So, I saw this list of awesome education statistics from the Census Bureau linked from Al’s Morning Meeting and bookmarked it to peruse later. As in tonight.

I was a little sad I hadn’t stumbled on it sooner, or thought to look. See, back to school for me was early to mid-August. Yes, most of the little buggers in this county started back Aug. 13 & 14. I KNOW?! Insanely early. But they also finished up by the end of May, which is a nice trade off if you ask me. But I digress.

As I was flipping through the stats, I made notes to myself, “Oh that’s interesting. I didn’t know 70 percent of students are enrolled in all-day kindergarten. I could have used that stat in all those stories I wrote.” Or that “Only 50 percent of full-time college students are employed. (NO wonder everyone else seemed less stressed than me!)”

Then I came across this tid-bit, and I won’t lie, it sort of depressed me: $14.18 Average hourly wage for the nation’s school bus drivers in 2004-05. Custodians earned $12.61, while cafeteria workers made $10.33. Bus drivers make more than me, and custodians earn almost as much on average. Not that I would want either job (though mom did try to lure me into being a campus bus driver, sorry ma, transportation was your thing not mine), or would be good at either. But still, it just puts into perspective how much I get paid after busting my butt to get my degree and the experience necessary to get a job in a competitive field.

But then again, I didn’t get into journalism for the money. (Thank, God.) I got into it for the thrill of seeing a problem, trend, issue or injustice and finding out everything I can about it, what can and is being done about it and passing the knowledge/torch on to readers. I got into it because I can’t not ask when I have a question. I can’t not know.

In terms of how much I think I get out of my job, I think that makes up for some of the difference in pay. A lot of the difference in pay or I wouldn’t do it. I guess I’ll just be extra nice to all the district transportation directors, and keep the bus idea on the back-burner in case this reporting thing doesn’t work out. Lord help you all (and your children) if that ever happens. lol.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Fun, Ideas, Journalism, Offline. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.