Quote Originally Posted by Pete View Post
You are more than welcome to hang on to second-hand, general anecdotal evidence versus hard data published by the districts and government.

I'm not so much arguing with you as putting this information out for anyone who may actually be open to learning and maybe even challenging some long-held assumptions, as I did for the first time about 10 years ago.
I note that you are correct that some of the suburban districts pay a twitch more, but I take exception to your comment. I provided direct, actual salary information from the school districts. This is the hardest data provided for this discussion. Did you look at the salary data I provided from the Edmond and OKC school districts?

I think you may be holding on to information that is easily obtained, such as the wage study you cited earlier in the thread. The study that suggests teachers make $44k a year. It doesn't tell much of the story.

Looking at the "hard data" that I provided tells a different story. You can rack up tons of student loan debt for a job that after 10 years and a masters degree doesn't even pay $40k. The lazy way out of this is just to throw up one's hands and say, "Those teachers don't have it so bad." Also, you cite the anecdotal evidence of having worked with teachers in the LA school system. While I think this is great and I would like to learn more about your experience, it doesn't relate to the topic at hand, which is that Oklahoma has a teacher shortage.