If you can read this thank a taxpayer.

If it was developed for a public school classroom, then it shouldn't be sold for profit.

If it's something the teacher created on their own, then it's OK to sell it for profit

"Teaching can be a thankless job," said Ms. Bohrer, 30,

Boo-freaking-hoo. Watch the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe if you want to see truly "thankless jobs". In this economy, be thankful that you even have a job.

So, if you are working on your "true calling" (novel, screenplay, photoshop, etc.) while you are sitting in your cube, does this mean that the office gets a share if later sell that work and make a profit?

Do you understand the profit potential that could be found in the working pools of large corporations?

/Calling all Internet Lawyers!

Moonbarker Osbourne the Rainbow Wolf not gay: If it was developed for a public school classroom, then it shouldn't be sold for profit.

If it's something the teacher created on their own, then it's OK to sell it for profit

See, don't get all logical...if the teacher created it on their own for a public classroom, apparently the school gets a cut. I think the work around will be that the teacher won't give their name or location when they sell the lesson plan.

Moonbarker Osbourne the Rainbow Wolf not gay: If it was developed for a public school classroom, then it shouldn't be sold for profit.

If it's something the teacher created on their own, then it's OK to sell it for profit

Well THIS should be an interesting thread if we can get the normal teacher haters and teacher defenders together.

Remember all those hours the teacher spends working at home? To some its a part of the job, while to others those are fully "optional" hours and these people cry that teachers make a shiatload of money for working "5 hours a day 180 days a year".

If you've been screaming that teachers make too much money because they dont have to work at home - then the things they develop at home are clearly THEIR property - they should be allowed to sell those things.

If its just a part of the job than a teachers salary covers a certain amount of at home work - the payers of that salary should have some say.

/teacher - doesnt care either way because I would neither buy nor sell a lesson plan. We share where I work - might have something to do with our district being excellently rated every year...

Anyone who spends hours of their own time developing lesson plans deserves whatever they can get for their time. If the school wants a cut then they can pay the teacher for the time out of class that they spend on planning and grading. If not then they can't complain about smart people who figured out a way of making up for the revenue that their personal time could have generated.

Teachers in Washington State, USA, are salaried. So they are always on the clock here.

You know, I'd bet that, technically, the schools DO own some right to the lesson plans...that doesn't mean they should demand their cut, though.

Similar note (sort of): the university I used to attend allowed professors 24/7 access to their on-campus offices. Many of these professors used their offices, and the computers in them, to work on their own writings--novels, scholarly papers, and such. We had a guy in the English Department who sold a poem to a magazine last year, and the university claimed ownership of it, because he had written it on campus. He told them to STFU, and they ultimately did, but still...

One word, prostitution.

Musto: So, if you are working on your "true calling" (novel, screenplay, photoshop, etc.) while you are sitting in your cube, does this mean that the office gets a share if later sell that work and make a profit?

Do you understand the profit potential that could be found in the working pools of large corporations?

/Calling all Internet Lawyers!

If your job function was not as a writer, tghen the company does not likely have a claim on the fruitsof your labor as a work product. However, if you were hired as a writer, and the manuscript was written on company time using company equipment, you had better believe they have a claim on the manuscript.

I always advise developer friends of mine to NEVER work on their side projects during company time or on company equipment. Seen too many personal projects claimed by the company.

In as a teacher who knows how good the pay is!!!!!

(1st year, 10th year, 25th year)
35,000 a year / 8 hours per day / 187 days per year = 23$ per hour
55,000 a year / 8 hours per day / 187 days per year = 36$ per hour
80,000 a year / 8 hours per day / 187 days per year = 53$ per hour


1) if your district doesn't pay that much, or requires you to work July August or professional development hours, move districts.
1.5) You HAVE to figure pay per hour. We only work 10 months / year. If we want a higher yearly salary, work July and August like the rest of the working world. Until then, go by hourly rate.
2) all jobs that pay over 30$ dollars per year have to put in more than contract hours, it's the price of getting a job over 36 dollars per year.
3) Stop spending so much time outside of contract hours. You CHOOSE to so stop figuring it into your pay.
4) Yes, the pay is in the top 10% per hour of the country, but only ten percent of the country has master's degrees.
5) but we have to deal with children! and nurses have to deal with emptying feces, and prison guards and police have to deal with people who want to KILL THEM. And the military has to deal with IED, and postal workers have to deal with postal clients and strippers have to deal with fark members. That's why it's called work.

Antilope: If you can read this thank a taxpayer.

Well, technically my mom is a taxpayer.

/Thanks, mom!

Teacher here.

I do all my lesson planning at home. In fact, I'm going to get a second cup of coffee and plan out what I'm teaching next Thursday and Friday.

Most people (including myself a few years ago) honestly believe lesson planning simply consists of figuring out what pages of the textbook you want the kids to read. If only it were that simple.

I have to figure out at least two or three ways to teach a particular element of my curriculum. People learn different ways, and if you just use a one-size-fits-all method to teach, you're going to miss large numbers of your students.

Even if you've been teaching a while, a lesson plan you used last year (or some other teacher developed) may have to be entirely re-worked based upon your current students.

And then there's specific learning accommodations you have to make for specific kids. You can have the greatest lesson plan in the world, and if you haven't accounted for all the medical, emotional, an occasionally imagined ailments a student has on file, you're looking at a potential lawsuit.

My lesson plans are mine. I share them freely with others, and have had others share with me. I wouldn't pay for one, as I know I'd still have to put in three or four hours on a Sunday tweaking it anyway.

As for the district wanting a piece of the pie? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

In my teaching contract, it says that anything developed by me on my own time for use in my classroom is my intellectual property. I assume most teachers have similar language in their contract. Therefore, this story is really a non-story.

What I think is being missed is the effectiveness of the items being sold.

If a teacher creates a lesson plan that is almost guaranteed to teach kids a certain subject, to me it raises some questions.

Does the teacher who created it use it to market themselves, the school, or even the district they work in?
Do they leave it as open-source material that any teacher can use and add to to further education?
Maybe sell it to a big publishing company and rake in some money while helping the nation's schools?

I suppose it all depends on the teacher and their situation. Naturally I would love to see a Utopian scenario where everyone works together harmoniously to further the education in the little ones, but that's probably just a dream.

soy_bomb2009-11-15 09:19:05 AM "Teaching can be a thankless job," said Ms. Bohrer, 30, Boo-freaking-hoo. Watch the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe if you want to see truly "thankless jobs". In this economy, be thankful that you even have a job.
-------

Most of the dopes on that show have those jobs because of lack of education.... Teachers have bachelor degrees +, and have a desire to help others... it is completely thankless.

>Animator not a teacher.

This isn't as "new" as the article is making it out to be. My mom and her two sisters are all retired school teachers, and of course they shared lesson plans with one another. But my mom also wrote (individually and as a collaboration with her fellow teachers) for teacher magazines like "Mailbox" and was paid for her work, and she also gave workshops sharing her lesson plan ideas and was paid for THAT. The only new thing here is that it's online and more easily accessible.

But am I the only one that has a problem with this:

From TFA: "Ms. Bohrer, 30, who has used the $650 she earned in the past year to add books to a reading nook in her first-grade classroom at Daniel Street Elementary School on Long Island and to help with mortgage payments."

One thing the teacher-haters should keep in mind is this. Teachers (especially at the elementary level) spend THOUSANDS of dollars of their OWN money every year for their classrooms. My mother, when she retired, had an entire bedroom filled with nothing but bulletin board and classroom stuff, lesson plan ideas, worksheet masters, those "reading nook" books and "center-based" activities, etc. This was all stuff she paid for over the years with her own money, and when she retired, she donated it all to a tutoring center for low-income students. There's a credit union in my town for teachers and education professionals, and they offer low-interest loans every year specifically for first-year teachers to use to furnish their classrooms. The credit union estimates that first-year elementary teachers spend about $5,000 to outfit their classroom, while secondary teachers can spend $3,000-$10,000, depending on their subject area. This is just initial investment in their classrooms, and the spending doesn't stop there. Our local school district actually limits teacher photocopying to a certain number of sheets per month, and all teachers are required to pay out of pocket for additional copying.

A lot of the money that teachers earn goes right back into the classroom. My experience (having grown up around elementary teachers) is that probably 20% of an elementary teacher's income goes back into their classrooms. That doesn't count money the teacher may have to pay out of pocket for continuing education, workshops, books, magazines, and these days, website subscriptions, in order to stay up-to-date on the changes in their fields. A teacher's salary is not all theirs to keep.

Musto: So, if you are working on your "true calling" (novel, screenplay, photoshop, etc.) while you are sitting in your cube, does this mean that the office gets a share if later sell that work and make a profit?

All of the places I've worked have had me sign agreements that basically waive my rights to any work I do while on the job. Not sure if this applies to teachers, but it's fairly standard for creative folks.

morgantx: My experience (having grown up around elementary teachers) is that probably 20% of an elementary teacher's income goes back into their classrooms.

even if that figure is inflated by 19% it is still a sad commentary on the state of funding for education today. and it doesn't cover what the kids are now required to bring to class.

but hey, the schools all provide laptops to each kid so there's that.

I've student taught in Oregon and taught in Idaho and the hinterlands of Central Washington. I've never heard of a district considering ownership of my lesson plans. It just seems like such a foreign concept-we're paid to do a job (teach children) and the district will support us in any way it can, but ultimately it's up to us how we do it. I took all of my music arrangements from my job in Idaho for use in my current job, and no one said a word.

/Of course, money being in play might have a lot to do with why the NY administrators are paying attention all of the sudden.

gozar_the_destroyer: Teachers in Washington State, USA, are salaried. So they are always on the clock here.

Hmm...we're practically neighbors.

Curious: morgantx: My experience (having grown up around elementary teachers) is that probably 20% of an elementary teacher's income goes back into their classrooms.

even if that figure is inflated by 19% it is still a sad commentary on the state of funding for education today. and it doesn't cover what the kids are now required to bring to class.

but hey, the schools all provide laptops to each kid so there's that.

There are stories here on Fark all the time about teachers, students, and laptops.
Most involve an arrest or sentencing.

/Wait, what?

oldsbone: I've student taught in Oregon and taught in Idaho and the hinterlands of Central Washington. I've never heard of a district considering ownership of my lesson plans. It just seems like such a foreign concept-we're paid to do a job (teach children) and the district will support us in any way it can, but ultimately it's up to us how we do it. I took all of my music arrangements from my job in Idaho for use in my current job, and no one said a word.

/Of course, money being in play might have a lot to do with why the NY administrators are paying attention all of the sudden.

gozar_the_destroyer: Teachers in Washington State, USA, are salaried. So they are always on the clock here.

Hmm...we're practically neighbors.

are you still in central Washington? I am just north of moses lake (closer to soap lake actually)

dasc: Anyone who spends hours of their own time developing lesson plans deserves whatever they can get for their time. If the school wants a cut then they can pay the teacher for the time out of class that they spend on planning and grading. If not then they can't complain about smart people who figured out a way of making up for the revenue that their personal time could have generated.

Adorable. Do you have the slightest comprehension of salaried vs. hourly employment?

soy_bomb: "Teaching can be a thankless job," said Ms. Bohrer, 30,

Boo-freaking-hoo. Watch the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe if you want to see truly "thankless jobs". In this economy, be thankful that you even have a job.

There can be more than one thankless job out there. And teaching is easily in that category.

You know what? Good for the teachers.

I don't buy the argument that most of them are poorly paid. The good ones are poorly paid, but the shiat ones are overpaid, just like any other industry.

But you know who is selling a lesson plan? A good teacher. The worthless ones are sitting on the toilet in the bathroom trying to piss out their last drink. If a good teacher wants even greater rewards for being a good teacher - let them have at it.

And fark the school districts who want a piece of the pie. In my experience truly shiat teachers go into administration so they can make more money by doing even less work.

ThatGuyGreg: Adorable. Do you have the slightest comprehension of salaried vs. hourly employment?

Salaried employment does not automatically transfer intellectual property rights to the employer.

/exempt employee

ghiabug99: In as a teacher who knows how good the pay is!!!!!

(1st year, 10th year, 25th year)
35,000 a year / 8 hours per day / 187 days per year = 23$ per hour
55,000 a year / 8 hours per day / 187 days per year = 36$ per hour
80,000 a year / 8 hours per day / 187 days per year = 53$ per hour


1) if your district doesn't pay that much, or requires you to work July August or professional development hours, move districts.
1.5) You HAVE to figure pay per hour. We only work 10 months / year. If we want a higher yearly salary, work July and August like the rest of the working world. Until then, go by hourly rate.
2) all jobs that pay over 30$ dollars per year have to put in more than contract hours, it's the price of getting a job over 36 dollars per year.
3) Stop spending so much time outside of contract hours. You CHOOSE to so stop figuring it into your pay.
4) Yes, the pay is in the top 10% per hour of the country, but only ten percent of the country has master's degrees.
5) but we have to deal with children! and nurses have to deal with emptying feces, and prison guards and police have to deal with people who want to KILL THEM. And the military has to deal with IED, and postal workers have to deal with postal clients and strippers have to deal with fark members. That's why it's called work.
You must not be a teacher in the New York City school system. The children there want to kill you and will try at any opportunity. From what I have heard it is like being a prison warden without the perks of being able to lock up the ward-mates.

Moonbarker Osbourne the Rainbow Wolf not gay: If it was developed for a public school classroom, then it shouldn't be sold for profit.

If it's something the teacher created on their own, then it's OK to sell it for profit

This doesn't make sense. Teachers normally create their own lesson plans. Each class is different and typically needs new ways of introducing the subject matter. I taught HS English for 4 years in 3 schools & not once did the department hand me a lesson plan. I did pick up a couple of decent ones from the NEA teachers conventions, though, but even then I had to heavily modify them.

I wouldn't sell the ones I picked up at the convention, but there's certainly nothing wrong with my selling all the other ones I developed for public school use.

/Which I just may do, once I dig them out of the attic...

"Teaching can be a thankless job," said Ms. Bohrer

Actually, I would argue that teaching is one of the most thanked jobs. Combined with a high pay per hour and a high level of job security, it is actually a pretty good career path for those that don't want to get into business or the sciences.

Oh, and looking at the number:

Avg Teacher Salary: $56k
Avg Police Salary: $49K

Not sure I see how the former is underpaid based on the latter. And if you throw in military members, who make a fraction of teacher salaries, literally, the numbers look far better for teachers.

"Teachers swapping ideas with one another, that's a great thing," he said. "But somebody asking 75 cents for a word puzzle reduces the power of the learning community and is ultimately destructive to the profession."

Wouldn't that also mean that having to buy things like workbooks is destructive to the profession?

These are learning tools and the teachers are profiting from them. How is this any different from any other learning tools we buy?

essucht: Oh, and looking at the number:

Avg Teacher Salary: $56k
Avg Police Salary: $49K

Not sure I see how the former is underpaid based on the latter. And if you throw in military members, who make a fraction of teacher salaries, literally, the numbers look far better for teachers.

I know very, very few teachers who make that much money. My father has been teaching for decades and I think he barely makes that. Most of the teachers I know make somewhere in the $30-40k range.

grapefruitgal: In my teaching contract, it says that anything developed by me on my own time for use in my classroom is my intellectual property. I assume most teachers have similar language in their contract. Therefore, this story is really a non-story.

I've been at two schools now, and neither one has had anything of the sort.

austerity101: essucht: Oh, and looking at the number:

Avg Teacher Salary: $56k
Avg Police Salary: $49K

Not sure I see how the former is underpaid based on the latter. And if you throw in military members, who make a fraction of teacher salaries, literally, the numbers look far better for teachers.

I know very, very few teachers who make that much money. My father has been teaching for decades and I think he barely makes that. Most of the teachers I know make somewhere in the $30-40k range.

I'm at $46K this year, but that's 8 years in and with enough post-BA units for a couple of MAs by now (and I'm actually starting my MA this spring--not because I think an MA in Ed is actually worth the paper it's printed on, but because for some reason most educationally-related employers somehow thinks that trumps an assload of experience over a variety of subjects in multiple educational settings.)

gozar_the_destroyer: are you still in central Washington? I am just north of moses lake (closer to soap lake actually)

We are in Grand Coulee.

/Mrs. Oldsbone.

While I'm not a copyright expert by any stretch, the copyright statutes would seem to easily categorize a lesson plan as a "work for hire" and thus the property of the school district, not the teacher. Apparently however there's some ambiguity in how this has been interpreted as applied to the work product of teachers, such as books they produce and the like. I'm not aware of any specific litigation about lesson plans.

Legalities aside, think of this in practical terms: the top seller of lesson plans has made about 36 grand- not enough to make a difference in the budget of that teacher's school district (especially since that teacher's from California, where a dollar doesn't go as far as in other states). So what is really being served by either clamping down on this behavior, or demanding part of the "profits?"

Also, by spreading knowledge around in this manner, you are increasing the skills of teachers who are learning from the best in their field. What could be wrong with that?

So I disagree completely with this clown quoted in the article:

Beyond the unresolved legal questions, there are philosophical ones. Joseph McDonald, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University, said the online selling cheapens what teachers do and undermines efforts to build sites where educators freely exchange ideas and lesson plans.

"Teachers swapping ideas with one another, that's a great thing," he said. "But somebody asking 75 cents for a word puzzle reduces the power of the learning community and is ultimately destructive to the profession."

Horsesh#t. These people would never get to meet to "swap stories," and the fact that they place enough of a premium on the ideas of faraway anonymous teachers, to spend THEIR OWN FREAKIN MONEY, strongly suggests that the purchasers think these lesson plans are more valuable than jawboning with coworkers. I wondered how gaining valuable knowledge "reduces the power of the learning community and is ultimately destructive to the profession" but then realized this douche is an education professor and so would have neither the data nor any interest in backing up his statements.

Lastly, look how impossible a ban on this behavior would be to police: you can just sell them under a pseudonym, or alter your actual lesson plans slightly. Who's going to be able to find out who you are?

Musto: So, if you are working on your "true calling" (novel, screenplay, photoshop, etc.) while you are sitting in your cube, does this mean that the office gets a share if later sell that work and make a profit?

Do you understand the profit potential that could be found in the working pools of large corporations?

/Calling all Internet Lawyers!

Depends on your employment contract. I've seen some that say "everything you create during your employment belongs to us, no matter if its done on your time or ours." I know several of those have been shot down in court, but all it takes is one good idea and a good set of corporate lawyers to frack you right up the ass for your masterpiece.

DarthBart: Depends on your employment contract. I've seen some that say "everything you create during your employment belongs to us, no matter if its done on your time or ours." I know several of those have been shot down in court, but all it takes is one good idea and a good set of corporate lawyers to frack you right up the ass for your masterpiece.


Given how much "consultation" the districts are doing I'm assuming they don't have any language in the contracts that asserts a claim on any intellectual property developed in the course of employment.

Teacher--sick of the haters.

That average salary is farking crap. A 25 year teacher in San Francisco tops out at 80,000 (or thereabouts). It's not a wealthy life, and you work a lot harder than that. Truly, I think people need to think of where we'd be without, or how important your job is in comparison.

Secondly, the crap I create for my classroom I would never be okay taking a pay cut on to sell. If I used district time, sure, but I know they cannot do jack about teachers napping on their preps, so it seems their interests and basis for taking this money lays more in financial gain than where and when this work is taking place.

I fail to see the problem with this. Let the market speak for itself.

And if by chance it helps crappy teachers improve, I'm all for it.

pippi longstocking: One word, prostitution.

Prostitution = Capitalism.

LarsGundersen: pippi longstocking: One word, prostitution.

Prostitution = Capitalism.

This.

mean annual for kindergarten, elementary, middle and secondary all around 52,000 per year.- us department of labor bureau of labor statistics. Gotta find the right places to live and work.
Also, the chart is useful to see just how many jobs have a low or high per hour pay.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/2008/may/oes_nat.htm#b43-0000

After 8 years of teaching, I make as much per hour as these professions: Chemist, Microbiologist, Nuclear technician, architect, Physical therapists, orthodontists, accountants, computer programmers

ghiabug99: mean annual for kindergarten, elementary, middle and secondary all around 52,000 per year.- us department of labor bureau of labor statistics. Gotta find the right places to live and work.
Also, the chart is useful to see just how many jobs have a low or high per hour pay.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/2008/may/oes_nat.htm#b43-0000

After 8 years of teaching, I make as much per hour as these professions: Chemist, Microbiologist, Nuclear technician, architect, Physical therapists, orthodontists, accountants, computer programmers

After 8 years of teaching, the knowledge of what employees of types of companies make seems to have escaped your frame of knowledge. :)

Frame of reference, even. Bah.

Perhaps all the Farkers that comment about teacher salaries should reveal their occupation and salary at the end of their comments so the teachers can get an idea of who is evaluating them.

/teacher for 27+ years
//$90,207
///darn well worth every penny to my school and the taxpayers.

CalvinMorallis: I'd bet that, technically, the schools DO own some right to the lesson plans...

if it's developed after hours the school can have it when they pay full wages for the time spent creating all lesson plans.

anything I do in my free time at home does not belong to my employer, and there is no reason for that to be different with teachers, unless their contract EXPLICITY declares all lesson plans created to be works for hire, copyright belongs entirely to the creator.

Moonbarker Osbourne the Rainbow Wolf not gay: If it was developed for a public school classroom, then it shouldn't be sold for profit.

If it's something the teacher created on their own, then it's OK to sell it for profit

Depends. If they have time set aside in their school day schedule to do lesson plans, then you are correct. If they are doing these at home after hours, which a great many do, then the schools can go fark themselves.

I think this is a great plan. There are teachers out there who don't present good material, but give them a great lesson plan, and they will smack it out of the park. Other teachers put together great lesson plans but don't really pull it off well.

This is a case where the market has a little niche that is working nicely. Of course when that happens we bring in the lawyers to fark it up.

Another teacher here...

1) I don't think my pay is too shabby... ~$60k

2) Good teachers work way more than 8 hours/day... we plan and grade at home, but still... the extent to which that is done is variable. Some teachers don't do much at home and still do a decent job.

3) If the district wants to have any right over what a teacher produces, that ought to be in the contract. I create all of my own worksheets or I use things from the internet for free. I think that if I could sell them the profit should be mine. If the district thinks they should have any of the profits, they should pay me extra for using them in my classroom.

Materials cost a lot of money. If the district won't BUY the materials and a teacher is forced to create their own materials, the district should have to purchase them from the teacher. I've worked as a writer of ancillary materials over the summer. (Pay was AWESOME $10,000 for one summer's work!) If the district expects teachers to be writers AND teachers, they need to cough up the $$$.

4) Any teacher who spends their own money on this sort of stuff is stupid. There is SOOOOOO much online for FREE!!! Teachers who spend a lot of their salary on their classrooms screw up the system so that it is an expectation where people think that good teachers SHOULD buy their own materials. I spend a little of my money on things for school... but I refuse to spend more than I can claim on my taxes. I am the kids' teacher, not their parent. I'm not providing pencils and paper to everyone.

/off soapbox
//going to grade papers... seriously.