Teachers in Canada

[danaeris]

So, a lot of Americans are responding to my post about teaching hours, and they are missing something very important.

The teachers union here in Canada is incredibly powerful.

In the public board, teachers start straight out of school at 32K, and get a yearly raise which, depending on education, tops off as high as say, 72K. They also have a benefits package which is nearly unrivalled in quality.

In the US, I have often been known to say that teaching should be so important that it pays a lot of money, so that it attracts smart, talented people.

In Canada, this is arguably actually the case.

Comments

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The highest pay rate i know of in Canada is $75 000. That's with the equivalent of six years' university education and at least eleven years of experience.

You will never hear me say that I feel teachers in Canada are underpaid. Overworked, yes - but not underpaid.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

OF the professional classes, they are amongst the most poorly paid. Lawyers also generally go to school for 6 years, and many of them make 6 figures easily.

[thebitterguy]

Oh, dude. I could fuckin' RETIRE if teachers made that. Be a kept man and shit.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

They're the best paid of the civil service, and I'm not sure the fiscal conservative that lurks in my brain could handle the thought of non-management civil servants getting well over a hundred grand.

Also, six years is nearly the top of the line for teachers. It's possible to go higher, but very few actually do, or for that matter, very few go for six years - many stop at five, as I have.

I wouldn't say no to a pay increase, but at least we're earning enough to put us int he upper-middle-class bracket without much trouble.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

They're the best paid of the civil service, and I'm not sure the fiscal conservative that lurks in my brain could handle the thought of non-management civil servants getting well over a hundred grand

Are you sure about that? How much do crown attorneys make? Government lawyers? Hell, in Ontario, Doctors negotiate directly with the gov't for their pay (while teachers do not)- I think that the civil service/private practice line is a very blurry one.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Crown attorney salaries are actually quite similar to a high-end teacher's salary. You're right, though, that the line is a blurry one.

[curgoth]

Further to that - one of the biggest investors in the Ontario, if not Canadian market, is the Ontario Teacher's Pension fund - they are being run, I'm told, by very smart people, and have their investments all over the place.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Mostly true. When the government said to the Federation, "Let us manage your pension for you," teachers collectively said, "Uh, thanks but no thanks - we can do it ourselves." That's why teachers' pensions didn't suffer the same fate as, say, steelworkers' pensions.

The moral of the story: if you want something done right for you, hire people you trust to do it right. Don't trust your employer to do it without someone looking over their shoulder.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

And much of that investment is in bricks and mortar too, IIRC, they're one of the largest landowners in the country.

re: salary

[etherial.livejournal.com]

As a first year teacher in Massachusetts, I make 34. This is what I've found all over the area I've applied to.