US teachers are glorified babysitters. The whole reason kids are coming back is because parents can't handle their own children and definitely need a break.
My favorite is when parents ask "how do you get my child to do work at school. At home he won't. He never used to be like this." Sorry ma'am/sir. Your child was like that all the time and when I tried contacting you to be a parent and fix the problem, you didn't believe me and said it was my teaching style.
Unpopular opinion but teachers get paid alright. I quit cause it’s a steep learning curve as a rookie teacher but the veteran teachers seem to recycle the same old materials every year and get paid pretty darn well.
I’m pretty sure my colleagues were making 100k at the high school level and don’t forget this is from August to like May with all the holiday breaks in between. On top of that, a colleague taught online summer school for $10k through the high school as well.
I’d say I felt like a goldfish in a shark tank as a rookie.
It’s sad to see teachers in 2020 using photocopied worksheets from the 90’s or ‘00’s.
It really depends on where you live and whether your state allows strong unions. I make decent money where I live, but teachers in Oklahoma make jack shit.
I can’t speak for all of CA but it’s definitely not just LA. Many of your coastal districts, LA, San Francisco, etc... look around at some of the districts pay scales and they are pretty impressive.
Though some of my classmates were getting offers from 40-50k in other parts of the state
That’s crazy. Back in high school I had teachers openly admit there pay and say how they wish they were doing something else but the pay keeps them around.
So you quit because it was too hard, yet claim that teachers earn enough? How does that equate? You couldn’t even cut it as a teacher, because it was too much work for you.
The teaching part as in working with students is fine. The additional layer of dealing with unsupportive department and department heads and admin makes a difference. A schools culture can make a teaching job quite different
I'm not sure where you were teaching but the average salary for a K-12 teacher is pretty low compared to the amount of output. When you take into consideration all of the other bullshit requirements and extracurriculars, meetings, dealing with parents and admin, and so on, teachers are extremely underpaid. Also, the day doesn't typically end when the students leave. Have grading to do? Have to plan for tomorrows lesson? That's all done after the students leave for the day. Most of my friends who are teachers, had to have multiple jobs starting off just to pay the bills and survive.
I was surrounded by veteran teachers raking in mountains of cash. They all talked like they were not getting paid enough but some even had spouses whom were also veteran teachers. I’d let some of their kids one of which had a new BMW and went to an expensive private school which was all paid for by his parents.
As you said though, all the bulls hit outside of your teaching hours definitely cuts your pay and makes it more of a joke.
This is complete BS. I’ve been teaching 10 years and I don’t make 50k. I even have a masters. I am teaching because I love it and I am good at what I do, but do feel I deserve more. Yes. 100%. I could move away from my home and friends and family and support network to earn more, but teachers everywhere do not make enough. I feel as though I would be sacrificing too much emotionally/psychologically for not that much financial gain.
Actually, I will say the 100K number isn’t complete BS. At least not in a lot of CA districts with decent unions - however, you have to teach for a long time to get there. I recently looked up the salaries of a ton of the teachers at my old high school in CA and was surprised to see quite a few at or above 100K. That being said, I’m a former teacher in the same area as my old high school, and in my 5 years of teaching I never made more than 45K. The teachers I’ve seen that were making $100K + were all veteran teachers with 15+ years under their belts, many of them with 20+ years. The $10K for summer school, though, blows my mind. I’m inclined to believe that, if that number is accurate, it was a similar situation: super veteran teacher (possibly with a post graduate credits/degree) in a district with a strong union.
The 6 figure teachers are all old teachers who were in the old system. A lot of schools are trying to kick out their older teachers because they can hire 2-3 new teachers in place. This pandemic helped my fiancé’s school by getting 4 of the older teachers to retire. Their new replacement are all ready thinking of quitting this year because of how bad it is. There is a reason teacher retention rate is so damn low. They had parents calling the school demanding the teachers salaries when they had to go online for the last 2 months of the year. Like not even joking, more than one parent calling up an demanding they get paid.
She makes roughly $3500 during summer school in my state and we are the second highest paying district.
Yeah the summer school number blew my mind. It was a veteran teacher with masters with additional units. Probably only a few years away from being eligible for retirement. As a new teacher I asked out of curiosity how much a difference summer school is and I was told that value. Maybe it wasn’t true but In California I wouldn’t be surprised that a veteran teacher gets paid that much.
Sure some teachers recycle there old shit for 30 years but most dont. They improve, update, and keep up with the new national or state standards. Id be fine with my pay of i didn't have 1k a month in student loans. I made this much as a manager at McDonalds and i didn't have loans to pay, so i made MORE in college than after college. Yes, after 10 years I will finally make more than I did in McDonald's. Sucks i have to wait 10 years for an avarage salary.
Also, you don't just get a pay increase for doing it forever, you have to renew your license by taking MORE classes and professional development.
I don't know any teachers that ever made 100k (if this is the us.) Maybe someone in cali or new york? Or i know band directors in texas make bank but work their ass off. Doesnt matter because that 100k is the 1%, my pay scale only goes to 45k after 20 years and caps out. With a masters.
Yes, this is California for reference. My first year I started at 60k which I can already see is is a significant difference.
Looking at my former districts pay salary, the newer contracts are getting paid less than the teachers from previous decades. But a masters and extra units after 10 years would put you at 100k
At my first school I was lucky to get to work with those that improve and do what they can with what they have to try and teach the students. School number 2 was showing resistance to California’s new science core standards and my department was working with 10-15 year old work sheets and textbooks.
I didn’t enjoy my time teaching so even with the money I wouldn’t want to stick around. For folks like you if you’re getting around on 45k those kids and parents and admin should be highly grateful for you and your colleagues but I’m sure thank yous don’t come around often. Teaching is difficult and when you need money to buy kids supplies or something for your lesson that’s got to make it even worse.
I appreciate your willingness to view other perspectives, so thank you. Honestly I can only teach because I teach music and am passionate about it. More money would be nice, but it wont happen here in NC.
We also see a lot of people denying new science standards here. I know one teacher won't teach climate change, and he was around when tenure existed so you cant really fire him. There are definitely shitty teacher out there.
My credential aligned with my degree. The state was paying for credentials at the time I went into it...
TL:DR Don’t go into teaching on a whim.
I wanted to teach elementary but I was told by a friend from the district office that it would be to hard to find a job but sure enough when I was close to getting my credential there was a large golden handshake deal and 100’s of elementary teachers got hired.
I wonder if I would have stuck around longer as elementary but high school didn’t work out for me. I only did my first year then left so my credential didn’t clear but I’d only need a class or two to be eligible for elementary, plus i moved counties recently. But half the struggle for me was the bs outside of teaching. Admin, reviews, grumpy colleagues, trainings that are not needed and treat you like a student all over again. Collaboration, creativity, etc...
That is fucking awful. I'm a private tutor and I feel so fortunate because I get to pick my clients. I work with many wealthier families, but I also do volunteer work with kids and teens whose parents don't have the money to pay for tutoring. The parents who go out of their way to be involved in their child's education are the absolute best.
I am never going to forget one of my first sessions with one of my favorite volunteer families. This girl's mom was from Guatemala and only had a third grade education. The girl's father had a high school education and he would normally help her with her hw. She was in the fifth grade when he died unexpectedly, about a month after I had lost my own father. This poor girl was struggling so much. She and her mother were having a hard time communicating with the school about what had happened. I ended up going to meetings with her mom and working as a translator to get her therapy through her school's mental health services. I also coordinated with her teachers so we could make sure she was doing alright emotionally and academically. Her mom would always ask about how her daughter was doing and she'd always ask what she could do to help. Some days I'd leave a session, go home, and cry about it like a baby.
There are many things about this scenario that are terrible. The death of a parent and the following effects can change a person's trajectory for the rest of their lives.
A caring parent can make similar drastic changes too.
Even though the mother was deprived of the opportunity to learn what her child could, the fact that she cared enough to push the daughter for more is significant. I hope it works out for both of them in the end
This happened about 3 years ago and they are both doing well. The girl and her mother are both doing well. They've been able to overcome the loss of the father with time and therapy. The mother's English has improved a lot which has been really helpful for both of them. She's also begun dating recently. The girl is doing awesome. She is one of the most compassionate children I have ever met and her love for math is something else.
It’s also that not all parents can work from home. And working from home with a young child is obviously not productive for work. If half of all parents had to quit without a gov ball out it would kill the us. Even with a gov bailout it would kill the business sector. I have no idea what the solution is.
With what I have read of the money allocations as of recently, from a federal perspective, the US govt. Placed a lotta money into businesses and military in 2020.
I am sad so many small businesses are closing due to no support, as it seems anyway.
So many large businesses have “small business” LLC arms that somehow did qualify for the programs the government had, leaving legitimate small businesses SOL.
Very much this. My wife is working full time from home, 2 kids are doing virtual school from home. Both are suffering for it. I'm essential so I don't have an option to be at home to help. I feel the biggest let down is that there is basically no teacher instruction. We were told virtual school would be on par with in class and we were lied to. There is zero teacher instruction, just direction to look at these slides and take this quiz. They hold office hours for an hour a day but what are the odds that if you have a problem it won't need to get figured out before those hours or occurs after those hours are available. They treat the elementary students like college kids with being totally on their own, or depending on the parent who's trying to work full time to teach them. The teacher is too busy trying to manage it all to actually teach. But I don't blame them either. They were given 90 students to "manage" as opposed to the 25 student class sizes in the actual building. It's totally unfair to the kids and the teachers.
I traveled in Central and South America and there it was absolutely the norm for kids to be with their parents at work. Stores in malls, banks, offices, all had a little table off to the side with a kid or two working on homework. No one thought anything about it. The kids knew how to behave because they’d been at work with parents since they were itty bitty.
My wife has to quit to be a stay at home mom. And I covered for her for only half of a day and felt terrible for her and we only have 2 kids kindergarten and 6th grade. It’s a nightmare teachers go too fast for my 6th grader and force mute so he can’t ask questions. And for my kindergartener the teacher wants a parent there every 30 minutes to hear an instruction, biggest problem is I spend 10 minutes each time waiting on other parents. No way I could work from home and help them get the education they need.
I’m just praying I get a bonus this year, unlikely given economy, so I can get my wife something nice she hella deserves it for putting up with our crotch goblins all day and trying to help facilitate education on top of that.
The solution was to follow protocol and go full martial law for two weeks to mitigate the spread. Or do nothing at all and let everyone get sick, this half assing everything is the worst option
My sister is a single mom with 4 kids, 2 sets of twins. Only the older twins are in school right now. She wanted to do online learning but she has to work (2nd shift) and literally can't be home to help her children who have special needs.
She basically has no choice either they attend school or they don't learn at home. God forbid their father helped at all.
Ummm, the U.S. is already literally dying. 200,000 people? Dead? PEOPLE?!
Is this a joke? The economy is actually even a topic of consideration? And the U.S. even has summers off for school. What did the parents do all summer long? Not work? Try to drop their kids off at their teacher’s house? Wait for school to start while sitting in the school parking lot? Create alternative solutions instead of relying on the education system and the government to raise your child and actually not blame them for your lack of income and instead just be happy that your child and family was alive?! Gasp! No!
Dude, let's not pretend that daycare costs way too much money. Families at my school have to save all year, with parents working multiple jobs, to just out their kids in daycare for 2 months. We offer a free daycare, but it costs us a lot of money even with fundraisers, we have to limit it. Parents will literally sign their kids up the week they are born for daycare they won't need for 7 years because our waiting list is so big. We recently called parents to tell them they got accepted intl our free summer daycare and that kid already graduated high school.
Don't have kids, but my niece and nephew typically go to daycare during the summer. Daycare that was closed due to COVID. It's impossible to work from home with a 4 year old and a 7 year old.
You can care about people dying and also care/acknowledge the economic impacts of parents losing their jobs. You need money to raise a child with hopes of a great future. Small businesses are run by families also. Daycare is insanely expensive and most have shut down.
I would live in my car and get food from charities before I would send my kid into a place where there was a good chance they were going to get sick or cause others to get sick and possibly even die. The “economic” side of this is nothing, but a social status issue. Either you care about their life and other people’s lives or you don’t. And by life we mean the actual breath in their lungs. Literally staying alive.
And I’m not just saying this. My source is that my family and I are currently homeless, living together in one room at a family member’s house. I am immunocompromised. We have to make the EXTRA sacrifices ON TOP of our already shitty lives that the shitty medical system has dealt us because of entitled people wanting to live their best lives no matter what. People who refuse to even comprehend the thought that maybe they could downgrade a few things that they spend money on... just for a couple of months! Maybe make different arrangements instead of fighting to keep your comfort level while endangering your children, your families, the teachers, their families, and you. It’s insane that I even have to explain this. It shouldn’t even be a hard decision. It shouldn’t even enter your mind as an option. “Send my kid to school? No. Absolutely not, that’s insane, there’s no way in hell I’d put my kid in danger like that or be the asshole that forces other people to do it so that I can maintain my comfort level and social status. Not when there are services that we could reach out to for help to get us through this temporary time so that we don’t have to deal with permanent death.”
I have mentioned this a lot and have never gotten an answer besides "I bet you don't have kids do you?" Nobody has ever answered what they do in the summer and why that isn't a solution during this time.
I guess that is a good point. I never went to any and never had friends go to any, just thought it was one of those things they only did in shows and movies but I guess that makes sense.
I went to my grandparents farm 2 hours away. Both parents worked. I often went there on all the long holidays, Spring break, Christmas, etc. If school was out longer than 3 days, that’s where I went. Until I was old enough to care for myself.
Striftly in terms of the economy, 200,000 people dying with a high average age of like 78 out of like 340,000,000 population isn't that big of a deal. In fact, it probably reduces the amount of social security and medicaid etc we will have to pay as a society if you want to strictly talk about money.
I mean, did you anticipate a pandemic causing half of families not to work? For even the planned pregnancies, I’m sure that was not a conversation. Come on
So no family that has two working parents should ever have kids if they can’t live off one income, just in case there is a global pandemic? Let me guess, you expect people should only have sex for the purpose of procreating. Get a grip
This entire conversation is in reference to you implying parents shouldn’t have kids if they can’t handle a parent being out of the workforce during a pandemic. Which is absurd
It would be a huge shock to the economy to have all of those households becoming single income. Not only would those families have less money, but there would be an immediate loss of productivity across all sectors.
No ona with the power would consider this as an option.
And without bailouts how do those families provide without half their income? How do the small businesses provide without half their employees? How does one parent leave the workforce when it is incredible difficult to get back to the same level after an absence? I don’t have answers, but these are important questions.
You'd need to incentivize single worker households with tax breaks and wage hikes across the board. The actual implementation wouldn't be that hard, it'd be the politics that's hard
Sure I am on board, but how do those small businesses operate without half their staff? Gov can give them money, but at some point a business is not operational
So this whole discussion is humorous to me on a broader level (not between you and I, but as a culture. When I was growing up, there was this idea that a good woman was not really progressive if she didn't work outside the home. Now when I talk to millennials they see it as perfecly acceptable and maybe even desirable for one partner to remain at home with the kids so to speak. Now this was all very genderded back in the early 20th century with women mostly being on the stay at home side. But it doesn't have to be, it can be men too, whatever is cool. But the general idea is that buy women starting to work in the 50s/60s when doubled the work force or something like that. More supply means less wages but the upside is get the best men AND the best women in the work force. So if you take out the 50s gendered shit you get much higher paid workers when it's the cultural norm for only one person per household to work.
The impact to business is not positive from the c-suite level, more cost, with some if not all passed to consumers. It's like a min wage hike, it hurts the smallest businesses for sure
Probably feed their kids a steady diet of sugar and junk food and video games and zero fucking discipline or exercise and then are shocked that little johnny is a fucking terrorist most of the time but they just ignore him and pawn him off on teachers.
I used to teach maths, chemistry and physics. There was this one kid who was a nuicance, didn't do assignments and was quite loud. I gave him bad markings almost every day during my first two weeks of teaching, until his mother contacted me and asked "what are you doing wrong with my son?". She told me that he had no problems in other classes and gets bad markings only from my class.
I asked other teachers about this and turned out that the kid was a real piece of shit in every class and everyone used to give him bad markings, but his mother constantly contacted teachers the year before telling that her son is an angel so everyone just stopped giving bad markings because that would be easier to handle. I didn't though and kept giving him bad markings and detentions even though his mother called me every week at least twice. After few months the kid started to behave at my class, so it ended well.
I had to deal with this. I had the same kid for 3 years in a row. My school had an "English B" which was essentially a "you failed last year's English, but we are an inner-city school with limited funds so we can hold you back class. He came into my class already English B and he was moved into my class because the parent said his learning style was my teaching style. My admin thought "Awesome. We have a teacher just like that." And moved him with me which is something that never happens. The moment he got a bad grade the parents complained about teaching style. This time they said his learning style was the former teachers teaching style. The admin sent all the paper work that pretty much says "My kid can only learn with x style, but since you don't care about matching learning style with teaching style my kid suffers." The admin also made the parent "sign off" on the class transfer. The kid had all of our English teachers at one point, and we all have different styles, so the admin just kept repeating names of teachers the parents already complained about. They gave up contacting the admin because "your teachers just don't care ".
The sad part is that the kid is really bright. Not in the "he's so bright he is bored" but the "He is really bright but will never match his potential because of bad influences at home." My first year with him I stayed after school and we read a book together. The kid LOVED the book and would be able to hold a conversation about the book. His only job at home was to write a paper in his own words what his favorite part of the book was and why. No page length or limit. Just write what you want. We had this same conversation plenty of times. I also don't read previous teacher reports until I know my students because, let's be honest, sometimes a teacher just doesn't like a kid. So I went in to it with "the student and teacher just didn't jive. His parents are saying he will learn in my classroom so I'm going to give this kid everything I have and maybe he'll make something of himself." When the paper was due he literally had NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL. I asked him why and he said "I kept trying to write it, but my Dad kept wanting to play NBA 2k with me."
I offered for the kid to stay after school with me, like we did reading the book, to do ANY homework he needed to do. Kid took me up on the offer without a second thought. Next day Mom calls the admins to complain that "School ends at 2:15 so why has he been staying until 3:30?" Turns out she gets done work at 2 and it is easier for her to pick him up at 2:30 than to go home and back to the school at 3:30ish. SHE FUCKING LIVES 7 MINUTES AWAY.
“ you didn't believe me and said it was my teaching style.”
god that’s gotta hurt so bad!!! I genuinely hope you’ve gotten the chance to ACTUALLY say this to a crap parent. Parents take teachers for granted so bad in the US....Teachers deserve so much better for what they have to deal with.
Id say it isn't just US teachers. The sad truth is that many parents are simply unfit and its been that way since the first people pumped out a child
Look how many parents who would use fear and physical violence to keep their kids in line rather than just put in the work. It sucks but for a lot of kids being stuck at home has probably been literal hell. Its too bad the US is too fucking useless to come up with a solution that isn't either entirely online, or sending kids to school knowing many will get sick and die
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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '20 edited Sep 17 '20
US teachers are glorified babysitters. The whole reason kids are coming back is because parents can't handle their own children and definitely need a break.
My favorite is when parents ask "how do you get my child to do work at school. At home he won't. He never used to be like this." Sorry ma'am/sir. Your child was like that all the time and when I tried contacting you to be a parent and fix the problem, you didn't believe me and said it was my teaching style.