Public Schools Pay Teachers 50% Above Market, Heritage Analysis Finds

[Stormieweather]

Pfft....our teachers are underpaid, if anything. A good teacher does more than just show up. They are involved with the child's family: phone calls, emails, conferences...all after hours. They work on lesson plans, create ideas to promote learning and participate in school events to increase educational advancement by families and students.

If we want top notch teachers to educate our children, we need to pay them accordingly.

We should learn from Finland. I have a friend who is an orchestra conductor there, with two children in school. I hear a lot about their educational system.

Finland’s schools weren’t always so successful. In the 1960s, they were middling at best. In 1971, a government commission concluded that, poor as the nation was in natural resources, it had to modernize its economy and could only do so by first improving its schools. To that end, the government agreed to reduce class size, boost teacher pay, and require that, by 1979, all teachers complete a rigorous master’s program.


Today, teaching is such a desirable profession that only one in ten applicants to the country’s eight master’s programs in education is accepted. In the United States, on the other hand, college graduates may become teachers without earning a master’s. What’s more, Finnish teachers earn very competitive salaries: High school teachers with 15 years of experience make 102 percent of what their fellow university graduates do. In the United States, by contrast, they earn just 65 percent.Though, unlike U.S. education reformers, Finnish authorities haven’t outsourced school management to for-profit or non-profit organizations, implemented merit pay, or ranked teachers and schools according to test results, they’ve made excellent use of business strategies. They’ve won the war for talent by making teaching so appealing.

Education Reform-Finland

The quality of my children's education is so important to me that I moved my whole family less than 1 mile so that my youngest could attend an A school vs an F school, after zoning/choice changes last year. And as a result, my blossoming 1st grader is being tested for gifted classes.

As a country, our priorities are all effed up.