Teachers: Working Hard
for Such Little Pay
By:
Missy Whalen
In
today’s world, actors, athlete, and celebrities are amongst the highest paid
professions. Some actors get paid over one million dollars per T.V. episode
they film if their series takes off. These people are paid to entertain, yet
teachers, the people who taught these actors how to read, allowing them to
follow scripts, would have a hard time making enough money to live off of. The
fact that the people who teach you for 13 years make considerably less than
people who are paid to entertain is disturbing. This needs to change, teachers
deserve better pay for the hard work they do.
Many people believe that teaching is
an easy job or that because there’s no school in the summer teachers shouldn’t
complain about their salary. These people are wrong. If teachers are lucky
enough to live in an area where they actually do take the whole summer break
off, many are working a summer job to help make ends meet. The majority of
teachers however don’t get the whole summer vacation off. Teachers may be
attending professional development courses and others are still working within
their classroom to prepare for the year ahead and interpret test scores to see
the areas they need to improve upon and some are doing this and working a
summer job (National Education Association). Because teachers in
most areas have to have their masters degree (Top Education Degrees), many use their
summer to go back to school, allowing them to focus solely on their education
instead of working well over full time and attending night classes during the
school year.
Contrary to the popular belief,
teaching isn’t easy. As a teacher you are responsible for a child’s well-being
and for their mind as well. In elementary school alone each teacher is
responsible for anywhere from 18-30 students. Middle and high school teachers
can have over a hundred in a day. As someone who is responsible for these
children you are expected to make sure each student is well mentally,
physically, and socially all while teaching them the content they’re required
to learn. In order to do this, I know my cousin gets to work an hour early and
leaves an hour after school ends just to go home to take care of her infant.
She and other teachers spend well over the 40 hours of a full time job to make
sure they are ready to help your children learn and don’t get paid for the
extra time they put in. The average time teachers spend on their duties is 50
hours, way more than what they’re paid for (National Education Association).
A major issue with teaching in
today’s world is parents. Parents expect you to be perfect; you’re taking care
of their child and they don’t want any errors to happen while they’re in your
care. From day one of my college career my professors have told us story after
story after story about how one mistake led a teacher to have their license
revoked. To prevent this, teachers are encouraged to pay an extra cost every
month for insurance. Just like surgeons have malpractice insurance to cover
them if they make a mistake in surgery, teachers have insurance to help them
out if a parent sues them. On their already small salary, more and more teachers
are having to use more money to protect themselves because they aren’t perfect,
no one is (Portner).
Parents aren’t the only ones who
expect teachers to be perfect. As a whole teachers are held to a higher
standard in society. If a celebrity or basketball player is caught doing
something society deems as wrong, the biggest consequence is losing a sponsorship
deal. Rarely, if ever do they lose a contract with the team they play for or
are forced out of a movie. They’ll get tabloids written about them and even be
paid to share their side of the story. If your teacher goes out to the bar on
the weekend and a parent sees them, they not only can be fired, but their
license can be revoked; they no longer will be able to teach, all because they
did what many others do. When I turned 21 I feared a family member would post a
picture of me with my first legal drink. The very first education class I took
we were told of a girl who was in college and once a picture of her with a red
solo cup surfaced she was no longer allowed to continue in school to become a
teacher. I have to think about every picture I take, every decision I make,
because even now as a student I am afraid of the consequences it will have on
me becoming a teacher.
Teachers also pay a lot out of their
own pocket. If a district can’t afford supplies they need or if the budget has
already been met, teachers will buy the supplies themselves, and aren’t
reimbursed (Href and Durand). In many areas
hunger is a problem for students. Since learning is affected negatively if a
student is hungry, teachers often have a snack bin in their classroom filled
with food and drink they bought to make sure a child’s basic needs are met I
know of many teachers who have provided a meal for a student to take home so
they had food for dinner. In my cousin’s school district, they make her pay for
a substitute, even if it’s for a school reason. What other job doesn’t have
sick days, vacation days, or reimburses their employees for supplies?
With all that teachers do, and all
that they pay for their salary really isn’t enough. When recessions happen,
teacher pay is the first thing to be cut. Even if they got an increase in
salary, the increases were 1/3 of other jobs; there were areas that had total
pay cuts or even freezes (National Council on Teacher
Quality).
The salaries of teachers can start as low as $19,000 to $33,000 (Meister). With inflation, it
is hard for teachers to stay above water. While inflation increased 3.1 percent
in 2014, teacher salary only increased 2.3 percent (National
Education Association). If teachers are already paid so little
to start and their salaries don’t increase at the same pace as inflation of the
economy, how can teachers be expected to live off what they’re paid? The answer
is that we can’t. It is no wonder why the need for teachers has increased, it
takes a special person to want to go into a job they know will not provide for
their family.
If celebrities, doctors, lawyers,
even the more common jobs were being paid like teachers, we would hear about
it. Everyone would say how unfair it is that doctors get paid so little for
what they do; celebrities wouldn’t want to work for such small pay; people with
common jobs would complain they couldn’t support their families. Yet teachers,
who taught every one of those people how to read, the math they needed for
their job, the science that lets doctors diagnose patients get paid a fraction
of what others are paid. This isn’t right. Something needs to be done. I
encourage you to write to your senators, your governors, anyone who will listen
and tell them a change needs to be made. We need to make this injustice right.
Works Cited
Href, Mailto and Maria F. Durand. Teachers Spend
Own Money for Supplies. n.d. Article. 22 March 2016.
Meister, Dick. LaborNet. 2000. Article. 21
March 2016.
National Council on Teacher Quality. The
Recession's Impact on Teacher Salaries. Washington, D.C., 20 March 2016.
PDF.
National Education Association. Myths and Facts
about Educator Pay. 2015. Article. 22 March 2016.
Portner, Jessica. Education Week. 29 March
2000. Article. 22 March 2016.
Top Education Degrees. Top Education Degrees: Your
Guide to the Best Education Degrees. 2016. Document. 22 March 2016.
