What's the going rate for grading papers?

amother

cornflower

Wed, Dec 02 2015, 6:27 pm

No idea. Never knew this was even a thing teachers did. I get that life is hectic and teaching hours extend far beyond school hours, usually for little pay, but still it would annoy me greatly if my kids' teachers were farming out this work and not looking at their tests, essays and homework themselves.

amother

Sienna

Wed, Dec 02 2015, 6:36 pm

I've never heard of such a thing. Very one in my family and extended family are teachers and I've really never heard of this. I think you should be grading these yourself. I would be very upset if my child's teacher were not grading tests and essays herself.

gp2.0

Wed, Dec 02 2015, 6:36 pm

So interesting. There was a thread about this awhile ago and I said I was interested but had never heard this was a thing. Anyway I ended up contacting several high schools to offer my services and none were interested.

No idea about the going rate, but I'd do it for $20 an hour. (Not currently, right now I have other obligations.)

amother

Pink

Wed, Dec 02 2015, 6:41 pm

Don't know the going rate but I've done it in the past for both upper elementary and high school teachers. I did the marking, they added the points (except for one hs teacher where I did e/t down to recording). This saved them time but let them know what each student was up to.

pause

Wed, Dec 02 2015, 6:43 pm

It is absolutely ok to have someone else mark multiple choice, true or false, fill-ins, and matching. Essays, however, depend on a specific student's capabilities and, therefore, should be graded only by someone who actually knows the student. I also believe that the final grade on a test paper should be done by the teacher to allow for modified marking for weaker students, and to allow the teacher to comment on a girl's overall work.

Wed, Dec 02 2015, 6:44 pm

My college professors sometimes had upperclass students work as graders. Never heard of it in HS.

It is one thing to have help grading very straightforward right/wrong answers (yes, teachers do have their families help with multiple choice grading, for example), but a very different thing to have someone else grade written papers.

amother

Turquoise

Wed, Dec 02 2015, 6:48 pm

As a high school English teacher, I am constantly faced with this. Aside for the regular tests, quizzes and homework, I also spend hours and hours marking reports and essays for over 100 students. It's not feasible for one person to do, especially if I'm also a ftm to a growing, beautiful family.
I have someone that does some of my essays / reports ( like half my pile ) while I do the rest. I believe the going rate is 20$ an hour... At least around where I live.
In an ideal world I would be superwoman and do it all and have time to sleep too! But in the real world, this is the only way I could keep my job, my sleep and my sanity!

amother

Pink

Wed, Dec 02 2015, 8:12 pm

pause wrote:

I agree. Like I said only one teacher requested that I put a mark. Also, I was not marking essays (though I did do long amswers). You can get the gist of how strict/lenient to be when skimming through the student's overall answers.

amother

Beige

Wed, May 18 2016, 11:37 pm

Almost all of our high school teachers did this - they were running from school to school teaching, and my school prided itself on being very academic and insisted they all flood us with essays, daily quizzes, frequent tests, reports and homework questions.

They had no problem telling us that they were waiting to get back the tests from the graders, some of them would recruit students who lived near the graders to drop off the essays...

My mother stopped going to PTA when I was in high school, because many teachers did not know who I was and had to look in their roll books to see whether I was an A or C student... I wasn't a quiet student at all, and when my class would compare notes after PTA, many had the same story...

When you hire unlicensed teachers and don't pay them very well, many end up cramming in as many periods as they can to make ends meet, and face a new hogwash of girls every 45 minutes... If they didn't hire graders to grade the mounds and mounds of papers they assigned, we would never have gotten any work back!

DrMom

Thu, May 19 2016, 4:12 am

Of all the tasks that comprise an English teacher's job description, this is one which should not be outsourced. Have someone else grade multiple-choice tests, etc while you grade essays. This is where your expertise as a trained English teacher is most needed by your students.

Perhaps your inability to keep up with the workload is an indicator that you are giving too many tests?

PAMOM

Thu, May 19 2016, 7:52 am

This practice definitely has historical precedent . In addition to having grad students grade undergrad papers, many school districts have used what were called "lay readers" to grade papers and tests. In all cases, these were experienced, qualified teachers. Dr .Mom (and others)-- do I think this is great? Not really unless the grader also writes a short report about what areas groups of students are weak in and so the classroom teacher needs to work on AND keeps a log of individual students' progress and problems. That's absolutely doable, but I wonder how many teachers would ask for (or want) these records. Without them, you have no profile of the students as learners. With them and with frequent consultation between classroom teacher and grader, the system can work.

amother

Cobalt

Thu, May 19 2016, 7:59 am

I would have no problem outsourcing grading multiple choice or true/false (sometimes I'll hand my husband an answer key so he could do those) but essays can get really dicey. When I grade regents, there are 2 readers for the essays, and if we recommend grades that are different by 2 points, a third reader has to read it and decide. There's too much subjectivity in essays to leave to someone else unless you give them a clear rubric and have someone else available to read it and see if they agree. Not worth it. Part of teaching a subject that involves essays is grading those essays. I know it can get very overwhelming, but it's part of the job. You need to come up with better time management if it's really getting to you.

DrMom

Thu, May 19 2016, 8:48 am

PAMOM wrote:

In classes I took in university, grad students graded papers/exams only if they were teaching assistants who were actually involved in teaching the students whose papers they were grading. This job certainly wasn't outsourced to some anonymous person whom the student never met.

Otherwise, yes, I do think this means the person teaching the class is shirking his duties.