The typical response is: “they should have picked a higher paying job!”
This bugs me. This should be what we value in a society and it seems we care more about administrators and execs and stuff that do nothing rather than the people that make it all happen.
Everyone can name a teacher they love or loathed. The ones that make such a difference in your life stick with you.
Remember that those rich guys don’t send their kids with our kids. They’ll make sure that their kids are taken care of.
A broken education system is one of the worst forms of elitism.
Without a living wage, teachers are leaving to be bartenders and delivery drivers. This means the public education system is left with a lack of good teachers. Without good public education, only the rich can afford to send their kids to private school with better teachers. That’ll boost their academic ability and allow them to get an even more unfair advantage when they grow up.
Teachers should collectively stop working until wages are raised significantly.
In the school district I work for, it takes 6 years to hit making $60k/year. I work at one of the best paid school districts in Oregon.
We get excellent benefits, but…I can’t pay my rent or buy a house with dentist appointments.
My father (still alive) raised 7 kids on his salary (music teacher) and did quite well. Traveled the world, bought multiple houses and he did a pretty good job as a father. That’s frankly impossible to do as a teacher now and that’s a fucking travesty.
