ARE TEACHERS UNDERPAID?

Posted by teacher on July 7, 2011

I BELIEVE TEACHERS ARE UNDERPAID!

I used to be a high school teacher before becoming a stay at home mom, so I’m a bit biased on this debate. I have yet to find another job in the area in which I live that requires a bachelor’s degree and pays less than a teacher. One day while paying the bills, I began to realize that if my husband and I divorced, I would lose my car because my salary wasn’t enough to cover rent, groceries, utilities, and a car payment. It’s insane.

There are many problems with our nation’s public school system. I saw that when I was teaching. I believe that we would get more quality educators if we would pay them more. Many good teachers quit and do something that pays more money. I was one of those teachers. I quit because my salary was too small to have paying daycare fees for 2 kids make any sort of sense at all.

Something else that the general population is unaware of is that most teachers spend around 20% of their salary on teaching materials. The government does not provide teachers with money to buy teaching supplies and education materials. As a teacher, I even bought a classroom set of novels from Barnes & Noble because the school lacked the funds to purchase the book I wanted to teach.

I know that some of you will think that teachers are over paid because they get summer vacation and their workday ends at 3:30 every day. But, what many people don’t realize is that teachers work way past 3:30. It takes time to grade papers and prepare lessons. Many teachers work well past 5:00 in fact. There were many times that I was still grading papers at 10:00 at night. In addition to working late, being a teacher requires participation in extra curricular activities. Some school districts require teachers to attend all of the home football, basketball, and baseball games. Many people also believe that summer vacation is still 3 months, and that’s not true either. The only full month teachers get of summer is July. Many teachers work till mid June and start back up in mid August. Also, I know a lot of teachers that teach summer school during their summer break because they need the money.