To think teaching should be one of the highest paid jobs?

[donutque]

Not a teacher, but my logic seems sound.

I’ve seen plenty of threads / comments on here that question if teachers are really that underpaid (often quoting 28k as a starting salary) which seems like a strange race to the bottom.

I work in finance and wouldn’t take a job for a low salary, I’m in my twenties and I’m compensated well. I believe I deserve that, I name my price when I go for jobs and won’t accept lower. This is because I’m 1) qualified 2) have a skill and the market demands me, I am in short supply.

I can see a response I may get is that
teachers, whilst good, aren’t necessarily the most intelligent or talented / high quality individuals. But IS IT ANY WONDER?! The top talent graduates and gets sucked in by the big 4 / investment banks / magic circle all because of money (I promise you that it is rare that a child just bloody loves debits and credits, has a passion for selling stock, or checking the bank statement matches the p&l) Of course, some top grads go into teaching but this is usually because of their personality type (desire to give back / do good / love of children). It’s not the common occurrence. They certainly aren’t doing it for the big pay off.

So if teachers started on, let’s say, £30k but upon qualifying were paid £50k, with a teacher with 5-10 years service being on 60/70/80/90k (no extra responsibility), I guarantee applications would be flooded. Teaching would be a career that is attractive. You’d have the best teachers, which is important. Not just for basic education but teachers are what gets your little offspring into university to become the next doctor, lawyer, politician, plumber, accountant and so on. Teachers are LITERALLY the backbone of society.

Scandi countries document well how education leads to greater GDP, and a basic understanding of economics will explain why paying teachers well is far more beneficial to the economy than anyone who says “but how do we afford it?!”

so, AIBU to think teaching should be one of the highest paid jobs?

Threads like this always bring out this comparison. 'Shift money', highly paid jobs like tech and finance. Vs public service roles.
There are a myriad of other roles in between which are simply ignored.

Highly paid roles are just that - highly paid because they generate the money for their own salary, and/or there are so few of them that high pay can be afforded.

This isn't going to work for professions which require sheer numbers, because of how individual we're expecting the service to be.

That doesn't mean, however that people in these professions shouldn't be paid MORE. BY all means, yes, they are underpaid!
But the crazy levels of tech/finance whatever would be going the opposite way. Especially as these fields have little job security. Layoffs, redundancies etc are very common. In a way it shouldn't be for well run public services.

Research scientists aren't paid anywhere near as much as you seem to think they are!

Why would they be bored and dispirited?

This would make the job infinitely more attractive aswell. They just need to invest money somewhere. And not into bloody schemes their mates have made.

@JagerbombsUnite the middle of my 3 jobs was by far the best paid but was definitely not in the ‘rare / high finance’ bracket’. Just normal lower to middle management graduate job - one of those ‘roles in between the extremes’ that you refer to.

Fair enough, but who is going to teach the next generation then? I'm good enough at my job and don't mind my salary because I'm in a lovely school and know what I'm doing. But if there's shortages there's shortages, no amount of arguing why teachers should be happy with their salary will change this.

Lots of money won't always attract better and more conscientious teachers
you may be in danger of attracting people solely in it for the money rather than the passion of the job

Teachers should not all be paid the same. The top teachers should be teaching the whole country remotely, with teaching assistants in each classroom helping out and keeping order.

I've often wondered this myself, I don't think it should be as you want people doing it because they're passionate about it, not fir thr money. Same with nursing. It should definitely be paying alot more than it does though!

This

People seem to think science pays a fortune
Our graduates are just above minimum wage
If I had went into teaching or nursing I would be earning loads more and be close to retirement.
As it is I will be working till I die and get paid well below other careers (thankfully I love my job and that is the most important thing to me)

Ah yes, because those children who had exactly this in lockdowns have made such exceptional progress….

Teaching is not lecturing, and lecturing does not result in effective learning in many cases.

To those who say that money won't attract the right people the question here is how much money. In reality current teacher salary in London doesn't allow you to have a normal standard of living unless you are married to someone who earns a lot more. And that is a relatively new thing. Twenty years ago that was still possible. The problem is that today's salary is also not attracting the right people but often those who literally can't do/find anything else - read a few other threads on MN, all say the caliber of pgce students is really low nowadays. As a profession teaching needs to be brought back to a level of a mc profession. And that is possible because it's a public sector job and therefore the government (and the public) get to decide whether that is what they want to do. So why don't we?

Completely agree.

If teaching was well enough paid and had good enough working conditions that it attracted a large number of applicants, then training institutions could select the best suited (not necessarily those with the highest qualifications) and schools the best teachers.

As it is, too few apply and so unsuitable applicants get trained and appointed.

Of course they rnt under paid, where as junior doctors, nurses, paramedics and police officers are under paid.

It is depressing how do many of these posts seem to be (as usual) making any number of excuses or putting forward readings to deny teachers a decent salary! Eventually no one will be left actually doing the job but, at least, we can say teaching is a vocation and shouldn't be influenced by ambition for a decent salary.
It is also depressing how people seem to think all teachers are academically second rate. I have 3 As and a B at A level from the 1980s when only 7-8% achieved As and a 2:1 from a Russell group uni in the top 50 worldwide.

You're comparing private sector (your job) with public (teachers). Public gets better benefits. Private can get better remuneration, the more skilled you are. It's not a new concept to feel teachers should be paid more.

I think a more productive conversation is how tax income should be distributed and where our taxes are going currently, to explain why teachers only start on 28k.

https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/salaries-and-benefits

Teaching pay scales.

On paper, they don't look bad. 27K is the starting salary for a BIg4 accounting firms graduate.

But that increases with each paper they pass.

In most of the country , at this moment IMO 40K is a great annual salary for a term-time only job. The catch is how long it takes to reach this stage... annual inflation pay rises.. and schools sneakily getting rid of older, more expensive teachers,

London is a different beast - it's crazy that the pay differential is a couple of grad. Impossible for anyone to survive on stari8ng out in 2023!

except that not everything can be taught remotely, unless you want a purely academic curriculum.

@JagerbombsUnite agreed but does that mean that London and South East- which is quite a large part of population of England - do not deserve teachers? It amounts to 18million people out of 55million i.e. over a third. Are we saying a third to half of England don't deserve teachers

@Florenz thats a truly terrible idea - do you happen to be a Tory MP?

I agree with pp it’s not a great idea

Although it would have been good if more people said that during the pandemic and lockdowns

I would happily forego a pay rise in exchange for better facilities. Photocopiers that don't sodding jam all the time is an easy fix, as is an extra PPA period each week.

If the government helped pay off student debt the longer you teach, it might help retention.

I agree we don't get paid enough .If I was paid babysitting rates for x32 children per hour, I'd be rolling in it.... And I educate them, to boot.

Reading comprehension fail?
I said that it was crazy the pay differential is so small. Obviously, that means that they should be paid more.
And perhaps all the 'teaching is underpaid' blah people come from London/SE, as it's an ok wage in the rest of the country. Mostly.

The problem with London though is high housing costs, combined with the large potential to earn more in a lot of other professions. I don't think just paying teachers more, 50/60K will be enough. The only thing that will work is probably subsidised housing.

The reason why teachers and nurses aren't paid their worth is because they're mainly females. I'm trying to think of a male-dominated professional job that is as poorly paid and, in the case of teaching, poorly thought of.