for some it's a requirement that teachers be members of the church, and as such the teachers see their employment as part of a "mission" for the benefit of their church and will therefore not expect high wages since all monies for the school are considered part and parcel for the greater glorification of their church and their God.

My dad is a long-retired teacher (sadly has dementia now) always had an interesting story about this. He started teaching in the early 50s when teachers were paid horrible (had to take a second job when we were little) mainly because most teachers were women. Mom, also a teacher, was forced to quit when her pregnancy became obvious.
Then came Vietnam and the college deferment. You had 4 years, no more, to get your degree and the easiest curriculum at the time (especially for men who may not have gone to college otherwise) was education. Then these guys got teaching jobs and found they were making less $$ than their buddies working at the factory. Enter teachers unions and the good (at least around here) salary and benefits that public school teachers enjoy today.

The author implies that they do... but they cant negotiate.

Archdiocese of Phila. High school teachers have a union but parish schools (K-8) do not. I would think most private and religious schools are nonunion.

The real reason they are paid way, way less is because the schools are dependent on tuition, not on taxpayer money.

The typical private school pay might be half to 60 percent of a public school salary.

I'll bet most of the private schools teach anything about evolution either.

He's making a lot of silly claims about the "superiority" of private schools when in fact there is no evidence to show that at all. The working conditions are not better, when you take the horrible pay and lousy benefits into account, and the high turnover is proof of that.

It's very hard to work years and years in a private school and then "top out" at only $30,000-$35,000 a year after 20 years. You have to have a trust fund to live off of or a wealthy spouse to be able to stick around very long in private schools.

Private schools have less stringent standards, often as not. I have a friend who, with nothing more than his college education (and no teaching major, either) was able to hire on as a science teacher at a charter school. He followed a pre-prepared curriculum, and he admits he sucked at the job. He left it after a year, so only one grade of children had to suffer his poor skills.

So, there's that...

able to get a job in the private schools here.

The person gets "supervised" (cough, snort) by a teacher with credentials, and gets paid way less.

but NO "lifetime" employment. Even if you qualify for a continuing contract, a principal can very easily get rid of you.

since this is all speculation, I will add my 2cents worth.

When I was much younger (40+ years ago) Republicans demonstrated a dislike to for teachers even back then. I remember hearing that low wages were justified because of the 'other perks' that makes the job of value to the teacher, such as being the 'boss in the class room, the satisfactions fof having adoring faces looking up at you. To be able to make a mark...those and more intangibles justify the lower wages.

The income chasm in the second line exists simply because capitalism is hard at work. Goverment jobs and unions halt that Walmart Employee wages mentality....privitization, not so much.

(Education Associations are kinda like unions... but only one testicle)

It is NOT true there is a "greater demand for workers and smaller supply." There is LITTLE demand for workers in public schools because the supply is so great. There are very, very few openings to be had in public ed, as any substitute teacher who has done it for four or five or six years can tell you.

There might be theoretically more openings in public schools than private, but I can tell you there is a HUGE supply of newly-minted and unemployed teachers out there.

It is nothing for literally hundreds of people to apply for a single job opening in a public school district. Only in the very undesirable districts are there much in the way of job openings.

Private and charter school teachers are those who could not get work in the public sector because the market is way oversaturated.

It's always been that way and will always be that way.

This is true for almost all public sector jobs, by the way, except the most technical jobs. EVERYBODY wants to work in the public sector.

Not entirely true. You teach at any elite private school and the pay is not only competitive but often better. Choate-Rosemary hall, Andover, Pomfret, Milton, etc. In fact, country day schools pay well too.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/06/america-elite-schools-leadership-prep.html

You really show your class background when you challenge somebody who knows what she is talking about.

You are talking about the tiniest number of teachers in private schools. The vast majority work in parochial schools or independent schools. Their pay is WAY below public ed, and yes, they DO quit in high numbers. I worked in one, so I KNOW what I am talking about.

Do you understand the word "almost," Cali? BTW, NO private academy is going to have the great pensions that public school teachers get.

Epic fail on your part.

Perhaps that has changed, it was some years ago.

I taught in private school my first two years, and then left for
public school and nearly doubled my salary.

I only taught in private school to get my foot in the door. Then
I was able to make connections with the parents to get into
public high school, where I made a lot of money and got a good
retirement package.

Worked two years in a private school then worked public. However, I WAS treated far better in the private school than I was the last two years I worked in public ed.

The administrators in public ed are the big problem. There are too many incompetents and insane principals running around.

Private schools pay less because of their history. Those schools, by and large, have a religious background, and religious workers (monks, nuns, priests, etc.) are paid nothing or almost nothing. Their model was based on that, and they haven't changed and aren't likely to. Teachers take those jobs because they can't get anything better or because they like the atmosphere of the private school and can afford the lower pay. For-profit charters run on the same model so that their shareholders or CEOs can skim more off the top, and teachers take those jobs because they have nothing else.

Public schools pay better because we teachers have fought long and hard for decent pay, positive teaching environments (which are students' learning environments, remember), and ultimately have had to settle for lower pay in order to keep our benefits. Now, they're telling us to take pay cuts in addition to cuts to our benefits because our governments don't want to fully fund education.

1.) public school requirements for certification and hiring are tougher most of the time.
2.) many private teachers move to public (if they need the money) because of the pay and benefits.
3.) some private schools teachers don't need the money (spouses of high income families), but see the job as socially acceptable.
4.) some private schools are blatantly white flight, and others are simply sponsored by a specific religion or denomination that the private teacher is affiliated with.
5.) many teachers don't go into the job for the money anyway, but they want to teach, so they take the best or most convenient job they can get regardless of salary. Sometimes that's a public school, and sometimes it's a private school.
6.) if you have kids, your choice of teaching job may be dependent on the opportunity for your own children to attend the school where you teach. That may offset the salary, and some private schools have a special deal for staff kids.
7.) many states have collective bargaining (unions) for public employees, but many private schools do not.
8.) more public teachers make education a career - and they teach, enter administration, and work until retirement. More private school teachers are short timers.
9.) more public schools promote continuing education and pay higher salaries for graduate degrees, while private schools are less likely to pay for advanced education.
10.) some private school teachers couldn't make it in the public schools because of dealing with diversity, so they move to private schools.

at all. We are all in this society together and should not be segregated by income or social status.

Those hoity-toity eastern academies that the rich and powerful put their kids in are not typical private schools. I doubt they are actually better anyway because they screen out who can attend those schools to cater to so-called gifted kids as well as the kids of the rich. That's how they can go around and claim how "rigorous" they are since they keep the "riffraff" of second language learners and special education kids and the kids of the 99 percent out.

they show their total ignorance of the scope of private education.

None of them are going to have the great pensions of public school teachers who have spent their lives in that area. And public school teachers deserve the pensions because they put up with a lot of shit, including b.s. from writers like those in the article who persist in the fiction private schools are "better." As long they can pick and choose who they want attending those schools, they aren't better and never will be.