An unpopular opinion about teacher salaries

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By Barb Ickes | Tuesday, April 3, 2007 3:42 PM CDT | () comments

I can already hear the chalk breaking. I’m sorry, teachers, but I can’t bring myself to march for your cause. Many of you do terrific work. Many of you probably get more satisfaction out of your successes in the classroom than you ever could get out of a paycheck.

Thank the Lord for teachers like you.

Some of you may need and deserve the raises the Iowa Legislature is considering this week. But, from what I’ve seen of teachers’ salaries in the Iowa Quad-Cities, most of you are not undercompensated.

For example: The starting salary for a teacher in the Davenport School District is just a hair under $30,000. In Pleasant Valley, it’s $32,162. With a master’s degree, the highest-paid Davenport teacher gets $67,687. In Pleasant Valley, the top earner gets $63,960.

Frankly, it’s difficult to muster sympathy for public-sector workers that, by and large, have greater earning power than many of us in the private sector with the same or more education, experience and work-related challenges.

With my master’s degree and almost 20 years of journalism experience, I have yet to break the $50,000 barrier. And I’m considered well-compensated in my market. The fact of the matter is that I knew coming into this business that if I ever decided to take that trip to Italy, I’d need years to save for it.

While we’re on the subject of hard-to-accept facts, this one remains: Most teachers have a sweet schedule. I know lots of you hate it when people point out the summers off, but it’s true. Even the so-called year-round schools have more holidays and vacation days than most of us could rub together over several years.

Some of you take work home? Lots of us do.

Look at cops. There’s another set of rank-and-file public workers who could gripe about wages. But they’re like us. They got into their line of work because it appealed to them.

I never knew a firefighter who strapped on an oxygen tank and ran toward what everyone else was running from because he knew a pot of gold would be waiting for him when the smoke cleared.

This is not to suggest that teachers, cops, firefighters and reporters should abandon the hope of a brighter financial outlook. Why would I rain on my own parade? But there’s no shortage of us, is there? Something keeps us coming back.

And when did the words “entry-level wage” become dirty? I thought we all understood the inherent message there: Pay your dues. Spend wisely. If money is that important, aspire to a promotion.

Look at the racket city administrators and superintendents have got going. It’s pretty hard to accept the argument that teachers are our children’s future when the system under which they operate grants the highest rewards to those farthest removed from the classroom.

Teachers are wonderful people. Many of them are much more than teachers. Some are parents and counselors and peacekeepers. Lots of them deserve our respect and appreciation, along with a decent living wage.

And I think most of them are getting it.

Barb Ickes can be contacted at

(563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com. To comment on this column visit www.qctimes.com.