

What's an hour of teaching worth? Data and transparency in tutoring - akharris
http://blog.tutorspree.com/post/15257341578/state-of-tutoring

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pilom
Good read. My wife actually quit as a teacher in DC (mostly b/c of Teach for
America but that is a different story) and started tutoring.

It took her about 6 months to get set up with a good reliable set of clients.
She was able to charge about 50% more per hour than she made as a teacher
(like the article says) however that still did not mean that she made more.
First off, tutoring of school aged kids in DC happens in the suburbs so her
daily commute doubled to tripled. Next, she went on my health care. And lastly
even before those other problems, she still couldn't book anywhere near the
same number of hours (as any good freelancer should know) and so was lucky to
make 70% what she made before. It still was the right choice as TfA was
terrible but just a data point.

Side note for Tutorspree: While we lived in Northern Virginia that shouldn't
prevent the listing from showing up in DC. Just the 2 cents why my wife tried
to use your service and then quit.

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MaxGabriel
Can you share the Teach for America experience? I hear good things, but want
your data point

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teach
For what it's worth, a starting teacher in my district (a suburb of Austin,
TX) would make $42,000 a year, for a 187-day contract. Assuming 8-hour days
(admittedly unrealistic for a first-year tech), that's $28 an hour.

I personally charge $40-50 an hour for one-one-one tutoring.

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akharris
Interesting. The overall average salary for teacher in Texas comes in at
$49,900 (in 2009). I suppose that leads to a slightly higher rate, but the 8
hour day piece doesn't come close to accounting for all of the associated prep
time. My guess is that, when you figure that in, the hourly rate for real work
drops a lot further.

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_delirium
My mom was a high-school teacher and definitely had that impression, that
tutoring paid more than a regular teaching job. The main pros of teaching are
that it's very stable work, rather than fluctuating as tutoring jobs tend to,
and typically comes with good benefits (not as big a deal for healthy twenty-
somethings, but group health insurance can be quite important if you're older
and have a family). It's also somewhat different work, teaching a longer-term
curriculum to a classroom of students rather than doing one-on-one tutoring;
that can be either a pro or con for a lot of reasons.

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akharris
Right. One of the questions we want to answer is whether or not tutoring isn't
a full time job for more people is a result of an absolute lack of demand, or
lack of appropriate channels for that demand.

If you knew you could fill 35 hours a week as a tutor at a $50 rate, and do it
consistently, would you (hypothetical you that is a teacher)? If you knew that
you would have a consistent relationship with a student and actually guide
his/her education, how would that change the dynamic? Is something like the
old school meaning of "tutor" (Socrates/Alexander) possible at scale in the
modern US?

Anyway, all that and more as we get more data together...

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_delirium
On the latter parts, I'm currently an (early-career) college prof and would
seriously consider switching to that model if it existed/worked. I'd much
prefer tutoring people outside the institutional framework of
curricula/grades/exams/lectures if it were reasonably stable work you could
earn a living at, with genuinely interested students. There are some good
things about the formalized education system, but in large part it's a
compromise due to the need to produce some kind of credential employers
recognize (related but not identical to "actual learning"), and to make
budgets work.

Though I'm less interested if, like some tutoring jobs, it's just helping
people cram for SATs, and especially if that's really seasonal work that only
happens around SAT-time. So I wish you luck. :)

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Zakharov
Most good tutors would probably be working around 20 hours a week, with an
additional 10-20 hours of unpaid preparation time. This explains the disparity
with teacher salaries.

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teach
I don't think this does explain the disparity. Most core teachers I know also
have an additional 10-20 hours of "unpaid" prep time. (Time outside that 40
hours, anyway.)

I think the disparity is more reflected in the relative value of one-on-one
instruction vs. what you typically see in a classroom (closer to 30:1).

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mthtchr
I also left teaching to tutor. Although it was difficult to leave my students
in east Oakland after dedicating three years of my life to helping them
succeed in math, I was done with 80 hour high stress work weeks and 40k a
year. I now charge around $50 an hour for 1 to 1 tutoring. It is the easiest
money I have ever made. From a financial perspective, becoming a puplic school
teacher is pure foolishness.

