As a classroom teacher at the top of scale and 12 years from retirement I am happy with my wage. What makes my job difficult is the lack of resourcing and the meeting the impossible demand of developing my practice and reflecting with my assistant and team within the time allocations we are given. Professional disregard and the general contempt for teachers who do the job day in day out with a minimum of fuss while having to listen to the rest of the world describe us incompetent, underperforming,stupid, self serving and so on. In 12 of teaching I have had to manage 4 curriculum changes! Little wonder we feel like battered mushrooms.

Contrary to the writer and the Grattan Institute report, class sizes do make a difference, for reasons that should be obvious, and we have not wasted money on reducing them. See the Tennessee STAR study (available at http://www.heros-inc.org/).

The Grattan Institute’s claims about increased spending are also nonsense. The spending per student has only just matched economic growth over the period used in the Grattan report. If you go back 20 years, you will see hardly any change in class sizes. I began teaching in 1974 and spent 33 years as a teacher. In only two years did I have classes for the year with more than 25 students in them, most recently way back in 1981.

Nor has the Gonski report been shelved. The government committed $5 million in its last budget to working out the details of implementation. The report is excellent, but it needs some improvements.

A detailed discussion of these points is in my paper, Implementing Gonski, which appears at http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/576719.aspx.

A detailed discussion on teacher pay appears at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11573&page=0, though you will have to skip a lot of abusive rubbish to get the actual facts.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/10/31/whats-wrong-with-education-its-not-teacher-pay/

There is alot more to education then teachers pay, status and
throwing more resources at the question, which no doubt some would
love.

I learnt a great deal from some teachers and not much from others
and it was not what they were paid which was different. Weeding
out useless teachers who love the sound of their own voice, would
be a great start

Yabby,

I wouldn’t take any notice of the salary comparison on the article you linked to. Using US dollars and purchasing price parity, a teacher in a junior secondary school in Finland was paid $34,707 in the first year, $44 294 in the 15th year and $54 181 at the top of the scale (OECD Education at a Glance 2011). The same teacher in England was paid $32 189, then $47 047 and then $47 047. The Finnish teacher gets more at the start and the end, but less in the middle. The pattern is the same for primary and upper secondary. Then, you have to relate salary to the overall living standards in each country; i.e., not what their salary would purchase in comparison with the salary of someone in another country but in comparison with the salary of someone in a different occupation in that country because it is the latter comparison that affects whether people of high ability in that country enter teaching or not. The OECD also does this by publishing teacher salaries as a percentage of per capita GDP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment

Chris, one of the linked articles from my first URL, was to this
site. Looking at the 2009 results, if you scroll down, Shanghai
clearly cleaned up.

I was not aware that they have tiny classes or are highly paid.

If we are under-investing as portrayed; then we should better resource parents, who would then pay much higher school fees, which could be directed at the missing resources. They would also be empowered to vote with their feet; and or, seek excellence? This would inculcate competition, and all that then relies on it, which is after all, the very cornerstone of western style capitalism!
The additional assistance could be means tested and end at incomes above $150,00 per?
[Oh, if only we could all struggle to just barely get by, with that truly tiny amount? Tut tut.]
What we seem to have at the moment is a two tiered education system that progresses the already privileged, all while starving the less well off?
We could do a lot worse than emulate the Finnish system. Which as I understand it, has only a public school system and a truly universal educational standard.
They also have universal suffrage and freedom of worship. Albeit, confined to churches, where they might argue, any entirely unprovable belief system belongs?
It's a system that selectively develops the best and brightest, rather than the most privileged or devout?
And that is the best reason I can think of, for both endorsing and emulating it! Rhrosty.

Teachers get well paid for the short hours,holidays,job security etc.I know of women who want to have a decrease in salary to become teachers so they can go home before 9.00 pm and have a life.

Chris C is right to highlite the myth that class size does not matter - I wonder what those who promote this myth are like as a teacher. Hattie of Melb Uni fame is the person who people use as the authority. It is a very convenient argument for cutting funds to schools and bash teachers with. As a preschool teacher I think there is a difference between a group of 16 to that of 20.

Yabby,

OECD Education at a Glance 2011 does not give any information on teacher pay or class sizes in Shanghai, China. The Grattan Institute reports says classes there are 40 students, but they often have two teachers in them, and teachers teach only 10-12 hours a week. We do not need tiny classes here, just to keep the class sizes we have now, which are in the low 20s. If you find figures on the pay for teachers in Shanghai, please make sure thy are expressed relative to the overall living standards of the country, because that is what affects the relative ability level of those entering teaching.

Loadeddog,

All teachers know there is a difference between a group of 16 and one of 20, or between one of 20 and one of 30. John Hattie is often misquoted. He does not say that class sizes do not matter, just that they matter less than other factors. He actually says a smaller class will give students a nine-month advantage in learning over a larger class. Those that promote the myth that small classes do not matter, the followers of the ideo-illogical mantras of the Institute of Public Affairs, also promote the myth that increased spending on public education does not matter, but are silent when private schools increase their fees to $30,000 pa, the latter fact showing that spending certainly does matter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/world/asia/30shanghai.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Chris, in Shanghai teachers earn around 750$ a month, which is
far less then other professionals, according to the NY Times.

Your comparison with private schools is hardly a valid one.
Rich parents would have smarter children, public schools have to
accept everyone, including those who simply don't want to be there.

If you look at Perth Modern School, where more gifted kids are
selected, they still do very well under the public system, as
do schools such as Applecross.

So the point is that simply throwing resources at education is not
the answer, although its a great excuse for an education system
that is not up to scratch, for those who have no better excuse.

Doing more with the resources available, ah, now that would be a
challenge.

Of course class size matters, so too does reward for performance, air-conditioning, good texts, breakfast but do we get due benefit for reduced class sizes with the current organisation and the answer is clearly no. Education spend up, results down, students escaping to the private system.
How about the same class size; ensure Teachers are capable, then paid and supported better by the Headmaster. Our recent experience with a State “Centre of Excellence” meant we had to save our little one by moving to a Catholic Primary. It would make Kafka blush, truly disturbed teachers, bullying, useless “experts”, policies only living on paper and then escape. (NB: Centre of Excellence is like Democratic in a country name.)