I wake at 4:30am to review my notes for the day, take a shower and get to work at 6:45am to set up for the day. I teach, on my prep time I usually can be found inside the civility (in-house detention) to help students (some of them mine others not) with concepts related to math/science. At 2:20 to about 3:00-3:20, I am cleaning, working with students and accumulate papers to grade. Oh, lunch – can’t take it usually because I would help with technology setup and maintenance (usually SmartBoards and such) or approached by administration (who don’t work directly with kids – and yes one of my main supervisors said this directly in a meeting to the math dept) to help them complete their work or make calls home to parents.

When I finally get home, I eat something and grade papers; this goes on for approximately 2 to 3 hours. Then I plan for my classes for the next day (depending on how student performance was comprehended from the day completed). Since I teach all grade levels (freshman to senior), the time dedicated is another 2 hours. Preparing notes, PenCasts finding exciting videos and such as well as come up with an activator and a conclusion to the lecture assessment.

Finally I can sit back and usually fall right to sleep. So, approximately 11 to 12 hours per day working 185 days (180 with students)… oh and for summer, we all have to continue courses so we can keep our license to teach or we teach summer school.

The starting salary (Western MA) is 40k, the maximum is around 70k. My salary is around 49-50k after 7 years of work. So if we simply assess the wage as dollars/hour then it still doesn’t sound bad … without working through the summer. If like me, you work through summer then it becomes much worse.

However, administrators at schools start at a salary approximately 70k per year (frequently not available for consult during the summer) … then it becomes apparent who has the higher salary for not working with students directly.

Oh did I mention that usually teachers have about 90 to 120 students per academic year? I hope you can figure out where the STATE and FEDERAL tax money is going towards. The teachers that actually work with students daily or the non-teachers within the school.

And if you read this far then I hope you also comprehend EXACTLY how much money is being spent on your child per teacher. If we assume 23 dollars per hour (teacher salary) and 11 hours per day and in one day a teacher sees 100 students then each teacher makes $2.53 per student.

Could someone tell me the ratio of dollar/student for an administrator? WAKE UP PEOPLE! You want to make education better … the solution is simple.