I don’t have any kids so I had to check to find out how much a babysitter costs. They seem to charge over $20.00 an hour which for some kids seems to be grossly underpayment.

            Let’s compare a teacher in a public school to a teenager working in the kid’s parent’s home. Some classes have 25 students while others may have 35. Let’s say the class has 30 and the teacher is paid by the babysitter’s rate of $20.00 an hour. That would mean the teacher should be paid $600 per hour. Now granted the school has a building requiring maintenance and people to do the work. It also has utility expenses. The school has administration expenses and an athletic staff and their facilities.

            Based on those other expenses let us assume the teacher who has gone to college at least four years at great expense to the teacher. Often that expense required thousands of dollars in loans to be repaid over many years. The average teacher salary in Northern Illinois is about $30.00 per hour. That breaks down in our average class to a dollar per student. Most teachers are going to have to spend money on supplies which reduces that dollar. That doesn’t include homework and preparation.

            No wonder why parents are glad for schools to restart each fall. Imagine a dollar an hour baby sitter! That dollar was subsidized by those of us without kids in school. Just on my house I have probably paid well over 100,000 dollars in local school taxes. That means the parents don’t pay a dollar an hour for their babysitting teacher who has to put up with abuse from their students and parents who think little Johnnie is an angel.