The inequity of a teacher’s salary. I taught for over twenty-five years. Mostly seventh grade.
I have a B.A. and M. A. and even with all that experience made just shy of forty thousand a year.
Granted that was for a ten-month job. I was married, and my wife and I have three kids. To make ends meet I worked after school teaching tennis, and at night taught in night school. I constantly was stretching our budget to cover expenses. The summer was a summer job, teaching summer school or doing recreation. What little time I had was spent in grading papers, working out lesson plans, attending mandatory meetings and the like.
Compared to other jobs out there I was only doing so so. My son-in-law who works at a company that delivers packages makes $75,000 a year. He has a pension account and health insurance.
So, comparing him to me, at a ten-year mark he is doing better than I was. And he does not have a college degree. Do I sympathize with the teachers out on strike? Yes, I do. But Betsy DeVos has it wrong. Running back into the room does little but perpetuate lack of money.
I also have seen the equipment and books passed off as the state of the art. It brings down faster than ever for it was never supposed to last. The school system is a money machine for outside interests who really do not care if the students are educated or not.
Little money is put into discipline, anti-bullying, or even suicide prevention. Look at guidance counselors who have the worse ratio of all. Three or four in school which services two thousand students. Pathetic.
The drop out rate is deplorable. And little is done about it.
Teachers for the most part reach into their own pockets and buy resources. I used to go garage sailing and pick up things for my students. Paper was bought at Walmart by the ream.
Pencils were bought constantly. And when you gave these things out you did not make a big deal about it for making a child feel badly that he had little was not something you wanted to do.
The education system is in shambles. Home schooling is pushed as the remedy but many home school really do not do much but fake it. Plus, it quite often makes children unfit to socialize in the real world.
Instead of a round table discussion on the future of education we suffer with the likes of DeVos who knows little about education. If it were not for her financial status she would not be listened to.
So, the teachers out there do what you need to do. It is for the children for the present course is not doing them any good.
barrywax 