Yes, I (a SAHM to 4) would absolutely prefer a schedule like that but that is largely due to the fact that I'm a natural night owl and I curse the early school times from August to May every year.

My elementary kids have to be at school by 7:44, my oldest by 7:55. My elementary school kids get out at 3:00, my oldest at 3:20.

Of course, I would also love it if we could go to a 4 day school schedule but I realize that many working parents would object.

I always find it a bit sad to hear working parents complain about school schedules and finding childcare during the off times.

Their children sound like a burden they need to offload during their work hours.

I think it’s a novel idea, but I believe that one of the reasons the hours are set as they are is because kids are more alert in the morning, by the time it lets out they’re slowing down. Extend that to 530 and they wouldn’t have a good meal schedule. They wouldn’t have time to do their homework. I think it also gets kids used to getting up early just as they will when they are grown with jobs.

DD has a first grader and one in Preschool 3 mornings a week. She is a stay at home mom (talk about busy LOL) and does lots of activities with them after school in the afternoons. The preschooler wants to take more swim lessons and the older just started guitar lessons. Those activities would be difficult in the early morning hours. Often they do family things in the evening. Both kids home by 3:30 allows a short nap or at least resting for a slightly later bedtime. Then there is homework to consider. I think that would be difficult for kids not getting out of school until dinner, family time,bath and bedtime. Not to mention doctor and dental appointments.

In the area where I live a late start like that would make it almost impossible for parents to coordinate work schedules. Even average commute times are long and sometimes distant ones which take hours. The child would have to be in both aftercare and before school care. May as well just put them in boarding school for all the time they would have as a family.

Parents with older children would have a rough time with late starts and after school sports.

I think kids spend too many hours in school period. DGD goes from 8:30 to 3:00. When I was at that same school as a child school ran from 9 -2 for the early readers and 10 - 3 for the late readers in the primary grades. Only after 3rd grade did children attend for longer. I believe it was 9 - 2:50 for the older kids. It was only slightly longer in Junior high and even shorter in high school for me since my high school practiced a modular time frame of instruction like college campus's do. State mandated minimum classroom hours, lecture hall, supplemented by study halls. You could go home at any time after 1:10 if you had no more classes for the day. High schools that were on regular schedules went from 8:30 to 3:00.

Studies demonstrate that children learn more readily in the morning hours. That is why you will see the elementary school day schedule has reading and math in the morning.

That would not be possible for my daughter and her child. She is a single mother who must work a full time job to support the two of them. Her job is one town away from where she lives and is a 30 to 45 minute run on the interstate. Don't suggest that she move to the other town. Rents and housing prices increases dramatically as you go toward Washington D.C. She can barely afford a house where she is now. (Two years ago, she stretched the budget to buy a foreclosed house because rents were going up and soon would surpass the cost of home ownership.) She depends on before and after school programs to make schedule. She drops her child at school as she goes to work and picks her up after work. Her working hours are from 7 to 3:30 plus travel time.

Several other parents in her area have the same schedule except that most of them are 2 parent homes making their schedules easier.

The trend is to delay school for teens. Parents seem unable to impose bed times on teens so schools are being asked to back up start times so these students can get their needed sleep. I think education's schedule was originally set to accommodate parents. Schools are open when help isn't needed back on the farm. That model alone no longer works for parents. I preferred to get my kids up and going get appointments done and over early before their energy wore out. If a child is too tired to sit at day care 3-5PM dialy how would you think they would have energy to LEARN those hours? For the 10 years it took for my three to become school age I was at home with them. Before and after I have been a teacher in school systems. When a child is put to bed at a time that affords them the 8 hours of sleep they happily get up at what ever time on the other end is needed. I agree that day care after school is TOO MUCH but then I have always known institutionalizing children for 10-12 hours a day only works for the parents.

I agree that it's the teens that need the later start, although I don't understand school starting before 9:00 period. From what I've seen and remember it's not the bed times it's that most teens are wired to be night owls. Seems that kids are in school much longer and learn less than back in the dark ages when I was in school.

I wonder if there's an argument for varying start times. For example, most schools have more than one classroom for each grade. Could one class start earlier, say 8:30, and another start later, say 10:00? With so many working-parent households, some flexibility in all aspects of our lives is called for. I can see the issues with this plan, such as buses, special/gifted ed accommodations, staffing beyond faculty, cost of extended food service hours if the school has a cafeteria (and if the lunchroom is also the gym).

The other discussion going on here is the length of the school day. My elementary kids were in school about the same number of hours in the 2000s as I was back in the 60s, but they had ONE break: a 40-minute lunch/recess. I had an hour for lunch, plus two 15-minute recesses. Yet, my generation developed a lot of the modern technology and medical advances we take advantage of today. Not saying there's a connection, but I sure did like going home for lunch.

Our high school recently pushed back their start time, and I think one of the biggest advantages was the kids not standing in the dark waiting for the school bus at 6:50.

Being older than the bog. When I was in grade school for the first six years we went from 8 until 3:30. The last two years were an hour longer to 4:30. We changed from an 8 month school to a 9 month one the last two years. High School started at 7:45 and ended at either 3:30 or 4. The longer class times allowed the teachers more time to teach and actually answer questions about the subjects. Having longer times would be a hardship on things like athletic activities and the teachers would have less time for the things that they have to do after school such as grading papers. There are several questions about schooling such as what times are best for absorption of knowledge but some people are always on a different functioning schedule than others. When people complain about the long days that students currently have I wonder if they would rather have the students educated more completely or worry about what to do with the students before or after school.

Yes, I can see that later school start/finish time would definitely not work well for some people. Jemdandy, you are an example of how changing things would only be detrimental.

Arcy, I've heard and agree with the studies that report that morning hours are the best time for children to learn. That is probably the major reason that schools do usually start between 8 and 9:00.

The Elementary School (where I worked in the Before/After school Daycare) started school at 9:00. Most parents dropped their children off in the Daycare before 7:30, because they had a long commute from the suburbs into Toronto, where most of them worked. They probably left their jobs around 5:00, as they picked their kids up from the Daycare around 6:15. So these young children spent average of over 11 hours in our school, by the time they were picked up. They were much more upset about having to stay in the Daycare from 3:30 until 6:15, than about the hour and half they spent there before school.

Maybe it was because our Daycare provided breakfast, so parents who had to leave early for work didn't have to wake up their child in enough time to feed them breakfast, if they had a grumbly morning waker. We also had 2 rooms. The sleepy little ones would go to the 'lights off room' with one of us, and lie on their mats, while the older kids stayed in the other room and could do activities with the other Supervisor. So at least they had the chance to nap before school started at 9. But I guess there's too much variation in parents' work hours, distances to drive, school start/finish hours as it is, then to mess with what's been done for years!

In our district, kids are out of school by 2pm. I've gotten very use to this over the past 7 years. We get a lot done in the afternoon hours, even though that means that we have to be up early (DD currently gets up around 6:15, though school doesn't start until 8-- we all have a very hard time getting going here, so start earlier than some) and we go to bed early too. We get a lot of use out of the afternoon daylight. Though I'm a SAHM, working parents in our area have such varied work schedules, there probably isn't one schedule that is predominantly good for most people here.

We heard recently that our state has passed a law to go into effect in a few years, that schools can't start until something like 8:30. DD loved that until she realized it meant later school hours and a shorter afternoon. By the time it takes effect, she will only have a few years of grade school left.

I'm of the opposite mind. As most younger children learn better in the morning and most teenagers are the opposite, why not reverse the schedules? Let the elementary age children begin classes by 8:00 am (that's our start time for the middle/high schoolers in our town now) and have the older kids start at 9:15. The younger ones would then be in daycare, if necessary, when they are more tired and less able to learn.

Bold steps should be taken to try to improve the otherwise very mediocre school systems we have around the country. Even the ones people think are decent are often lackluster when looking at their outcomes.

Let's give a significant boost to public school funding at all levels - federal, state and local. Let's spend that money to skyrocket teacher salaries, so that entering the teaching profession doesn't involve such a large personal financial sacrifice as it does now. Paying market rate salaries will allow schools to attract a better caliber of college graduates. Those who are more accomplished, academically and otherwise, are more likely to become excellent and inspirational teachers. (In too many cases today, low paying teaching jobs attract those who are uncompetitive for better jobs. You get what you pay for.).

Let's make teachers subject to performance assessments like in the private sector and dismiss the laggards. Offer incentive pay for boosting class performance metrics.

School hours? Eh, unlikely to have a big impact.

I do not know about how teachers are taught now but I attended what had many students in that field. Being female and under 23 the requirement was dorm or live out of the town so I lived in the dorm except for the last year when it was changed to 21. I had lots of interaction with prospective teachers and two elementary ed major roommates. Most of their classes were on how to prepare lesson plans. Of the classes that my roommates took the one that they had to evaluate books for various age groups was probably the only one that I saw that did not repeat what all of the other classes taught. Repetition is good but not for almost every class. Things have probably changed and some on here can provide the types of non-education classes that are now normal for teachers to take. At that time late 60's early 70's most of the education in other fields like history, math, science were through general education subjects. We were on the quarter system but you could be certified to teach a subject with only 9 hours which for that school meant three classes in any subject for lower grades. Upper grades needed three more hours. It was only through independent study or using advanced classes rather than teaching classes as electives that someone interested in a topic would learn more.

Even sadder many of the departments only had graduates of the school as their instructors.

There's a program run by a non-profit called Teach for America. It recruits graduates with non-teaching majors at top universities to commit to a 2 year teaching contract at mostly inner-city, minority neighborhood schools. Through the program, participants can enjoy loan payment delays, loan forgiveness programs of various kinds, and get exposed to working as teachers.

The goal is to get this supercharged talent into lagging schools and, hopefully, to convince at least some percentage of participants to consider a career in teaching at the end of their 2 year contracts. A science major friend of one of my kids did the program and that led to later graduate studies and a career in education administration. For another kid, also at a top school, TFA had become so popular that the competition for the limited slots was more intense for the BA/BS grads than for the higher paying Wall Street jobs. That kid has several friends from their own health doctoral programs who spent two years after their undergrad degrees doing TFA.

A great program that needs to be bigger.

I would have liked that when my kids were young. But not that late of a start, maybe 9:30am. The biggest problem I see is all the all school activities kids are in, they would be home even later than they are now.

Elmer - are you aware of what the typical salary for a public school teacher is? Hint it's higher that a private university professors (with a PhD) salary.

More money is spent per student than when I was in school and the quality of teaching is much lower. So how is money the solution?

"Elmer - are you aware of what the typical salary for a public school teacher is? Hint it's higher that a private university professors (with a PhD) salary."

Yes. I am very aware and your statement isn't correct. We have many friends and family members in academia.

What may skew your view is that many universities make extensive use of non-tenure track "adjunct" professors, especially for undergrad courses. Sometimes, as many as half the undergrad (and usually lower division) courses are taught by such part-times. Essentially, they're qualified university level instructors (many with the same creds and PhDs as the core faculty) who are hired on a non-permanent, per-course basis as outside contractors. The pay is poor and in urban areas, those working as adjuncts may need to have gigs at multiple universities each term to make enough money to live on. Tenure track assistant/associate professors at public and the more successful private schools in my area are in the $60-90K salary range (the info for public institutions is usually available online). Profs with tenure can be at $100K+, depending on years of service, administrative responsibilities, income supplements (that can be substantial) as from research grants for those in the sciences, etc. Also, there's a glut of PhDs in many fields, especially the humanities, and any job opening attracts a flood of applicants. Less prominent schools don't need to pay big bucks to fill their faculty slots and more prominent ones do so to attract top talent.

K-12 teachers in my area are typically in the $40K-$75K range, increasing with years of service and additional college credits and degrees earned post-graduation. I served on the board of a successful private school and we used to benchmark our salaries by comparing to the scales of local public districts, so this is something I'm well informed about.

"More money is spent per student than when I was in school and the quality of teaching is much lower. So how is money the solution?"

College grads from better schools and with better than average credentials can get much higher paying jobs than what's offered to school teachers, if that's what they choose to do. Also, more students than ever go to grad school these days for advanced study in academic fields, not in education. These advanced degrees similarly qualify such individuals for more desirable and better paying jobs than teachers get.

In my experience and that of family members who teach in public schools, the quality level (at least in my area) of the average public school teacher isn't high. Salaries offered beginning teachers aren't competitive in the job market. Some become teachers because it's their passion. That's great. Too many others go into it because it's a job their middling' qualifications nonetheless can open a door to.

Higher pay attracts better qualified job applicants. That's true in any field. And lower pay attracts less qualified ones. That's too often what the schools systems get.

Elmer, I too have family member in academia, maybe I am or have even been a professor myself . The ranges that you quote would be for ivy league schools not the typical University of "name your state". I'm talking about full time professors with PhDs not adjuncts. None of the coworkers at the respective universities of these professors is making 100K, not even close. In thinking about it, I know a department head that doesn't even come close.

In the state that I live in the minimum pay for K-12 is 45K. You may know about the K-12 range but not the university level.

California has a two-tier college system. The U of C system would be considered "research institutions", and includes two top-25 rated schools (UCLA and UC-Berkeley) and other campuses in the Top 50. Admission is very selective, by law it's the top 12 % of high school graduates. Acceptance rates at the better campuses are under 15%.

The California State University system, CSU, is the lower tier. Mostly non-research, much less state funding (although it's much bigger and has many more campuses than UC), very high acceptance rates (maybe over 75%), this is the system that educates the masses and turns out a lot of school teachers. Here's a page from CSU's own website that says tenured profs average $133K, associates $112K, etc. UC salaries are higher and, as I said, supplemented to higher levels for those who get research grants. It's all public info, there are state websites to see who makes what.

CSU average salaries for professor

Oh Elmer, you don't always know of what you speak. I'm a sub in a small-ish district and most of the teachers do a great job; none is terrible. I know you don't realize it, but often your posts are a little....hmmm....they show your income level and background, which is biased.

Raye, our income levels in the Bay Area are generally quite a bit higher to compensate for our VERY high housing (and other---gas!) costs.

One of my daughters participated in TFA and it was a fantastic experience. She continued to teach for a few more years, one in a very difficult school which had just lost much of its administration. She went back to school and is currently working in the public policy area, with an emphasis on education which she gained while teaching.

"I'm a sub in a small-ish district and most of the teachers do a great job; none is terrible."

Shouldn't they all be good or better? To say "none is terrible" is hardly an endorsement.

My two relatives in teaching, one full time and one a mom who works part-time as a sub, work for different districts but both with lower socioeconomic and minority group kids. Both bemoan the apparent capability limits of too many of their peers. The administrators, more a mixed bag, some good, some not.

The one who subs, in particular, is the go-to for a couple of full-timers in the district and she always has stories of their shortcomings as teachers and how they stick her with doing lessons they feel inadequate with, on days they're absent. She's appalled by what she sees of what these teachers do and don't do, and what she sees from too many others as well.

We've tried the system we have, underpaying teachers and under-recruiting from the ranks of college grads, and the low achievement of our K-12 students is apparent. Let's try something different, higher pay for better qualified career entrants, and see if it makes a difference. The only thing we have to lose is from continuing with the failing practices we have now.

I hate cliches but sometimes they apply. A version of "a chain is a strong as its weakest link" is that "the effectiveness of public education is measured by and improved by assessing and raising the achievements of students at the bottom of the bell curves, not by looking at those at the top". We don't need more computer labs, AP classes and IB programs, instead we need more reading, writing, and 'rithmatic. And vocational training for those interested in that instead of academics.

Elmer, sjern hit the nail on the head, salaries in California don't align with the rest of the country. Try cutting those numbers by more than half to get what profs in other states earn. In many states that puts K-12 teachers easily earning more than higher education professors.

This problem of poor teaching isn't cured by higher pay. Basically the education system designed over a century ago is no longer functioning well. The paradigm of students scheduled meetings at specified times and locations is too difficult for many of today's parents. Something is wrong when children have to be in daycare for hours at the time.

Don't get me wrong, I think all teachers (except at some very exclusive schools,) are woefully underpaid. It truly is a hardship to try to survive in this area on a teacher's paycheck. Elmer, in which organization do you find all the employees very good/excellent? I just get the overall feeling you think most teachers aren't too bright and don't really like to work too hard. Nothing could be further from the truth.

raye, the cost of living in many inland stretches of California (where lots of people live) is much lower, comparable to many "lower than California" places around the US. Teacher salaries (other than in poor districts) and CSU salaries in those areas are similar to what they are in the more coastal/urban areas.

As I said in an earlier comment in this thread, there's a glut of PhDs in many subject areas (especially outside of STEM subjects) and that's been the case for 30+ years. Any advertised opening gets flooded with applicants, even in less desirable areas and at less desirable institutions. Higher salaries are generally not necessary for these places because some are happy to get a job at any salary. You mentioned University of (name your state) and a lot of these institutions are not in high demand for more accomplished job seekers, except those anxious for any job at any school. Many of those University of or X State schools aren't very good and many have not so whizbang students too.

sjerin, I agree with you, teacher salaries are inadequate in the Bay Area and SoCal for other than two working couple situations and even then, it can be a struggle without other (ie family) sources of support.

My perspective comes from having children in schools and years of knowing people in and out of K-12 teaching, including those who enter because it's one of few choices for their poor academic records/abilities, those who remain, and those who leave because they can do better financially in other occupations and get frustrated with the environment. Many who stay have limited or few alternatives.

In any work environment where someone describes their co-workers by saying "none is terrible", something is very wrong. In public schools, hands are tied because of the teachers' unions. That would be another good place to start to improve teacher ranks, loosen up lifetime job tenure. It's an anachronism in today's world.

We can disagree.

It wouldn't have mattered for me. I worked nightshift, 12 hours when my kids were young.

Adding to Raye Smith's commentary to say that today's teachers no longer are allowed to bring some of their very valuable skills to the classroom. They have to teach by the book. During my school days teachers were allowed to share their special gifts. One had a love of music, another of art and extra time was set aside for those things. They are too busy spending a great part of their day having to play the role of social workers and having to focus far too much attention on students whose classroom behavior and/or readiness to learn would not be tolerated in the past.

DGD is in a school where both principal and most teachers believe in older values and actually try to put early childhood develop practices into play. But even for them it is very difficult due to crazy state mandates made up by people who seem to be far removed from the real world in the classroom of today.

If she lived in my city and couldn't make it into a good charter school (rare here) she would have been home schooled. It's that bad in many California school districts. I can't speak for the rest of the nation.

Elmer, my daughter did Teach for America after College. She taught Science to about a hundred 7th graders (her majors were Neuroscience and German) in Connecticut. She is usually a very happy, easy going girl, but these two years were more than enough. I don’t think most of these young, fresh out of College kids are cut out for this. Not that she didn’t work hard, starting a gardening club and such after hours. She got her phone stolen, car broken into among other things. Sad thing is that she saw a lot of potential in some of these kids.

Good for her, Iris. Same for you, sjerin. Much for you and other parents to be proud of. These TFA experiences are so valuable for these young grads and for our country than some of the things people do abroad (including the military). Too bad we can't expand the numbers significantly.

Elmer - quote "Higher salaries are generally not necessary for these places because some are happy to get a job at any salary. You mentioned University of (name your state) and a lot of these
institutions are not in high demand for more accomplished job seekers,
except those anxious for any job at any school. Many of those University
of or X State schools aren't very good and many have not so whizbang
students too."

WOW! You just insulted a large portion of people here that have graduated or teach at one of those schools. Is it your elitist opinion that only ivy league or California universities are any good?

Thank you for your responses. Since the thread has now drifted to different aspects of teaching, I'll contribute to that focus. Canadians are always reading and hearing about teacher's salaries in the U.S. being very poor. I don't really know what 'poor' means, and how much it varies in different areas.

But when my DD was in grade 11 (14 years ago) her teacher mentioned once that he made over 90K per year. He said that most teachers with his tenure made significantly lower, but he had taken many upgrade courses to enhance his skills. I don't know why he would disclose that info to his students, but she said they were talking about career planning. I was astonished to hear that figure, and don't know if it was true or not, considering that was 14 years ago.

However, the teachers here in Ontario do get paid quite well, and have excellent benefits and pensions. My neighbour's daughter, who is a Kindergarten teacher, started 3 years ago with no experience, at 41K, which is the lowest on the pay scale. Apparently the teachers here can earn up to 96K, but the majority earn in the 60K's. It's understandable here that teaching is a vocation flooded with unemployed teachers, because so many are competing for any open positions.

I was a school board member of a large suburban school district. We had many teachers who earned over $100,000 annually. They achieved that salary by having a doctorate as well as taking on other paid duties on top of their teaching day such as department chairman, teaching an additional class in high school or junior high beyond the 5 classes maximum, being the GATE coordinator, coaching, teaching summer school, etc.

Let me tactfully point out that an income in the mid $60 thousand range is merely making a living. People operating heavy equipment can easily make more and that requires no education at all let alone expensive masters degrees. We have to keep up with how much money isn't much money in This day and age.

Before I get jumped on for dismissing heavy equipment operators, that is a skill. A valuable and important skill but not an educational one. We expect teachers to not only invest heavily in education but they also need to be able to teach. Considering that their ability to do so means so much to our collective children and culture it is amazing that we do not pay better for that.

"Is it your elitist opinion that only ivy league or California universities are any good?"

My opinion isn't elitist and no, what you've stated isn't what I said. You seem to have read my comments incompletely. That's fine with me but I think that's why you misunderstood much of what I said.

Nope, not misquoted when I directly copy & pasted. And yes, your comments are those of an elitist, as you put it state of x schools aren't good and have poor students. There really isn't any other way to interprate that.

I'll ignore your childish name calling.

For the benefit of others, if you want to compare schools, take a look at the annual US News rankings. It's not without its critics, and there are shortcomings in its methodology, but it provides one set of measures/assessments that can be used as an indication. Those engaged in looking at college choices for accomplished students know or can access what the Top 25 colleges are with this or other sources. The US News report is really more interesting and useful for most people when looking at public institutions and also looking at the middle of the ranges to see whether a particular school of interest is viewed as more or less accomplished compared to its similar peers and alternative choices. Those ranked near the bottom are usually there for good reasons and tend to stay low on the lists year after year.

To do your own quick look, consider the following data points in comparing schools. This info is readily available (including from the US News site):

Acceptance rate - lower is better. It suggests the school is in demand but they're picky about who they want. Does the school take all applicants or is acceptance selective? Schools with higher acceptance rates arguably have diluted talent pools and less capable students, overall. That can adversely affect the educational experience for more capable students.

As an example but not the only one, take a look at the traditionally very large Big 10 and similar schools. The ones that are state institutions with very high acceptance rates. Most of these schools have Honors colleges or Honors programs so that the better students can have more advanced courses and more capable peer groups in their classes, as would be the case at a school with more selective admissions.

Retention rate- How many freshmen return for the sophomore year. Higher is better.

Graduation rate - What percentage of incoming freshmen complete their degrees within 4 or 6 years. Higher is better. While life happens and some students choose or need to drop out or discontinue their studies, lower percentages suggests admittance of students not capable of completing a degree program. Or, schools offering less than stellar programs that fail to complete an educational cycle with the vast majority of its existing students.

Elmer - maybe your are unaware of the definition of elitist. It is defined as "a person who believes that they are superior to others (and thus deserve favored status) because of their intellect, social status, wealth, or other factors". Sjerin hit the nail on the head when they said that your posts reveal your income level and background, which is biased and many would label elitist.

My premise is that K-12 teachers do not need higher salaries to be better teachers because the salaries of K-12 teachers is higher than those of an average full-time university professor with a PhD. This includes professors at your typical university of X. These professors are required to obtain higher educational levels and have a greater level of knowledge than the K-12 teacher, typical reasons why one would expect a higher pay scale.

Your premise appears to be that the salaries of K-12 teachers deserve a raise as their salaries should only be compared with a select set of universities that have higher than typical salaries for their professors. Professors that are not at these elite universities are not worthy of inclusion in a comparison of K-12 teachers to university professors salary levels from what I read of your posts.

FInd something else to do today, maybe you can find a little kid or a dog to be impolite to. My interest in helping you is about the same as your interest in reading and understanding what I said. Done.

Goodbye Elmer, the rest of us will enjoy having a pleasant discussion.

This sounds like spam, Kerem. :(

A brother in law of mine teaches in Connecticut, he and his wife were considering moving to Virginia (at my wife's urging) Upon looking (briefly) into teaching jobs in Virginia he found that in his current position with a Master's and with 12 years of experience he is already making substantially more than the absolute top end of the public school pay scale in Virginia for 25+ years and with a PhD

According to someone else here who taught at a smaller private school, they pay even less than the public schools do.

ETA sorry I didn't notice the date. Shame on Spammy Kerem for digging up an old thread just to spam it.

Elmer and I disagree on a LOT of things, but I'm with him on this.

Okay - I live in a LCOL area and I just looked up salaries in my state (flyover country!). In my cities public schools, salaries start at $42,000 and go up to $56,000 with no graduate work. Those with graduate degrees make from $72,000-$86,000 (a doctorate). Not a lot, but no one's starving. All are far more than my own late husband ever earned when he was teaching in independent schools (never as good a salary as pubic was).

I also looked up our local university, one of several in the state but NOT the "flagship" of my state. An Assistant Prof is $84,000; a Full Professor AVERAGE is $111,000 Those teaching in the medical school make MUCH more - most at least $300,000, but then they have further education.

As for starting times for schools: lots of interest in high school - even middle schools starting far later. Somehow today's students are more tired than they were when I was in high school - no bedtimes and lots of electronics. The problem with doing this is that it interferes with the busing schedule for younger students, and also would make after schools sports/jobs very difficult if school went until 5PM or so. Of course, this would mean staying up later to do homework, too!

It's the old "Indian blanket" thing - cutting off one end of the blanket and sewing it on the other to "make a longer blanket".

Pay levels whether in the public or private sector are affected by supply and demand, which in turn are affected in part (not exclusively) by an area's cost of living. Salaries for similar jobs in Washington DC or San Francisco are not going to be the same as similar positions in Biloxi and Emporia. Everything else being equal, the demands and the education/skill levels required or not required are also major factors.

It is how you say, anglo, for university faculty.

In particular, for health professional schools, there are at least two main types of paid faculty (I'm thinking of medical and dental schools), actually a few more too. One type is the faculty who teach and do research, or just do research. These types get the more typical faculty level professional school salaries (at most universities, even state ones, tenure track faculty have PhDs and that's not necessarily fewer years of education than an MD). The more productive researchers have external funding (as from the NIH, as an example) and these grants often provide supplemental earnings for them. These amounts, which can be material, are sometimes shown as included in "university paid salary", sometimes not.

The second type are clinical faculty. These are the ones who teach rather more in a patient facing setting to med students and interns/residents. As part or separate from their clinical teaching, these faculty members will see patients on certain days, or parts of certain days, or may even be the physician of record for those patients being seen by the "students". Practicing medicine even half time pays much more than teaching half time and those with the kind of number you cite most certainly include fees from patient services, not unlike what a doc in a group or private practice would have.

Professional health schools also have what are called Adjunct Clinical instructors or other names - these are very part timers - sometimes a day a week, or one a month or less, who often volunteer their time because they find it fun and also as their contribution to the next generation of their profession.

The fact is that the very essence of the organization of such a time period for learning is not true. It is difficult for children to learn for so long. That is why they do not assimilate the material and study poorly or without interest. We must take an example from the Finnish schools. There are no such loads but education is recognized as the best. And the processes of obtaining scientific degrees of protection of the magistracy and other regalia, we are quite complex. and as for academic writing, then it is worth thinking further.