Twelve Indictments of the U.S Education System (Series)
By: Teagan King
Tags: Teacher Pay, Cost Of Living, Teachers, Overwork, Education

Twelve Indictments of the U.S Education System (Series)

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

This article follows from an article I published last week, titled “Twelve Indictments of the U.S Education System: Number Eleven — Redlining and Racism,” where I discussed the eleventh of twelve indictments. Here is the final indictment.

The fact of the matter is that we do not pay our teachers enough. They have a 24-hour job working with our children — our future — and they should not need a part-time job on top of this in order to afford to live. We overwork them and underpay them. That’s why we keep losing them.

Cost of Living —

The cost of living is made up of rent/mortgage, insurance, utilities, taxes, insurance, and childcare. Right now, the median salary for a teacher in Madison, WI, is $57,342. Adding some specifications, including excellent performance, 3–4 years experience, and a master’s degree only bumps up the salary by $925.

Comparatively, the cost of living in Madison, WI right now, is $59,998. The majority of Madison teachers are $2,656 short before they even get to buying clothes, food, maintenance on their house, presents for their significant other, children, family members, or money in savings for a rainy day. The most important thing not included in the cost of living for teachers is all the money they spend on their classroom supplies.

Buying Their Own Supplies —

Teachers take money out of their own pocket to give their students candy on Valentine’s day and make sure they have extra pencils for test days. I don’t have to buy my own staples at my job, so why are we making teachers buy theirs?

Adopt a Classroom did a survey on teachers' spending habits for the 2019/2020 school year and found that, on average, teachers spent $745 on school supplies for their students. Additionally, distance learning due to COVID-19 has increased teachers’ spending in the second half of the year. Teachers are using personal funds that they don’t even have to make sure our students can have the supplies they need to succeed in school. This is very altruistic of them but should be completely unnecessary.

If we add that onto the amount Madison teachers were already short before paying for school supplies, that is $3,401. Teachers hold one of the most important jobs in our society, but we give them no credit for this. They deserve better, and so do our students.

COVID-19/School-at-home/Parents Become the Teachers —

COVID-19 has brought more attention to the difficult jobs of our teachers. In fact, many parents have made videos on social media thanking teachers and saying that they need to be paid more. Here is one of many parents ranting about how hard teaching is, thanking teachers, and listing how many things he thinks we should be doing for them.

Teaching children is hard work. It requires time, attention, patience, and love. Teachers love their students, and they love what they do. That’s why they keep doing it. It can be fulfilling work, but they are also crippled under the stress of budget cuts, paying for their classrooms, and paying for themselves and their families.

Our education system is nothing without our teachers. They have bent over backward for our children — especially during this pandemic — and they deserve more than thank you’s in return.

What We Need To Do —

We need to pay our teachers considerably more, have a realistic budget for their school supplies, give them better benefits and a support system. When teachers aren’t in school teaching, they are prepping course work, creating lesson plans, and grading homework. That is a lot for one person to do on their own, and we need to have a system in place to help with that.

Teacher’s Assistants could be a helpful solution to this issue. They can be high school students or a paid teacher’s assistant. They can help with projects, grading, or sometimes running lessons. Not only is it a helpful assist to the teachers with little to no cost, but it also helps student TA’s try out the teaching life and see if it's something they could be interested in. It would also help them become more comfortable with public speaking and make them better students.

Another option is something called “Teams Teaching” or “Co-Teaching.” This practice would allow students to learn from teachers with varying teaching styles, ideas, perspectives, and experiences. It would also allow more time for the students to receive individual attention, and with more than one teacher, it is easier to teach in smaller groups. This option would help teachers tag team their work and relieve each other’s stress without adding more staff to the school.

These options don’t just work in theory; they are already in practice in some places — they just plain work. But we need them on a broader scale.

None of this can happen without the push from the public. We need you reaching out to your representatives in government and the school boards to push for improvement. We need to demand the rights of our teachers because they deserve it. Thank you, teachers.

My Reps is an online resource that will help you locate your federal, state, local, and county representatives. Click the link to find their contact information.

Donors Choose is an online charity that allows individuals to give directly to teachers and students. Click the link to find projects near you that need funding.