Teacher salary

“ This is no more absurd than to say that the defendants here, the directors and superintendent, in the fixing of salaries, which represents the teacher's value to the system, are to take the degrees plus the years of experience and get the amount of salary to be paid, regardless of character, intelligence, capability to teach and those other intangibles so important in human relations. ”

“ At the present time the normal schools are inadequate to the task of supplying teachers and beyond the supplying of teachers for the city, they stop short. The training of teachers for country schools must become a part of the normal provision for the states.
The minimum salary for teachers is a most important consideration. A primary difficulty in the present situation is that the country school teacher is ill paid. It is therefore impossible to secure and to retain in the country persons of adequate mental and cultural value. ”

“ The rewards of the profession are not in money and leisure merely. Teachers have the respect and affection of the community to a degree enjoyed by few other workers.
If a girl begins to teach in the schools of a city, she will enter a thoroughly systematized and complex organization. In the city the teacher's salary is increased automatically year by year if her work is satisfactory. In towns and villages salaries are lower, but living expenses are lower also. In partly settled districts and districts where there is as yet little appreciation of the value of good teaching, salaries are low. ”

“ Teachers of the fifth through eleventh grades had to have a diploma from an institution of higher education. Vocational-school teachers and art teachers were trained at appropriate faculties of higher educational institutions.
Teachers are paid at various levels depending on their academic backgrounds and current circumstances. The three basic determinants of a teacher's salary are his or her academic qualifications, the number of classes covered per week, and the overall length of service. Every teacher is entitled to a 4-percent increase in salary after every five years of teaching. ”

“ In order properly to fill the teachers' office, we need men and women of the first order of intellect, brought to a high state of cultivation. A well-qualified and faithful [439] school-teacher earns, and of right ought to receive, a salary equal to that paid to the clergyman, or received by the members of the other learned professions. He who can teach a good school can ordinarily engage with proportionate success in more lucrative pursuits. ”

“ These scholarships are held at Technical Institutes, or Trade Schools, and the training given is admirable in kind.
A qualified teacher who wishes to take up elementary school work will have no difficulty, if physically fit, in obtaining a post under a County Council or other educational authority at a salary of £80 per annum, usually rising by annual increments to £120. The maximum is not so high as that for teachers of ordinary subjects, and pensions are not universal, though most councils make fairly adequate provision for retirement, breakdown, and ill-health. ”

“ Hitherto she has been receiving food, clothes, money, education, help in her difficulties, &c., and now, Fate waves a wand, and the child who has been the centre of interest in her home and in her school has to learn to give—and to give generously—as others gave to her.
For the real teacher is never paid for all she does. Her salary is not augmented in proportion to all the extra help she gives to the backward or delicate pupil—to the hours of drudgery, outside school hours, willingly given in order to be prepared for every eventuality of school life. ”

“ The mode of providing for the professions of men has been, not to trust chiefly to tuition fees for the support of instructors, but to secure the highest class of teachers by endowments insuring a salary independent of popular whims and changes. By means of such endowment, such a division of labor and responsibility is secured that each teacher is responsible for only one or two branches of instruction, and to only one class, and for only one or two hours each day. ”

“ We spend on our school children less than fifty dollars per child per year, which does not seem a munificent sum. Let us see what we spend per teacher. The United States Bureau of Education has provided up-to-date figures, in a study of rural school salaries for the year 1923, covering one-half the counties in the United States. The number of “one-teacher schools” reported was 97,758, and the average salary was $729. ”

“ The result is that teachers everywhere command less of salary or [pg 246] wages in proportion to their abilities than other classes of wage-earners. Fortunately, this stimulant to competition appeals largely to those characteristics of the individual teacher which make him more serviceable in his calling. The opportunity for a life of study, added to other considerations, makes still more effective the competition of earnest, philanthropic students, such as the world needs for teachers. ”

“ The English language, as soon as practicable, shall be made the basis of all public instruction, and soldiers may be detailed as instructors until replaced by trained teachers. Authority is given to the general superintendent to obtain from the United States 1,000 trained teachers, at salaries of not less than $75 nor more than $100 a month, the exact salary to be fixed according to the efficiency of the teacher. ”

“ In employing personnel they have the duty and responsibility of investigating the qualifications of the applicants and fixing their compensation if employed, to assign their duties and provide supervision of their work. They have the right to and duty to discharge any teacher whose work they consider unsatisfactory, or under the law they may discharge a teacher for any reason which the directors deem sufficient. They have the right and authority to reclassify and change the rate of salary of any or all teachers within the exercise of their best judgment. ”

“ The teacher is awarded a salary of about £20 a year, so that the character of such instruction as is given may easily be conjectured. But the State will not even provide this sum, and schoolmasters are thrown on the voluntary donations of parents. ”

“ I think an adequate teacher for me should certainly be paid very highly. But, if I may speak frankly, I doubt if you are even worth the extremely paltry salary that you receive. You are not teaching because you like teaching. ”

“ The improved financial value of the teacher is another strong testimony, willingly borne by the people, to their increased interest in education, for, as a rule, a free people will not pay for that which they fail to appreciate. In 1847 there was paid for teachers' salaries a total sum [108] of $310,398. In 1877 the amount was $2,038,099. In 1847 there were 3,028 teachers employed, while in 1877 there were 6,468. In 1847, board was often given in addition to the nominal salary, and was, in fact, part of the teacher's remuneration. ”

“ There seems however, to be dawning a brighter future for the conscientious teacher. Rigid examinations for two years have lessened the competition from those who entered the work only because they had no other employment; the districts are able to hold longer terms and pay larger salaries now. The minimum salary this year is $40, other rural districts pay $45 and $50. Salaries in the graded schools are from fifty-five to one hundred dollars per month. ”

“ The salary of a head-master, teacher, or assistant-teacher was not large, say four hundred and fifty, six hundred, nine hundred, or twelve hundred livres per annum at most, just enough for a single man to live on; in effect, most of the teachers were priests or monks, Benedictines, regular canons, Oratorians, the latter alone officiating in thirty colleges. ”

“ There is a general complaint that the salaries of school-teachers are too low, measured by the rewards of persons of corresponding ability in other professions. When, however, the certainty of pay and the virtual assurance that the employment is for life if good service is rendered, are considered, together with the respect accorded the teacher by the community and the fact that her work necessarily tends to the cultivation of her mind, the lot of the school-teacher must be reckoned as one of the most favored. ”

“ We find, as an interesting point worthy of preservation for future comparison, that the average salary during the past year paid the male teachers was $1,308.75, and that of the female teachers was $746.25. ”

“ That is, they would make the average expenditure per pupil for the whole school year in the United States from $60 to $100 for salaries and maintenance, instead of $17.36 as now. Is it not obvious that instead of providing in the public schools a teacher for forty or fifty pupils, they would provide a teacher for every ten or fifteen pupils? ”

“ But, should the same change occur among teachers, the quality of the children at graduation would inevitably run down; for the teacher’s spirit, partly reproduced in the children, is the most precious element of their education. Therefore, no requirement for the schools is more sternly peremptory than that salaries for teachers shall be sufficient to attract a high quality of persons. ”

“ This defect will be remedied only when a rational method of regulating the supply of teachers is established, so that each candidate may be certain that, if she qualifies, she will be guaranteed employment.
Many desirable persons are debarred from entering the teaching profession, because the rate of remuneration is low, considering the responsibility of the work; and this drawback is still further emphasised by the very inadequate pension which is offered at the close of the teacher's career. ”

“ Of the day-school teachers, the males form but ten per cent. No discrimination is made in the salaries in favor of male teachers, and a competent woman, in the position of "supervising principal" obtains a salary of $2,200 per annum. ”

“ But the differences between salaries of teachers of different ages, which are conspicuous in the schedules framed by the Interborough Association, are equally flagrant and open to attack. In fact any schedules which assume that teachers of different ages who are doing analogous work should receive pay for their years as well as for their effort are vulnerable to a logician’s spear.
One teacher of two years’ experience may possibly do better than another twelve years her senior. The younger may have the divine gift of teaching which comes only by nature ”

“ The fact that the teacher’s wages are lower than those paid for almost any other sort of service means that as a nation we are neither asking for nor getting a high grade of service, and as a nation we place a low valuation on the teacher’s work.
While it is difficult to get accurate data on wages, the best available figures indicate that the average annual wages received by workers in five great occupations are about as follows:—
Throughout the southern states thousands of rural teachers earn less than $150 per year. ”

“ The course of the normal school usually covers three years, and embraces both the theory of education and practice in teaching children. Within the last few years, many colleges have established chairs of pedagogy, but the work remains inadequate for a professional training so long as practice in teaching is not added to the requirements.
Teachers are appointed by local boards generally for one year, though they often remain undisturbed year after year. The average monthly salary of men in 1902 was $49.05, and of women $39.77. ”

“ The schools are of a very low grade, however, and the number ought to be increased, but the officials who have charge of such matters answer the criticism by saying that they will start a school for every competent teacher that can be found. It is not a question of school-houses, they declare, but a question of teachers. Other people retort that there would be a sufficient number of teachers if the government would offer reasonable wages. The salaries paid are no inducement for competent teachers to offer their services. Educated men and women can earn more money in other occupations. ”

“ We cherish the pious hope that in some not too distant day there may arrive in the positions of administration of the schools men and women of sufficient vision to realize the importance to education of the intelligent and free-minded co-operation of the teachers.
Since 1910 every increase in salary for the grade teachers has been secured by the sole efforts of the Teachers’ Educational League, and with the active opposition of the heads of the school department. ”

“ At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced States to lay off thousands of teachers. We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000. ”

“ Salaries in the country must be higher before we can hope to secure any considerable number of teachers as well equipped and with as strong personalities [Pg 60] as those found in the cities. It may be necessary for us to pay more than is paid in the city; for if a teacher has two offers at $65 a month, one from a city and one from the country, she will, without doubt, accept the city offer every time. True, she will have to pay more for room and board in the city ”

“ In the Fugitive Home are two schools built of hewed logs, perhaps there is school three months in the year, but oftener none at all, sometimes for the want of teachers, at other times for want of money to pay teachers.
Goverment pays only one half of the teachers salary, the other portion the parents in the districts are responsible for. The Teachers must collect themselves. The fact is, they seldom have school. ”