Florida defines a school year as being 900 hours of class time. That would equate to only about 112 eight hour work days. Most people who work full time jobs can only charge for the time that they are actually working. No wonder there is a "perception" that teaching is a part time job.

Yes, but classroom time is only a fraction of the work. If you have any doubts, please volunteer for a short time in any elementary class. All kinds of help is usually appreciated. You need to prepare for classroom time, much as a performer needs to prepare for the stage. Should we be paying say, Cher, by the hours she spends on stage?

Some people always seem have a negative comment about teachers work schedules and salaries. I believe it is based on jealousy and the lack of knowledge as to what is expected of a teacher today. They really have no respect for teachers. The salaries in FL and the Charter School are very low for a person who must have at least a 4 year college degree and have passed State exams in their field. To think a person could only reach $59,000 after 25 years in FL (less in the Charter School) is disgraceful. I just had a teacher retire from my department on Long Island, NY after 32 years with a Masters Degree and they were earning $144,000. The people in that district are not rich, but they want a good school system and that means paying the teachers well. They appreciate their teachers. They don't count how many hours a year the teacher "clocks in".

Teachers aren't the only workers who put in extra hours. In the army my normal day was 10 hours and sometimes 12. When we went to the field it was 24 hour a day until the training exercise was over which could run as long as 30 days. No we didn't stay awake for 24 hours straight but you only got about 4-6 hours of sleep a night. Check the pay for a soldier, no where near the starting salary for a teacher. My wife worked in the cash management section for a very large corporation. The salaried people were expected to put in 50-60 hours a week and most took work home at night. Even on vacation they had to respond to e-mails and usually took work with them. A lot of the salaries were about what a teacher makes. Prison guards work in extremely dangerous and stressful jobs for far less than a teacher makes. Many of them have to work double shifts due to manpower shortages or replacing sick guards. Police officers in smaller cities or towns also perform dangerous and stressful work, perform required overtime for pay less than a teacher. Many police officer moonlight as security guards to supplement their income. My nephew, a blue collar high school educated peon, works as a mechanic. He routinely puts in 10 - 12 hour days working in an unairconditioned and a poorly heated shop that is miserable in the summer and winter in the midwest. At the end of the day the pain in his feet and back make it difficult for him to sleep at night. He makes good money, more than most teachers, but he earns every penny of it because of the work environment and the fact that he is a hard working, skilled and certified mechanic. There are a lot of professions that are stressful and require long work hours and pay no better than teachers.

My comments were not intended to be negative. I'm just doing the math. Teachers constantly claim that they have a full time job. I disagree. If teachers want to have a full time job, then, yes, they should "clock in" the hours like other full time workers. Then, there would be no argument about whether they have a full or part time job. But, I have known teachers who didn't do any work outside of the classroom.

Let me give another example, in rural India some places cannot pay their teachers adequately for them to live on. How the teacher survives is by taking the children, half the class time, to work the teacher’s fields. One of my students came from such a place.
We were at one point talking about what is a fair wage, I think it should be one related to the cost of living in the area.

That could be done, like lawyers charge by the hour etc, teacher’s could do the same. How much overtime do you think an average teacher might get?

Well, if they are currently full time workers, then, apparently, they are already being paid for more than two times the actual time (900 hours) that they spend in class. So, I guess the overtime would start from there. I would be happy to pay for overtime that is required as long as it can documented, verified, and proven to benefit the students.

Would lawyers do that for you? To that extent so would teachers, and you’d probably get the same type of people too.

The teaching profession is one of the oldest, and practiced internationally, pretty well everywhere. If you have a better solution than what we have so far, many people would be interested.

I will say that I have a higher opinion of teachers than of lawyers. And, I would never ever agree to pay a lawyer by the hour.

I believe what you just said with all my heart.

I will give you an example of another profession that some may think do not deserve a full salary because they work "part-time". I have a young friend that I helped get through nursing school here in FL, but she does not yet have her 4 year degree. She was immediately hired in a training program that was completely paid for and she also received a salary. After a few months, she was hired full-time in Ocala. She works 3 days a week and is off 4 days a week. She also gets vacation, personal days and sick days. She works a maximum of 144 days a year and the starting salary was $75,000. Part-time job? No! It's what she accomplishes while she is working that matters. Some people work 250 days a year and accomplish almost nothing. If you or your child (or grandchild) had a special teacher that made a difference in your life, you do not care how many days they worked a year. The same holds true with nurses.

Again, since you didn't absorb it the first time: that is CLASS time. Teachers are REQUIRED to do work outside the classroom. It's not an option. They are REQUIRED to grade papers, attend parent-teacher meetings, arrange field trips, maintain their certifications which requires them to keep going to school, at their OWN expense. They are REQUIRED to create daily and weekly lesson plans, attend staff-wide meetings. They are REQUIRED to come to school and be ready to start their day before the homeroom bell rings, and they are REQUIRED to remain until after the end of school bell rings.

They are also REQUIRED to prepare the new school year's summary plan for their classes (all of them, most teachers don't teach only one set of 15-20 students). They are also REQUIRED to very carefully check every single student's personal file to look out for red flags such as allergies, medic alerts, behavioral problems, serious issues that would require special care that don't qualify for "special needs."

They are required to do ALL of these things outside the classroom. The actual classroom time may well be 900 hours. But that is not all the work they are required to do.

There are a whole lot of jobs that require as much or more effort on the employees part for the same or less pay than a teacher. No one has a gun at the head of teachers forcing them to work. If the job is too much find another line of work. Teachers are paid at what the market will bear, just like all other jobs.

And just like all other jobs you largely get what you pay for. Do you want the plumber who makes $15/hr to run plumbing in your new designer home or the one who makes $50/hr? How about having your heart bypass surgery performed by the surgeon who makes $50K/year vs. the surgeon who makes $400K/year? Why not just pay teachers minimum wage - we'll still have plenty of teachers.

The old saying "penny wise and pound foolish" comes to mind here. Teachers are the front line when it comes to helping the younger generation survive. In fact, in many school districts teachers have to overcome inept parents in addition to administrative challenges to have any chance of educating today's youth.

I do agree that our education system needs a lot of attention and improvement but exhorbitant teacher's salaries are nowhere near the number one problem.