Well, their salary is different in different parts of the US, but my sister's an elementary school teacher here in NY, and my mother also works in the school system, so I know a fair bit about their compensation:
Starting pay is currently $39,800 (with periodic incremental raises, obviously; i.e., after the first 3 years, 5 years etc.),
but, according to inside sources, they are going to get
another 13-16% raise in
starting pay next year, which will be phased in over 3 years for current teachers. This is on top of the 18% raise they got around 2-3 years ago, so their union is obviously getting concessions from city government. Personally, though I see how hard my sister works-- and it is
very hard (she has her class plus is doing her Master's at night, which is now required for all NY teachers within 5 years of licensure)-- I tendto think that a 30%+ raise in under 3 years is a bit insane, especially in a cash-strapped city. Not that teachers don't deserve to be paid more (many professions and jobs do-- cops, firefighters etc.), but the NYC police force hasn't had a raise in like 7 years, and their base pay is
way below that of teachers ($33K, iirc). Anyway...
Though the initial salary will be middle of the road for new graduates (if you become a teacher in 2 years, your starting salary will be around $44K; if you get your Master's degree, it adds another $4-6K on to that salary automatically). Now, where the real money comes in is after you've put years into the system. To receive their pension, teachers must put in 30 years, I believe (assuming that you start at 22, you'll be able to retire at 52), but the pension is
quite nice. They retain a full salary ($85K per year after the first 25 years) for the rest of their lives
plus health insurance for the rest of their lives. In addition, many teachers (including my sister) put money from each paycheck into a TDA account (tax-deferred annuity), on which interest accrues for those 30 years. You can put as much or as little as you want into this account (or put nothing at all) per paycheck, but the payoff is huge. My mother knows two teachers who just retired, and one's TDA payout was $830K, and the other's was $760K. Add that money on top of their $80K+ per year pension plus benefits, and it's easy to see that you'll have a nice, comfortable retirement....if you can put up with the NYC school system for 30 years, which is a
big "if".
So all in all, though they're always griping about being underpaid, I think that teachers earn a decent living (in an ideal world, they'd be paid more, but standards would also be enforced, as they are NOT now in terms of the requirements to become a teacher as well as on what grounds one can be fired)-- it's certainly a lot better than what our other public servants earn (cops and firefighters), and approaches (and I would say eventually exceeds, based on the above numbers) many private-sector jobs such as programming.
However, if you want to be a good teacher, and really make a difference here in NY, it's a LOT of work. My sister breaks her ass for her class, and puts in a minimum of 2 hours of work per night (many times 3-4) preparing, grading etc. However, not every teacher does this, because there are few standards in terms of performance, and what standards the city attempts to enforce (reading tests etc.) are attacked. So it's currently all up to the individual teacher how well they prepare and how much work they put in, though that's slowly changing for the better (since the kids deserve dedicated teachers, not people who merely want to "get by").
Anyway, hope this helped.
