According to the WSJ and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development:
- U.S. primary-school teachers spend only 36 weeks a year in the classroom — among the lowest among the countries tracked
- But, U.S. primary-school teachers spend 1,097 hours a year teaching – the highest among the countries tracked – and well above the OECD average of 786 hours.
And, according to the OECD, that’s just the time teachers spend on instruction. Including hours teachers spend on work at home and outside the classroom, American primary-school educators spend 1,913 working in a year.
According to data from the comparable year in a Labor Department survey, an average full-time employee works 1,932 hours a year spread out over 48 weeks (excluding two weeks vacation and federal holidays).
Despite the amount of time that teachers spend working, student achievement in the U.S. remains average in reading and science and slightly below average in math when compared to other nations in a separate OECD report.
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Hmmm.
Teachers work an average of almost 11 hours per day when school is in session,
And, teachers put in about as many hours in 36 weeks as “average full-time employees” do in 48 weeks,
Color me skeptical …
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The Homa Files 
July 6, 2011 at 9:20 am |
Not sure but I guess the youngest and newest teachers work longer hours because they are building and developing lesson plans. The older ones can skate when they want by just reusing old and past lesson plans.
July 6, 2011 at 12:42 pm |
The numbers are very subject and effort dependent. Some teachers get by without doing much work outside of the classroom. Some really do work 11 hours a day (or more) when school is in session.
For example, my fiance is a 7th grade English teacher who re-writes about a third of her lessons every year to fit the current students’ development levels and changing curriculum. She spends 2-3 hours a night working on lessons and grading papers after the 5 hours of classroom instruction, plus another 5 or so hours on the weekend. She responds to parent e-mails and phone calls at all hours, and generally begins meetings with parents at 7 AM 2-3 times a week.
On top of that, she coaches two sports, chaperones class trips, acts as a house leader, organizes the end of the year trip, chaperones extracurricular activities, mentors new teachers, and takes a couple of classes each year to develop new teaching skills. I’d say her job is pretty intense. Plus, imagine if you had to spend your days with a bunch of hormonal 12 year-olds…