[Vision2020] Teaching Salaries Compared
Ted Moffett
ted_moffett@hotmail.com
Mon, 04 Aug 2003 04:02:24 +0000
Dale, et. al.
My statement you quote below was not from my letter to the editor to the
Daily News of this weekend. My letter to the editor did not mention you or
anything you wrote. It focused on Jack Wenders' previous letter to the
editor in the Daily News on this subject.
Perhaps you are getting my letter mixed up with Chuck Pezeshki's letter, who
mentioned both Dale Courtney and Jack Wenders in the same letters to the
editor section of this "Weekend Edition" Daily News in a separate letter he
wrote.
What you quote below from V2020 was written carefully to refer to what the
"top" professionals make in other fields. I am claiming that the top income
of many other professions is far above what the top salary is for a public
school teacher. It is possible, for example, there are many lousy computer
programmers making low wages who lower the average hourly wage of all
computer programmers. But what do the top computer scientists make?
Even considering "mean" income, K-12 teaching is not that lucrative an
option for "the best and the brightest," as the data I give below
demonstrates.
Of course you know that MSD teachers make far below the mean salary for
public school teachers overall in the USA.
Though my letter to the editor did not refer to any of your statements, I
will nonetheless elucidate my meaning in my letter to the editor, and
provide some data to back up my comments, which also illuminate my statement
from V2020 which you do quote.
Just as in the quote you reference below where I refer not to the "mean"
salary, but to the "top"
professional incomes, in my letter to the editor I refer to what the "best
and brightest" can earn.
I thought Wenders was presenting a misleading unflattering slant on the
number of days worked by public school teachers when he compared their work
year (with inaccurate numbers) with the average work year of all workers.
Many well paid professionals can take long vacations, and with their higher
rate of pay, still earn a substantial income, with a work year shorter than
the average worker. This was part of the reason why I pointed out the
incomes of many professions are higher than public school teachers, along
with stating that because of the higher income of many other professions,
"the best and the brightest" often do not consider teaching K-12 public
school. So why the crusade to prove K-12 teachers they are so over paid?
My assertions are based in part on the following data. No doubt you will
want to annualize and add benefit costs to the salary listed below for K-12
teachers, but then the same process would need to be applied to the other
professions listed with vacation and benefits.
http://www.bls.gov/oco/
Median 1998 Salaries by Profession*
Physician 164000
Dentist 110000
Pilot 91750
Lawyer 78170
Physicist 73240
Optometrist 68500
Aerospace Engineer 66950
Actuary 65560
Chiropractor 63930
Civil Engineer 62660
Computer Engineer 61910
Financial Manager 55070
Physicist (Bachelors only) 54000
Geologist 53890
Systems Analyst 52180
Mathematician 49120
Police 48700
Economist 48330
Psychologist 48050
Architect 47710
College Instructor 46630
Chemist 46220
Biologist 46140
Nurse 40690
Insurance Underwriter 38710
Accountant 37860
Building Inspector 37540
K-12 Teacher 35000
Mail Carrier 34840
Social Worker 30590
Musician 30020
Fire Fighter 31170
Designer 29200
Actor 27400
Travel Agent 23010
Dancer 21430
*From ``Occupational Outlook Handbook 2000-2001", U.S. Department of Labor.
All median salaries listed include all educational levels, except for
"Physicists (Bachelor's only)" which excludes Masters and Ph.D.s. Other
professions have lower salaries (not listed) when such exclusions are made.
Ted Moffett wrote:
>
> > As I wrote before, the lack of comparison between the incomes
> > of top professionals in other fields with the incomes of
> > public school teachers is a glaring oversight in your attempt
> > to show that MSD teachers are overpaid.
>
Dale replied:
>You must have missed this in all my previous posts. This *has* been
>something addressed repeatedly.
>
>The following numbers are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here are the
>Mean Hourly Earnings by profession:
>
>Accountants & Auditors (S&L): $20.14/hr
>Computer Programmers (S&L): $21.27/hr
>Accountants & Auditors (Priv): $22.08/hr
>Computer Programmers (Priv): $24.49/hr
>Engineers, Architects, & Surveyors (S&L): $27.71/hr
>Secondary Teachers (S&L): $30.48/hr
>Elementary Teachers (S&L): $30.52/hr
>Engineers, Architects, & Surveyors (priv): $31.05/hr
>Lawyers (S&L): $34.64
>
>Note: these numbers do *not* take into consideration benefits, etc. They
>also do not take into account the teachers' 60 non-work days per year.
>
>Would you like me to post a correction to your Letter to the Editor, or
>would you prefer to do it yourself?
Ted replies:
If you chose to correct my letter to the editor to the Daily News on this
subject, at least remember the letter did not mention you, or refer to any
statements you have or have not made. What you quote above that I wrote was
from V2020, and as you can read from the data which I post here, I am still
asserting that you are not sufficiently considering the top incomes in other
professional fields when you make your case that K12 public school teachers
are over paid. Your data above leaves out many other lucrative professions
that attract capable individuals away from K-12 teaching careers. Consider
the list of professions that I provide above, and the salaries given, for a
more complete picture.
Ted
_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail