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VAMatt on 18 February 2019
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shikamaru317 said:
VAMatt said:

In my district (Fairfax County) middle and high schools are starting later than they did when I was in school (HS class of 1998).  The summer break is exactly the same as when I was in school - early/mid June through Labor day.  Student to teacher ratios have moved way, way down.   Teacher pay has gone up a fair amount, to the point where it is no longer reasonable to argue that they're underpaid, especially when you consider that their work weeks average to about 32 hours over the course of a year.  

With that said, I agree tat the US education system needs a major revamp.  Public schools have become ridiculously expensive, to the point where it is much more expensive to send a kid to public school than private, for a far inferior education.  I favor getting government completely out of it, so that kids can get a decent education at a much better price, free from political interference and bureaucratic bloat.  

The student to teacher ratio is pretty bad here in my county right now. At the end of the last school year they made the decision to close 3 of the 12 Elementary Schools in my county, when several of the schools were already overflowing and had trailers out back for extra classroom space. So we now have just 9 Elementary schools for a county with a population of 73,000+ (5000+ elementary school students), now the student to teacher ratio at the Elementary level is apparently 26:1. We have just 4 middle schools, the same as we had 15 years ago when I was in middle school (the population in my county is believed to have increased by about 20% in those 15 years). Just checked the website for the Middle School I went to, when I went there there were 3 teachers per core subject (Language Arts, Science, Math, and Social Studies) per grade, now there are just 2 teachers per core subject per grade, bringing the student to teacher ratio for core subjects to 29:1. There is also 1 less PE teacher now, 3 instead of 4. 

As far as pay goes, I'm told that the average in my county is $50k for Elementary, $44k for Middle, and $46k for High. That's not too bad considering they get 9-10 weeks off in the Summer where they can choose to work a Summer job if they want to, but it could certainly be better considering how important Education is. 

What county are you in?  

Admittedly, Fairfax County is not a good representation of your typical American, or even Virginian school system.  There's a shitload of money around here, so that makes it a lot easier for government to fund school stuff.  But, even here, there are tons of "temporary" mobile classrooms outside of many schools, starting about 5 years after their last expansion, and staying until their next expansion (which usually seem to happen on a 15ish year cycle).  Then they disappear for a few years, and the cycle starts anew.  

Your teacher salaries sound about 25% below the salaries here.  But, this is a super-expensive place to live.  They may actually be living better in your area.  But, you gotta remember the tons of time off, extremely good benefits, including (in most places in the US) retirement programs much, much, much better than anything in the private sector these days.  Those benefits are worth a fair amount, and make teaching a pretty good career in many areas.  It certainly isn't the most financially rewarding job, but I don't think the old line about teachers being underpaid really applies much anymore (there are some exceptions, of course).