Industrial Action on 5th September

[Hodgeyhodgey]

What exactly is the median salary for a public teacher? Would it differ to private and TAFE providers?

It's around 69,000, although once you're teaching VCE, you should be looking for around 74,000. This is for public schools.

Private school teachers aren't paid by the government, so the school decides what they are paid - it is usually higher - but it is more difficult to find a job at a private school.

TAFE - I have no idea!

Thanks Paul! Only reason why I compared to TAFE is cos I do work experience in the finance department at Gordon TAFE in Geelong so I've seen what the teachers are paid.

[IndefatigableLover]

I just had a quick browse on Google News and it looks like teachers might want to work 38 hour weeks if they don't get their payrise :/ (Trust good old Aussie newspapers ) 38 Hour Weeks. If the government end up giving in and give the teachers a 30% pay rise that they want, then it'll cost the government $14 billion. $14 Billion

Yes I do know that these are newspapers and not verifiable as such but if we imagine if each one were true.. then disaster.
Though tomorrow I'm going to ask my teachers and see how they felt about their strike and whether or not they'll take further action since it is disrupting mine and everybody else's learning time. >.<

Got to love the Murdoch Press, *ahem not really*. The Union has said to expect further disruptions next school term.

Yeah my teacher said apparently it's the third week of Term 4... but only half day strikes? [Not too sure but he's apart of the Union]
And apparently also there's another strike next year for February 14 [Again I don't trust newspapers that much but the only sources I can find]

Also on another note... Today Queensland Catholic schools went on strike for pretty much the same reason as the Victorian schools (Pay and working conditions Queensland Catholic School Strike :/

[MJRomeo81]

There's no denying that teachers deserve (and should rightfully command) a higher salary. But do you think that the industry's respective wages is the main determinant in persuading students not to become teachers? Personally, I believe this is a matter of prestige. People who are intelligent and motivated want to be perceived as successful.  If I asked you to close your eyes and describe a businessperson, you would likely imagine someone with impeccable posture, in a fancy suit, with a sharp haircut, and with a twinkle in his or her eye.  That imagined archetype looks like a million bucks… a top achiever.  If I asked you to close your eyes and describe your average classroom teacher, on the other hand, something tells me that many of you would imagine a friendly person who doesn't particularly stand out. Those are today’s societal images, I’m afraid.

There needs to be an attitude change in regards to primary and secondary school teaching in this country. Walk into your average public school and you will quickly figure out why elite students don't want to become teachers. Harassment. Violence. No respect. Even if you pay these teachers 100k a year, why would you subject yourself to that sort of behaviour when you can make 100k doing something else?


The deleted guest did raise one interesting point. The amount of holidays teachers receive. I know that teachers have work to do in this period, but I think that it is still quite generous.

$100k is a great salary IF AND ONLY IF you're living on your own. When you have a family, and then factor in taxes (it's really only $70k) and a mortgage, food, bills, car, phone, internet, private education for their own kids

I disagree. In my neighbourhood (including my own family) we get by on much less than 100k combined wages, with 5 people in the home. Even with a new house mortgage and everything else, you can get by fine. Teachers do deserve more but let's be realistic here.

They're broke. They are LITERALLY broke.

Not really when you consider the current IT industry and how people are paying 5k for bullshit vendor certs just so the employers shut up (all on 50k).

[enwiabe]

MJRomeo, I mean no disrespect to your family, but when you say "we get by", a lot of people - especially the kind of talented individuals we're talking about attracting - aren't interested in a wage which will allow them to just "get by". They do want more, and so they go into more lucrative fields.

My point is that a $100k ceiling and FYI that ceiling does exist for teachers who take on extra leadership responsibilities (for all the people claiming I made it up) is not something which is going to inspire a high-achieving graduate who can easily make millions as a doctor to become a teacher.

They may not just be excellent at their subjects, but will also have great communication skills, and an excellent personality. We'll lose them to the medical field, and engineering and the law where they can break the $100k ceiling into a thousand tiny pieces. We're not going to approach attracting the best teachers like that. We're turning away our best young talent right at the point of entry because when you think teaching career there is zero mobility. Tell me how the average teacher can possibly hope to be affording regular overseas vacations in the 12 weeks holidays that they get. Tell me how they'll be able to afford the nice car they're dreaming of, or the VIP sports tickets they want to enjoy. The fact of the matter is, there is very little mobility here for teachers.

I'm not claiming teachers are starving, or that teachers have it harder than the average Australian. I'm saying that doing "okay" isn't going to attract the best talent to become teachers. We have to offer real incentives to siphon a good portion of talented VCE graduates into education qualifications.

Your last point makes no sense and is a complete non-sequitur.

[werdna]

Just to lighten the mood in this thread...

Yesterday, I asked my 6 year old brother why he wasn't at school, this was his response: 'Because my teacher is in the city to get more money'. I asked him what for, and he said 'so she can buy stuff to play with...'

Looks like his teacher subtly slipped in some political discussion into this grade 1 class LOL.

[MJRomeo81]

when you say "we get by", a lot of people - especially the kind of talented individuals we're talking about attracting - aren't interested in a wage which will allow them to just "get by". They do want more, and so they go into more lucrative fields.

Yeah I know. I do support a pay rise but how much? And now I propose a counterargument. Could it be argued that current teachers are passionate (despite the wages and prestige), and a pay increase would only motivate those who seek money and nothing else? After all, we want teachers who genuinely care about the students, not those who may be talented (and in it for the money) but could not care less about their students.

They may not just be excellent at their subjects, but will also have great communication skills, and an excellent personality. We'll lose them to the medical field, and engineering and the law where they can break the $100k ceiling into a thousand tiny pieces.

I agree that the teaching profession does not appeal to high achieving students, and yeah this isn't good since I personally consider teaching to be just as important as those aforementioned fields. I'm not disputing that teachers deserve a pay rise, however I am concerned with the implications. The law and commerce market is full of students who only care about $$$. Now this isn't true for the genuine high achieving students you mentioned, but what about the countless number of grads who couldn't give a damn about anything besides from their paycheck? Do we want these people teaching in schools? A money-hungry grad might be swiftly unemployed in law for screwing up a case, but what are the possible consequences of neglecting your class's education? But again, overall I do support a pay increase. I'm just pointing out this does not necessarily increase the OVERALL talent pool for teaching.

Tell me how the average teacher can possibly hope to be affording regular overseas vacations in the 12 weeks holidays that they get. Tell me how they'll be able to afford the nice car they're dreaming of, or the VIP sports tickets they want to enjoy.

Tell me how the businessman will be able to get 12 weeks of holidays to begin with? Tell me how the lawyer is able to spend quality time with the family.

Your last point makes no sense and is a complete non-sequitur.

I was pointing out that in financial terms there are far worse professions. e.g. the database administrators who are in charge of mission critical systems - only to get phone calls at 3am in the morning to fix a problem, and also being told to renew their Oracle certs (which can cost 5k), all on a 50-60k wage. They are the ones who are "literally broke".

[Mao]

MJRomeo, I mean no disrespect to your family, but when you say "we get by", a lot of people - especially the kind of talented individuals we're talking about attracting - aren't interested in a wage which will allow them to just "get by". They do want more, and so they go into more lucrative fields.

<snip>

I'm not claiming teachers are starving, or that teachers have it harder than the average Australian. I'm saying that doing "okay" isn't going to attract the best talent to become teachers. We have to offer real incentives to siphon a good portion of talented VCE graduates into education qualifications.

Let me start off my declaring my position: almost completely against yours.

Let me also warn, this is going to be controversial. I have a lot of respect for teachers and their job. This is not an attack, it is what my attempt at a rational account.

http://www.seek.com.au/jobs-resources/articles/salary-info
For now, let's take seek.com's data. (It was actually surprisingly difficult to find decent data, this turns out to be one of the better ones before I had to fill out request forms. for example, fairfax's mycareer seems to believe the average salary is ~$100k)

Unsurprisingly, education and training ranks quite lowly.

If we were to look at the highest paying jobs (the first 10 or so), there appears to be two main themes (some appearing in both):
- They involve big decisions with big consequences, the so called 'high-level' decision making. Their decisions with money usually require one or two sets of "000" at the end, and the number of people they affect also have one or two sets of "000" at the end. These are high demand, high reward jobs. E.g. mining, construction, HR, marketing, banking, government.
- They involve high level innovation and problem solving. These require thinking about things in new ways all the time, you never get to solve the same problem. E.g. engineering, construction, ICT, legal, science, marketing, banking, healthcare.

If you compare these careers to primary and secondary teaching, there are some radical differences. There are risks in not teaching the kids properly, but those are more or less mitigated by having textbooks, guidelines and external services. The risks (and consequences) of teaching is very different to the risks and consequences of an investment banker, for example, who may lose a school's annual budget on one mistake. Innovation is required in education, but not to the same degree as the jobs listed above. There are no 'big decisions' like the big decisions an investment banker has to make. It is certainly still a high pressure, high workload job, but I argue that compared to other jobs, it is far less mentally demanding.

Looking at it from another perspective, why should the most talented individuals, i.e. the 'smartest' individuals, choose to become primary/secondary teachers? Excuse me for being abrupt, in the utilitarian sense, these 'smartest' people should be performing irreplaceable functions that the next person cannot perform. In the education sector, these irreplaceable functions would be teaching the most difficult concepts, which takes place at university, and are fulfilled by academics getting paid top-tier salaries. I would argue that primary/secondary education teach materials that are conceptually easy and repetitive (on a relative scale compared to the highest paying jobs), primary/secondary education by nature do not attract students at the highest end of the spectrum.

Of course, no one will ever argue that primary/secondary education is unnecessary or unimportant, and people who take up this career are very honourable in their choice. They shape students' mentality in a profound way, and deserve all the respect in the world. However, it is by nature not a career that's reserved for the most talented individuals.

So if we go back to the seek.com's chart, I find the placement of a few of the sectors immediately above education out of place, for example, I would have imagined sales & insurance to be ranked lower than education. But perhaps this is coming from my lack of knowledge of these fields. Perhaps primary/secondary education does need a pay rise, but not on the magnitude of, say, 30%.

To sum up, primary/secondary education, by nature, should not be at the top of the salary charts.

[enwiabe]

Mao,

However, it is by nature not a career that's reserved for the most talented individuals.

To sum up, primary/secondary education, by nature, should not be at the top of the salary charts.

And that is why we have such a large number of crap teachers. This will continue until we can attract more talented people by placing teaching at a high place on the salary chart.

[Mao]

Mao,

However, it is by nature not a career that's reserved for the most talented individuals.

To sum up, primary/secondary education, by nature, should not be at the top of the salary charts.

And that is why we have such a large number of crap teachers. This will continue until we can attract more talented people by placing teaching at a high place on the salary chart.

No. This is why we privatise the industry and let it find its own equilibrium, instead of legislating it and guessing and debating where education should be ranked. To some extent, this has been a success, and I argue there should be more. The 'homebrand' private schools that charge <$5k should be much more prevalent, and should correspond to sizeable tax cuts for families.

[enwiabe]

Mao,

However, it is by nature not a career that's reserved for the most talented individuals.

To sum up, primary/secondary education, by nature, should not be at the top of the salary charts.

And that is why we have such a large number of crap teachers. This will continue until we can attract more talented people by placing teaching at a high place on the salary chart.

No. This is why we privatise the industry and let it find its own equilibrium, instead of legislating it and guessing and debating where education should be ranked. To some extent, this has been a success, and I argue there should be more. The 'homebrand' private schools that charge <$5k should be much more prevalent, and should correspond to sizeable tax cuts for families.

The homebrand private schools are struggling, too. Look at their median scores. They are nowhere close to the big guns.

[brenden]

Well to state my position I think the pay should be equalised across the states for obvious reasons and I'm conflicted on raising the salaries as a general principle.
Dan, you've said that teachers need great personalities and communication skills which is absolutely true, however, whilst raising the salaries would attract our most talented academics to teaching, what guarantee is there that they have the necessary skills? Currently those who become teachers are either a) shit with the mentality of "Eh, 70 ATAR requirement, shouldn't be too hard, or people who are very passionate and are going to bust their guts to up their students' scores as much as possible. The latter are the ones that would deserve a pay rise, as they're the ones pulling large hours on planning, giving thorough feedback (English), staying back after school with students etc etc. If we jacked up the salary to attract our most academic, evidently the courses will have a higher demand, but why would a better education system arise from smarter people teaching? With no regulation on communication skills et al, those who are passionate will work harder to meet the requirements, and those who already meet the requirements might just take the course looking for the money. What provokes my indecision is we'd be eliminating those who couldn't give a shit for more people that couldn't give a shit but are really smart, whilst making it harder for those passionate ones.
Just to reiterate with an anecdote - I'm looking to go into Secondary Ed and will be aiming for a high average in Uni so I'm in an even better position to teach students when I graduate, however I am not amongst the 'big guns' (whilst I'm no retard). However, I still think there's a high chance I'd make a better teacher than any random 95+ VCE graduate. My motivations aren't monetary. With a more competitive industry, people like myself that just want to teach could be potentially pushed out by people that are like "OMG MED, DENT, LAW OR NOTHING" that suddenly get Education added to their list.

[ninwa]

Mao, I think the key difference between your and enwiabe's thinking is how you two perceive education.

Looking at it from another perspective, why should the most talented individuals, i.e. the 'smartest' individuals, choose to become primary/secondary teachers? Excuse me for being abrupt, in the utilitarian sense, these 'smartest' people should be performing irreplaceable functions that the next person cannot perform. In the education sector, these irreplaceable functions would be teaching the most difficult concepts, which takes place at university, and are fulfilled by academics getting paid top-tier salaries. I would argue that primary/secondary education teach materials that are conceptually easy and repetitive (on a relative scale compared to the highest paying jobs), primary/secondary education by nature do not attract students at the highest end of the spectrum.

In my view, the role of a teacher is not just to teach maths and grammar. It's also to more generally foster the upbringing of the next generation. Children are at school 8 hours a day, 5 days a week - they have more contact with their teacher than they do with their parents!

Education is not mere arithmetic; it's something bigger that I'm failing to really define right now because I'm a bit sick atm, but generally I'd say it just includes things like how to behave like a productive member of society.

In that sense, I disagree that the role teachers perform is any less important than those roles which require "high level decision making" or "innovation".

[slothpomba]

I'm with Mao (for once surprisingly) and MJRomeo here.

We're making an assumption we shouldn't be making here i think, that there is a huge pool of potential teachers out there,  they are just turned off by the pay.

Even intuitively that doesn't make fully make sense.

I'm sure there are a fair few who ignored it because of the pay but id wager there is a larger percentage who really have no desire to teach anyway.

Not everyone wants to sit in a classroom, deal with kids all day, mark homework, deal with parents, etc. I don't know how it was at some of the posh private schools you guys went to but kids can be real idiots on an amazingly consistent basis. I've seen it wear plenty of teachers down.

Say they're the brilliant maths or science geniuses our education system needs, i'd also wager a fair few of these people would also have little desire to teach highschool. It's a waste of their talent.

We need better communicators more than anything. Most of the VCE course work wouldn't be too hard for any university graduate with a general adult intelligence to learn. What really matters more are innovative teaching methods, teachers who understand education and great communicators.

Raising the pay will work but not in the way a lot of people here are saying it will.

------

You can even compare it to something like arts where the salary prospects for a lot of majors aren't great either. Arts has a pretty high atar, which reflects demand. So, it can't be that salary is the only thing here.

Indeed, some courses like BSc/Bachelor of education are actually LOWER than BSc alone. The prospects for a Bsc graduate in a lot of fields aren't that fantastic beyond a lab monkey either. So, it can't just be the salary. There's other reasons there is a lack of demand.

[brenden]

Education is not mere arithmetic; it's something bigger that I'm failing to really define right now because I'm a bit sick atm, but generally I'd say it just includes things like how to behave like a productive member of society.

In that sense, I disagree that the role teachers perform is any less important than those roles which require "high level decision making" or "innovation".

Perhaps relationship encapsulates what you're trying to say? Personally, I learn more efficiently from someone I know, trust, would listen to outside of the classroom  etc as opposed to a 'genius' teacher who is old, cranky and still thinks women should be paid less than men (she exists, and she's at my school).
On the note of high level decision making and innovation et al; all of these are dependent (not absolutely entirely) on teaching. One could argue that educators are the foundation of society.

[paulsterio]

Mao, I think one of the things that you don't consider is that the average worker in the fields you described neither require a high level of decision making nor ingenuity and thinking. For example, you listed Engineering as one of the fields which requires ingenuity and thinking and I don't disagree with you - there are many engineers who are great thinkers and it is through them that we are technologically where we are today, they are the ones who are paid 200,000 or so per year. However, there are many, many engineers who are paid far less than that and do merely more than routine work for around 100,000 per year or there abouts.

I agree with you in that teaching requires little high level decision making and ingenuity, however, the best teachers are still paid less than the average engineers who don't display those traits either.

Similar comparisons can be made with other professions - e.g. medicine, where many consultants make important, life-changing work. There are also many doctors who are great thinkers, making beautiful diagnoses, inventing new procedures...etc. However, your average GP would neither be making massive decisions (big decisions yes, but not massive) - neither do most GPs show much ingenuity and creative thinking.