this is a hard one and i been trying to stay out of it but some things are a little crazy in here....
1st this is like the best thing said in all this yet no one came back to this. i have worked in the schools i have seen a lot of crazy stuff. i know there is so much waste as well. like others said there is no one paragraph fix.
i am sorry lady g but your logic is just off. generally speaking you get paid for a job xx amount not a sliding scale on how many people/kids you are managing. heck a lot of the costs doesnt even have to do with salary such as the admins the buildings supplies books comps and so forth. there also a lot of money going towards paying the benfits of employees who are retired as well.
i went and looked for some numbers. this is just off google so like always you have to take it with a grain of salt.
Wisconsin, teaching salaries averaged $52,644 in 2009-10, according to the National Education Association
Wisconsin
$48,743.33
now that doesnt say if they include benefits in that or what.
Total current expenditures per student: $11,418 (10 a hour per student)
State: Wisconsin Median Salary by Job
Retail Store Manager $37,711 General / Operations Manager $55,617 Registered Nurse (RN) $50,316 Project Manager, Construction $59,357 Project Manager, Information Technology (IT) $70,194 Mechanical Engineer $58,190 Human Resources (HR) Manager $53,941
i found a page with a few other salary jobs. ill assume some of them have to work weekends and work more then 180 days a year or what ever it is.
all this can just be spin proving what ever point you want. they are not getting rich becoming a teacher but they get benefits thats extremely rare such as all the time off.... retire on most of your salary while still getting all the health benifits as well. (those thigns do add up while you cant bank on them now you do get them later on) all of this is well known before going in. we learn this as a kids watching them lol
yes good teachers should be paid more though bad teachers should be paid less or better yet fired. yet this is where the problem is. the system needs to change.