Much of American society seems to be unhappy with the level of teacher compensation. I can appreciate that. I make about $65,000 a year (with coaching, but coaching is a very small piece of the salary) and get summers off. Although lots of people make more than me, lots of people don't, and most work more days per year (my contract is 185 days per year, where most in the private sector work close to 240 days). Contractually, I need to be on campus 20 minutes before the start of the school day and 20 minutes after the day ends. That makes my required work day 7:41 AM to 3:20 PM. That's 7 hours and 39 minutes with a 35 minute lunch break. We have a 6 minute passing period, but I don't consider it a break as that time is spent transitioning from one class to the next. This often involves erasing items from the board and putting up information necessary to get the next class started. Students often come in early or stay late to explain an individual circumstance, ask for some kind of clarification, make and excuse, ask for permission, or some other individual need that has to be dealt with.
Personally, I get to my classroom at 7:15 AM and because we have practice after school, that takes care of the 20 minutes after the last bell and then some. I am not the first one there in the morning, but there are certainly teachers who do not live up to their contracted arrival time and no one is ever disciplined for that. I am contractually and legally required to attend meetings for special needs students that go outside of the normal hours (if they are in the morning it doesn't add much to the day as they start at 7:30, but the afternoon ones might keep me until 4 PM because those are usually the more needy students). Because I teach a few classes of predominantly special needs students I have about 40 of these meetings per year. At the same time, I am never required to go to PTA meetings or school board meetings and as such have never been to one.
Our class periods are 57 minutes and one of those periods is a planning/preparation period. I consider this part of my work time as it is not a break. I am doing work. I usually spend about 15 minutes of it entering the previous night's homework into the computer, so that students can see how that assignment has impacted their grade by the time they get home that night. That particular task is manual labor, but it has to be done at some point. I usually follow that by updating my homework calendar online so that students can see what they need to do that night in case they did not write it down in class. Then I will change the classroom board to reflect the next day's assignment. All of that might take another 5 minutes. What happens next depends on what is coming up over the next several days. I will review my notes for my next lessons and probably make updates based on what happened that day (unless I was lucky enough/good enough to be exactly where I wanted to be and have the kids understand exactly what I thought they would before giving the lesson). I might spend the remaining time gathering materials or if I'm lucky enough to have time, grading a previous test or quiz.
The job would be a much more pleasant one if it weren't for grading. I teach intermediate algebra and a remedial version of intermediate algebra. Tests are generally 3-4 pages. In the intermediate algebra classes, I have 91 total students in 3 classes and in the remedial classes I have about 55 students in 2 classes. If I test the algebra 2 students, that means 273 pages of grading (my multiplication skills at work). Between checking answers, identifying causes of mistakes in their work (besides my own ineffective teaching you letsrun.com smart asses), and providing relative feedback, I am probably giving about a minute per page, which makes the process a 4 and a half hour process. That is almost all of my preparation period for an entire week, and if I test both classes in the same week, forget it. So this is how the job spills over into unscheduled time.
Lots of good points both ways here, but one fallacy I saw on an earlier page was the idea that teachers are trying to label students special needs. This is a parent led effort, at least in California. Obviously those who are diagnosed as learning or physically disabled would have some special provisions in their learning plan, but we also have another kind of plan for non diagnosed students which must be honored at a simple parent request. This does not mean that the student can have whatever he or she wants simply because a student asks, but it almost does. At a parent's request we have to meet to discuss what might help a student in his or her classes and recent rulings against school districts has led to a lot of pressure for schools to cave, even where it is probably unnecessary. So I agree that this is costing states a lot of money, but I disagree with the source of that cost.
I also see the value of standardized testing and believe that this could be a value shared by families. I do not believe that our current system allows for this though and needs more fixing. Right now, students have to take either the SAT or ACT for college admission (required by most colleges anyway). Those tests are expensive and the money that people spend to prepare their kids is so much more. All of the test prep out there gives some kids (like the ones in my district) a ridiculous advantage over those who can't afford it. There is no way to completely nullify this, but what if every student in the country was taking the same test at the end of the year. Maybe they take tests every three years (so after 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th grades) and records are kept. Colleges would now have multiple data points to look at could compare scores nationally, but also sort results to compare against peers at the same school, in the same state, in the same socioeconomic class if the data was provided, and many other filters. That sort of system seems like it would be valuable to me, but would have to come from the federal level. Maybe the money saved on SAT/ACT prep would eventually cover the cost of implementation.
Ultimately, society has to decide what level of professionals it wants to have as teachers. Coming out of college, I had a choice. My degree was in economics and was from a good school. I chose teaching. In my first few years, I barely survived the layoffs, but never lost sleep over it. I joked that they were threatening me into taking a raise in the private sector. Now the economy has bounced back and my job is safe. I may have chosen to be a teacher if my salary was a little lower, but there were plenty of districts that I ruled out from the start because the pay was below my threshold. I was dumb about benefits when I first started (shouldn't have been with an econ degree, but I was) and that probably wouldn't have changed my decision. There are some very smart people who would have been teachers no matter what because they were determined to do that and definitely some very good teachers who didn't seem like they would have been that good until they got started and didn't really have any other options. At the end of the day though, when you take something off the table relative to all other jobs, you are going to lose people who would have chosen to be teachers who will now choose another career path. Generally, those are going to be your most qualified people, because those are the ones with options. Those people will be replaced by people with less qualifications because now they are able to be hired. Conversely, when you sweeten the pot, you will get more people who will decide that teaching is a worthwhile choice, thus driving out the lower quality applicants. People just have to decide where the right level is. Right now there is a loud clamoring that the current level is too high. Is that a majority or just a super loud minority? I don't know. That's what elections are for. As long as there is an understanding that decreasing pay and benefits will come with a loss of quality, that's fine.
By the way, I have tenure, but I hate tenure. There are people in every profession who are bad at their job and somehow manage to hang around. But some teachers clearly get lazy when they get tenure and there's nothing that can be done about it. I think that number is smaller than public perception, but we should be able to get rid of those people.