Teacher salaries are decreasing and forgotten by many

“I truly love teaching, but we are not paid for the work that we do,” says Hope Brown in an article by Time on Teacher Pay. The U.S. history teacher argues that teachers don’t get paid what they deserve. With the long hours in a school day, to the long hours at night catching up with work and planning, low salaries aren’t cutting it. 

Hope argues that teaching is her passion, but the amount of work that she and teachers around the world do is not valued and appreciated like it should be. 

For many years now, teachers around the world have struggled with getting the pay they deserve. They work hours and hours, even after school, just to catch up with things going on in class. For a lot of teachers, teacher salaries have been decreasing slowly year by year and not many people have done much to help with the situation. 

Teachers pay levels are lower in relation to the amount of hours they work, as compared to other jobs. Evidence shows that teachers are paid up to and over $20,000 less than other professions.

“In 2015, public school teachers’ weekly wages were 17.0 percent lower than those of comparable workers—compared with just 1.8 percent lower in 1994,” states the Economic Policy Institute. 

The Salaries are Dramatically Different Compared to Other Jobs 

A lot of teachers suffered from low wages while other professions were getting the pay they desired. “The average weekly wage for all workers increased from $891 to $1,034 from 1996 to 2015—while teachers’ wages decreased $30 per week, from $1,122 to $1,092,” The Washington Post stated. 

To compare other types of jobs based on the amount of money teachers make is not a pleasant feeling for them.  These are things that bring down their self-esteem and interfere with their daily lives. 

In an article written by Time, Language Arts teacher in Oklahoma, Kara Stoltenberg says, “It’s also humbling when you’re in a grocery store and people who are well intentioned find out somehow that you’re a teacher and suddenly they start talking about how little you get paid. I don’t think it’s ever malicious, but it just kind of eats away at you and you start to question your worth and question whether you should stay in education when you do make so little.” 

While some people don’t realize, teachers are a very important part of everyone’s lives and for them to feel less than others can be excruciating. Wages have been going down for over twenty years non stop, with little positive changes in them. 

The EPI also wrote, “Average weekly wages of public school teachers (adjusted for inflation) decreased $27 from 1996 to 2017, from $1,164 to $1,137 (in 2017 dollars). In contrast, weekly wages of other college graduates rose from $1,339 to $1,476 over this period.”

In an interview with U.S. History teacher Amy Strassler, she said, “Some teachers in places where teacher pay is really low have to have a second job after the school day is over, so then they can’t put in as much time into planning lessons and giving students feedback on their work. It’s automatically making them not the ideal teacher they’d want to be because they’re working so hard to pay their rent…”

A situation that is irrelevant to some can be very important to others, especially teachers. Not being able to support yourself for some is a hard thing to have to live with everyday. But most teachers love what they do and continue to pursue teaching aside from the amount of money they make. 

Math teacher Andrew Fitts states, “I know personally I feel like I’m at least contributing to society in a positive way. Helping students, helping other teachers, helping just people in general, so I think you have a lot of life benefits.” 

People and Teachers are Striking for Better Pay

One of the few things people have done to help with the matter is through strikes. The 2018 PDKPoll showed that 73% of people said they would support teachers if they were to go on a strike to request higher pay in their communities. Even though these specific people said they would support them, not many have taken action. 

Teachers around the world are simply being ignored with the amount of money they make. The government hasn’t been doing much to help with the situation, and it’s clear due to the number of salaries that teachers are getting. Therefore, with striking and walking out, teachers are hoping to get the government’s attention to do something about the pay they recieve. 

Other people in California and West Virginia started late 2018 to take action and support teachers. In an interview by CNN with Pedro Noguera, Christiane Amanpour states, “Teachers have hit a wall. So, they’re walking out of their classrooms and parents are right by their side. Already, this year, there were strikes in Colorado, California and West Virginia, with teachers threatening more walkouts in the coming weeks.”

These teachers are not putting up with the amount of money they get. They want more and deserve to be paid more, so they aren’t stopping until they reach that goal. Specific states in the U.S. get paid way less in comparison to other places. Those states are the main ones protesting for better teacher pay. 

The Conversation stated, “Teacher wage gaps vary widely from state to state, but in no state does teacher pay equal or exceed pay for other college graduates. And it’s no coincidence that the four states with the largest gaps – Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Colorado – saw teacher protests in 2018.” 

Some of these strikes have been productive and helped teachers in some places in the world, but there is always room to improve and better the salaries of teachers. Not just by strikes, but other things can be done to help with this matter. Regular people and students as well can help. 

Isora Bailey, principal of the NYC iSchool, says, “I think that activism is always good, and being involved in becoming good citizens and understanding that the teaching profession is a profession to be honored and to respect and to look into as a career… The little things that students could do is their homework on time so that teachers don’t have to go back and put in late work into their gradebook.”

Yes, students can play a role in bettering the salaries of teachers. By them being good, productive students and doing homework on time, teachers have one less thing to do without students noticing. Apart from students, adults as previously stated can participate in this global problem as well.

An article by Medium talked about these strikes and said, “Sure, a few of the teacher walkouts have led to pay raises in some states, but there is many still struggling with other issues like teacher shortages in relation to salary that has remained minimal in states such as Colorado.”

Salaries Continue to Decrease

Teachers around the world have been confronted with low salaries for decades now as we all know. The amount of work they do is not valued and appreciated, and they don’t deserve to put up with these low salaries. 

Ilayne Murray, former Spanish and Science teacher in California, said, “I think the profession of teaching is looked down upon; I don’t think people realize how important teaching is, so their skills have been underestimated as to what a teacher could do to a child’s life.” 

Most people don’t seem to take a moment to stop and analyze that teachers are the ones who guide us to be who we are. For them to have to face low payment and deal with it with few changes in them, shows how strong teachers are as compared to how some people portray them to be. Teachers, some more than others, are being paid less when as a community, teachers are all meant to do the same thing: help and guide students to learn. People might be judgemental and criticize them for their paths in life. For teachers, the path they chose was good for them because they have a passion for helping kids improve their learning skills and watching them grow.

Shona Hendley, former Media, Humanities and English teacher in Melbourne decided to end her journey as a teacher on a maternity break, and tells her story in an interview where she said, “Teaching is a profession that is difficult to understand fully unless you have done it. It is often the subject of criticism, of a lack of respect of put downs from people, yet teachers are responsible for shaping young people’s futures and there is nothing more important than that.”

Payscale stated that, “More than 80 percent of Kindergarten teachers, middle school teachers and secondary school teachers say their job makes the world a better place, but all earn less than $45,000 per year.”

Many say that Kindergarten and Pre-K teachers have harder jobs as compared to other teachers because they are dealing everyday with little kids who arguably, are harder to deal with as compared to high school students or middle schoolers. Yet, the pay these teachers live with still haven’t gone up in many places. Yes, everyone has different opinions on how teacher pay really is around the world, but most people agree that teacher pay has definitely been decreased or hasn’t improved for many years. 

The PDKPoll was analyzed and explained more in an article written by The Washington Post. In the poll, it was found that many people think that teacher salaries are low, but not much has been done to change that. The article stated that, “… two-thirds of people say teacher salaries are too low. That general impression was affirmed when people were asked about $39,000 as a starting salary — the national average; 65 percent said that was too low.”

Some progress has been made towards increasing and improving teacher wages, but teacher salaries have come a long way in the amount that teachers make yearly , as the NEA talks about in the following article.

“Over the past decade, the average classroom teacher salary has increased 15.2% but after adjusting for inflation, the average salary has actually decreased by $1,823 or 3.0%.,” says the National Education Association.

How Are Global Teacher Salaries Doing?

Teachers from around the world are also facing low pay and being punished with it. Specific places around the world are struggling more than others with the amount of money they are able to pay their teachers due to the countries’ economic states.

“By sharp contrast at the bottom of this chart, teachers in Estonia reach their maximum earning potential at just over $17,000 a year,” says the The Chalk Team. 

In an article by Brookings, it was said that, “Even against modest-paying Finland, American teachers are underpaid. If we wanted to raise the relative salaries of American teachers to the level seen in Finland, we’d require a 10 percent raise for primary school teachers, an 18 percent raise in lower secondary, and a 28 percent raise for upper secondary school teachers.” 

If we really want to better salaries of teachers, the ones who help students become who they are in the future, we would have to put in the work, improving things in the long run. 

Teachers are Reaching Out To Be Heard 

Some teachers have created a platform to get their stories heard. It’s crucial to let others know what’s going on if you are struggling with something. In this case, low teacher salaries was the reason to inform others about the situation. 

 The New York Times interviewed kindergarten teacher Kejo Kelly in Massachusetts, where people were able to learn about her story. 

“Even as investment in early-childhood education soars, teachers like Kelly continue to earn as little as $28,500 a year on average, a valuation that puts them on par with file clerks and switchboard operators, but well below K-12 teachers, who, according to the most recent national survey, earn roughly $53,100 a year,” says the NY Times. 

Kelly and many other teachers around the world are struggling with getting low salaries and shared their voices to get help with the amount of money they earn. Almost a $25,000 difference between, roughly, the amount of money that preschool teachers like Kelly make as compared to other jobs.

Mallory Heath, an English teacher in Arizona, was interviewed in an article by Money, saying, “making $42,000 a year before taxes and before a significant portion goes toward her pensions, she can’t afford basic living expenses like rent — and she can’t replace her decade-old pair of glasses or blown-out tires.” 

Teachers are continuing to suffer and some are not being able to buy and pay for things as simple as school supplies, to bigger and more expensive things like rent. These are things most people don’t think about on the daily, but for teachers, it’s something constantly going through their minds.

 “I make about $34,000 as a teacher. Right now, I can’t save, I can’t buy a car, I can’t buy a house, but I can get by. The only thing that I’m able to save is my tax return. My battery in my jeep died a few months ago, and I just kept thinking, ‘When that car dies, I’m going to have to buy another one,’ and the monthly payment — I just don’t know how I’ll do it,” says Kara Stoltenberg, Language Arts teacher in Oklahoma in an article by Time. 

Teachers’ Lives Outside of School 

Some teachers work extra jobs on their spare time, as well as step in and use money from their pockets for basic materials to supply students in their classes. “In her experience, she at times took a second job to supplement her income and  she would work during the summers, teach drivers ed, things like that, and this was with three daughters,” says English teacher Tom Jones about his sister, who is a teacher in Oklahoma. 

Supporting a full family and having to do it with only a teacher salary is a hard and a very realistic teacher’s experience.

“I think it’s got to be somewhat demoralizing. Again, teachers work so, so hard; it’s a really hard job and we’d like to think that people get compensated for that and I’d imagine it’s got to be hard to be working so hard and yet still have to find another job to be able to support a family,” says Assistant Principal Michelle Leimsider. 

Living off of a teacher’s salary on your own, like Ms. Leimsider said, really tests your confidence levels, and can bring them down knowing that what you make is almost nothing compared to other jobs. 

Yes, the salaries can interfere with enjoying teaching, but Bianelis Garcia, former middle school and high school Spanish teacher in the Dominican Republic, says,  “It is a gift to be a teacher. Teaching should not only be for a salary, but that you do it by vocation. Teaching children and having a passion for it was the reason for me becoming a teacher in the first place.”

What People Can do to Help with the Situation

Guiding us become who we are today, teachers deserve better pay. Its logic that they get paid well for the work that they do, but some are still struggling to live off of their teacher salaries. 

Continuing strikes and walkouts is definitely one way we can help with this global problems. Students doing their work on time is another solution that helps teachers cut out the amount of work they continue at home. 

Teachers can also help with raising their own pay. Going on strikes and walkouts can help raise awareness to the problem and convince people that something should be done to help them get the pay they deserve. 

Of course, not all and every single teacher is being underpaid, and of course there are teachers around the world that are happy with their pay. But, awareness is key so that people don’t forget about those teachers who are struggling with their salaries going down and not improving. It is mainly up to our community if we want to help the not so lucky teachers with the salaries they should have received a long, long time ago.