I think comparing the costs between the 5 year olds in our daycare and the 6 year olds entering first grade is entirely fair.

Our daycare gets more expensive as the child ages - not less.

> The person taking care of a baby (or 4 babies) might need to be much less qualified than an AP physics teacher in high school, but the labor (and liability) costs do not necessarily scale exactly with the minimum qualifications needed to be an AP physics teacher versus a daycare teacher.

And this - this is exactly what I'm contesting. Why is it we're ok paying someone who should be able to teach complex and technical skills to children (high school physics) barely more than a high school grad who is only qualified to tend to infants? Worse - why do we let class sizes balloon to the point where one-on-one interactions are incredibly hard?

One requires considerably more skills, considerably more education, and frankly much more work (and I'm not talking about the one tending the infants). Yet they're expected to effectively teach class sizes of between 25 and 32 (which is the technical max for the state - but I've frequently seen this balloon as high as 45)

Yet the daycare worker is making almost the rate of an intro physics teacher (17/h vs 19/h). And the very top most earners are making only 30/h. Being a manager at a McDonalds is FAR more lucrative (avg of 98k vs the avg physics teacher in GA at 43k). That should be a giant fucking red flag.

The numbers aren't even that far off - There are ~500 McDonalds locations in GA, and ~525 public high schools. Each McDonalds location has ~3 managers (shift manager, assistant manager, store manager) And they all make more than intro physics teachers. (from 50k to ~100k)

When flipping burgers is literally more lucrative... I fail to be compelled by your argument.

>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.

>For comparison - we currently pay more per year to keep our 1 year old child in daycare (roughly ~15,000/yr)

>I think comparing the costs between the 5 year olds in our daycare and the 6 year olds entering first grade is entirely fair.

Which is it, you're paying for a 1 year old or a 5 year old? What daycare do you go to that 5 year olds pay the same rate as an infant?

What would be "fair" is to not lie, and be truthful and say your original comment was comparing an infant (or 1 y/o) to school child, and not play switch-a-roo to now say we're talking about 5 year olds which in most states requires something like 1/3 the number of caregivers per child as a 1 year old.

I'm paying for a 1 year old - I have access to the full payment info as they age... Tuition is covered in the new parent hand book by year, and communicated yearly as it updates (the most recent was just this month - as they mirror the back to school dates for our county).

I really don't know what it is you think you're pulling with this bullshit: > "What would be "fair" is to not lie".

I think it would be fair to tell you to bugger off.