Pay varies significantly between different states and cities.
There are elementary school teachers in San Francisco whose total pay and benefits in 2023 were $150k or more:
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Eld%20C...
And to compare those salaries to other jobs, you have to consider:
- the typical academic achievement of those teachers and the alternative roles available to them, and
- the fact that in another role they would have to work 25% more (50 weeks per year instead of 40 weeks per year)
In 2025 San Francisco we have ads on buses advertising low income housing to people making less than $185k/year.
So a primary school teacher who is the sole breadwinner of a 4-person household will be eligible for housing support. That doesn't seem that outlandish. If anything it seems very much like a developed nation property. I grew up in the Third World: America is nothing like it. Even the ways it fails are not like the Third World.
My region’s version of that ad is just as ridiculous to 95% of the world.
However I do think the U.S. does have a lot of range, which does look really weird at times. You can cross a county line and suddenly the roads turn into an amusement park ride. I think that’s the main “whaaat?” That comes to mind when I’ve travelled there. Well, that and abandoned cars on the side of the road.
But, again, CoL isn't relevant when we're discussing whether a particular job has 'low pay'. My point was (and is) that teachers in San Francisco are well paid compared with people with similar academic achievement and similar capabilities in the same city. Even when you don't adjust for the number of weeks they work.
[0] Here are the 2025 110% AMI caps by household size from the City’s chart (gross income, before taxes):
1 person: $120,000
2 people: $137,150
3 people: $154,300
4 people: $171,450
5 people: $185,150 ← this is the "$185k*" you saw
6 people: $198,900
https://media.api.sf.gov/documents/2025_AMI-IncomeLimits-HMF...
Well it’s a little relevant when talking specific numbers. It’s hard to know if $number is high or low without some reference.
Thanks for clarifying the AMI stuff
It’s hard to know if $number is high or low without some reference.
Many people commute to San Francisco from other places in the Bay Area.
CoL isn't a concern that is unique to teachers. When discussing 'low pay' of a particular job, it's relevant to compare it with other jobs in the same location, which those same people might be able to get.
(Also - there is research (which I don't have time to dig up now) that shows public school teachers who leave teaching tend to earn the same or less in their new career.)
Of course it's not, which is exactly the point. In many places, low teacher pay is predicated on the fact that there are plenty of people willing to accept the low pay because there are plenty of people willing to accept the low pay. That's not true everywhere.
If you want to have teachers at your school, you have to pay them enough to live within commuting distance, subject not just to tolerance of the commute, but you're also in competition with all the communities also within commuting distance. In my experience, aside from usual teacher attrition, Bay Area teachers don't leave for a different career, they leave for a different location, and usually those places need teachers too.
Those numbers are marginally higher than the median individual income for someone with a bachelor's degree in San Francisco ($106.5k in 2023, according to some estimates). Even the best-paid teachers only get an average salary, while most are paid much less. And because it's San Francisco, that average salary is worth less than the average salary in an average location.
There are many conflicting estimates of the annual working hours of teachers. But according to most of them, teachers work more than the average full-time job.
the median individual income for someone with a bachelor's degree in San Francisco
you need to add benefits such as healthcare and employer matches to retirement contributions
If you compare base salary only, you're not comparing like with like. You get closer to comparing like with like if you compare SFUSD total comp with private sector current comp (base salary and bonus).
Comparisons should be based on the lifestyle the compensation enables rather than some abstract numbers. People generally have the greatest need for money when they are buying a home, starting a family, and raising kids. Money in hand today is much more valuable than mandatory retirement benefits you can only enjoy decades later.
The point was that teachers earn less than what they could get in other jobs in the same area.
People generally have the greatest need for money when they are buying a home...
But the state also steps in to pay for any shortfalls. So I think effectively pay less than a third of total contributions.
Personally, in my private sector job, my healthcare and retirement matching is more than the benefits amount for SFUSD, so excluding that is just ridiculous.
Nobody is getting 90% of their salary as a pension
Years of service * 2.4 % * final salary
In retirement, you would earn more than 90% of your final salary.
Personally, in my private sector job, my healthcare and retirement matching is more than the benefits amount for SFUSD, so excluding that is just ridiculous.
BUT for the arbitrary reason that it supports my argument, we are going to ignore any teachers that are getting 90% salary replacement, as a fair way to compensate for arbitrarily discarding all private sector benefits from the comparison. So I was right after all - nobody in the comparison group is getting 90% salary replacement.
Heh. I left teaching for three years to work in the private sector and the "25% more work" was honestly the best work life balance I've had in 20 years.
I know nothing about how your experience somewhere in Australia is similar or dissimilar. There may be differences in expectations, hours, compensation, job protections etc.
Perhaps a better analogy would be lab techs and lab rats. The students are the rats. They have a battery of experiments performed on them by lab techs (teachers) overseen by scientists (administration) who also determine which experiments to run. The problem is, what's being practiced is not really a science but a form of alchemy: how to determine a repeatable process to refine the lead of incoming children into the gold of model citizens who make all the right decisions according to the latest knowledge of what "right" is? (This was called "Outcome Based Education" in the 90s and "Social Emotional Learning" today.) The missing bit is that learning is an active process which requires involvement of the child.
But anyway, woe betide the lab tech who arrogates to perform the experiment in a manner not prescribed by their betters with Ph.D.s (say, in a way that's been shown to get results)!
Depends on where you teach. Some communities are much better than others.
I believe the majority of those reading this message have kids who respect their teachers (or if you had kids they would). You also live in an area where other kids respect their teachers if you have a choice (some of you don't, but if you have the choice and you will make that choice).
Near where I live there is an "inner city" school where the average teacher has been teaching for about 9 months - despite many teachers who have been there are 30 years. The typically teacher works just long enough to get some experience and then gets a job at a "suburban" school that pays less(!) but the students respect the teachers more.
> low-attention span of kids due to tech.
Kids have always been low attention span. Things are probably better than before because we have ADHD treatments that work that we just ignored in the past. Blaming tech is just the latest thing, but you can always find parents blaming low attention span on whatever the latest fad to blame it on is. Truth is kids are not really "designed" to sit in a classroom for hours every day - but it is still the best way we have to set them up for a modern life so we force it anyway.
Also when I was in school we didn't have smart phones, at least a slide phone with a full qwerty keyboard was the latest thing, can do a lot less than a full computer in your pocket/social media
Tangent hard work is not appreciated too because a project that took months to work on is condensed to a 3 min video as if it happened overnight, not worth attempting when seeing how hard something is to do/discouarging
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/podcasts/hardfork-educati...
https://joincolossus.com/episode/building-alpha-school-and-t...
I like the vision and believe in the good intentions. I don't know whether they've achieved much so far.
I have good news for you. Tell your kids to get into a few fights, or get caught smoking weed in school too many times. They will be sent to an "alternative school" as punishment that uses this same insight - let the kids sit in front of a computer all day "learning" while a teacher nags them to quit falling asleep. In fact, they can do it for around 6 hours a day, three times better than this charter.
https://go.alpha.school/hubfs/MAP%20Results%20-%2024%2025/20...
Assuming a normal distribution, this will indicate whether your child is above or below the median Alpha School student. This may be impact your view about how well Alpha School is doing vs whatever school your kid goes to.
Really the only options for after school activities after graduating from elementary school are competitive sports, competitive math, competitive music, competitive chess, etc. which are pretty much all zero sum in nature.
I'd love options for kids that let them gradually explore their interests to help them discover future vocational interests in a way that was beneficial to society such that they don't have an existential crisis when they hit senior year in high school and have to pick a college major.
pretty much all zero sum in nature.
Frankly I think that indicates the grandparent just didn't think very hard before leaving their comment.
Didn't go so well in Pennsylvaniaa
State rejects application for cyber charter school with AI teacher and two hours of daily class
https://penncapital-star.com/education/state-rejects-applica...
rahimnathwani•4mo ago
I'm not saying this to cast doubt on any of the facts in the article. Just pointing out that Dan, in general, has a less optimistic view of AI in education, than I'd expect of the median HN commenter.
That said, I'll share my thoughts on Alpha School, based on everything I've read (both things published by the school, and things I've read from parents online and in private forums):
- the '2x growth' in their marketing is way oversold; their typical 4th grader isn't doing math at the level of a typical 8th grader.[0]
- the '2 hours/day' in their marketing is oversold; students often work longer than that.
- only 25% of their students use Math Academy. The rest use IXL or ALEKS.
- in their charter school application, the amount they proposed charging for their software platform was unreasonable, given the minor role it plays in outcomes (10% according to Matt Bateman, who works there) [1]
- the core idea of their 'timeback' platform (that monitors student activity in realtime via video camera and screen recording) is good, but I have not seen it and have no idea whether it's real or how good it is
More of my thoughts from back in April: https://x.com/RahimNathwani/status/1912571014107787730
[0] https://x.com/RahimNathwani/status/1971804784475996469
https://x.com/RahimNathwani/status/1971817857286803873
[1] https://x.com/RahimNathwani/status/1912586493086036148
arjie•4mo ago
I don't know about that, but when I discovered that San Francisco schools weren't teaching algebra I was at first impressed that American children were doing Group Theory in 8th grade (something we only learn in the 12th standard in Tamil Nadu in India where I'm from) and figured moving that to 9th isn't a big deal only to find that they meant the basic stuff (linear equations and the like, what we learn in the 7th grade).
Honestly, I can't take anyone seriously who would try so hard to set back children from learning what is fairly basic Mathematics at that age. Children are capable of learning this. Or at least a sufficiently large amount are that we should be teaching them to a high standard.
For Alpha School, I think the Slate Star Codex review is likely more informative than this clearly polemic article.
0: https://x.com/garrytan/status/1953654484997169443
tl;dr This is from the people who want to delay Mathematics education to later in a child's life (algebra to 9th grade onwards)
tptacek•4mo ago
arjie•4mo ago
If you feel less convinced by this, it's simply that you're not in my audience. But I think it's probably worth sticking a tl;dr on the original. Let me do that.
rahimnathwani•4mo ago
I don't know whether Dan Meyer is in favour of delaying math education. I do know he favours delivering education in a school setting with in-person human teachers, but the latter doesn't imply the former.
And he works on making really nice tools for exploring math: https://www.desmos.com/
tptacek•4mo ago