If a teacher has five hour long classes per day with 30 students per class—elementary teacher, same 30 students for the five hours of school each day– in a day, the teacher teaches 150 students or 150 student hours per day.  If paid $5 per student, the teacher would earn 150x$5= $750 per day.  The mandatory number of days students must attend school in the county where I live is 180 days, a figure common across the country.  So, 180 days x $750 per day = $135,000, the amount teacher would be paid at the rate of $5 per student per hour.  This seems to me to be a real bargain.  And, even if you payed them at the rate of $2.50 per student hour, teachers most teachers would be getting payed more than they are now and the idea of education, the going rate of $2.50 per hour per student nothing short of barbaric.

According to a recent USA Today article, babysitters make an average of $10 per hour sitting for one child (higher in places with higher cost of living).  A teacher teaching 150 students hours a day, at babysitter rates, would earn $270,000 a year.

My preference would be to cut the number of student hours per day so that teachers had teachable numbers in their classrooms so, with 15 students per class at the most reasonable rate of $10 per student hour, a teacher’s salary (baseline) would be about $135,000 per year.

Good numbers of teachers teach six hours a day and a good number, too, having teaching loads that exceed 150 student hours per day.  One teacher I know has an average class load of 40 students per day and teaches six hours each day.  He is not alone.  His situation is truly untenable and his students cannot possibly be getting from his classes all they should be getting.  He knows this and tells me that he feels both frustration and shame because he knows his students deserve more than they are getting.

According to Nevada’s Department of Personnel, the salary range for teachers is $44,411 to $66,001. The Department of Education reports the average salary for a Nevada certified teacher is $52,012.