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Teacher goes Rocko


Gil Bang

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Is that a 30 day paycheck?

precious little info other than the dollar amount. Deductions?  12 month pay schedule for 9 months of pay?

guy could be maxing out a 401k and having child support withdrawn, plus an irs garnishment, then acting like it’s not his fault that the net is 1700. 

I could read further, but I won’t. 

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45 minutes ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

Or all the hours spent grading and making lesson plans in addition to the teaching hours.

It’s not like teaching hours add up to 40 a week. That leftover time is for feeding scantrons and glancing at the teachers edition textbook and making copies of worksheets. 

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1 hour ago, Jack Burton said:

If there's one thing I hate more than first responders and veterans, it's whiny ass teachers.

The sarcasm is there, but there is some truth to what you're saying. Some teacher recently posted some sort of bullshit calculation saying along the lines of "if you paid me what you would pay a babysitter ($10/hour), I should be making $300,000 per year." Well, go for it then.  Find another profession if you want to get rich.

We all understand that teachers are underpaid. They deserve more money. But it's the constant "I work so hard and put in so many hours" attitude that gets under my skin. I work long fucking hours too. So does everybody else I know.

Edited by honolulu horn
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Teaching is hard as fuck and I wouldn't want to do it and neither would you, despite all of the "free time". It's a thankless job and I consider the byproduct of a teacher's work to be far more important than any project I've ever worked on. 

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11 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

Teaching is hard as fuck and I wouldn't want to do it and neither would you, despite all of the "free time". It's a thankless job and I consider the byproduct of a teacher's work to be far more important than any project I've ever worked on. 

I think teaching is probably THE most important job we have in our country, and I agree that it's hard as fuck. Maybe my experience is atypical, but the teachers in our school are thanked constantly -- with gifts, admiration, and monetary gifts. But when I show up on the first day of school and hear a teacher say to another in the hallway "Is it June yet?" the shine sort of comes off.

Edited by honolulu horn
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ex teacher/coach here... i got out of teaching when a buddy of mine who i didn’t think had much snap started to bring home some serious coin... i asked what he was doing and he said, i am in sales...i wanted that. So i started applying for sales jobs.

Dozen years later i have never looked back. So teachers... want more money, go get a job that pays what you think you are worth. Go get paid on actual performance. You knew what the job paid when you were doing your student teaching.

Based on what i do now and what i was bringing home as a teacher/coach- i don’t think more money solves the issue and in the private world they are probably slotted in the correct salary/earning potential.

Edited by riloh05
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1 hour ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Either sarcasm or doesn’t know any teachers. Not sure which.

Small amount of sarcasm. There’s lots of jobs where you work 50-60 hours a week and make 50k. Most of them don’t have special perks like mortgage products dedicated to them. Most of them don’t allow for 2 months of free time to use for vacation or earning more money. 

We home school our kids. Should I be demanding federal funding to pay my wife for her time?

my job, I believe, is important. I’d like to be paid more, but I don’t whine about how tough it is. 

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I was a teaching assistant in law school. It came out to about $0.30/hour. This dude doesn’t know how good he’s got it!

But for serious, no idea how my experience compares to someone who has classes all day long, but I assume it’s somewhat similar in that a lot of your job is outside of direct instruction. Writing, and more importantly grading, exams/projects/work is way more time consuming (assuming you take it serious). For me, it was about 5 hours of “other” work for every hour in front of students (i.e., in class/office hours). If the ratio is even half that for a full time teacher, I’d bet this dude’s math is correct.

I agree teaching is one of the most important jobs in the world, but it bothers me when they complain. It’s not like you didn’t know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s a calling, not a way to get rich.

Assuming I always have the means to do so, I don’t skimp on the teacher-appreciation gifts (a nice bottle of wine and a gift card with a couple hundred bucks on it), but beyond that there’s no good solution to the bigger problem.

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We could fund our schools better? So that maybe fewer teachers would have to stock their classroom with supplies from their own paychecks? I don't know any teachers that are whining about not being rich for teaching. They just want to not have to work a side in the summer to make ends meet (lol if you think teachers don't work as teachers during the summer or winter breaks). Or pay for supplies. 

Why should a job that is a "calling" be undervalued monetarily? Especially when the calling is perhaps the calling with the most societal impact and importance. Feeling a warm glow after a kid finally understands how to multiply their numbers doesn't pay the fucking bills. 

 

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Whether or not teachers get paid enough is a complex issue with a million factors. Ill keep this just to Texas because it begins to become even more complex if you go beyond one state.

Issue 1: Location. You have to teach in Austin ISD for 17 years before you crack 50k. Thats rough. You can be like my friend and teach in Laredo with a bilingual stipend, economically distressed zone stipend, and a special education stipend and make 65k in year 5 and live like royalty down there. The states messed up financing and redistribution system causes this mess. Austin sends over half a billion dollars to other districts each year even though their teachers make less and live in a more expensive city. Some of the Dallas and Houston areas are paying very well right now. 

Issue 2: Retention. We lose 50% in the first five years. So, to the point that they should go do something else if they want more money - many do. I have worked at hard to staff school and schools where people are beating down the door for a job. Not retaining enough good people in the profession generally hurts the low income schools the most. We produce many teachers but that doesn't do much good if they don't stick around. 

Issue 3: Unfunded mandates. The legislature wants more money going to classrooms but continually passes laws/regulations that divert money from teachers to the admin building. 

Issue 4: Quality of life as a teacher. More and more is being asked of teachers beyond teaching kids. See issue 3. This also impacts retention and the quality of the pool that remains. Depending on where they live/teach, many teachers work second jobs. For some, it becomes easier to just find something else to do. 

I don't offer a lot of solutions, but I do think the school finance system should be priority one. It creates a lot of problems that trickle down to things like teacher pay. Also, the two buckets financing system means that (for the most part) districts can't raise their own money to pay teachers but they can to pay for a football stadium. 

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29 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Whether or not teachers get paid enough is a complex issue with a million factors. Ill keep this just to Texas because it begins to become even more complex if you go beyond one state.

Issue 1: Location. You have to teach in Austin ISD for 17 years before you crack 50k. Thats rough. You can be like my friend and teach in Laredo with a bilingual stipend, economically distressed zone stipend, and a special education stipend and make 65k in year 5 and live like royalty down there. The states messed up financing and redistribution system causes this mess. Austin sends over half a billion dollars to other districts each year even though their teachers make less and live in a more expensive city. Some of the Dallas and Houston areas are paying very well right now. 

Issue 2: Retention. We lose 50% in the first five years. So, to the point that they should go do something else if they want more money - many do. I have worked at hard to staff school and schools where people are beating down the door for a job. Not retaining enough good people in the profession generally hurts the low income schools the most. We produce many teachers but that doesn't do much good if they don't stick around. 

Issue 3: Unfunded mandates. The legislature wants more money going to classrooms but continually passes laws/regulations that divert money from teachers to the admin building. 

Issue 4: Quality of life as a teacher. More and more is being asked of teachers beyond teaching kids. See issue 3. This also impacts retention and the quality of the pool that remains. Depending on where they live/teach, many teachers work second jobs. For some, it becomes easier to just find something else to do. 

I don't offer a lot of solutions, but I do think the school finance system should be priority one. It creates a lot of problems that trickle down to things like teacher pay. Also, the two buckets financing system means that (for the most part) districts can't raise their own money to pay teachers but they can to pay for a football stadium. 

If I Google average teacher salary in Texas, I get 48.5k.  Who are the outliers driving that # up if you have to work 17 years somewhere to reach that?  I am just trying to better understand the nuances between the average salary and real world application.  Not that 50k is enough to live in Austin (it absolutely isn't), but in other parts of the state it's certainly well within the making ends meet category.  Not that that means teachers are paid fairly.

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For Austin you start at 47k but don’t hit 50k until year 17. Its fine for recent grads but when you are coming up on 40 years old, it sucks. In the north Dallas you start about the same but are mid 60s by year 15. Not too bad, especially if you have a side gig. In general, Houston and Dallas areas pay well. San Antonio, Austin, and small towns suck. Parts of Houston (including Houston isd) are starting to pay more into recapture like Austin so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. AISD is working on cutting 30 million right now.

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My wife is a teacher. She doesn't complain about making shit pay. She does complain about how fucked up our priorities are that voters will pass bond initiatives investing millions of dollars in stadiums and also vote for politicians that continue to cut education funding. Basically, in Texas, football is more important than education. And as much as I love football, that's pretty fucking stupid.

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27 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

My wife is a teacher. She doesn't complain about making shit pay. She does complain about how fucked up our priorities are that voters will pass bond initiatives investing millions of dollars in stadiums and also vote for politicians that continue to cut education funding. Basically, in Texas, football is more important than education. And as much as I love football, that's pretty fucking stupid.

for the most part voters vote on bond offerings, some pass and some dont. i would personally argue that teachers are slotted correctly with their pay for the most part. Until performance/accountability are brought into their world then I cant justify more money being thrown at them. I also have zero kids.

Regarding performance/accountability- that is almost impossible to measure, unfortunately.

Take 100 teachers from a high school I would bet 30% would fail in the private sector (be fired or riff'd), while those same 30% would carry a long tenured career in education and even become principals, etc...

Where does this stop...It could be argued that social workers deserve the same if not more than teachers, but are yet very underpaid. Also, social workers know, just like teachers what they are getting into regarding the pay. Dont like the way the business pays, move to a different business.

Lastly, there are ways for teachers to improve their income- stipend for bus duty, lunch duty, d-hall, test administration, etc...I dont know how many of my ex-colleagues would bitch about their pay but never showed up to make additional coin.

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5 minutes ago, riloh05 said:

for the most part voters vote on bond offerings, some pass and some dont. i would personally argue that teachers are slotted correctly with their pay for the most part. Until performance/accountability are brought into their world then I cant justify more money being thrown at them. I also have zero kids.

Regarding performance/accountability- that is almost impossible to measure, unfortunately.

Take 100 teachers from a high school I would bet 30% would fail in the private sector (be fired or riff'd), while those same 30% would carry a long tenured career in education and even become principals, etc...

Where does this stop...It could be argued that social workers deserve the same if not more than teachers, but are yet very underpaid. Also, social workers know, just like teachers what they are getting into regarding the pay. Dont like the way the business pays, move to a different business.

Lastly, there are ways for teachers to improve their income- stipend for bus duty, lunch duty, d-hall, test administration, etc...I dont know how many of my ex-colleagues would bitch about their pay but never showed up to make additional coin.

Clearly you don't have any kids. 

Yes, tere are bad teachers. But the solution to this problem can't be "because some teachers suck, and because performance evaluation is so difficult considering the various demographic/environmental variables that must be accounted for, you're all fucked and deserve to make shit for money." That's fucking lazy and an insult to the people that work very hard to educate our kids. 

And your slippery slope argument about social workers has no place in this. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about teacher pay.

The problem with "don't like the pay, find a new job" is that eventually you're going to be stuck with a bunch of fucking idiots teaching our children. As I said before, teachers don't do this job to get rich. Most teachers i know just want to be able to afford a modest lifestyle. I don't think that's asking too much.

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Just now, irishtexan said:

Clearly you don't have any kids. 

Yes, tere are bad teachers. But the solution to this problem can't be "because some teachers suck, and because performance evaluation is so difficult considering the various demographic/environmental variables that must be accounted for, you're all fucked and deserve to make shit for money." That's fucking lazy and an insult to the people that work very hard to educate our kids. 

And your slippery slope argument about social workers has no place in this. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about teacher pay.

The problem with "don't like the pay, find a new job" is that eventually you're going to be stuck with a bunch of fucking idiots teaching our children. As I said before, teachers don't do this job to get rich. Most teachers i know just want to be able to afford a modest lifestyle. I don't think that's asking too much.

here's the thing, and it's a simple capitalistic concept. you increase the pay for teachers, then the job becomes more competitive. more qualified and competent people would stay in the job, and allowing for actual performance management would allow principals leeway in letting underperformers go. it works in the private sector. it could work in the public school sector. but the priorities are misplaced, and we are seeing a national backlash of underpaid teachers.

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We moved to Comal ISD from Houston two years ago and actually felt like we were undertaxed compared to Houston for school funding. The new superintendent here warned of a budget problem next year. We could raise taxes, but the bulk of that would be shipped elsewhere because of Robin hood and we're a "wealthy" district.

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12 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

Clearly you don't have any kids. 

Yes, tere are bad teachers. But the solution to this problem can't be "because some teachers suck, and because performance evaluation is so difficult considering the various demographic/environmental variables that must be accounted for, you're all fucked and deserve to make shit for money." That's fucking lazy and an insult to the people that work very hard to educate our kids. 

And your slippery slope argument about social workers has no place in this. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about teacher pay.

The problem with "don't like the pay, find a new job" is that eventually you're going to be stuck with a bunch of fucking idiots teaching our children. As I said before, teachers don't do this job to get rich. Most teachers i know just want to be able to afford a modest lifestyle. I don't think that's asking too much.

if the avg in Texas is $48.5k, what do you think the avg should be? in the private sector- that number hosts a wide variety of roles. in business, $60k+ starts the be laser focused on results/performance. Not everyone is a $100k earner and if the teacher thinks lesson plans and grading are a time suck, try being a $100k+ sales person and the grind that is year in and year out.

yelling at clouds with end number makes zero fucking sense. 5k more a year doesnt move any needles.

also, if i had kids i wouldnt be relying on state funded institutions to be teaching my kids. they would go private where the dollars and cents make sense- but that is a different conversation.

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3 hours ago, trauma babe said:

We could fund our schools better? So that maybe fewer teachers would have to stock their classroom with supplies from their own paychecks? I don't know any teachers that are whining about not being rich for teaching. They just want to not have to work a side in the summer to make ends meet (lol if you think teachers don't work as teachers during the summer or winter breaks). Or pay for supplies. 

Why should a job that is a "calling" be undervalued monetarily? Especially when the calling is perhaps the calling with the most societal impact and importance. Feeling a warm glow after a kid finally understands how to multiply their numbers doesn't pay the fucking bills. 

 

Nah, Surly gets its dick hard with free-market everything. You are never allowed to complain about your pay, there's always other jobs out there so never complain about your job. Also, why the fuck are my taxes so high? My kids are CLEARLY not getting a good enough education in public schools so why should I be subsidizing bad performance!

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Dated teachers so this hits close to home.  95% of the time, it's shitty parents that are the problem.  Either the kid had no business being born in the first place or the parents can't even be bothered to do the bare minimum to ensure that the kids care about education, in both cases the teacher's hands are tied.  Scores will inevitably suck.  If a kid is going to be dumb, there's not a teach on earth who can fix that, and even if those teachers existed they sure as fuck won't put in the effort in exchange for the salaries that are paid especially considering all of the red tape and extra bullshit that comes with the job (all without compensation).

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38 minutes ago, riloh05 said:

for the most part voters vote on bond offerings, some pass and some dont. i would personally argue that teachers are slotted correctly with their pay for the most part. Until performance/accountability are brought into their world then I cant justify more money being thrown at them. I also have zero kids.

Regarding performance/accountability- that is almost impossible to measure, unfortunately.

Take 100 teachers from a high school I would bet 30% would fail in the private sector (be fired or riff'd), while those same 30% would carry a long tenured career in education and even become principals, etc...

Where does this stop...It could be argued that social workers deserve the same if not more than teachers, but are yet very underpaid. Also, social workers know, just like teachers what they are getting into regarding the pay. Dont like the way the business pays, move to a different business.

Lastly, there are ways for teachers to improve their income- stipend for bus duty, lunch duty, d-hall, test administration, etc...I dont know how many of my ex-colleagues would bitch about their pay but never showed up to make additional coin.

 

Take 100 from the private sector. I bet 99 of them would fail miserably in the classroom.

 

 

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21 minutes ago, riloh05 said:

if the avg in Texas is $48.5k, what do you think the avg should be? in the private sector- that number hosts a wide variety of roles. in business, $60k+ starts the be laser focused on results/performance. Not everyone is a $100k earner and if the teacher thinks lesson plans and grading are a time suck, try being a $100k+ sales person and the grind that is year in and year out.

yelling at clouds with end number makes zero fucking sense. 5k more a year doesnt move any needles.

also, if i had kids i wouldnt be relying on state funded institutions to be teaching my kids. they would go private where the dollars and cents make sense- but that is a different conversation.

Lets go with "higher than 48.5k".

 

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"Lastly, there are ways for teachers to improve their income- stipend for bus duty, lunch duty, d-hall, test administration, etc...I dont know how many of my ex-colleagues would bitch about their pay but never showed up to make additional co in."

Lol. No. I dont know how long ago you taught but there are very few opportunities to make extra money and the things on that list are just basic job requirements now. No offense, but its so far off the mark that it makes you look really out of touch.

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Teachers are not underpaid in my opinion, depending on where they work I suppose . A $50k a year salary works out to mid $70k if they were to work all year like normal people, which is pretty decent for a person with just a bachelor's many being liberal arts.  

Are they  over worked? yes.  I think teachers should be asking for smaller class sizes instead of more money.  I could go on for a while on how money and staffing is mismanaged though.  The biggest disparity I see is that every teacher gets paid on the same scale no matter what they teach.  An elementary art teacher with absolutely no metrics or expectations should not be paid as much as the high school math teacher with a state test always in the back of their minds.  

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17 minutes ago, dingleberryswitzer said:

Teachers are not underpaid in my opinion, depending on where they work I suppose . A $50k a year salary works out to mid $70k if they were to work all year like normal people, which is pretty decent for a person with just a bachelor's many being liberal arts.  

Y'all do realize teachers don't get a full three months off, right? I think my wife gets 9 weeks this summer. And you can't say it's a $70k/year job when there aren't opportunities to take a job for two months at your current pay. My wife will be doing summer school and will likely pick up an odd job here and there, but it won't bring her up to $70k. 

49 minutes ago, riloh05 said:

if the avg in Texas is $48.5k, what do you think the avg should be? in the private sector- that number hosts a wide variety of roles. in business, $60k+ starts the be laser focused on results/performance. Not everyone is a $100k earner and if the teacher thinks lesson plans and grading are a time suck, try being a $100k+ sales person and the grind that is year in and year out.

yelling at clouds with end number makes zero fucking sense. 5k more a year doesnt move any needles.

also, if i had kids i wouldnt be relying on state funded institutions to be teaching my kids. they would go private where the dollars and cents make sense- but that is a different conversation.

My wife is in year 5 as a teacher and makes less than $48.5 in Austin. That being said, I don't think she's underpaid considering where she is in her career. The problem as Larry previously pointed out, is that she will do this for 15 years and still be under $60k. I think the thing that most teachers find most frustrating is how laughably under-funded the schools themselves are. They have to buy a ton of their own supplies. They're impossibly overworked. For instance, my wife is a special ed teacher and she had a caseload of students whose state-mandated individualized time with the special ed teacher exceeded the number of hours in the school day.  It was physically impossible for her to do her job as was mandated by the State. It's little shit like that which causes teachers to quit the profession. She also spends typically one to two hours per night grading papers, putting together IEP reports, etc. There's a bunch of bullshit red tape that comes with the job, and packing classrooms full of 30 kids means that the additional bullshit administrative work increases exponentially. 

I think the solution is fairly simple. Pay the teachers a little better. Don't make them buy their own supplies. Hire more teachers and cut down on class sizes. We, the taxpayers, are their employers. We should provide them with the resources they need to do their job. But that would mean our politicians would have to raise taxes and we know how that goes over in the state of Texas. 

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1 hour ago, Larry T. Spider said:

"Lastly, there are ways for teachers to improve their income- stipend for bus duty, lunch duty, d-hall, test administration, etc...I dont know how many of my ex-colleagues would bitch about their pay but never showed up to make additional co in."

Lol. No. I dont know how long ago you taught but there are very few opportunities to make extra money and the things on that list are just basic job requirements now. No offense, but its so far off the mark that it makes you look really out of touch.

true. dozen plus years.

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25 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

Y'all do realize teachers don't get a full three months off, right? I think my wife gets 9 weeks this summer. And you can't say it's a $70k/year job when there aren't opportunities to take a job for two months at your current pay. My wife will be doing summer school and will likely pick up an odd job here and there, but it won't bring her up to $70k. 

My wife is in year 5 as a teacher and makes less than $48.5 in Austin. That being said, I don't think she's underpaid considering where she is in her career. The problem as Larry previously pointed out, is that she will do this for 15 years and still be under $60k. I think the thing that most teachers find most frustrating is how laughably under-funded the schools themselves are. They have to buy a ton of their own supplies. They're impossibly overworked. For instance, my wife is a special ed teacher and she had a caseload of students whose state-mandated individualized time with the special ed teacher exceeded the number of hours in the school day.  It was physically impossible for her to do her job as was mandated by the State. It's little shit like that which causes teachers to quit the profession. She also spends typically one to two hours per night grading papers, putting together IEP reports, etc. There's a bunch of bullshit red tape that comes with the job, and packing classrooms full of 30 kids means that the additional bullshit administrative work increases exponentially. 

I think the solution is fairly simple. Pay the teachers a little better. Don't make them buy their own supplies. Hire more teachers and cut down on class sizes. We, the taxpayers, are their employers. We should provide them with the resources they need to do their job. But that would mean our politicians would have to raise taxes and we know how that goes over in the state of Texas. 

Take 9 weeks, plus Christmas, Spring Break, Holidays, etc...It is inherently better than the private sector.

I am trying to equate a teachers position in the real world that isnt performance based- HR Generalist comes to mind. College degree- $45-50k for a business the size of a school district. I dont think off the shelf teachers with 5-10 years service equals a $70k salary. I think teachers dont understand the private sector and $70k salary jobs arent being handed out as easily as they may think, and that could be a part of the problem.

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1 minute ago, dingleberryswitzer said:

My math was slightly off.  If a regular 187 day teacher were to work 52 weeks Year (or use paid time off and sick leave) it'd be the equivalent of $69.5k.  

And yea, aisd is terribly underpaid all things considered.  Here in San Antonio I think rookies will start at over 50k in northeast and north side.

there are 250-260'ish working days in the private sector if I remember correctly.

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It would be the equivalent of 69.5k, except that's not an option. The days off are nice but when I was teaching I had to work a side job most of those days to afford anything my friends were doing. It's perfect if you have a high earning spouse, come from money, or want to live like a college student forever. Most of us (in Austin, at least) work in some way and at a rate worse than a teaching salary during that time. It's not a complaint and the teacher salary schedule is posted online. It does impact retention though. 

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