Why do teachers get automatic pay rises based of years of service?

Scoundrel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058204596/why-do-teachers-get-automatic-pay-rises-based-of-years-of-service

The barely literate ramblings of a newstalk listening indo reading buffoon. How many more threads like this do we really need on this site honestly? How many more bootlickers have to regurgitate this drivel? Actually boasting of having to work so hard to make someone else richer dear lord I despair of humanity sometimes.

Wabbit Ears

Id argue that the way its done with teachers is the right way and the way the Private sector does it is the wrong way.

I rarely get a pay increase, even to keep up with inflation. Despite improving year on year, being better and more efficient at my job etc teh only way for me to get a decent pay raise is to leave and join another company that pays better, rinse and repeat. The private sector as it currently is is designed to encourage leaving your role and starting afresh where the teachers one is designed to keep you and compensate you fairly for it.

Scotty #

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117770329#Comment_117770329

Your post's been viewed 1,500 times and ONE person has felt it worthy of thanks, so, lead balloons all round.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117771796#Comment_117771796

That performance could be setting up another sub prime lending fiasco, which in the short term is making them flavour of the month with the employer.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117772336#Comment_117772336

Nice sound bite, but the chances of that are remote, in fact the CB has strict criteria in place that links borrowing to income, so I can only assume any bank CEO who thinks it’s a good idea, would be performing badly and fired.

FileNotFound

Given the lack of any benchmarking or attempt to benchmark (Teachers will never accept performance based anything - simply stating nobody can judge their performance) the only real option is the one we see which is a pay scale based on tenure.

Given the relatively low start point and the very gradual graduation I have never seen anything wrong with the pay system except that it should probably take into account where the school is (real world fact that dublin costs more than the arse of kerry to live in)

I definitely could not come up with a fairer system. Also having supported science week in schools I know teaching is not for me alas.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117772445#Comment_117772445

I think I would prefer the private sector idea of bonuses, instead of incremental increases. A good teacher could get five times their basic pay in a year where their students did well in exams.

In 2019, Irish asset managers earned just over €1m in fixed salaries, compared to €5.4m in bonuses, a ratio of variable to fixed pay of 510pc.

The EU average ratio was 339pc in 2019.

Green Peter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117770662#Comment_117770662

Public sector workers pay plenty tax as well by the way.

Ave Sodalis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117770496#Comment_117770496

I haven't really thought about teacher's pay in years, but it is something I wondered about when I was in secondary school as a student. Nearly every student in the thousand or so students in my school would have been able to point out the terrible, bad, okay, good, and excellent teachers, so surely the teachers themselves have a rough idea. Is it not incredibly frustrating for the teacher's themselves that are on the okay and upwards side to know that they're getting paid the same or possibly less than the consistently bad and even terrible teachers?

I don't personally have anything against teacher pay, and don't know what the solution would even be, but it's something I had always wondered when in school.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117772720#Comment_117772720

Indeed, but without private sector taxes, there wouldn’t be much income for PS to pay tax on.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117772129#Comment_117772129

Why? Because otherwise its open to manipulation.

If a teacher wants to cherry pick the most financially advantageous work, with no transparency or consistency. Its called the private sector.

You trade slow and steady and security for risk and reward.

screamer

Statisticians can bell curve the **** out of any data. It’d be easy enough to create that to use as a standardised snapshot of various exam achievements where you can compare apples with apples. I don’t think there’s the will to do it. Plus, as students we all knew the crap teachers you’d hate to be stuck with, and hope for the teachers who you knew were real teachers and able to impart knowledge and not just read off a page. Student surveys could give a lot of insight, we do them in private companies they’re just called employee surveys or 360s. I don’t think teachers would like it though, as it’s tough to read what others really think of your abilities, but necessary in a lot of cases. where there’s a will there’s a way, but I think in public sector from bottom to top to government itself there’s no will and no way they’d reform anything.

Sam the Sham

To answer the OP's question: Baumol's Cost Disease. See: https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/diagnosing-william-baumol-s-cost-disease

"The late William Baumol of New York University’s Stern School of Business, who died in May, once pointed out a pattern: while rising wages are typically attributed in part to rising labor productivity, there can be upward salary pressure at jobs that haven’t experienced productivity gains.

The example Baumol and the late William G. Bowen made famous is that of the string quartet. The number of musicians and the amount of time needed to play a Beethoven string quartet for a live audience hasn’t changed in centuries, yet today’s musicians make more than Beethoven-era wages. They argued that because the quartet needs its four musicians as much as a semiconductor company needs assembly workers, the group must raise wages to keep talent—to keep its cellist from chucking a career in music and going into a better-paying job instead.

The effect now known as Baumol’s Cost Disease is used to explain why prices for the services offered by people-dependent professions with low productivity growth—such as (arguably) education, health care, and the arts—keep going up, even though the amount of goods and services each worker in those industries generates hasn’t necessarily done the same."

Golfwidow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117770807#Comment_117770807

Teaching 30+ years and have up-skilled every year! This is something that most teachers where I work also engage in. Another thing to add is that we usually pay for this and do it in our own time. I’m not looking for a pat on the back, but I do think that this should be said.

am_zarathustra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117772885#Comment_117772885

It's an odd thing from the inside. There are good and bad teachers but most are at least competent, no different from the private sector. The odd thing I have noticed is people going up and down in application and ability. Its a massively draining job at time, you really need to perform and this can be incredibly difficult when you are struggling personally. Most of these teachers come back around and are good again. Experience and continuity matter so a bad couple of years out of 30 is fine, good management should account for this and support will generally be offered.

I work really hard, definitely harder than most. In return I have a post (which gives an extra 9000eu on base pay) but there is a bit of luck in timing to get those along with it being dreadfully subjective at the interview level. Given the absolute nightmare I've seen promotions like this cause in staffrooms I would happily take a paycut to not have performance based teaching come in even though I would certainly benefit from them. Coherence and teamwork make good schools, with clear, open lines of communication. We are not a business and we shouldn't be run like one. Schools are emotional places, students are wonderful but a few hundred teenagers makes for a strange energy, the clarity of tenure based pay rises makes sense when you think of the objectives of schools. I actually know shockingly few teachers who would ever consider performance based pay as a good idea. What about the unbelievable year head in a tough school supporting parents and students alike? How do we judge the SEN teachers performance, or the home school? Or someone running 2/3 extra curriculars?

I'd imagine anyone proposing performance based has a very narrow view of what education actually is and a poor understanding of how schools work.

am_zarathustra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117773178#Comment_117773178

Because of the chronic shortage of teachers several of us have to each outside our subjects to offer students options, learning curricula in our spare time too. After 30 years I shudder to think how many ministers half baked notions you've had to upskill for!

chosen1

Teacher here and in theory, I wouldn't mind pay increments to be in some way linked to performance. Despite what our unions and some teachers may say, there does exist some underperforming or bad teachers and it annoys me that there is little that can be done about it and it gives rise to teacher bashing in threads like this. Thankfully it is a very small percentage in my experience though.

The problem is how performance can be measured. I have several friends who have taught in the English system and their increments are partially based on performance. Students are given target grades based on an exam they do on entrance (English and maths only as far as I'm aware) and they will be expected to receive this grade at minimum in their GCSE regardless of subject.

What ends up happening with a large number of students is that they fail to keep up the level of work they have done as a 12 year old and then start to slip in many subjects. The teacher is left with the predicament where they may not get their pay increment if the student underperforms and what ends up happening is that teachers themselves complete much of the students project work to reach their target grades.

The problem becomes endemic in the school system, as students are aware that teachers will more than likely do the work for them of they don't do the work themselves. Students become lazier, yet on paper it appears that they have all performed well.

In the meantime, I am happy to receive increments based on years put in until someone comes up with a fair and transparent way of assessing performance.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117773178#Comment_117773178

No. I'm not trying to **** on teachers. I was merely saying to the poster I originally replied to that, when comparing his wages with a teachers (or anyone else's) he should compare like with like.

When comparing salaries, you'd probably really need to convert it to an hourly basis to compare.

In relation to moving up an incremental scale - in his field he likely would not move up unless he keeps learning. There would be no such condition for public sector when it is based off a formula for time served. That is not to say that many teachers do or do not learn or study more themselves - just that in the context of the "automatic pay rises" on which the thread is based - that it does not appear to be contingent on that.

You may very well upskill every year. But maybe the teacher sitting across from you in the staff room doesn't bother their hole. But they get paid the same as you as they have been at it the same length of time. You should probably be getting more than you do now. They should probably be getting less. It's not really fair on you is it?

Whatever about teachers pay. Their holidays are ridiculous.

Green Peter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117772976#Comment_117772976

Indeed but without public sector services private sector can't operate , education etc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058204596/why-do-teachers-get-automatic-pay-rises-based-of-years-of-service

No doubt someone else has already handed you your arse on a plate for that error and prejudice-riddled post, but here goes anyway.

1. The TUI is a trade union and has no role in recognising your subject. That's a matter for the Teaching Council.
2. Get a level 8. In today's economy a level 7 isn't worth the paper upon which it is printed.
3. The salary max is the going rate for the job, and increments are how you eventually get to that level. That takes up to 27 years for a teacher.
4. Your line about what teachers get on pension is wrong. Some teachers get that under an old and now closed pension scheme, but that's a small minority. Many get a smaller amount which has a chunk removed to "integrate" their pension with the state contributory pension. Teachers employed in the last 8 years, and all new teachers, get a pension based on their career average earnings, again heavily discounted for the state pension.
5. If you don't like the terms on offer from private pension providers, get a job in the public service - but you'll find that nowadays that's not much better.
6. Teacher pensions may be increased in line with future pay increases or with future inflation. But not both, and these can be withheld by the Government.
7. I'd be more than happy to see better performance management of schools and of teachers, but that's not the same as moaning to cut their pay.
8. Last but not least, I don't want teachers paid less, because then other employers and sectors could more easily compete for them. I want Ireland's young people being taught by the people who were the smart kids at school, not by the also-rans. If you don't like that opinion, I really don't care.

I'm not a teacher either.

KaneToad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117772976#Comment_117772976

Without public sector workers it would be very difficult for the private sector to exist.

Off, not of. But probably it should be on. A good teacher would know.

Jeremy Sproket

Another gripe is that teachers make no contribution to their pension funds and are taxed no more or less than private sector workers.

Their lucrative pension is essentially free.

They can also take unlimited career breaks (without pay of course) but they can buy back their pension entitlements for a few hundred a year.

Damien360

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117794229#Comment_117794229

That’s not true. They do contribute to their pension. It’s just that the contribution is not even remotely in line with the generous final payments. But that’s the same across the public sector. Not something you can level at teachers specifically.

As for career break. I was sure they are entitled to one career break and not that many avail of it.

Jeremy Sproket

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117770684#Comment_117770684

What relevance has my education level got to do with my ability to criticise teachers without being accused of being bitter, if you read (that's if you can read) the OP, you'll see I'm very financially stable in my job and earn more than a teacher would for my given tenure. Ask a grown up for help with the two syllable words.

Jeremy Sproket

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117774224#Comment_117774224

My level 7 earns me more money than some people's level 10s. Idiotic post.

mary 2021

A huge porportion of our TDs were and are from the teaching profession so when they are in the dail they make lovely little rules for themselves for when they go back to teaching. Most of it is maximum pay with out proof of worthiness. Mind you in saying that who in hell would want to teach and spend time with the rotters that are being bred today?: Spoiled over indulged little tykes & helicopter mad mothers. They actually deserve the pay cos if i was a teacher i am sure i would not be able to help myself from giving them a clip in the ear. But you have to understand them and be careful, most of them would benefit from a good wallop.

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117794278#Comment_117794278

I suspect Reati thinks anyone commenting on the teaching profession is either a frustrated wanna-be, or educated to a level lower than teachers.

Reati

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117794278#Comment_117794278

You come across very angry which makes me glad you're not a teacher. Probably not the career for you.