Teachers Are Paid Too Damn Much

My wife teaches in a school district just outside Columbus, Ohio where the voters refuse to pass a levy. I had a conversation with a resident living in this district. Her opinion corresponds with the findings from the polls regarding the voters' overall opinions on the levy.

She told me she doesn't want to pay more taxes for teachers to get paid more when they already make too much money as it is.

She continued, "If the districts need money, they should take it from the teachers' paychecks."

I mean we only work 3/4 of the year anyway, right?


(Insert old babysitter wage analogy here)

Meanwhile, as levy after levy fails, teaching positions are cut and the remaining staff is instructing growing class rosters which leads to less attention paid to students, more behavioral management issues, significantly lower teacher morale and higher stress.

Although the amount of success varies, it has been generally found in numerous studies that smaller class sizes lead to positive results in student achievement.

In addition, so much support staff is getting reduced that they are now responsible to clean their own rooms each night and perform added duties outside the classroom. These duties are in addition to the outside tasks already performed like lunchroom monitoring, hallway monitoring, and any other programs the schools may have.

In essence, teachers do the job of preparing adequate and appropriate lessons for students and instructing these students. Then we assess the students' performance, to gather and organize data from the assessments to use in future researching and planning for remediation for any students falling behind or to challenge others who excel.

Then we must follow up on why certain students' attendance is sporadic, break up fights, settle disputes, find resources for families in need of food, shelter, coats and other help, report signs of possible abuse, mend injuries, make sure medicine is taken correctly and on time, clean the room, interpret other languages and communicate with people who don't speak yours, motivate unmotivated people to perform tasks that many times are challenging to them and performing them with mastery, play detective to solve minor offenses like who stole some one's personal items, search for said missing items, read someone to determine if they are lying or telling the truth, provide supplies (usually out of our own deep, well paid pocket), change light bulbs, fix broken tables, chairs, pencil sharpeners and so on, make sure the students are fed, babysit at recess, provide a shoulder to cry on, create a school presentation, run the practice of said presentation, lead the presentation to the student body and even more if we choose to contribute to after school programs or tutoring.

No one of these particular items are a problem in and of themselves. My point here is that we are held accountable for a students' learning but have countless other duties to perform and do not have the support, resources and sometimes training to do them.

I am beyond the argument of my salary. Quite honestly, I am satisfied with my lifestyle. Granted, I am in debt that could have been paid off by now living this same lifestyle had I entered another field that I am fully capable of having entered, but I've accepted that. I knew that coming in.

Also, there are people who get paid as an intern as much I as did in my 5th year of teaching WITH A MASTER'S DEGREE in a district that pays well. This is not to mention that when I did my internship, I WAS THE ONE PAYING!

But seriously, I'm over it.

I don't want more money. Don't pay me more.

Just pass a levy so I, my wife and our colleagues and get some people in here to HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!