>Our daycare gets more expensive as the child ages - not less.
I have shopped around daycares on east and west coast, and I have never encountered this type of pricing. Infants have always been more expensive than toddlers and pre K in at least 10 to 15 daycares I have priced.
I also do not see the purpose of comparing prices for different prices of labor for justifying the prices.
Physics teachers may very well need to be paid more to attract enough people to meet the desired teacher student ratios and quality of teacher , but it has nothing to do with how much daycare teachers are paid. It just depends on supply and demand of that particular type of labor or service, hence the futility of comparing per student costs of daycare and high schools.
> I also do not see the purpose of comparing prices for different prices of labor for justifying the prices.
Then you're unable to see that market forces are making it incredibly unattractive to be a teacher.
The comparison is to point out the following: Why bother to take loans for college, then complete the additional certifications required for teaching, only to spend more effort at a career that will pay you considerably less well than simply working as a McDonalds manager? And seriously, my mom taught for 48 years - McDonalds manager is an easy job compared to handling 32 kids a class, for 5 classes, and their ~320 some parents (seriously - the parents are usually the pain).
You could have instead spent 4 years generating income roughly equivalent of the same job, spent no money on school, and end up making far more by just going the corporate McDonald's route - not even discussing the "buy your own class decorations bullshit", or the hours lesson planning and grading, or the certification required once every three years to stay current.
This has EVERYTHING to do with how much other professions are getting paid - it's just become incredibly clear we don't value or respect teaching - so why fucking do it?
And that's my point with the daycare workers - it's objectively an easier job, with less education and certification requirements, that also lets you work with kids, and pays almost the same as intro physics teacher. Why wouldn't people choose that instead? Love of physics is bullshit - that's not enough, it has to be genuine respect and the compensation that follows. And that clearly isn't happening.
So we can argue about why that isn't happening, but "nobody wants to teach anymore" is because teaching has become a fucking terrible, shite, job. No fucking duh no one wants to teach anymore.
So 13k per kid clearly isn't getting enough money to the people we need. You can claim that's due to inefficiencies in the system, but given that we pay more for a daycare that pays roughly the same... I suspect we're just genuinely not paying enough - although at least we could have a fair discussion around how that money for each child is allocated.
For comparison - the well known private schools in our area (Paideia, Woodward, Lovett, Galloway, Westminster, etc) all charge at least 22k per student, and many go as high as 36k for high school.
And that's with an expectation that parents are more available and involved.
>Then you're unable to see that market forces are making it incredibly unattractive to be a teacher.
Note that I agree with your statement of teachers not getting sufficient pay relative to quality of life at work. I even think this is true up and down, from daycare to physics high school.
I disagree with the chain of reasoning to support this view, however. You cannot derive this conclusion by looking at the price of daycare.
My claim is that the only thing you need to claim the price is too low for a product or service, is the lack of existence of said product or service given that it is not technologically impossible or such a rare talent or otherwise subject to forces of nature that affect its supply/demand. Which teachers generally are not.
And it is not just price that is too low, it is always price relative to quality of the product/service, or in this case, wages relative to quality of life at work (like having to deal with cumbersome admin, rude children, and entitled parents).
>For comparison - the well known private schools in our area (Paideia, Woodward, Lovett, Galloway, Westminster, etc) all charge at least 22k per student, and many go as high as 36k for high school.
But what are teachers getting paid? The point of my initial response to you was that you cannot compare annual tuition for daycare or private high schools and determine which are appropriate prices. Staffing ratios, liability insurance costs, there are a myriad factors that render this line of thinking erroneous.
> The point of my initial response to you was that you cannot compare annual tuition for daycare or private high schools and determine which are appropriate prices. Staffing ratios, liability insurance costs, there are a myriad factors that render this line of thinking erroneous.
So I guess turn the question on its head - What makes you believe 13k is enough?
When the only viable comparisons we have in my area strongly hint that this is underpaying - both daycare and private schools are relatively close in terms of services provided, and they both cost more.
You've made a claim - I'm saying I don't really believe it. I've pointed to plenty of examples of why I don't believe it, but you've done nothing but attack those methods.
So, genuinely, what makes you think 13k/yr per kid is enough, what's the reasoning behind your argument?
>What makes you believe 13k is enough?
>You've made a claim
I have not made a claim about which cost is "enough" or appropriate. My only claim was that comparing the price for different products/services is not sufficient to conclude whether the price should be raised or lowered.
If anything, I wrote that I agree with your premise:
>Note that I agree with your statement of teachers not getting sufficient pay relative to quality of life at work.
Are current class sizes small enough? Are the teachers for the current classes sufficiently qualified? Can anything be done to increase quality of life for teachers? These are questions that would answer whether or not the cost is sufficient or not.
How much is enough? People can barely afford to pay rent right now, and in most places property taxes (and thus rent) are a major source of funding of the schools. We need to make schools more efficient with their funding rather than making people homeless via raising their rent. If part of that is eliminating administrators and a football stadium to pay teachers more have at it.
I have shopped around daycares on east and west coast, and I have never encountered this type of pricing. Infants have always been more expensive than toddlers and pre K in at least 10 to 15 daycares I have priced.
I also do not see the purpose of comparing prices for different prices of labor for justifying the prices.
Physics teachers may very well need to be paid more to attract enough people to meet the desired teacher student ratios and quality of teacher , but it has nothing to do with how much daycare teachers are paid. It just depends on supply and demand of that particular type of labor or service, hence the futility of comparing per student costs of daycare and high schools.