I am an education major studying at the University of Maine at Farmington. I stumbled upon some figures that should be interesting to taxpayers who are against school budget increases that include pay increases for teachers.
To put their salaries into perspective: If a teacher is paid $3 per hour, per child (and only for the hours worked, not any planning time or any time spent before or after school), that would be $19.50 a day (7:45 a.m. to 3 p.m., with 45 minutes off for lunch and planning equals 6 1/2 hours) per student. With a classroom of about 30 students that would be $585 per day.
For the 180 days they work, the figure would be $105,300 per year.
What about those special education teachers and the ones with master’s degrees? We could pay them $8 per hour per student. That would be $280,800 per year.
But the average teacher’s salary (nationwide) is $50,000.
That $50,000 salary divided by 180 days comes to $277.77 per day. For 30 students, that would come out to $1.42 per hour per student. Now that doesn’t seem very fair, does it?
I understand that in these tough economic times people cannot afford tax increases, but I do believe we are paying for our nation’s future and if we want the best for them in 20 years, we need to start by giving them the best education possible now.
Kaitlyn Boulet, Lisbon
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