number of health and welfare checks and I would never say any of the enlisted soldiers were getting over on the system. For some it was pretty appalling the conditions they had to live in off base. Pretty much the community you are stationed knows what you are making for BAH based on your rank and will be pricing as such to make sure they take as much of that tax free money off your hands. If you are living on base, then tax free money is going away - and the quarters on base are hardly high class living.


As far as education - until parents (and their children) actually value getting an eduction - especially a higher education, it doesn't matter how much money you throw at it. I think the phrase "You lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" applies.

I was indeed. I'm impressed you could figure that out without the missing ingredient -- my FLPP pay as a Mandarin linguist. So my pay was a bit over the average E5 in my location.

And obviously COL skews those numbers significantly. I made a point about how much of a pay cut I personally would have had to take -- I referenced military pay in Wichita on the first page, but for the record, I'd still calculate out the pay of an E5 in Wichita at $59,926, which would be 130% more than the average teacher salary in Kansas. And at that point I don't know enough about teacher insurance plans or continuing education benefits to say whether or not the cap is wider. But I'd also argue that COL numbers are skewed in your post -- they don't account for commissary savings, tax free benefits on base, base gas, and so on, some of the most expensive components of COL numbers. As for conditions off-base, I never experienced that. Most of the people I knew rented two bedroom apartments for $1600-1800, well under their BAH rate, either for their family or splitting for single personnel. The community you are stationed in doesn't set rates based on military and non-military. If you're in a small location where military personnel make up a significant portion of the community, that might be an issue. Even when I lived in west Texas that wasn't a problem, though.

Your point about spousal income is true, though. My wife did fine, but I knew many who struggled with that.

And if you have a way to itemize your taxes to that degree, please share -- I'm going to be annihilated next tax season, for my first full year out of the military.

As for your other point ... I agree, a lot of the problem with education is on the value parents put on the education of their children. That has to be a major part of the formula. But the quality of people attracted to the profession still plays a large part. A shitty teacher can still negatively impact a student with parents that put a high value on education, and a great teacher can still positively impact a student with parents that don't value education at all.

[Rlh04d]

I am gonna guess that the point here is that if you are in it for the bucks, join the Army.

The point is that the United States military is becoming more educated, talented, and versatile than ever due to ever-improving benefits.

Basic level free-market economic principles tend to work.

You apparently disagree with free market principles, yet continue to not explain why, so I continue to wonder what the point of you posting in a discussion you won't join in is. You obviously care about the discussion. Join in.

[Rlh04d]

You illustrate a ch!nk (<--- apparently a SN blocked word even when used in a non-racial context?) in the armor in the school teacher pay scales. Math and science teachers at the middle school and high school levels should make substantially more than their counterparts. Why? Because you have to compete with what their skill set is worth in the open job market. These are people that could otherwise be engineers, CPAs, scientists, or medical professionals. Conversely, a lot of teachers - while perfectly competent professionals in their field - are in effect professionally operating at their 'highest and best use'. Meaning most of them do not have a better career option outside of education. Completely different set of circumstances from the math and science teachers.

To me, this is likely one of the primary root causes of our education dysfunction in the US. While the vast majority of teachers are simply being fairly compensated for their skill set, many potential educators in the math and science subset are not even making it into the career track in the first place because more desirable options exist.

These variations exist in the economics of higher education, that much is clear. Go to the Wichita Eagle WSU salary database and look up a given engineering/accounting/finance/economics/natural science professor's pay, and contrast that with their compliment in the liberal arts/sciences or humanities. The former regularly out-earns the latter by a factor of 2 or 3. This same logic should be applied to secondary-level educators. Should a kindergartener teacher with 5 years of experience make the same as a honors-level math or science teacher with the same years of experience? No way in hell. It is why a large chunk of educators should feel like they have a pretty nice gig, but a small subset of them are undercompensated to the point that it is has ultimately made the US the dumbest of the World's superpowers in the context of a extremely important educational subset. It is a bit of a dichotomy.

This we agree on completely.

I'm not for necessarily for paying all teachers better. I'm for paying levels of salary that are high enough to attract people into the career field, competitive with what their level of expertise could earn them if they chose another career field. A teacher with an education and a position closer to that of an art or history major in college should be paid much less than STEM instructors, who have far more competitively marketable skills in fields other than education. An English, history, etc. teacher is obviously a different animal entirely from a STEM teacher in terms of what a competitive wage outside of education is.

Maybe I should have phrased my points better and we would have agreed before now.

[wufan]

Or they can join the Air Force at 18 and make over $80k combined in their first year out of the gate, plus signing bonus, and have ~40 credits down without taking a single class, to work on planes in Wichita, and go to school for free instead of paying back their $50k in education expenses.

I'm not arguing teachers are impoverished. And I'm not arguing that college education should guarantee wealth. I'm arguing that when you pay a poor ROI for a career field that requires a college diploma you attract poorer quality instructors. Economic considerations determine career choice: few people choose to take less money than they are capable of earning. When you pay lower scale wages you attract lower quality workers. When you attract lower quality workers with the career of educating the youth, you have lower educated youth.

Which part of these would you disagree with:

Paying teachers more would attract more intelligent and harder working people to the career field.
More intelligent and harder working teachers would improve education.

An E1 makes $1600 per month. That's less than $20000 per year. You want to count all the benefits as compensation? Do it both ways.

[wufan]

You want to know what the #1 issue is in Kansas Public Education?

From 1992 to 2009 Student growth was 5% while Non-teaching staff grew at 43%.

The ratio of Students to Teachers is around 13:1 while the number of Students to Non-teaching staff is around 14:1.

http://www.edchoice.org/Research/Reports/The-School-Staffing-Surge--Decades-of-Employment-Growth-in-Americas-Public-Schools--Part-2.aspx#Map

The average Wichita Teacher makes $50k: http://www1.salary.com/KS/Wichita/Pu...er-salary.html

The average Wichita Assistant Principal makes $77k: http://www1.salary.com/KS/Wichita/As...al-salary.html

So when you hear "cuts", know that this is spin from the school spenders. The only "cut" was when the federal stimulus dollars went away. Kansas schools spend almost $13k per child (Yes, this includes Facilities and Pensions) every year: http://www.kansasopengov.org/SchoolD...1/Default.aspx

Somebody gets it! The buerocratic staff has drastically increased and the Feds cut the budget. The administrative staff needs to be cut to match on spending.

[wufan]

You illustrate a ch!nk (<--- apparently a SN blocked word even when used in a non-racial context?) in the armor in the school teacher pay scales. Math and science teachers at the middle school and high school levels should make substantially more than their counterparts. Why? Because you have to compete with what their skill set is worth in the open job market. These are people that could otherwise be engineers, CPAs, scientists, or medical professionals. Conversely, a lot of teachers - while perfectly competent professionals in their field - are in effect professionally operating at their 'highest and best use'. Meaning most of them do not have a better career option outside of education. Completely different set of circumstances from the math and science teachers.

To me, this is likely one of the primary root causes of our education dysfunction in the US. While the vast majority of teachers are simply being fairly compensated for their skill set, many potential educators in the math and science subset are not even making it into the career track in the first place because more desirable options exist.

These variations exist in the economics of higher education, that much is clear. Go to the Wichita Eagle WSU salary database and look up a given engineering/accounting/finance/economics/natural science professor's pay, and contrast that with their compliment in the liberal arts/sciences or humanities. The former regularly out-earns the latter by a factor of 2 or 3. This same logic should be applied to secondary-level educators. Should a kindergartener teacher with 5 years of experience make the same as a honors-level math or science teacher with the same years of experience? No way in hell. It is why a large chunk of educators should feel like they have a pretty nice gig, but a small subset of them are undercompensated to the point that it is has ultimately made the US the dumbest of the World's superpowers in the context of a extremely important educational subset. It is a bit of a dichotomy.

The U.S. Offers a "free and equal" education to all citizens/residents. The other super-powers do not. Standardized tests in the U.S. Are taken by all students. In Sweden, if you aren't in the top X% at age 14, you go to trade school and never take the test. When you compare the same percentages of US students with those over seas, they are comparable.

Also, English is THE hardest language to learn on the planet. Much more time is spent on grammar here than in other countries.

[wufan]

My sister is an elementary school teacher in a poorer Wichita suburb. Her husband is an elementary school teacher at the poorest school in Wichita. They have four children (one being a severe special needs child), and they live quite comfortably with a SALARY well over 6 figures. Their continued and required education is paid for and they get garunteed raises for each level they obtain (sounds kinda like the military). They work at the school 8 hours per day, but sometimes work from home for a few hours a week. My sister was has twice won the teacher of the year for her district, and was a finalist for KS teacher of the year. In the summer the fall, spring, and summer they enjoy vacations to California and Disney World and hang out at the local country club.

I am fortunate to earn a higher salary than each of them individually and have a comparable education (though in a more difficult field), but when I looked at the hours I work versus them, it turns out they are getting a higher per hour rate. I routinely work 50+ hours at work, am on 24/7 call, and take work home with me most nights and weekends. If you aren't doing that, then kudos to you! Teachers are not undercompensated, and both of my siblings would agree.

[wufan]

There are some studies out there that the ONLY equalizer in terms of test scores between high and low income hours is more hours. Weren't fortunate enough to be brought into this world as either highly intelligent or highly affluent? Guess what? Higher paid teachers won't fix it, but hard work will.

[Rlh04d]

An E1 makes $1600 per month. That's less than $20000 per year. You want to count all the benefits as compensation? Do it both ways.

You can't honestly believe that.

I'm not counting "extra benefits." If I wanted to count extra benefits, I'd factor in insurance, education benefits, and on and on and on -- counting things like that would make the income of BOTH military and teachers increase. BAH/BAS/COLA/etc. are flat out income, and untaxed at that. There is no equivalent "compensation" for a teacher that isn't being counted, and arguing there is is flat out dishonest. It's impossible to not take into account BAH/BAS in the income of even an E1 living in the dorms and eating in the chow hall -- housing and food are almost always the two biggest drains on the income of anyone, and pretending like that just doesn't count for military is insane, and dangerous. That kind of thinking has lead to a lot of military members making horribly uninformed decisions to leave the service. I've known too many E-4's driving around brand new $35k cars honestly believing they make poverty level wages.

You're too smart for that kind of argument.

[Rlh04d]

Also, English is THE hardest language to learn on the planet. Much more time is spent on grammar here than in other countries.

English is ONE OF the hardest languages to learn. Not THE hardest language. I have more than 6000 hours of classroom instruction in Mandarin with native instructors -- I'm a fairly good judge of language difficulty, and it's agreed with by every measurement I've ever seen. English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Korean are all considered the hardest in near equivalence to one another. English grammar is the hardest, and it's the only reason it's even close to the others.

Your other point is also not correct. Regardless of what percentage of students in Sweden take their standardized tests, these comparisons are generally made on an even basis by independent organizations, given to random people of equivalent ages in each country. PISA statistics: while I've seen criticism of the PISA numbers, even the people most critical of the PISA numbers acknowledge that a gap DOES exist, they just argue the gap isn't as wide as the PISA numbers demonstrate.

[wufan]

You can't honestly believe that.

I'm not counting "extra benefits." If I wanted to count extra benefits, I'd factor in insurance, education benefits, and on and on and on -- counting things like that would make the income of BOTH military and teachers increase. BAH/BAS/COLA/etc. are flat out income, and untaxed at that. There is no equivalent "compensation" for a teacher that isn't being counted, and arguing there is is flat out dishonest. It's impossible to not take into account BAH/BAS in the income of even an E1 living in the dorms and eating in the chow hall -- housing and food are almost always the two biggest drains on the income of anyone, and pretending like that just doesn't count for military is insane, and dangerous. That kind of thinking has lead to a lot of military members making horribly uninformed decisions to leave the service. I've known too many E-4's driving around brand new $35k cars honestly believing they make poverty level wages.

You're too smart for that kind of argument.

http://m.goarmy.com/benefits/money/basic-pay-active-duty-soldiers.m.html

Just north of 18K.

[Rlh04d]

http://m.goarmy.com/benefits/money/basic-pay-active-duty-soldiers.m.html

Just north of 18K.

I just left the military. I'm well aware what base pay is for an E1.

To use your own words, if you don't want to consider money spent on housing and food as salary, "Do it both ways." Take a guess what that would do to the average income of a Kansas teacher.

[wufan]

English is ONE OF the hardest languages to learn. Not THE hardest language. I have more than 6000 hours of classroom instruction in Mandarin with native instructors -- I'm a fairly good judge of language difficulty, and it's agreed with by every measurement I've ever seen. English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Korean are all considered the hardest in near equivalence to one another. English grammar is the hardest, and it's the only reason it's even close to the others.

Your other point is also not correct. Regardless of what percentage of students in Sweden take their standardized tests, these comparisons are generally made on an even basis by independent organizations, given to random people of equivalent ages in each country. PISA statistics: while I've seen criticism of the PISA numbers, even the people most critical of the PISA numbers acknowledge that a gap DOES exist, they just argue the gap isn't as wide as the PISA numbers demonstrate.

I agree with your first paragraph. I should have said that English grammar is the hardest in the world and that we spend far more time on grammar than other countries.

Disagree with your second paragraph. Countries are responsible for choosing their own representative schools, but students are chosen at random. Any students not in school aren't tested. 30-50% of students in foreign countries are no longer in the secondary educational system (excluding trade schools) by age 15-16. 99% of US kids are.

[Rlh04d]

Disagree with your second paragraph. Countries are responsible for choosing their own representative schools, but students are chosen at random. Any students not in school aren't tested. 30-50% of students in foreign countries are no longer in the secondary educational system (excluding trade schools) by age 15-16. 99% of US kids are.

I agree with that somewhat, but you're mixing and matching statistics to a weird degree, without sources or context.

Also, for one thing, vocational/trade schools are included in statistics like PISA's. For another, assuming massive differences between vocational and general students is not necessarily correct. Countries like Japan and Mexico, for instance, have almost no discernible difference. You're also assuming that all of the schools above us in the rankings with a general/vocational difference would have their vocational school students rank below us, which is not supported by the data I've seen.

Some data on this:

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002178/217873e.pdf