Quote:
Originally Posted by conroy22
No teacher I have ever heard of makes a six-figure salary. The Alberta pay grid maxes out at just over $90,000...and that is if you have been teaching for 10+ years with a full 6 years of University behind you!
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I do tax work for a number of teachers and one of my pet peeves is the complaining of teachers for being lowly-paid public servants when that is very far from the truth.
So put it like this:
It takes 10 years for teachers to get to their maximum pay? Thats insane. When you consider that most people work for around 40 years hitting your maximum pay grade after only 10 is a ridiculously good deal, especially when you consider all of the other mitigating factors and the fact that this is not the case in any other profession.
Do doctors, lawyers, accountants (I van personally vouch 'no' for that one) make their maximum salary after 10 years?
And, for instance, its only 10 years and teachers basically cant be fired unless they commit an intermediate felony.
During that time they're also accruing ludicrously lucrative pension amounts. Teachers make a very competitive working salary and then earn significantly more money when they retire through their pensions. Most private sector companies have done away with pensions because they're obscenely expensive.
And the coup-de-grace is the fact that reaching their maximum pay grade is a function of time rather than ability. Once you're in you're in like sin and all you have to do is stay there by not committing said previously mentioned intermediate felony.
They hit their maximum pay as a function of sticking around.
And then theres more! That is the maximum a teacher can make unless they upgrade their education and get a masters or something and get on the next scale, but then theres also the opportunity to switch from teaching and getting into administration.
Sure, thats the max that a teacher can make, but principals, assistant principals and administration staff can actually make significantly more. Its amazing, its like if people are actually good at their jobs they can move up the ranks and earn more money by taking on more responsibility, its almost like a corporate structure or something.
Not to mention the myriad of other possibilities like putting in the requisite 20 years for a full pension, retiring in their 40s, collecting their pensions and still working a whole other job on top of that.
Now, its a pet peeve of mine and I've re-read my post and its coming off rather 'ranty' so I'm going to apologize in advance for that, I dont mean to take shots at teachers or demean them or insult anyone, hell my daughter is at U of L right now to become a teacher because it actually is a really sweet deal.
But it wouldnt kill people to say: 'yeah, this job is pretty great, I get paid well and have lots of perks.'
As opposed to the most common thing we get from 'that teacher that everyone knows' which is just constant and incessant bitching about money and that their 2 month vacation isnt all that great and that they have to take work home sometimes.
Teaching, like with most jobs, has its ups and downs its not all sunshine and rainbows but its not toiling through toxic waste either.