k-5 teachers. annual cost of a class?

[Tri Girl]

$40-50K? Ha ha- that's cute! I've been teaching for 11 years and I only make a base pay of $33K, with benefits it's $36. I'll NEVER make it to 50K even after 25+ years of teaching with a doctorate. Granted, cost of living is less in Oklahoma, but STILL (my DH works for the PO without a degree and he makes twice as much as me).

Here's our state pay scale. My district is one of the highest paid districts and pays slightly higher than this (but not by very much). Notice it maxes out at 25 years- you never make more if you teach more than 25 years. Awesome. I'll max out at $43,900- double awesome. We rank near the bottom of the nation in pay.
http://sde.state.ok.us/Teacher/Salary/default.html

We also rank at the bottom for average spending per student (47th). We spend an average of $7600 (national average is about $10,000).

Art and foreign language instruction is left to me in the classroom with all the free time I have trying to get them ready for all that high stakes testing. My kids go to PE and Music (alternating between the two daily). I'm not certified to teach art or a foreign language- but yet I'm supposed to just pick that up, I suppose.

And our class size is at 26 this year (k-3 is limited to 22). There is state legislation that has passed the House and is moving to the Senate to eliminate class sizes to help with budget constraints. WE COULD HAVE NO CLASS SIZE LIMITS SOON. Insane. 26 is difficult enough- put 30-35 in a class and we will get NOTHING done worthwhile. It's the same bill that is proposing merit based pay based on your students test scores. Insane. I don't mind being accountable,but don't base my pay on how 10 year olds perform on a terribly created test given one week out of the year (especially when I have kids who tell me they don't care about the test and are planning on putting all C's). Grrrrr....