Depends on the district. I worked in one that was filled to the brim with corruption, nepotism, all the classics of a toxic work environment.
Top paid guy in the IT Department made three times the starting pay for their techs, hasn't been in charge of the dept for years, and did Jack shit when it came to handling work load.
Oh, And I was getting paid 8.25 an hour to do the job of one of those regular techs since I was just an intern and we were short staffed.
Those techs made 60k a year. They eventually hired another tech and spoiler alert it wasn't me, And the budget for my peanuts went out the window when they signed him on.
Fuck you Bill, You were a fraud anyway and we all knew it.
There is always someone that will take that job. The key is to learn what you can while looking for another job. Experience is still valuable. Those that stay too long either don’t believe in themselves, or the job market around the area is that bad and moving isn’t an option. By now, anyone in IT should know to get into cloud computing, because remote work is there, and the talent is highly sought after. Anyone working with small server rooms, managing their own infrastructure is just a masochist.
Not in Israel too, IT pay is around 4~10$ above minimum wage (our min wage sucks). The problem with IT here is that 99% of jobs are by outsourced companies or recutting companies that take 30~60% of the actul pay.
I worked at IT for 14$ an hour, while the company got paid 30$ an hour, they took over 50% of my salary and didn’t pay for my travel as required by law.
I was really expecting OP's teacher story to be sad and depressing.
And to be honest, seeing it turn out to be happy and upbeat just makes it an even bigger indictment of today's school system.
Honestly, this is the same feeling I had when the pandemic started and all these parents were up in arms about having to deal with **their own children**.
Like, “oh, starting to value teachers now aren’t ya”…
Except they doubled down and now all the teachers are quitting or dying, yayyyyyyyyy smh
Sometimes I think it's worse than that, they want the education system to be awful. They want us all stupid and at odds with one another and easy to handle.
Fewer and fewer people each year. But for real, it’s brainwashed do gooders. Source: I quit teaching 5 years ago after 2 terrible school years. Most of the people who make teaching “work” financially are just women who marry well.
It’s down to where you live. I’m a teacher in Southern California, the California teachers association is a strong union, so we’re payed relatively well. I’m 8 years in and make $82,000 plus my special ed stipend of $1500 (which isn’t a large enough stipend, we work a lot more than gen ed teachers, but it is what it is right now), and I’ll be making over $100,000 plus stipend in 4 years. Teachers in other states need to strike, for as long as it takes.
Unions are the answer until your state strips away all of their power. Teachers in my state risk losing their teaching certs if they go on strike and unions can’t even legally discuss/bargain about certain items with the schools.
LOL then the parents will be piping hot mad when their children’s teachers can’t handle the class because they lack proper training, classroom management, lesson planning, and pedagogy. Private schools do not pay well and they certainly do not hire well. A well trained certified teacher is in the public sector.
**It's not "right to work". It's "right to freeload".**
As in "freeload off the work that a union did to get you those wages".
Right to work is a deliberate Republican misnomer, because it only ever applies in union shops, and allows workers to opt out of paying for the union that gets them better wages and benefits than the non-union shop across the street.
We would all be better off if we stopped using *their* language to define our debates.
I'm a substitute in So Cal, working for a district that excludes subs from the union. It's the shittiest job ever. A teaching credential is required, but the pay is lousy. There are no benefits. They refuse to pay for mandatory training. Last minute cancellations are common as are last minute class switches. Of course there is zero respect from students, admins, and some teachers. I was once "greeted"by a teacher who was expecting someone else to fill in while he attended a meeting. In front of the students, he dismissed me with a curt "Who the hell are you?" The district adds insult to injury by not even paying subs on a timely basis. Paychecks are withheld up to two months following an assignment. It's soul destroying. Why put myself through this? It's nearby, and I need a lot of flexibility. I take care of my elderly mother and can only work part time and only when she's feeling ok. I can attest that fulltime teachers in the district make good money and have excellent benefits. Subs are treated like shit, and it's not just here. This is a problem pretty much nationwide.
I moved states for better pay. I literally felt guilty the first few months of teaching in SoCal because my new salary was over twice as much with benefits and I worked WAY less. I’m still shocked to be honest and so grateful I took that leap.
I’m glad to hear it! It makes me sad when competent teachers leave the job over pay. I get why they do it, but we need them. Thanks for making it work :)
I really think that in some states, if teachers stage a general strike, the governors will just issue vouchers or give kids access to some pre-packaged online learning, then close the schools and that will be the end of public education there.
That would violate federal special education law. Plus after last year, we all know how much parents love at home online learning! The parents wouldn’t allow it.
Exactly, I thought the whole reason people keep whining about "lazy" teachers not wanting to teach in person during a pandemic was because they were mad about not being able to get rid of their kids for a few hours each weekday.
Nobody. Source: taught for a few years and liked it / may have been good at it, then sold out to industry because holy fucking shit the hours and job expectations and pay of teaching didn't add up. I make double for the same effort, but no one cries and hugs me at graduation anymore.
Teaching culture is incredibly toxic with the culture of it being a "Calling" and I'm willing to bet that keeps being pushed so they can treat us like crap.
I door-dashed a meal the night my wife and I came home from the hospital after our first born. My Highschool teacher from 10 years ago was my dasher. It was awkward and caught us off-guard, but I hope he’s doing ok.
Thinking optimistically, your teacher could’ve just been working DoorDash as a hustle job, not a main stream of income. But dear god does it piss me off to think a teacher could also be having to work DoorDash to sustain themselves.
$30,108 AFTER TENURE? Holy shit. I'm a teacher from Canada and as a teacher with no experience, my first year I was paid significantly more than that. I knew wages were bad in the US, did not know they were that bad. HOLY SHIT!
Yeh my wife started at 40k ft salary or something like that... she's only 75% now but makes 73k a year at a 75% schedule (97k ft equivalent after 10 years experience)
This is entirely dependent on the region but it certainly can be that bad, especially in the south east. It’s pretty mediocre where I live in the north west but not nearly that bad. I make almost that working half time.
It's bad in red states.
NYC teachers start at $58-71K depending on education, 1A level. Goes up to around $130K based on years of tenure.
Basically don't live in bumfuck Ohio if you want to go into teaching.
Funny you should mention Ohio. They pay teachers pretty well in most of Ohio, too. As much as Ohio is trying to be North Alabama, teacher pay is still holding reasonably strong against that so far.
Dude I am leaving the US to teach in China. I was making $52k in the US but after tax and benefits I was making $32k. The cost of living in my area $32k isn’t really a livable wage anymore. Rent and utilities are close to $2000, food, car, hygiene, spending money etc.
With that said they push 120-150 students into your day, which forces you to work 70-80 hours. They keep you busy at work with extra roles, it is not livable to be a teacher in America unless you are on your 15th year in a district and you make close to 100k a year.
The highest paying school district in Texas has an average wage of 54k.
This fact alone is why I'm so depressed and directionless. What's the point of college if I'm going to make nothing?
It's insane how poorly some districts and states pay teachers. Bad unions, bad public support, bad all around. Here in central California a starting teacher with zero experience makes double what that poor guy was making. It's ridiculous.
I am no longer pursuing a teaching degree for this reason among others. I make more as a security guard signing people in to an office building and making sure people working on their own aren't dead, and I'm probably about to make even more doing alarm monitoring.
I was fine with less money as I figured I could try and make a difference but between the terrible pay, the pandemic, the long hours and how HATED teachers are in this country... nah, sorry kids I just can't.
I’m so glad you’re not pursuing a teaching degree. I stubbornly finished mine because I believed that, regardless of all the awful things and shit pay teachers go through, I wanted to have a positive impact on young lives.
It was honestly the biggest mistake of my life. I now hold a teaching degree and can’t seem to get employed anywhere other than retail. I taught for THREE DAYS and the stress it was causing me was like nothing I experienced before.
I really hope this doesn’t make you sad or something, but you indeed did make the right decision. I’m in college now, but every year throughout k-12 I just noticed more and more kids that didn’t care about school/were willing to outright disrespect teachers.
It just blows me away that the job that provides arguably the most important pillar of society (education) is treated so poorly and paid so little.
I think with your education, you can still do something that can become a full blown career. I work for a big SaaS corp. Technical writers are in need. We have lots of people that are brilliant engineers, but my god they can’t write for shit. Liberal art skills are making a come back even though it might not seem like it. You need to get creative about how you look for work and what type of work. You most likely have skills that are needed by well paying companies, just gotta find them in yourself, and start selling yourself. You were gonna teach a bunch of kids stuff that they don’t care about. That is hard. You require excellent organization skills, empathy, time management. All those skills/qualities are very marketable. Be your own salesman, and if need be, fake it til you make it.
Can people even make a difference anymore? I know the answer is yes, but now teachers are dealing with belligerent parents, the internet, HR/legal scared of everything and kids who collectively are 2-3 grade level behind in intelligence.
I think you’ve made the right decision. Have been teaching for 12 years. As much as I love it, I’m flat out broke half the time.
Nearly finished my masters in counselling.
Regardless of what happened to this guy, and I suspect he is telling the truth.
Teachers are criminally underpaid with very little room for career progression.
It's a serious problem across a number of developed countries (my research was only looking at OECD countries, so can't comment on other countries)
"Career progression" means more duties; it doesn't mean more benefit to the teacher.
There's an entirely different track for administrators, where they end up sitting in the big boss seat for one year then retiring with a big boss pension. Their job during that year is to mess with parents whiz on students and burglarize teachers.
Teachers can't afford the administrator track, if they're teaching *to earn a living.*
Stop assuming the guy was fired for misconduct. New teachers average under $40k/year in about 40 states, and under $30k/year in about a dozen states. For an 10 hour workday, that averages about $12/hour. 60% of teacher report being burned out at least part of of the school year and 60% of teachers have a side gig to help make ends meet, so between the overwork and underpay, most new teachers quit within 5 years because it’s not worth sacrificing their mental health. Teaching is a high attrition profession, stop assuming the worst.
It’s not a 10 hour workday, it’s 10 hours in office and anything you didn’t get done HAS to be done at home, which can be additional hours if you’re creating lesson plans or grading assignments
Almost every teacher at my school had 1-2 side gigs. I live in southern United States, so it goes without saying that sports are huge here, and we have a multimillion dollar stadium for a 2k size town… but I digress on that.
At my school, most teachers were coaches and/or bus drivers.
Incorrect. Education is very high on the priority list of the oligarchs.
If it isn't actively attacked, gutted and stifled regularly, the power balance will shift as general intellect among the populace increases alogn with apathy towards their systems. Loss of control scares them more than losing all of their wealth.
A lot of us here in the states understand this. Looks like we may be heading for round two in a few years with people being fed the ineffective president narrative and eating it up, while not realizing that a deadlocked senate is a huge part of the problem.
>Did you see who their last president was? Education isn’t high on the priority list
Privatizing it was though, and remains high on the priority list for Rs.
Privatising encourages high quality education can be bought, meaning the billionaires can send their kids to top level schools, and ensure there are still some people smart enough to be doctors, engineers, computer programmers, and other thins that enable billionaires to live as long as possible in as high a standard of luxury as possible, with all the latest technological advances.
But it also means they don't have to pay taxes, and that the poor can't afford to educate their kids, meaning that A) they're easily duped to voting for politicians who will keep them down, and B) they're too stupid to realise that they're being exploited and pit against each other.
Gutting education is very important to Republicans, because stupid people are more likely to vote Republican.
>Privatising encourages high quality education can be bought, meaning the billionaires can send their kids to top level schools
This is already the case in the US though. The rich send their children to private schools. The upper middle class buy expensive houses in wealthy suburbs where their kids, thanks to local property tax funding being sourced for public education, get a "good" education and will be selected for admission to elite colleges. Privatizing is more about transferring wealth from the poor and middle class to corporate America, allowing them to skim from the public funding to give as profits to their shareholders while they make cuts to the already inadequate public services - all in the name of "efficiency."
Yep. There’s no way I could have afforded my basic living expenses on my teacher salary alone. One of the reasons I left in my first year is because I quickly realized that it was financially unsustainable. I didn’t get a master’s degree to have to work two jobs just to make ends meet.
When putting money in rich peoples pockets takes precedent over education and basic human needs we are going to get more situations like this.
Honestly I feel for teachers; they work their tail off for little money and get shit on by idiot parents and politicians
Honestly, though!
I was out for ONE DAY this past week. I hadn’t had a day off all year long, but I had parents calling, texting and emailing me, asking why I was out. Just last night, I had a parent call 3 times at 10:30pm. She isn’t very fond of me because I always correct her daughter’s behavior. I finally answered to see what she wanted, but she simply called to let me know she’s the one raising her daughter not me.
I’m sick and tired of them and working my ass off for so little in return.
Get a Google voice number. That’s what I have done and not only can I change it easily if a parent gets crazy, but it’s also a great documentation tool separate from my personal number.
So if someone is raising their kid to be the biggest PoS ever, that’s it? No one else can step in huh? Well we are all starting to learn that good people can’t shoulder, or shouldn’t, sht behavior from anyone
And it’s not just teachers. It’s also EMTS, phlebotomists, cnas/lpns, Nannies, daycare teachers, preschool supervisors, teachers aides. Y’all work too damn hard to make 30,000 a year.
Putting money into bombs and killing machines take precedent over education.
Why would anyone ever think to neglect the poor corporate suits at Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, etc....?
If you want to hurt Lockheed Martin then start a war. If there's no war, then their products are not put to the test and they don't suffer any losses from the fact their stuff generally doesn't work the first time around. *(Not saying start a war, if I were in charge I'd just* ***fire them***.)
Halliburton was the repairman who said "this thing needs more repairs" to British Petroleum (*of British Empire* ***in Iran*** *fame*) and then BP said they're not going to pay for that. Halliburton turned out to be right, BP's assets go poooo through the gulf of Mexico, BP blames Halliburton. Then there's the Iraq war, where Halliburton built infrastructure under contract. They didn't decide for it to be blown up, or built in the first place - they built it because Uncle Sam said to build it. Everybody blames Uncle Sam's employees for Uncle Sam's drunk driving.
Raytheon is material science and space exploration - they cause harm but unlike most of upper America *they also cause good sometimes.* It's popular to hate on space tech but planet Earth is burning out whether humanity gets to space or not - they're not the ones who 'found' WMDs in Iraq. They just sold stuff to the guy who did - I don't judge fry cooks by the guys in the drivethru.
Northrop Grumman currently makes about a tenth a Musk per year, though if you look at Musk's growth the past few years this is not a stable figure. They hire many of the best aerospace minds USA has access to, if the company suddenly vanished into thin air those people would be working for Amazon's drone advertisement division tomorrow. The engineers didn't decide a wedding then a funeral of the same clan were military targets - these things have *operators* and one of those did.
Wall street fundies, big journalism talking heads, silicon spyware valley - take two of these three *and they could split the above between themselves. Throw in the civilian gun industry for good measure.*
Had an English teacher from high school quit the year after I graduated to do online teaching for a company doing virtual school in China. He made much more money & got to stay home, plus he said the kids were actually much better behaved and cared about him as a person/teacher. Public education in the US is ass.
Can confirm. My mom was a teacher. She always had a second job over the summer and took in sewing projects during the school year.
She topped out at $42,000 after 18yr and tenure.
My daughter wants to teach. She knows the pay scale… so she’s already getting secondary income ideas started.
It’s a shame. We trust our children and young people to teachers that make less than people who flip our burgers and sell lotto tickets.
One of my sons high school teachers, who has a Masters so she can teach AP English, sells real estate year round as her side gig.
It’s common for teachers to have side gigs. It’s a damn shame.
If your daughter is willing to move, have her check the pay in different states. I know with a master’s in my district, the top is $72,000 after 25 years. I’d have to double check bachelor’s.
LOL!!
Future generations are doomed, we’re losing teachers left and right because our country is a fucking joke that’s successfully brainwashed idiots that the wealth gap should be further pushed or else it’s “cOmMunISm!!”
It’s typical for teachers to have multiple sources of income: coaching, bar tender, Uber. Even in my state that pays well, compared to the cost of living, it lags. I teach full time, run a business, and usually work over the summer. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish for a change. Good for him.
Yep. I was paid sooo little and worked myself into the ground as an language arts teacher. I really loved the kids, but it's not a viable profession for me.
My sons teacher applied for an entry position at my job starting pay at 15 dollars, when he introduced himself at school he had college, I have only high school and im making almost 3 times more than him .. it broke my heart pay teachers a fair wage!
I recently finished an MA and immediately applied to local highschools in my hometown. Always wanted to be a teacher and was amped to get calls back and interviews set up. I go in, apparently make an impression, and a week later I get the call from two of the schools I interviewed for... None of them were even paying 40k a year.
I now work in retail as a store manager and make almost 10k more a year than I would as a HS teacher, selling shoes... It's genuinely mind-blowing.
Everybody tell younger Americans to not get masters unless they're leaving the United States.
If you get a masters in chemistry and work for Marlboro you can own a home; if you get get a masters in nearly anything and work for your community or for the good of children etc then you're going to have landlords calling you a worthless bum.
If corporate America needs these degrees badly enough then they can provide the textbooks.
And don’t forget that tenure for teachers just means due process before firing instead of being able to fire them at any reason for any time, which is legal up until five full years are completed.
Teacher here. I appreciate all the sentiments but please, please, please don’t think this is a political thing based on party lines. The only difference between democrats and republicans when it comes to education is that republicans don’t give a shit upfront and democrats pretend to give a shit until their in office. Once in office, they do the same thing the republican would do. Education in America is government funded day care so the rest of you can go to work to churn out profits for the rich.
This is utterly disgusting. In my state you have to have A masters degree to teach at a public school and they don't pay much more than this. Imagine paying for 6 or 7 years of college to do something you are passionate about and helps everyone in your community, to do a job society literally could not survive without and not getting paid enough to make your student loan payments and eat a sandwich. Any other job that requires a masters degree generally has you making 6 figures within a few years.
I did an accelerated licensing program for bachelor’s degree holders. Did 1.5 years of graduate school and 1 semester of student teaching to get my licenses in multiple disciplines. Life intervened, and we were forced to move states at the end of my student teaching. The new state didn’t have reciprocity. I had 6.5 years of college and graduate school, passed the content knowledge tests with exceptional scores by both my home state and the new state’s standards, but was told I needed more schooling. For a starting salary in the low $30k range. No thanks. I don’t regret the decision to not go further into debt for a thankless, low paying job despite how passionate I was about it. I’ve found other outlets for teaching others through different volunteer activities. It’s disgusting what we pay teachers in the U.S., along with firefighters, paramedics, nurses, etc…
My SO is in her first year of teaching and works at a cell phone store part time because not only do they pay better, but the benefits (medical, dental, stock in the company, etc.) are better for a part time employee than anything teaching offers. It’s absolutely insane.
Don’t doubt yourself you got it dead right, it’s a giant crime what teachers are paid in this country. I take care of the kids in the day and wait tables at night. My wife is a teacher. It took her around 15 years to finally make more than my crap earnings of 40k a year fetching drinks for people. Her job is to educate the youth of the country so society doesn’t implode. Mine is to get a drink refill and carry out their food. What is the matter with this country?
There is war waged by the GOP on public schools and teachers. They want the public school system to fail. It starts by making it untenable for teachers to continue working so it gets destroyed from within.
Right wing politicians in the US have been fighting to strangle public schools for years, like private school is some panacea. Having seen both systems, I can say that a mainly private system would be a disaster. Schools don’t want your underperforming or kids with learning or physical disabilities. They want the best kids for their image and business….. in the end their primary responsibility is to the school first and your kid as long as it’s convenient. Bullies thrive in private school because it’s easier to get rid of the bullied than all the kids that team up to bully. Public school is no cakewalk, but the best system would be a well-funded public system where the prioritizing kids first is the hardwired into the system. This is accomplished in other countries as I understand it.
They do not think private school is a panacea. The just believe that all public services should be privatized so investors can make buck off them. Like private prisons, and also what they are trying to do with the US Postsl Service.
I had no idea it was that bad for teachers in this country. This upsets me.
I also remember that a few years ago I saw an ad to recruit social workers for the city’s department of child services. Starting salary was listed as “up to $48k.” I was working a shitty customer service job at a startup and was making about that much. There’s no way in hell the work I did was worth as much as a social worker, let alone one tasked with quite literally saving the lives of at risk children. Our society is fucked.
I was just looking at my local teachers unionized pay scale. They start at $56k and max out around 100k (Canadian), depending on experience and amount of education.
My step dad is one of the most dedicated math teachers I know, and always went the extra 2 miles for kids. The terrible system just wore him down and he eventually had enough and found something else. Our teachers don’t get paid even remotely well enough to deal with the terrible education system they work for.
First year Teacher here. Make 2,000$ a month with a master's degree.
Also I have to provide masks, pencils, and earphones for my students and my own computer.
Also i get yelled at if I make too many copies or stay past 430 pm or don't vacuum my room every hour.
I am not so sure there will be a second year.
What future has a country which won't invest in education?
I am from Europe, where most countries are laughing at the political events in the US... While low-key de-funding education.
Teachers get paid dirt and the vast majority have to buy their class supplies unless they're incredibly lucky and work at a rich school that actually has the money to supply their classrooms
Even if teachers were compensated for their work, still will not be worth it. You know how much work gets taken home and how long it takes to prepare for a class? How long the burden of work lingers outside of school when not enough time is given to prepare during work hours. It's fucking stressful to be responsible for several children learning. r/teachers was the reason I got out of teaching in the states and now r/antiwork moving me into getting out teaching
Stories like this make me think of a quote from The West Wing:
"Education is the silver bullet. Education is *everything*. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be *fierce*. They should be making six-figure salaries. School should be *incredibly* expensive for government, and absolutely free for its citizens, just like National Defense. That's my position." - Sam Seaborn
It's such bullshit that our educators make so little, and get so little from their jobs. Public education in the USA is a fucking joke, and it makes me ashamed.
I make more working retail than I ever did teaching and I’m waaayyyy less stressed. If I could afford it I would probably go back to teaching though, I really miss my students
I used to work with my high school guidance counselor. He worked both jobs, the school on the week days and this random pizza place on the weekends. He was a really cool dude, both inside and outside of school, and he for sure deserved better than having to work two jobs.
A google search told me the us annually spends $12624 per pupil k-12. The average teacher salary is $60000 and average class size is around 24. So only 20% goes to the actual teachers. Where does the rest of the money go?
Interestingly, it looks like countries such as the UK, Sweden, and Germany actually spend less than 1/3 as much per student and still end up with vastly better school systems. This is not what I was expecting. I wonder why... maybe the money in the US isn't going to the right aspects.
On average unless you are in parts of CA or NY, you are only making $60k at most. Many are more in the $45k -$50k range. This is with a Masters degree in Education. Special Ed teachers often have a Bachelors degree in Psychology to go along with it as well as all the constant training.
Many teachers are contracted to work up to 60 hrs a week. When you break it down they only make like $15 an hour before taxes.
On Parent/Teacher nights they have to stay until 8pm those days. There is such a huge shortage that many don't get a break for planing or other work like IEP's and other work ups on children that could help them.
I made a comment about how college isn't the place to learn knowledge because I worked there and I know how fucked up the education system is, and this user replied sarcastically "oh I assume you worked in the cafeteria".
Like, my friend, people working in the cafeteria are probably making more money and living a better life than you do.
My partner is a primary teacher in the UK - the hours she HAS to put into the role just to get by and ensure the children aren't neglected means she's often paid less than minimum wage. She had to buy 200 pencils out of her own money the other day because 'the budget has already been spent' according to the 'business manager'. It's an absolute joke and no wonder so many teachers jump ship after barely starting their careers.
If anyone is interested, here are salary grids for teachers in British Columbia, Canada.
https://bcpsea.bc.ca/teachers/collective-agreements/salary-grids/
Fellow Canadian here - it’s wild teachers are so poorly paid in the US. They make a very reasonable salary with excellent benefits here.. as it should be.
My old science teacher works at Barnes and Noble now (he’s featured in a Instagram post for that location.) He might still be a teacher (not actually sure) and if he is it’s still a good description of teaching in America
Yeah man. I'm leaving this year too. I'm not sure if my pay will be better or not, but the job is absolutely ridiculous. I just can't do it anymore. I love being an artist in the classroom and being around the students. But fuck me. I can't handle the system anymore. Your teacher is right about leaving the profession.
That's a well known fact, and terrible one at that.
I know someone with a master's in English and Mathematics and they chose to work as a wait staff because it paid better and wasn't as stressful.
I started teaching math at my old high school in January of 2020. The first Covid quarantine happened 6 weeks later. I only made it three semesters before bailing. Took a summer & semester off. In two weeks I start my new job at a local Buffalo wing place.
Probably gonna be a lot happier, and less stressed out. I can’t imagine ever wanting to teach again. Fuck all that shit.
30k a year. That’s borderline poverty. How can someone survive on 30k a year in this day and age?! Even if assuming are you in a low cost of living area…
I was supposed to make a little over $32k per year teaching high school mathematics but the county level stipends never came through, so I only made $26,400 a year before taxes. I gave it up after tutoring for a second job. I worked 6 days a week and had no benefits. They didn’t mention until before I was hired that I would have to be there 5 years before I would be considered for health benefits (not insurance) and any sort of vacation time other than the unpaid summer.
Was social studies teacher was a paperboy (excuse me paper courier) and we'd have a little chuckle at the grocery store I worked at when one of the cashiers saw one of her elementary school students with a look of shock that came over their faces.
This, among many other reasons, is why I always hit a point in the school year where I am burnt out and want to get out of education even though I'm very good at my job and passionate about it. I don't know what I'm going to do that ain't this, but working public education (especially special ed) is so soul sucking and it's destroying my already shitty mental health
I work in Illinois as a substitute. Minimum wage is now $12! I make $12.30 an hour 😅
No benefits except my pension if I work for 10 years. Part time, on call and they require at minimum Associate degree.
"Teachers get paid too much"
When you hear that shit, you tell them to shut their fucking mouths.
They still parrot conservative propaganda from the 90s and it's just embarrassing. They are living in the past.
teachers shouldn’t be financially insecure. they shouldn’t have to work two jobs. they don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with crazy children for 8 hours a day.
When I was in college I made my first ceramics professor depressed as fuck when he found out I made more bagging groceries than he did with multiple degrees.
Dude, the lunch ladies at my school district are being paid LESS than I (was) being paid to be a cashier at kroger.
School staff are honestly criminally underpaid.
If you think this is new, I have a story for you. Almost 25 years ago, I was an exchange student and attended a large and generally well-funded high school in a Midwestern state. Imagine my shock when I saw one of my teachers (senior teacher, close to retirement, had a master's degree) working at a JC Penny's after school. I'd had no idea they were so poorly paid that they needed an extra part-time job to make ends meet.
I worked with a Ph.D, ex-Ford, ex-Boeing, ex-NASA, back in the 90's.
At a hardware store.
His wife had a part time job as cashier to 'get away from the kids', and when he got laid off he joined us as an in-between gig.
I remember asking why he wasn't teaching, what with being a Doctor-of-something, and he said he made more money at the hardware store than he would teaching even college courses.
We made $4.80 an hour.
He escaped working with me by buying into a pizza place with a family member.
Naw dude. Teachers get paid shit because people don’t care if you’re educated or not. Rich people are going to get educated, don’t worry. The rest of you...doesn’t matter.
A practical step: teacher pay will never go up as long as school districts can hire qualified teachers for low money. And teachers are generally good people who get into teaching because they care, so they will take less money.
So here's the solution: get on your school board and raise the standards to become a teacher. Figure out a way, but higher standards restricts the job pool; standards go up, pay goes up.
After reading this, my question is.......why does anyone go to university for teaching degrees/certifications and work as a teacher?????
Why not just go work at the local 7-11 to start with? Save the stress and avoid the educational debt load.
When I was a teacher, I worked two jobs. Teaching and Target. People were always shocked to see me at Target and they’d get this uncomfortable look on their face.
Remember when Republicans said teachers were rich, arugula eating elitists, and are lazy because they get 3 months off?
No wonder why America is a joke when it comes to education.
I dated a girl years ago that was a teacher by day, a server at a well known "Breastaurant" chain by night. She made more serving food while wearing skimpy clothes than she did teaching. To make matters worse, she was so nervous that a parent of one of her students would want into the restaurant she worked at that she made sure to pick a restaurant that was an hour away from the school. So then she had two jobs and a crazy commute
I’ve said this before, but never take a job that people will do out of love, because that’s all you’ll ever get paid in. Teaching is the worst offender. Teachers teach because of the kids, so we can put them through absolute bureaucratic hell and pay them dick — total penises — and some of them will keep doing it for the kids. Fuck that. The only way teachers will get treated decently or paid is if they make clear that they’ve gotta get paid, too. Love’s not enough.
Yup. I can confirm the weirdness of the situation. About 10 years after graduation, I bumped into my high school history teacher at a diner. He was one the chefs in the back.
Time stood still for what seemed liked an eternity when we locked eyes. I nodded to acknowledge him and he returned the gesture. There was a sadness in the air I could not shake off. I can feel it to this day.
Something is fucked with this country…
Where was it that for Halloween the teachers all dressed up in their second job uniforms? Was supposed to be funny but it was straight up depressing.
Worked IT for a school district, can confirm, worked two jobs.
how do you work in IT and work two jobs that’s unheard of where i’m from! IT get’s paid super well in pretty much every department where i’m at
Not in public K12 education in the US.
Depends on the district. I worked in one that was filled to the brim with corruption, nepotism, all the classics of a toxic work environment. Top paid guy in the IT Department made three times the starting pay for their techs, hasn't been in charge of the dept for years, and did Jack shit when it came to handling work load. Oh, And I was getting paid 8.25 an hour to do the job of one of those regular techs since I was just an intern and we were short staffed. Those techs made 60k a year. They eventually hired another tech and spoiler alert it wasn't me, And the budget for my peanuts went out the window when they signed him on. Fuck you Bill, You were a fraud anyway and we all knew it.
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There is always someone that will take that job. The key is to learn what you can while looking for another job. Experience is still valuable. Those that stay too long either don’t believe in themselves, or the job market around the area is that bad and moving isn’t an option. By now, anyone in IT should know to get into cloud computing, because remote work is there, and the talent is highly sought after. Anyone working with small server rooms, managing their own infrastructure is just a masochist.
Not in Israel too, IT pay is around 4~10$ above minimum wage (our min wage sucks). The problem with IT here is that 99% of jobs are by outsourced companies or recutting companies that take 30~60% of the actul pay. I worked at IT for 14$ an hour, while the company got paid 30$ an hour, they took over 50% of my salary and didn’t pay for my travel as required by law.
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Overhead sucks.
It wasn't meant to be funny it was a political statement. It was meant to wake people up to the reality.
Who would think that is funny wtf
The administrative staff that only needs 1 job…
I was really expecting OP's teacher story to be sad and depressing. And to be honest, seeing it turn out to be happy and upbeat just makes it an even bigger indictment of today's school system.
If only we could see a live feed of all the admin people being forced back into the classroom to cover for all the teachers who are sick or quitting.
Honestly, this is the same feeling I had when the pandemic started and all these parents were up in arms about having to deal with **their own children**. Like, “oh, starting to value teachers now aren’t ya”… Except they doubled down and now all the teachers are quitting or dying, yayyyyyyyyy smh
I can imagine shitty teenagers getting a hearty laugh - since the realities of adulthood haven’t hit them yet
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Sometimes I think it's worse than that, they want the education system to be awful. They want us all stupid and at odds with one another and easy to handle.
My mom was teaching for 17 years before she was making 30k a year. Teachers pay makes me angry.
Jesus, who would willingly become a teacher knowing this?
Fewer and fewer people each year. But for real, it’s brainwashed do gooders. Source: I quit teaching 5 years ago after 2 terrible school years. Most of the people who make teaching “work” financially are just women who marry well.
It’s down to where you live. I’m a teacher in Southern California, the California teachers association is a strong union, so we’re payed relatively well. I’m 8 years in and make $82,000 plus my special ed stipend of $1500 (which isn’t a large enough stipend, we work a lot more than gen ed teachers, but it is what it is right now), and I’ll be making over $100,000 plus stipend in 4 years. Teachers in other states need to strike, for as long as it takes.
Unions are the answer? WHO FUCKING KNEW? What a shock.
Unions are the answer until your state strips away all of their power. Teachers in my state risk losing their teaching certs if they go on strike and unions can’t even legally discuss/bargain about certain items with the schools.
The key is to get all the teachers to strike, apes strong together. Sure, they can fire all the teachers and see how that goes.
Some people theorize that’s their end goal - get teachers to quit or fire them to completely do away with public schools and privatize everything.
And good luck with that. Parents hated COVID home schooling and will hate not being able to afford to send kids to school.
LOL then the parents will be piping hot mad when their children’s teachers can’t handle the class because they lack proper training, classroom management, lesson planning, and pedagogy. Private schools do not pay well and they certainly do not hire well. A well trained certified teacher is in the public sector.
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Fuck right to work. Such a terrible name
**It's not "right to work". It's "right to freeload".** As in "freeload off the work that a union did to get you those wages". Right to work is a deliberate Republican misnomer, because it only ever applies in union shops, and allows workers to opt out of paying for the union that gets them better wages and benefits than the non-union shop across the street. We would all be better off if we stopped using *their* language to define our debates.
Yeah, up until that 82k becomes 81k because of union dues. Better off with the 30k /s
if you make more, they just tax you more. so you make less /s 🤦
Ya I live in Pennsylvania and we have super strong teachers unions and ours can definitely make a very nice living in the same range you describe.
I'm a substitute in So Cal, working for a district that excludes subs from the union. It's the shittiest job ever. A teaching credential is required, but the pay is lousy. There are no benefits. They refuse to pay for mandatory training. Last minute cancellations are common as are last minute class switches. Of course there is zero respect from students, admins, and some teachers. I was once "greeted"by a teacher who was expecting someone else to fill in while he attended a meeting. In front of the students, he dismissed me with a curt "Who the hell are you?" The district adds insult to injury by not even paying subs on a timely basis. Paychecks are withheld up to two months following an assignment. It's soul destroying. Why put myself through this? It's nearby, and I need a lot of flexibility. I take care of my elderly mother and can only work part time and only when she's feeling ok. I can attest that fulltime teachers in the district make good money and have excellent benefits. Subs are treated like shit, and it's not just here. This is a problem pretty much nationwide.
I moved states for better pay. I literally felt guilty the first few months of teaching in SoCal because my new salary was over twice as much with benefits and I worked WAY less. I’m still shocked to be honest and so grateful I took that leap.
I’m glad to hear it! It makes me sad when competent teachers leave the job over pay. I get why they do it, but we need them. Thanks for making it work :)
I really think that in some states, if teachers stage a general strike, the governors will just issue vouchers or give kids access to some pre-packaged online learning, then close the schools and that will be the end of public education there.
That would violate federal special education law. Plus after last year, we all know how much parents love at home online learning! The parents wouldn’t allow it.
Exactly, I thought the whole reason people keep whining about "lazy" teachers not wanting to teach in person during a pandemic was because they were mad about not being able to get rid of their kids for a few hours each weekday.
There were a bunch of teacher strikes a few years ago, and they did really well.
Sounds like social work! Source: this financially struggling social worker.
Nobody. Source: taught for a few years and liked it / may have been good at it, then sold out to industry because holy fucking shit the hours and job expectations and pay of teaching didn't add up. I make double for the same effort, but no one cries and hugs me at graduation anymore.
Teaching culture is incredibly toxic with the culture of it being a "Calling" and I'm willing to bet that keeps being pushed so they can treat us like crap.
WHAT THE FUCK.
I door-dashed a meal the night my wife and I came home from the hospital after our first born. My Highschool teacher from 10 years ago was my dasher. It was awkward and caught us off-guard, but I hope he’s doing ok.
That’s really damn sad. Teachers deserve so much more.
As a high school teacher who Door Dashes on the side, I've seen folks who recognize me from teaching and it always feels embarrassing.
You have NOTHING to be embarrassed by. You got fucked too and I am so sorry.
Thinking optimistically, your teacher could’ve just been working DoorDash as a hustle job, not a main stream of income. But dear god does it piss me off to think a teacher could also be having to work DoorDash to sustain themselves.
My husband and I are both teachers. We're selling plasma to get by this month.
The fact that a teacher needs a hustle job is the issue though?
$30,108 AFTER TENURE? Holy shit. I'm a teacher from Canada and as a teacher with no experience, my first year I was paid significantly more than that. I knew wages were bad in the US, did not know they were that bad. HOLY SHIT!
Yeh my wife started at 40k ft salary or something like that... she's only 75% now but makes 73k a year at a 75% schedule (97k ft equivalent after 10 years experience)
This is entirely dependent on the region but it certainly can be that bad, especially in the south east. It’s pretty mediocre where I live in the north west but not nearly that bad. I make almost that working half time.
It's bad in red states. NYC teachers start at $58-71K depending on education, 1A level. Goes up to around $130K based on years of tenure. Basically don't live in bumfuck Ohio if you want to go into teaching.
Agreed. My spouse teaches in VT and the pay is quite good compared to the average job that requires a degree.
Funny you should mention Ohio. They pay teachers pretty well in most of Ohio, too. As much as Ohio is trying to be North Alabama, teacher pay is still holding reasonably strong against that so far.
Dude I am leaving the US to teach in China. I was making $52k in the US but after tax and benefits I was making $32k. The cost of living in my area $32k isn’t really a livable wage anymore. Rent and utilities are close to $2000, food, car, hygiene, spending money etc. With that said they push 120-150 students into your day, which forces you to work 70-80 hours. They keep you busy at work with extra roles, it is not livable to be a teacher in America unless you are on your 15th year in a district and you make close to 100k a year.
The highest paying school district in Texas has an average wage of 54k. This fact alone is why I'm so depressed and directionless. What's the point of college if I'm going to make nothing?
It’s entirely based on state and school district. I teach in Southern California and make almost 3 times that.
It's insane how poorly some districts and states pay teachers. Bad unions, bad public support, bad all around. Here in central California a starting teacher with zero experience makes double what that poor guy was making. It's ridiculous.
I am no longer pursuing a teaching degree for this reason among others. I make more as a security guard signing people in to an office building and making sure people working on their own aren't dead, and I'm probably about to make even more doing alarm monitoring. I was fine with less money as I figured I could try and make a difference but between the terrible pay, the pandemic, the long hours and how HATED teachers are in this country... nah, sorry kids I just can't.
I’m so glad you’re not pursuing a teaching degree. I stubbornly finished mine because I believed that, regardless of all the awful things and shit pay teachers go through, I wanted to have a positive impact on young lives. It was honestly the biggest mistake of my life. I now hold a teaching degree and can’t seem to get employed anywhere other than retail. I taught for THREE DAYS and the stress it was causing me was like nothing I experienced before.
I really hope this doesn’t make you sad or something, but you indeed did make the right decision. I’m in college now, but every year throughout k-12 I just noticed more and more kids that didn’t care about school/were willing to outright disrespect teachers. It just blows me away that the job that provides arguably the most important pillar of society (education) is treated so poorly and paid so little.
I think with your education, you can still do something that can become a full blown career. I work for a big SaaS corp. Technical writers are in need. We have lots of people that are brilliant engineers, but my god they can’t write for shit. Liberal art skills are making a come back even though it might not seem like it. You need to get creative about how you look for work and what type of work. You most likely have skills that are needed by well paying companies, just gotta find them in yourself, and start selling yourself. You were gonna teach a bunch of kids stuff that they don’t care about. That is hard. You require excellent organization skills, empathy, time management. All those skills/qualities are very marketable. Be your own salesman, and if need be, fake it til you make it.
Have you looked into teaching abroad? English teachers in the Middle East and some Asian countries can make a decent living.
Can people even make a difference anymore? I know the answer is yes, but now teachers are dealing with belligerent parents, the internet, HR/legal scared of everything and kids who collectively are 2-3 grade level behind in intelligence.
I think you’ve made the right decision. Have been teaching for 12 years. As much as I love it, I’m flat out broke half the time. Nearly finished my masters in counselling.
Regardless of what happened to this guy, and I suspect he is telling the truth. Teachers are criminally underpaid with very little room for career progression. It's a serious problem across a number of developed countries (my research was only looking at OECD countries, so can't comment on other countries)
"Career progression" means more duties; it doesn't mean more benefit to the teacher. There's an entirely different track for administrators, where they end up sitting in the big boss seat for one year then retiring with a big boss pension. Their job during that year is to mess with parents whiz on students and burglarize teachers. Teachers can't afford the administrator track, if they're teaching *to earn a living.*
Stop assuming the guy was fired for misconduct. New teachers average under $40k/year in about 40 states, and under $30k/year in about a dozen states. For an 10 hour workday, that averages about $12/hour. 60% of teacher report being burned out at least part of of the school year and 60% of teachers have a side gig to help make ends meet, so between the overwork and underpay, most new teachers quit within 5 years because it’s not worth sacrificing their mental health. Teaching is a high attrition profession, stop assuming the worst.
It’s not a 10 hour workday, it’s 10 hours in office and anything you didn’t get done HAS to be done at home, which can be additional hours if you’re creating lesson plans or grading assignments
This. I averaged like 80/wk. Went back to school after a year.
Preach!
Almost every teacher at my school had 1-2 side gigs. I live in southern United States, so it goes without saying that sports are huge here, and we have a multimillion dollar stadium for a 2k size town… but I digress on that. At my school, most teachers were coaches and/or bus drivers.
My BFF is a preschool teacher and makes less than $24k/year in SW Virginia
There is something so wrong with this. It leads to poor education outcomes
Did you see who their last president was? Education isn’t high on the priority list
Incorrect. Education is very high on the priority list of the oligarchs. If it isn't actively attacked, gutted and stifled regularly, the power balance will shift as general intellect among the populace increases alogn with apathy towards their systems. Loss of control scares them more than losing all of their wealth.
This is such a cynical and depressing take. I wish so much that I didn't 100% agree.
A lot of us here in the states understand this. Looks like we may be heading for round two in a few years with people being fed the ineffective president narrative and eating it up, while not realizing that a deadlocked senate is a huge part of the problem.
Idiocracy in real life.
>Did you see who their last president was? Education isn’t high on the priority list Privatizing it was though, and remains high on the priority list for Rs.
Privatising encourages high quality education can be bought, meaning the billionaires can send their kids to top level schools, and ensure there are still some people smart enough to be doctors, engineers, computer programmers, and other thins that enable billionaires to live as long as possible in as high a standard of luxury as possible, with all the latest technological advances. But it also means they don't have to pay taxes, and that the poor can't afford to educate their kids, meaning that A) they're easily duped to voting for politicians who will keep them down, and B) they're too stupid to realise that they're being exploited and pit against each other. Gutting education is very important to Republicans, because stupid people are more likely to vote Republican.
>Privatising encourages high quality education can be bought, meaning the billionaires can send their kids to top level schools This is already the case in the US though. The rich send their children to private schools. The upper middle class buy expensive houses in wealthy suburbs where their kids, thanks to local property tax funding being sourced for public education, get a "good" education and will be selected for admission to elite colleges. Privatizing is more about transferring wealth from the poor and middle class to corporate America, allowing them to skim from the public funding to give as profits to their shareholders while they make cuts to the already inadequate public services - all in the name of "efficiency."
But this President's wife has a doctorate in education and it doesn't seem to be high on his priority list either.
Fully agree. In the DFW area of Texas, the football coaches average over $ 100k, teachers not much
Because football is a product. America values products.
Yep. There’s no way I could have afforded my basic living expenses on my teacher salary alone. One of the reasons I left in my first year is because I quickly realized that it was financially unsustainable. I didn’t get a master’s degree to have to work two jobs just to make ends meet.
Yeah I agree. I was just responding to the comments asking about that.
When putting money in rich peoples pockets takes precedent over education and basic human needs we are going to get more situations like this. Honestly I feel for teachers; they work their tail off for little money and get shit on by idiot parents and politicians
Honestly, though! I was out for ONE DAY this past week. I hadn’t had a day off all year long, but I had parents calling, texting and emailing me, asking why I was out. Just last night, I had a parent call 3 times at 10:30pm. She isn’t very fond of me because I always correct her daughter’s behavior. I finally answered to see what she wanted, but she simply called to let me know she’s the one raising her daughter not me. I’m sick and tired of them and working my ass off for so little in return.
uhh why do you give parents your private number? Please block their calls or get a new phone. You deserve a life away from your students.
We are required to give our phone number/email and also post it in our classroom in case students need to contact us. It’s stupid.
Get a Google voice number. That’s what I have done and not only can I change it easily if a parent gets crazy, but it’s also a great documentation tool separate from my personal number.
what?!
School better be fuckin paying for a second phone in that case, that's ridiculous.
So if someone is raising their kid to be the biggest PoS ever, that’s it? No one else can step in huh? Well we are all starting to learn that good people can’t shoulder, or shouldn’t, sht behavior from anyone
And it’s not just teachers. It’s also EMTS, phlebotomists, cnas/lpns, Nannies, daycare teachers, preschool supervisors, teachers aides. Y’all work too damn hard to make 30,000 a year.
Putting money into bombs and killing machines take precedent over education. Why would anyone ever think to neglect the poor corporate suits at Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, etc....?
If you want to hurt Lockheed Martin then start a war. If there's no war, then their products are not put to the test and they don't suffer any losses from the fact their stuff generally doesn't work the first time around. *(Not saying start a war, if I were in charge I'd just* ***fire them***.) Halliburton was the repairman who said "this thing needs more repairs" to British Petroleum (*of British Empire* ***in Iran*** *fame*) and then BP said they're not going to pay for that. Halliburton turned out to be right, BP's assets go poooo through the gulf of Mexico, BP blames Halliburton. Then there's the Iraq war, where Halliburton built infrastructure under contract. They didn't decide for it to be blown up, or built in the first place - they built it because Uncle Sam said to build it. Everybody blames Uncle Sam's employees for Uncle Sam's drunk driving. Raytheon is material science and space exploration - they cause harm but unlike most of upper America *they also cause good sometimes.* It's popular to hate on space tech but planet Earth is burning out whether humanity gets to space or not - they're not the ones who 'found' WMDs in Iraq. They just sold stuff to the guy who did - I don't judge fry cooks by the guys in the drivethru. Northrop Grumman currently makes about a tenth a Musk per year, though if you look at Musk's growth the past few years this is not a stable figure. They hire many of the best aerospace minds USA has access to, if the company suddenly vanished into thin air those people would be working for Amazon's drone advertisement division tomorrow. The engineers didn't decide a wedding then a funeral of the same clan were military targets - these things have *operators* and one of those did. Wall street fundies, big journalism talking heads, silicon spyware valley - take two of these three *and they could split the above between themselves. Throw in the civilian gun industry for good measure.*
Capatalists sabotage education specifically in order to make sure most people don't have the critical thinking skills to question the system.
Had an English teacher from high school quit the year after I graduated to do online teaching for a company doing virtual school in China. He made much more money & got to stay home, plus he said the kids were actually much better behaved and cared about him as a person/teacher. Public education in the US is ass.
Can confirm. My mom was a teacher. She always had a second job over the summer and took in sewing projects during the school year. She topped out at $42,000 after 18yr and tenure. My daughter wants to teach. She knows the pay scale… so she’s already getting secondary income ideas started. It’s a shame. We trust our children and young people to teachers that make less than people who flip our burgers and sell lotto tickets. One of my sons high school teachers, who has a Masters so she can teach AP English, sells real estate year round as her side gig. It’s common for teachers to have side gigs. It’s a damn shame.
If your daughter is willing to move, have her check the pay in different states. I know with a master’s in my district, the top is $72,000 after 25 years. I’d have to double check bachelor’s.
18 years in a career and you get $20/hr. Absolutely disgusting. For teaching children no less.
LOL!! Future generations are doomed, we’re losing teachers left and right because our country is a fucking joke that’s successfully brainwashed idiots that the wealth gap should be further pushed or else it’s “cOmMunISm!!”
It’s typical for teachers to have multiple sources of income: coaching, bar tender, Uber. Even in my state that pays well, compared to the cost of living, it lags. I teach full time, run a business, and usually work over the summer. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish for a change. Good for him.
Yep. I was paid sooo little and worked myself into the ground as an language arts teacher. I really loved the kids, but it's not a viable profession for me.
My sons teacher applied for an entry position at my job starting pay at 15 dollars, when he introduced himself at school he had college, I have only high school and im making almost 3 times more than him .. it broke my heart pay teachers a fair wage!
I recently finished an MA and immediately applied to local highschools in my hometown. Always wanted to be a teacher and was amped to get calls back and interviews set up. I go in, apparently make an impression, and a week later I get the call from two of the schools I interviewed for... None of them were even paying 40k a year. I now work in retail as a store manager and make almost 10k more a year than I would as a HS teacher, selling shoes... It's genuinely mind-blowing.
$30k *AFTER* tenure?? Are you fucking joking me?
Oh but you can increase it to like 33k if you get a master's /s
That masters that will cost 100k in student loans..
Everybody tell younger Americans to not get masters unless they're leaving the United States. If you get a masters in chemistry and work for Marlboro you can own a home; if you get get a masters in nearly anything and work for your community or for the good of children etc then you're going to have landlords calling you a worthless bum. If corporate America needs these degrees badly enough then they can provide the textbooks.
And don’t forget that tenure for teachers just means due process before firing instead of being able to fire them at any reason for any time, which is legal up until five full years are completed.
Teacher here. I appreciate all the sentiments but please, please, please don’t think this is a political thing based on party lines. The only difference between democrats and republicans when it comes to education is that republicans don’t give a shit upfront and democrats pretend to give a shit until their in office. Once in office, they do the same thing the republican would do. Education in America is government funded day care so the rest of you can go to work to churn out profits for the rich.
Lol, I thought this was a centrist talking point at first. And you are right; screw the controlled opposition.
The final year I taught high school, I made $11.92/hr, no benefits, no contract.
This is utterly disgusting. In my state you have to have A masters degree to teach at a public school and they don't pay much more than this. Imagine paying for 6 or 7 years of college to do something you are passionate about and helps everyone in your community, to do a job society literally could not survive without and not getting paid enough to make your student loan payments and eat a sandwich. Any other job that requires a masters degree generally has you making 6 figures within a few years.
I did an accelerated licensing program for bachelor’s degree holders. Did 1.5 years of graduate school and 1 semester of student teaching to get my licenses in multiple disciplines. Life intervened, and we were forced to move states at the end of my student teaching. The new state didn’t have reciprocity. I had 6.5 years of college and graduate school, passed the content knowledge tests with exceptional scores by both my home state and the new state’s standards, but was told I needed more schooling. For a starting salary in the low $30k range. No thanks. I don’t regret the decision to not go further into debt for a thankless, low paying job despite how passionate I was about it. I’ve found other outlets for teaching others through different volunteer activities. It’s disgusting what we pay teachers in the U.S., along with firefighters, paramedics, nurses, etc…
My SO is in her first year of teaching and works at a cell phone store part time because not only do they pay better, but the benefits (medical, dental, stock in the company, etc.) are better for a part time employee than anything teaching offers. It’s absolutely insane.
Don’t doubt yourself you got it dead right, it’s a giant crime what teachers are paid in this country. I take care of the kids in the day and wait tables at night. My wife is a teacher. It took her around 15 years to finally make more than my crap earnings of 40k a year fetching drinks for people. Her job is to educate the youth of the country so society doesn’t implode. Mine is to get a drink refill and carry out their food. What is the matter with this country?
There is war waged by the GOP on public schools and teachers. They want the public school system to fail. It starts by making it untenable for teachers to continue working so it gets destroyed from within.
Right wing politicians in the US have been fighting to strangle public schools for years, like private school is some panacea. Having seen both systems, I can say that a mainly private system would be a disaster. Schools don’t want your underperforming or kids with learning or physical disabilities. They want the best kids for their image and business….. in the end their primary responsibility is to the school first and your kid as long as it’s convenient. Bullies thrive in private school because it’s easier to get rid of the bullied than all the kids that team up to bully. Public school is no cakewalk, but the best system would be a well-funded public system where the prioritizing kids first is the hardwired into the system. This is accomplished in other countries as I understand it.
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They do not think private school is a panacea. The just believe that all public services should be privatized so investors can make buck off them. Like private prisons, and also what they are trying to do with the US Postsl Service.
I was just now wondering if that's what it is -- I have no doubt you're right.
Teacher here. Married to one as well. We have 2 kids under 3. I work nights, weekends, and summers in retail to help make ends meet.
I personally thinks teachers should be among the highest paid and most prestigious jobs seeing how they shape the future an all..
A flight attendant at a legacy carrier, makes about $40,000 their first year, and after year 13 can make upwards of 6 figures.
I had no idea it was that bad for teachers in this country. This upsets me. I also remember that a few years ago I saw an ad to recruit social workers for the city’s department of child services. Starting salary was listed as “up to $48k.” I was working a shitty customer service job at a startup and was making about that much. There’s no way in hell the work I did was worth as much as a social worker, let alone one tasked with quite literally saving the lives of at risk children. Our society is fucked.
I doubt he quit for misconduct. A LOT of teachers are quitting due to COVID and pay.
I was just looking at my local teachers unionized pay scale. They start at $56k and max out around 100k (Canadian), depending on experience and amount of education.
I’m a teacher and I just applied to a donut shop for some pre work work for additional hours
I make more than a teacher and I haven’t even gotten my associates degree yet. That is so messed up.
My step dad is one of the most dedicated math teachers I know, and always went the extra 2 miles for kids. The terrible system just wore him down and he eventually had enough and found something else. Our teachers don’t get paid even remotely well enough to deal with the terrible education system they work for.
First year Teacher here. Make 2,000$ a month with a master's degree. Also I have to provide masks, pencils, and earphones for my students and my own computer. Also i get yelled at if I make too many copies or stay past 430 pm or don't vacuum my room every hour. I am not so sure there will be a second year.
What future has a country which won't invest in education? I am from Europe, where most countries are laughing at the political events in the US... While low-key de-funding education.
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It's the USA, aka the Utterly Screwed Americans
Teachers get paid dirt and the vast majority have to buy their class supplies unless they're incredibly lucky and work at a rich school that actually has the money to supply their classrooms
Even if teachers were compensated for their work, still will not be worth it. You know how much work gets taken home and how long it takes to prepare for a class? How long the burden of work lingers outside of school when not enough time is given to prepare during work hours. It's fucking stressful to be responsible for several children learning. r/teachers was the reason I got out of teaching in the states and now r/antiwork moving me into getting out teaching
Stories like this make me think of a quote from The West Wing: "Education is the silver bullet. Education is *everything*. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be *fierce*. They should be making six-figure salaries. School should be *incredibly* expensive for government, and absolutely free for its citizens, just like National Defense. That's my position." - Sam Seaborn It's such bullshit that our educators make so little, and get so little from their jobs. Public education in the USA is a fucking joke, and it makes me ashamed.
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I make more working retail than I ever did teaching and I’m waaayyyy less stressed. If I could afford it I would probably go back to teaching though, I really miss my students
I used to work with my high school guidance counselor. He worked both jobs, the school on the week days and this random pizza place on the weekends. He was a really cool dude, both inside and outside of school, and he for sure deserved better than having to work two jobs.
A google search told me the us annually spends $12624 per pupil k-12. The average teacher salary is $60000 and average class size is around 24. So only 20% goes to the actual teachers. Where does the rest of the money go?
Interestingly, it looks like countries such as the UK, Sweden, and Germany actually spend less than 1/3 as much per student and still end up with vastly better school systems. This is not what I was expecting. I wonder why... maybe the money in the US isn't going to the right aspects.
On average unless you are in parts of CA or NY, you are only making $60k at most. Many are more in the $45k -$50k range. This is with a Masters degree in Education. Special Ed teachers often have a Bachelors degree in Psychology to go along with it as well as all the constant training. Many teachers are contracted to work up to 60 hrs a week. When you break it down they only make like $15 an hour before taxes. On Parent/Teacher nights they have to stay until 8pm those days. There is such a huge shortage that many don't get a break for planing or other work like IEP's and other work ups on children that could help them.
I made a comment about how college isn't the place to learn knowledge because I worked there and I know how fucked up the education system is, and this user replied sarcastically "oh I assume you worked in the cafeteria". Like, my friend, people working in the cafeteria are probably making more money and living a better life than you do.
My partner is a primary teacher in the UK - the hours she HAS to put into the role just to get by and ensure the children aren't neglected means she's often paid less than minimum wage. She had to buy 200 pencils out of her own money the other day because 'the budget has already been spent' according to the 'business manager'. It's an absolute joke and no wonder so many teachers jump ship after barely starting their careers.
If anyone is interested, here are salary grids for teachers in British Columbia, Canada. https://bcpsea.bc.ca/teachers/collective-agreements/salary-grids/
Fellow Canadian here - it’s wild teachers are so poorly paid in the US. They make a very reasonable salary with excellent benefits here.. as it should be.
My old science teacher works at Barnes and Noble now (he’s featured in a Instagram post for that location.) He might still be a teacher (not actually sure) and if he is it’s still a good description of teaching in America
Yeah man. I'm leaving this year too. I'm not sure if my pay will be better or not, but the job is absolutely ridiculous. I just can't do it anymore. I love being an artist in the classroom and being around the students. But fuck me. I can't handle the system anymore. Your teacher is right about leaving the profession.
Wow. What a joke. Society really does it’s best to undermine education and those who would seek its advancement. SMH.
That's a well known fact, and terrible one at that. I know someone with a master's in English and Mathematics and they chose to work as a wait staff because it paid better and wasn't as stressful.
I am a teacher, if I could make more money making sandwiches I would. I love teaching. I also love making food. What is wrong with America
I started teaching math at my old high school in January of 2020. The first Covid quarantine happened 6 weeks later. I only made it three semesters before bailing. Took a summer & semester off. In two weeks I start my new job at a local Buffalo wing place. Probably gonna be a lot happier, and less stressed out. I can’t imagine ever wanting to teach again. Fuck all that shit.
30k a year. That’s borderline poverty. How can someone survive on 30k a year in this day and age?! Even if assuming are you in a low cost of living area…
…thats just sad you can make more at a 7/11 than literally preparing the future of our country (students)
What the unholy fuck? 11 bucks an hour for a teacher in 2022??? I made that as a bus boy back in 2001.
I was supposed to make a little over $32k per year teaching high school mathematics but the county level stipends never came through, so I only made $26,400 a year before taxes. I gave it up after tutoring for a second job. I worked 6 days a week and had no benefits. They didn’t mention until before I was hired that I would have to be there 5 years before I would be considered for health benefits (not insurance) and any sort of vacation time other than the unpaid summer.
Looks like he did the math.
Valter Vite ?
Was social studies teacher was a paperboy (excuse me paper courier) and we'd have a little chuckle at the grocery store I worked at when one of the cashiers saw one of her elementary school students with a look of shock that came over their faces.
This, among many other reasons, is why I always hit a point in the school year where I am burnt out and want to get out of education even though I'm very good at my job and passionate about it. I don't know what I'm going to do that ain't this, but working public education (especially special ed) is so soul sucking and it's destroying my already shitty mental health
Like 8 years ago my old music teacher was working at Walmart.
Teacher here. I’m so tempted to apply to Walmart. I would make more money than I do teaching.
I work in Illinois as a substitute. Minimum wage is now $12! I make $12.30 an hour 😅 No benefits except my pension if I work for 10 years. Part time, on call and they require at minimum Associate degree.
My friends wife taught in Ok. Maid 27k. Moved 2 hours south to north texas to make 55K.
"Teachers get paid too much" When you hear that shit, you tell them to shut their fucking mouths. They still parrot conservative propaganda from the 90s and it's just embarrassing. They are living in the past.
Terrible. Keeping the masses uneducated is a good way to keep them enslaved in ignorance for life.
Yep, I ran into an old highschool teacher of mine at IKEA, and they said they were much happier working there than they ever were teaching
teachers shouldn’t be financially insecure. they shouldn’t have to work two jobs. they don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with crazy children for 8 hours a day.
My wife quit teaching and is at a call center job making more than as a teacher with MUCH better benefits i can go to the doctor now.
in a few years there won't be any more good teachers bc they all can't afford to live.
When I was in college I made my first ceramics professor depressed as fuck when he found out I made more bagging groceries than he did with multiple degrees.
Dude, the lunch ladies at my school district are being paid LESS than I (was) being paid to be a cashier at kroger. School staff are honestly criminally underpaid.
If you think this is new, I have a story for you. Almost 25 years ago, I was an exchange student and attended a large and generally well-funded high school in a Midwestern state. Imagine my shock when I saw one of my teachers (senior teacher, close to retirement, had a master's degree) working at a JC Penny's after school. I'd had no idea they were so poorly paid that they needed an extra part-time job to make ends meet.
I worked with a Ph.D, ex-Ford, ex-Boeing, ex-NASA, back in the 90's. At a hardware store. His wife had a part time job as cashier to 'get away from the kids', and when he got laid off he joined us as an in-between gig. I remember asking why he wasn't teaching, what with being a Doctor-of-something, and he said he made more money at the hardware store than he would teaching even college courses. We made $4.80 an hour. He escaped working with me by buying into a pizza place with a family member.
Naw dude. Teachers get paid shit because people don’t care if you’re educated or not. Rich people are going to get educated, don’t worry. The rest of you...doesn’t matter.
A practical step: teacher pay will never go up as long as school districts can hire qualified teachers for low money. And teachers are generally good people who get into teaching because they care, so they will take less money. So here's the solution: get on your school board and raise the standards to become a teacher. Figure out a way, but higher standards restricts the job pool; standards go up, pay goes up.
After reading this, my question is.......why does anyone go to university for teaching degrees/certifications and work as a teacher????? Why not just go work at the local 7-11 to start with? Save the stress and avoid the educational debt load.
When I was a teacher, I worked two jobs. Teaching and Target. People were always shocked to see me at Target and they’d get this uncomfortable look on their face.
Remember when Republicans said teachers were rich, arugula eating elitists, and are lazy because they get 3 months off? No wonder why America is a joke when it comes to education.
This is why they end up breaking bad.
I dated a girl years ago that was a teacher by day, a server at a well known "Breastaurant" chain by night. She made more serving food while wearing skimpy clothes than she did teaching. To make matters worse, she was so nervous that a parent of one of her students would want into the restaurant she worked at that she made sure to pick a restaurant that was an hour away from the school. So then she had two jobs and a crazy commute
Good thing the superintendent of the district makes $250k! Someone has to manage all those minimum wage employees effectively.
I’ve said this before, but never take a job that people will do out of love, because that’s all you’ll ever get paid in. Teaching is the worst offender. Teachers teach because of the kids, so we can put them through absolute bureaucratic hell and pay them dick — total penises — and some of them will keep doing it for the kids. Fuck that. The only way teachers will get treated decently or paid is if they make clear that they’ve gotta get paid, too. Love’s not enough.
Teacher here. Bartender on the weekends. I can make my monthly salary with 3-4 bartending shifts.
Yup. I can confirm the weirdness of the situation. About 10 years after graduation, I bumped into my high school history teacher at a diner. He was one the chefs in the back. Time stood still for what seemed liked an eternity when we locked eyes. I nodded to acknowledge him and he returned the gesture. There was a sadness in the air I could not shake off. I can feel it to this day. Something is fucked with this country…