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Re: US teachers are overworked and underpaid
Posted:
Oct 15, 2012 12:40 PM
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This is mostly not about pay levels but about teacher work loads *in
terms of teaching hours" and to a lesser extent, the grand total
number of students that a teacher must deal with.
To see that the average level of teaching hours for US teachers is not
overstated by the OECD charts which I give again further below, here
below for each of many states in the US is the *absolute minimum*
number of instructional hours that a student must receive each day or
week required by state law:
"Focus on the school calendar"
http://publications.sreb.org/2010/10S03_Focus_School_Cal.pdf
This *absolute minimum* required by state law ranges 5-7 hours among
the states for both primary and secondary, for an average of about 6
hours, which is consistent with the US figures in the OECD charts,
about 6 hours per day when calculated from the charts (1080 teaching
hours per year on a 180 day school year).
Here is something about the instructional time of Japanese students:
http://web-jpn.org/kidsweb/explore/schools/q9.html
The number of classes that Japanese students attend per day are about
4 for early primary (only about 40-45 minutes each) and about 5 for
late primary and middle school and above (about 50 minutes each at
middle school and above), in some cases 6.
(Note on the minutes: A schedule on so-called 1-hour classes is not
such that each class is 60 minutes but less to allow time between
classes. There can be some confusion as to whether "teaching time" or
"instructional time" includes those in-between minutes, but either
way, the data all presented here remain consistent with each other in
terms of comparisons, especially since the comparisons present drastic
differences.)
Here again are the OECD statistics for many countries:
http://www.oecd.org/education/highereducationandadultlearning/48631419.pdf
Look at all the charts including the ones that give total teaching
time per year and look at Table D4.1 - it gives a breakdown of
teachers' "on-campus" working time, the total per week being
relatively the same for the countries of Northern Europe, Japan,
Korea, and the US. The big difference is total teaching time per year
and by calculated extension, average teaching time per week and per
day students are in school, in top-performing Japan, Korea, and
Finland these teaching hours being at about half that in the US, these
three ranging in the mid-500s to mid-600s hours per year for primary
and secondary, for the latter actually less than for the former. These
three countries' schools years are respectively 243, 225, and 190
days. It is about 1080 hours per year of instructional time for a US
teacher, primary or secondary being very close together with the
former slightly higher, from a 180 day school year. The averages are
therefore roughly 3 hours per day for these three countries and
roughly 6 hours per day for the US.
As I said before, the total number of students can come into play
here: If a US teacher has 6 different 1-hour classes per day with all
different students and a teacher in each of these three countries has
3 different 1-hour classes per day with all different students and the
*in-class* pupil-to-teacher ratio is the same at 20:1, then the US
teacher has 120 total students to deal with and the teacher in each of
these three other countries has 60 total students to deal with. This
very much applies to secondary level teaching since at this level
teachers always have different students in different classes.
And as I said before, these three countries' k12 teachers have about
the same teaching hours per week as US community college teachers,
about 12.5-15 hours per week depending on whether those in-between
minutes in question are counted in the teaching time, a US community
college teacher typically having a full time load of 5 different
3-hour courses each typically meeting for an hour (literally 50
minutes of actual time) three times each week.
This combination of vastly greater teaching time and many times on top
of that vastly greater numbers of students to deal with means much
less time during both on-campus time and off-campus time for planning
and preparation and what could be considered most importantly,
*professional collaboration* with other teachers.
On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 1:31 PM, Haim <hpipik@netzero.com> wrote:
> GS Chandy Posted: Oct 13, 2012 8:40 PM
>
>>'Salary levels' in different countries are a very
>>complex matter (which economists have not adequately
>>understood yet - at least they've not explained it so
>>that I've been able to understand).
>
> Many thanks for that remarkable assertion, which I have savored like a fine wine,
> http://youtu.be/JRDOQBPstEI
>
> Haim
> No representation without taxation.
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