The Worth of a Teacher

Collective agreements are due for renegotiation at the moment and teachers are being cautioned that, in a fiscally tight environment, payrises are unlikely. There is a degree of realism to this which I think most people accept. However it did remind me of an email received a couple of years ago, which I can’t put my finger (mouse?) on at the moment. Essentially though, it goes like this:

 Assume the average wage of a teacher is $50,000 per year – some earn more, some less, but for the purpose of this exercise, $50k.

Minus tax ( as calculated at ird.govt.nz), the salary is now $40450.

Assume that the teacher doesn’t have a Kiwisaver or Student Loan.

Buy into the populist argument that teachers only work 40 weeks a year and do nothing during the term breaks. $40450 divided by 40 weeks = $1011.25 pay per week.

Buy into the populist argument that teachers only work 9-3. Take off an hour unpaid for lunch (disregarding the reality of meetings, duties etc). $1011.25 divided by 25 hours per week = $40.45 per hour.

Assume the average class size is 25 (some are larger, some smaller). $40.45 per hour divided by 25 =  $1.61 per hour.

Conclusion: a teacher receives $1.61 per hour to teach your child.

This number becomes much lower if we do factor in all the other things that a teacher does beyond 9-3, and beyond the actual time spent delivering lessons. Add in prep time, meetings, duties etc and the hourly rate dips pretty low. In my school I would say it is closer to an hourly rate of 86 cents per child per hour.

I compare it to holiday clubs/courses where supervision/fees are $10+ per hour for each child – and we would hope that teachers are actually providing something more than supervision during the time our children are in their classrooms!

So – how much is a teacher worth? And how will that worth be recognised in upcoming negotiations?

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