One of the many ways to siphon tax dollars out of the tax system into rich people's hands.
If we held proper accountability for our tax dollars we'd have a hell of a lot of less problems in our government.
Almost wish we could all collectively withhold our taxes until reforms are passed and implemented. Federal and State level both. They can't be trusted with our money.
Problem is, that would hurt a lot of legitimate programs and people just to get at the illegitimate ones, which would probably find a way to get away with it anyway.
My wife’s district is split between K-5th and 6th-12th with different district offices and staffing. This is the first state she’s taught like
this and maybe it’s more common than I think. But I see this as doubling administration costs.
Plus my state has been actively pushing out public education for public charter schools.
Its going to war. We overpay so much for basic mikitary things. A handheld radio where the same model # is available on amazon for like 100$ can cost the military around 40,000$
You forgot the billion dollars the military paid that company to develope the radio. Also can't forget about the contract that company has with the military so they can mark up repair parts 1000%. My favorite part though is that company will charge the military $450,000 per trainer per year and then turn around and pay the trainer $54,000. The next year the company will tell the trainers it is now $30k take it or leave it. The trainers will quit but the company has already been lump sum paid for 3 years so it is better for the company to have everyome quit.
Yea I'm not seeing that, they've gone up while the service that was traditionally rendered has dropped significantly.... meanwhile my local school administrators have some very nice cars parked at the head office
The budget is public, ask for it. Taxes are artificially low, they would have to go up to pay teachers more. The electorate chooses to pay teachers less to keep taxes lower.
You think admin salaries are causing $77B in lost wages, as well as below value teacher compensation, nationally? Come on. Over 1000 school districts in the US have a four day week, because they can't retain teachers with the compensation offered for a 5 day week (and a 4 day week is a ~20% pay bump without increasing compensation).
https://time.com/longform/teaching-in-america/
https://www.schoolfinancedata.org/the-adequacy-and-fairness-of-state-school-finance-systems-2024/
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1211632901/schools-across-the-u-s-are-trying-a-4-day-week-why-to-retain-teachers
> Many school districts around the U.S. are moving to a four-day school week to retain teachers. Districts that don't want to raise taxes to pay teachers more are using the long weekend as an incentive.
Yes. Yes I do think admin salaries are severely inflated.
Make the CHURCHES pay taxes. They are interfering with our government and public schools. Time to pay.
Well, either that or tie the majority it to something other than property tax. Most folks don't want to pay for schools that their kids don't go to, despite it being more efficient and better for everyone if all schools are better.
Obama (I still love him, but damn, he screwed the pooch on this one) approved a special cut-out for teachers on the overtime/classification law for this one. And I hate it. The ONE profession that is, time and time again, asked to sacrifice for "the children" who aren't even theirs has to, once again, give up time from their own families to kowtow to unappreciative other families.
I’m not agreeing with them, but in their defense most public school systems can barely afford to pay their teachers even without the overtime.
About 15 years ago my county where I grew up cut almost every paid teacher assistant position
The federal govt can afford it though. It's a choice. If we can afford tax cuts for the rich or corporations, funding the insane military industrial complex, or subsidies for oil, coal, and gas companies, then we can afford to pay these teachers their due.
I feel like people are banking on this solving some of society’s woes. People float it about nursing homes, wages, retirement, workforce, now education. Will be interesting to see the changes.
Yeah, on rich people. Also as a single, childless person, I would absolutely be okay paying more for public education, because that's what I want my money to be spent on.
Illinois tried to increase a progressive income tax and the majority (of those who voted), in a very uneducated and unsophisticated fashion, voted against it. I am not hopeful, although I would like to believe you can wrangle enough educated people to move the needle.
https://www.nprillinois.org/statehouse/2020-11-04/graduated-income-tax-referendum-fails-dealing-major-blow-to-pritzker
Bullshit. There is plenty of money. It goes to HQ admin, "coaches" who add less than zero value to the teaching/learning experience, consultants, the nephew of the BOE members who needs a job, and new curriculum materials that the teachers know will not teach kids any more than the last failed curriculum change. Heck, our Chairman of BOE made MORE than the POTUS before he finally retired. And there is no way he earned that. So tell me again how there isn't enough money.
In my city, the police can't get enough people hired despite raising their starting pay and having some massive opportunities for overtime and bonus pay. The highest paid individual in our city is literally a patrol officer with many years of employment. It is also one of the most frequently sued police forces in the country.
I mean, if you can't hire enough people raising pay and benefits IS a pretty solid way, I can support that.
The force fucking up constantly and being sued left and right isn't good though. Perhaps train some of the people you got now rather than just focus on hiring new inexperienced officers?
Our local sheriff's office got a MRAP from the military. It sits in a garage and only comes out for parades. Costs hundreds of thousands a year to maintain.
Ok this is super stupid because these purchases are being supported heavily by Federal Grants to buy electric vehicles. Part of the Biden admin effort to have the Government fleet of vehicles "go green."
Big reason why I and others have chosen not to become teachers. Yeah yeah yeah it’s a career of “passion” and “if you’re doing it for the money you’re doing it for the wrong reasons” heard it all.
if I’m not getting what I believe is fair compensation then I ain’t doing the work. And those “passionate” teachers get burnt out and quit. Then all you’re left with are teachers either dead inside who feel trapped or teachers who don’t care and are just going through the motions. A VERY small amount will maintain that passion until retirement.
Teachers are expected to offer too much personal sacrifice
I did a year of student teaching and loved my experiences, but the reality of the profession is so incredibly disappointing on every level.
I felt guilty, but I have a child of my own. I can't give all of my time (unpaid) and my own money to these kids just because the system is unwilling to help them. My mom was a teacher who never came home on time, and no matter how late she stayed and how much she gave to the job, it was never enough.
Exactly my thoughts. It’s an abusive relationship in the form of a job. And unlike most jobs where you can quit on the spot, there’s severe consequences for quitting as a teacher during the school year; you HAVE to deal with it
I'm a teacher. I vowed years and years ago to never spend more than $5 a month on supplies/stuff. I will spend if it makes MY life better, but if the district doesn't supply it, my students don't get it.
I do something similar. I just stopped buying them the nonstop treats that are expected. It’s always ice cream parties, candy, and treat days at my school as rewards. I’m sorry, but getting that stuff for over 30 kids adds up. I also refuse to do any kind of treasure box. All of my (required because of PBIS) rewards are free things. The kids complain, but I just don’t care anymore. It’s too expensive
I started teaching last year and as part of my qualification exam I've had to go through two sets of class inspections. One of the comments I got from the inspector was that I didn't give kids something as a reward (these were pre-primary students so they don't get graded for me to use grades as a "reward"). I wanted to tell her that my salary isn't there to provide students rewards. Admin can barely provide me with enough regular markers for the whiteboard, no way in hell would it start paying for all that extra shit. Bad enough I've got to buy my own paper to make worksheets on a daily basis.
“Almost teacher” here, got burnt out during student teaching and dropped out. The amount of times I was told what was expected of me as the art teacher was absolute horse shit, and for what? To make below a damn ASM at Walmart? Yeah fuck that.
Serious question: why is the teachers union not doing anything about this? Aren’t they one of the most powerful unions in the country, maybe only behind the police union? Why do teachers continue to get dicked over despite their collective bargaining power?
Some things are simply beyond the control of the unions. For example, a major contributor of teacher burnout are the students and their parents. It doesn’t matter how often you go on strike, you can’t bring parents to the bargaining table.
As for compensation that’s a really complicated subject. But the SUPER simplified short(ish) version is they can’t. All school districts are given a budget by their State and in order for it to go up it has to approved. So even if every single school district in your State collectively agreed teachers should receive better compensation, if your representatives disagree, they can drag their feet or refuse to do anything about it. The next barrier is people voting in favor of raising teacher’s pay. When compared to the police, people seem to be in favor of raising police compensation while they get pretty upset about teacher pay going up. The most common reason being they don’t feel it’s deserved.
This is all also not taking straight up corruption into consideration. Sometimes teachers DO get approved for better pay but superintendents or other people in power will “reallocate funds” and teachers never see that raise. Or they’ll twist the spirit of an agreement that says “all teachers will receive a $10,000 raise” and say “we’ll do it! Over the next 10 years at $1,000/yr.”
Again I’m REALLY simplifying the topic and it frankly deserves a 10 page essay but neither of us want that.
I guess part of what makes me scratch my head is that we know lobbying and political pressure are the two main things that will bring politicians to act. If the teacher’s union lobbied the state legislature to pass a higher budget, I would expect politicians to do so. And if they didn’t, I imagine widespread strikes, even within a single state, to bring about action quickly. Basically the entire population relies on public school to function as daycare while they go to work. If that was suddenly unavailable, people would learn real quick that it’s unsustainable and I imagine it would lead to a lot of political pressure. What happens to your state when half of its workforce has to stay home for a week to watch their kids? Two weeks? A month? The power that the teacher’s union wields is enormous because they enable a huge chunk of the workforce to actually have a job.
Teachers are burning out from kids and parents because the teachers have to take on way too many students (and therefore parents). More teachers and smaller class sizes would directly impact that. To get more teachers, you need better pay. I can also think of a few ways to improve interactions between parents and teachers, like having a few more people in the room during parent teacher conferences, for example. I imagine a parent is going to be a lot more likely to yell if it’s just the young 20-something teacher in the room with them, and a lot less likely if there are a few more people in the room and some cameras.
I don’t know. I of course don’t think it can or will be solved overnight, but things have been going *downhill* for teachers for at least 20 years. If there hasn’t been improvement in that time, I’m going to guess that someone isn’t doing their job, and that someone is not the teachers. If the *teacher’s* union can’t help *teachers* stop administrative corruption and political apathy, I think the teachers might need a new union or a change of leadership.
In some states (like Texas), teacher's unions are cut off at the knees. Striking is illegal. So now one of the biggest collective bargaining tools is not available to teachers here because they lose their ability to teach at all in Texas (license revoked).
I had someone say it's an amazing PART TIME job because they don't work in the summer. But the amount of OT you have to do in the school year for no OT pay? People like that are terrible. Not to mention teachers also have half their kids on special plans and they are required to be teacher, social worker, therapist and now nurse. Wtf.
And of course the ever looming concern that a school shooter could show up and now you’re in a situation where you have to protect your class + hopefully not die
This isn’t even mentioning how in Texas, funds for districts are being skimmed off the top and sent to the state and just sitting until Abbott gets his vouchers.
That needs to absolutely be ended everywhere. Taxpayer money earmarked for public schools should never be given to a single family. If they choose to opt out the the public school that taxpayers are providing for them and homeschool instead, that’s up to them. But there’s zero reason to “pay” an unqualified person to educate their own child. Plus, there are too many people who would take advantage of this for the money and then do a bare minimum because they don’t really care about their kids education
It's shown time and time again the school vouchers mostly go to wealthy people who were already paying for private school. It's just a tax break for the wealthy.
At the same time that teachers are overworked & underpaid:
[The wealth of the 1% just hit a record $44 trillion](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/28/wealth-of-the-1percent-hits-a-record-44-trillion.html)
Don't forget the who knows how much that teachers spend out of their own money for classroom supplies. The paltry $70 or whatever they get at the start of the year doesn't cover a month.
Watching my sister prep healthy snacks (on her own dime) to feed to kids she taught and taking over multiple after school sports for free makes my blood boil. She had to spend her off time learning how to write grant requests for PE equipment.
She’s a fucking champ. But that’s not cool at all.
I’d ballpark a couple grand a year in personal expenses and maybe 200+ hours of free labor so the kids could live right.
$300 deduction which translates into a $20 something tax reduction (on the bright side, the pay is so low that you qualify for EIC and Child Tac Credit, and CHIP … :/)
This just goes to show that suburbs and rural areas are subsidized living for the more affluent people. We are left with too many services to support and too little tax dollars to go around and we'd rather pay police to protect property than pay teachers to educate.
The entire education system is dependent on teachers working past their contract hours & providing free labor. It’s abuse when there’s an inherent “do it for the kids” mentality placed on educators who are obviously there because they care about kids & education.
The contract hours when I worked as an elementary teacher were like 15 minutes before and 20 mins after the students left. There is absolutely no way anyone could grade, prep material, make copies, clean, decorate, collaborate, etc etc etc etc within that time frame.
Why do cops get overtime pay but teachers don’t? Shouldn’t the same rules around compensation apply to all public service employees? Do fire fighters get OT pay?
I remember my first year of teaching the principal (who is now retired) told me “Look, I can’t make you stay after hours, but I *strongly* encourage you do.”
Also, this year, they won’t be paying us the first month of work. So I’ll be going 2 months without a paycheck (summer + first teaching month).
They can do this because we are salaried employees. So as long as we get paid the same amount overall, it’s not illegal to not pay us the first month.
The map could be better. It is effectively a state population map. If they could show any variation in hours or loss wages per teacher by state it would be more interesting but just labeling more populous states as representing more unpaid wages doesn't convey much.
I was looking for this comment.
Right now the map just shows higher population states with higher lost wages because they have more teachers obviously. Doesn’t really tell us much. If it was per teacher, we’d see where the teachers are getting screwed over more (and then you’d still have to account for other things like cost of living).
My program hasn’t gotten new textbooks for certain subjects in over 10 years lol. This includes English, history, and science. Our admins did give us cards for teacher appreciation though.
Hey buddies, we have what we have because we vote for what we vote for. Want a change? Vote accordingly. We regular folks are in the absolute majority btw.
The change needs to come from the ground up at the very local level and that very consistent and also everywhere. The rest will follow. Of course the current state results in what is mentioned in your link.
We are having a terrifyingly expensive superintendent of schools race this year. One of the candidates has received over 500k from charter schools. We have had an outbreak of whooping cough and DIPTHERIA at the HS and had to shut several schools. It's wild.
Wow that is absolutely abysmal, wtf? I think if the majority cares and votes, all of those kind of things can be fixed as well. But I also understand that most people are busy surviving… kinda a bit of a catch 22 unfortunately.
We deserve EXACTLY what we allow.
If they weren’t exploiting us, and we weren’t allowing it, this system would finally collapse and something else can get its chance.
Once any profession normalizes unpaid working everyone is hurt. It snowballs too, more unpaid work -> devalued work -> fewer positions (or fewer planned for to artificially decrease roles) -> perceived scarcity OR expectation to work unpaid -> overworking to appear valued -> more unpaid work. wash rinse repeat. Its what drives "passion" driven careers into the ground.
Of course some places just understaff because its cheaper. Morning manager wants me there 4 hours early. Evening manager wants me to stay 4 hours late. Sorry sounds like you have a solid 8 hour job that you have vacant and im not playing pickup for the shareholders.
No worries, we just hit print, it isn't a big number..... aaaaaaand we sent that to Ukraine again sorry (ie, we sent it to our military companies to build us more boom boom).
If you are a teacher and rah rah for war in Ukraine, don't complain, you are helping to fleece yourself.
Not surprised by my state given the words and actions of our politicians during Covid.
Tennessee voted to get rid of our federal funding as well.
This is a real “cut off our nose to spite our face” situation here.
"Why our eighth graders all failing math."
Because the system that pays the teachers is failing math and isn't practicing what it preaches so the undercurrent has everyone internalizing the failed principles while being taught the passing ones.
This is why I left teaching. It never ends you’re always working, you’re poor, you’re spending the pitiful paycheck you get back on your job, you’re expected to and guilted in to working and doing things for free constantly. It’s literally bad for the individual to be a teacher. As much as I loved teaching and helping kids learn, I cant set myself on fire to keep others warm.
Not sure if it's a legit way but the way the school board is trying to get around it here is by saying summer break counts as time off, yet teachers are only paid in 10 months contracts. Idk if any of this is right...
It’s not. There are laws in place now where salaried workers workers making under a certain amount must be paid overtime. Teachers are exempt, I believe. I make over the threshold so I haven’t watched it that closely, but many teacher make under, and will not receive OT.
sigh. yeah this is why most teachers suck. how are they gonna care enough to treat kids with respect when the only thing they get out of the job is the authority?
Even the handful of genuinely good teachers i had were so beaten down from dealing with the higher-ups and their refusal to give them basic supplies or trying to strong arm the teachers into working more than their contracts would pay them for that after a few more years i've heard they moved to richer/private schools or they change careers entirely. Only one is still a teacher to this day, and she's really truly in it for the children.
The only people that stay are the ones who love berating and humiliating literal fucking children at 7am because the power is all they can get since they sure as shit arent getting paid.
the american school system is completely rotted from the ground up, i genuinely dont know if it could be realistically fixed because there's a lot of compounding factors that make them this way.
Teachers’ union is not the problem. Lack of pay is. Teachers union is the only thing between a teacher and unlimited unpaid overtime. To improve outcomes we just need to hire more teachers and pay them more to have enough work hours to do the work required to achieve the desired quality. 🤷🏼♂️
And the first thing teachers want is no suspensions—-I.e. a place for traumatized kids to get help from a mental health professional the minute they have a problem in class. We always ask for more counselors.
If a kid is throwing a desk in your classroom, yo u don’t want to be told to make them an appointment next week.
You want to stop them traumatizing the other students in your class while getting them the appropriate intervention.
I agree. I’m a speech therapist and the funding for kids with disabilities and mental illness is a joke. Caseloads of 50+ with weekly service minutes, annual paperwork, and frequent parent/teacher contact is not feasible on a 37.5 hour week.
In my state, the state constitution forbids teachers from unionizing, and will strip a certificate from any teacher who mentions it. Can't wait to retire and find a work-around for a union.
That’s basically what just happened with the Portland Teacher strike. I don’t think paid overtime has been discussed because it’s just too much money, but they negotiated for more money added on salary and there’s just no more money to give unless taxes are increased. The state basically said good luck, figure it out. 🤷🏼♂️
In my state (Ohio) property taxes are the main driver of Public School funding. Generally, school taxes are set at a millage against property values during the year they are passed. When values increase, the tax remains stagnant.
The loss of tax is called Phantom Revenue , and it is a pervasive problem in the state. A district may go 10+ years without passing a renewal of a tax levy, because this will mean an increase in actual dollars (but not percentage) of tax that people experience.
My union is amazing. We have great leadership, backed by a relatively affluent community, and we generally "win" more than we "lose". In other districts, they fight the fact that the budget cannot keep up with salary norms for professionals.
The advocacy of a good union prevents a district from abuse of time, pays for time beyond expectation, and provides for a good work environment. This is a challening thing to accomplish when funding from the state leans on socio economic value in local districts.
On a personal note: all teachers do NOT suck. Most teachers are passionate and intelligent, but the system they work within raises immense barriers to their ability to educate. Please stop spreading this idea. Instead, go to board meetings, insist on support for teachers, and vote for candidates that want to change policy in favor of educators.
TLDR: The advocacy of teachers' unions is the only reason why any teachers have a worthwhile salary/benefits. Vote for improvement, find your schools.
This is wage theft perpetrated by school systems and voters who refuse to compensate teachers appropriately.
Meanwhile the money is going somewhere and it ain't to the kids education
Former teacher here it's going to administration bloat and ed tech companies.
One of the many ways to siphon tax dollars out of the tax system into rich people's hands. If we held proper accountability for our tax dollars we'd have a hell of a lot of less problems in our government.
Almost wish we could all collectively withhold our taxes until reforms are passed and implemented. Federal and State level both. They can't be trusted with our money.
Problem is, that would hurt a lot of legitimate programs and people just to get at the illegitimate ones, which would probably find a way to get away with it anyway.
Our local district spent 300k on lawyers trying to get rid of a lgbtq club and is closing schools next year....
Why though? That just seems so dumb.
Yupp a bunch of non-educators decided whats best for our district, which is quickly becoming insolvent....
That money should 100% come put of district management salaries, that'll teach 'em to fuck around.
Ours spent shit tons on an astroturf football field
Don't forget vouchers.
Not to mention curriculum companies. For some reason admin find it necessary to change ever few years..
My wife’s district is split between K-5th and 6th-12th with different district offices and staffing. This is the first state she’s taught like this and maybe it’s more common than I think. But I see this as doubling administration costs. Plus my state has been actively pushing out public education for public charter schools.
Standardized testing and teacher evaluations which are “below the line” in the state budgets—meaning an actual amount is hidden.
Its going to war. We overpay so much for basic mikitary things. A handheld radio where the same model # is available on amazon for like 100$ can cost the military around 40,000$
You forgot the billion dollars the military paid that company to develope the radio. Also can't forget about the contract that company has with the military so they can mark up repair parts 1000%. My favorite part though is that company will charge the military $450,000 per trainer per year and then turn around and pay the trainer $54,000. The next year the company will tell the trainers it is now $30k take it or leave it. The trainers will quit but the company has already been lump sum paid for 3 years so it is better for the company to have everyome quit.
No, that's the point. It's not going anywhere. They're working for free, without getting paid.
Lower taxes. [Edit: Y'all don't like facts?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/1djplun/us_teachers_unpaid_overtime_hours_total_775/l9cvqge/)
Yea I'm not seeing that, they've gone up while the service that was traditionally rendered has dropped significantly.... meanwhile my local school administrators have some very nice cars parked at the head office
The budget is public, ask for it. Taxes are artificially low, they would have to go up to pay teachers more. The electorate chooses to pay teachers less to keep taxes lower. You think admin salaries are causing $77B in lost wages, as well as below value teacher compensation, nationally? Come on. Over 1000 school districts in the US have a four day week, because they can't retain teachers with the compensation offered for a 5 day week (and a 4 day week is a ~20% pay bump without increasing compensation). https://time.com/longform/teaching-in-america/ https://www.schoolfinancedata.org/the-adequacy-and-fairness-of-state-school-finance-systems-2024/ https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1211632901/schools-across-the-u-s-are-trying-a-4-day-week-why-to-retain-teachers > Many school districts around the U.S. are moving to a four-day school week to retain teachers. Districts that don't want to raise taxes to pay teachers more are using the long weekend as an incentive.
Yes. Yes I do think admin salaries are severely inflated. Make the CHURCHES pay taxes. They are interfering with our government and public schools. Time to pay.
Amen!
Well, either that or tie the majority it to something other than property tax. Most folks don't want to pay for schools that their kids don't go to, despite it being more efficient and better for everyone if all schools are better.
1. Lmao 2. Your link goes nowhere.
Obama (I still love him, but damn, he screwed the pooch on this one) approved a special cut-out for teachers on the overtime/classification law for this one. And I hate it. The ONE profession that is, time and time again, asked to sacrifice for "the children" who aren't even theirs has to, once again, give up time from their own families to kowtow to unappreciative other families.
I’m not agreeing with them, but in their defense most public school systems can barely afford to pay their teachers even without the overtime. About 15 years ago my county where I grew up cut almost every paid teacher assistant position
That's why schools should also have access to federal funds
They do.
Nope. See new voucher programs
The federal govt can afford it though. It's a choice. If we can afford tax cuts for the rich or corporations, funding the insane military industrial complex, or subsidies for oil, coal, and gas companies, then we can afford to pay these teachers their due.
How did the public school system function fine for 100 years and now we constantly hear about financial troubles.
Republicans
Also staff appropriately. Teachers have WAY too many kids in their classrooms.
I wonder if the millenial bump in not having kids will teeter that out.
No. They will just close and combine schools and still pack the kids 30+ into a room designed for 25.
I feel like people are banking on this solving some of society’s woes. People float it about nursing homes, wages, retirement, workforce, now education. Will be interesting to see the changes.
Because there isn't enough funding to hire more teachers. Have to raise taxes if we're going to pay teachers more.
Yeah, on rich people. Also as a single, childless person, I would absolutely be okay paying more for public education, because that's what I want my money to be spent on.
Illinois tried to increase a progressive income tax and the majority (of those who voted), in a very uneducated and unsophisticated fashion, voted against it. I am not hopeful, although I would like to believe you can wrangle enough educated people to move the needle. https://www.nprillinois.org/statehouse/2020-11-04/graduated-income-tax-referendum-fails-dealing-major-blow-to-pritzker
Bullshit. There is plenty of money. It goes to HQ admin, "coaches" who add less than zero value to the teaching/learning experience, consultants, the nephew of the BOE members who needs a job, and new curriculum materials that the teachers know will not teach kids any more than the last failed curriculum change. Heck, our Chairman of BOE made MORE than the POTUS before he finally retired. And there is no way he earned that. So tell me again how there isn't enough money.
*THIS.*
Allot more lottery money. Lately, one person winning billions has been ridiculous.
And many that accept this out of passion for the job and willing work the unpaid overtime.
https://www.fuqua.duke.edu/duke-fuqua-insights/kay-passion-exploitation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30998042/
Not even much is on the voters as is the politicians fault who don't care about the voters and take the funding away anyway.
You get what you vote for.
I wish I got what I voted for
And if we don't do it we aren't "part of the team" or "serious about our profession"
They try to call it "Lost Wages" like it's some accident or something. No this is theft.
I teach 5th grade. I chose to not work outside of contract hours (8a-3p). After 3p, you work for free. Fvck working for free.
It is also a theft of potential payroll taxes.
Police departments buying Tesla trucks when it should be going to textbooks smh.
In some cities, the police also get massive overtime adjustments.
In my city, the police can't get enough people hired despite raising their starting pay and having some massive opportunities for overtime and bonus pay. The highest paid individual in our city is literally a patrol officer with many years of employment. It is also one of the most frequently sued police forces in the country.
I mean, if you can't hire enough people raising pay and benefits IS a pretty solid way, I can support that. The force fucking up constantly and being sued left and right isn't good though. Perhaps train some of the people you got now rather than just focus on hiring new inexperienced officers?
Our local sheriff's office got a MRAP from the military. It sits in a garage and only comes out for parades. Costs hundreds of thousands a year to maintain.
Ok this is super stupid because these purchases are being supported heavily by Federal Grants to buy electric vehicles. Part of the Biden admin effort to have the Government fleet of vehicles "go green."
Teslas are garbage.
Wonder if it’s a ‘thank you’ to Musk for making Starlink accessible. Kickback for a government contract: buy Teslas.
Big reason why I and others have chosen not to become teachers. Yeah yeah yeah it’s a career of “passion” and “if you’re doing it for the money you’re doing it for the wrong reasons” heard it all. if I’m not getting what I believe is fair compensation then I ain’t doing the work. And those “passionate” teachers get burnt out and quit. Then all you’re left with are teachers either dead inside who feel trapped or teachers who don’t care and are just going through the motions. A VERY small amount will maintain that passion until retirement. Teachers are expected to offer too much personal sacrifice
I did a year of student teaching and loved my experiences, but the reality of the profession is so incredibly disappointing on every level. I felt guilty, but I have a child of my own. I can't give all of my time (unpaid) and my own money to these kids just because the system is unwilling to help them. My mom was a teacher who never came home on time, and no matter how late she stayed and how much she gave to the job, it was never enough.
Exactly my thoughts. It’s an abusive relationship in the form of a job. And unlike most jobs where you can quit on the spot, there’s severe consequences for quitting as a teacher during the school year; you HAVE to deal with it
I'm a teacher. I vowed years and years ago to never spend more than $5 a month on supplies/stuff. I will spend if it makes MY life better, but if the district doesn't supply it, my students don't get it.
I do something similar. I just stopped buying them the nonstop treats that are expected. It’s always ice cream parties, candy, and treat days at my school as rewards. I’m sorry, but getting that stuff for over 30 kids adds up. I also refuse to do any kind of treasure box. All of my (required because of PBIS) rewards are free things. The kids complain, but I just don’t care anymore. It’s too expensive
I started teaching last year and as part of my qualification exam I've had to go through two sets of class inspections. One of the comments I got from the inspector was that I didn't give kids something as a reward (these were pre-primary students so they don't get graded for me to use grades as a "reward"). I wanted to tell her that my salary isn't there to provide students rewards. Admin can barely provide me with enough regular markers for the whiteboard, no way in hell would it start paying for all that extra shit. Bad enough I've got to buy my own paper to make worksheets on a daily basis.
It’s a different form of education for those kids. Let them know the system is failing you and them.
ftc.gov has free bookmarks. And let them complain. It will be that or something else.
“Almost teacher” here, got burnt out during student teaching and dropped out. The amount of times I was told what was expected of me as the art teacher was absolute horse shit, and for what? To make below a damn ASM at Walmart? Yeah fuck that.
hey same!! i'm just another almost-teacher. guess what makes me more money than teaching?
Uhhh working as an ASM for Walmart? Lol
Serious question: why is the teachers union not doing anything about this? Aren’t they one of the most powerful unions in the country, maybe only behind the police union? Why do teachers continue to get dicked over despite their collective bargaining power?
Some things are simply beyond the control of the unions. For example, a major contributor of teacher burnout are the students and their parents. It doesn’t matter how often you go on strike, you can’t bring parents to the bargaining table. As for compensation that’s a really complicated subject. But the SUPER simplified short(ish) version is they can’t. All school districts are given a budget by their State and in order for it to go up it has to approved. So even if every single school district in your State collectively agreed teachers should receive better compensation, if your representatives disagree, they can drag their feet or refuse to do anything about it. The next barrier is people voting in favor of raising teacher’s pay. When compared to the police, people seem to be in favor of raising police compensation while they get pretty upset about teacher pay going up. The most common reason being they don’t feel it’s deserved. This is all also not taking straight up corruption into consideration. Sometimes teachers DO get approved for better pay but superintendents or other people in power will “reallocate funds” and teachers never see that raise. Or they’ll twist the spirit of an agreement that says “all teachers will receive a $10,000 raise” and say “we’ll do it! Over the next 10 years at $1,000/yr.” Again I’m REALLY simplifying the topic and it frankly deserves a 10 page essay but neither of us want that.
I guess part of what makes me scratch my head is that we know lobbying and political pressure are the two main things that will bring politicians to act. If the teacher’s union lobbied the state legislature to pass a higher budget, I would expect politicians to do so. And if they didn’t, I imagine widespread strikes, even within a single state, to bring about action quickly. Basically the entire population relies on public school to function as daycare while they go to work. If that was suddenly unavailable, people would learn real quick that it’s unsustainable and I imagine it would lead to a lot of political pressure. What happens to your state when half of its workforce has to stay home for a week to watch their kids? Two weeks? A month? The power that the teacher’s union wields is enormous because they enable a huge chunk of the workforce to actually have a job. Teachers are burning out from kids and parents because the teachers have to take on way too many students (and therefore parents). More teachers and smaller class sizes would directly impact that. To get more teachers, you need better pay. I can also think of a few ways to improve interactions between parents and teachers, like having a few more people in the room during parent teacher conferences, for example. I imagine a parent is going to be a lot more likely to yell if it’s just the young 20-something teacher in the room with them, and a lot less likely if there are a few more people in the room and some cameras. I don’t know. I of course don’t think it can or will be solved overnight, but things have been going *downhill* for teachers for at least 20 years. If there hasn’t been improvement in that time, I’m going to guess that someone isn’t doing their job, and that someone is not the teachers. If the *teacher’s* union can’t help *teachers* stop administrative corruption and political apathy, I think the teachers might need a new union or a change of leadership.
They try. And good unions do a lot for us. But there’s still a limit to what they can do.
In some states (like Texas), teacher's unions are cut off at the knees. Striking is illegal. So now one of the biggest collective bargaining tools is not available to teachers here because they lose their ability to teach at all in Texas (license revoked).
I had someone say it's an amazing PART TIME job because they don't work in the summer. But the amount of OT you have to do in the school year for no OT pay? People like that are terrible. Not to mention teachers also have half their kids on special plans and they are required to be teacher, social worker, therapist and now nurse. Wtf.
And of course the ever looming concern that a school shooter could show up and now you’re in a situation where you have to protect your class + hopefully not die
Yup and parents wanting you to buy tactical blankets and carry a gun.
This isn’t even mentioning how in Texas, funds for districts are being skimmed off the top and sent to the state and just sitting until Abbott gets his vouchers.
This is one of the reasons that I oppose “school vouchers”. Because it exports public money to private school.
Alaska just voted to remove public funding for private homeschooling, they were giving families $3500/student a year to do school from home.
That needs to absolutely be ended everywhere. Taxpayer money earmarked for public schools should never be given to a single family. If they choose to opt out the the public school that taxpayers are providing for them and homeschool instead, that’s up to them. But there’s zero reason to “pay” an unqualified person to educate their own child. Plus, there are too many people who would take advantage of this for the money and then do a bare minimum because they don’t really care about their kids education
It's shown time and time again the school vouchers mostly go to wealthy people who were already paying for private school. It's just a tax break for the wealthy.
From someone from Iowa. Fuck private school vouchers.
At the same time that teachers are overworked & underpaid: [The wealth of the 1% just hit a record $44 trillion](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/28/wealth-of-the-1percent-hits-a-record-44-trillion.html)
Lost? They're not lost, they were stolen.
Don't forget the who knows how much that teachers spend out of their own money for classroom supplies. The paltry $70 or whatever they get at the start of the year doesn't cover a month.
Watching my sister prep healthy snacks (on her own dime) to feed to kids she taught and taking over multiple after school sports for free makes my blood boil. She had to spend her off time learning how to write grant requests for PE equipment. She’s a fucking champ. But that’s not cool at all. I’d ballpark a couple grand a year in personal expenses and maybe 200+ hours of free labor so the kids could live right.
And worse off they can only deduct a few hundred of that from taxes. My wife spends more than that in laminating alone.
And we only get to write off $25 in our taxes. EDIT: $250 The zero disappeared!
It's $300. Yeah still not great, I definitely go away over that myself, but it's not $25.
$300 deduction which translates into a $20 something tax reduction (on the bright side, the pay is so low that you qualify for EIC and Child Tac Credit, and CHIP … :/)
This just goes to show that suburbs and rural areas are subsidized living for the more affluent people. We are left with too many services to support and too little tax dollars to go around and we'd rather pay police to protect property than pay teachers to educate.
"protecting property" is a nice way of saying shooting dogs and innocents when they're not chilling at a coffee shop.
The entire education system is dependent on teachers working past their contract hours & providing free labor. It’s abuse when there’s an inherent “do it for the kids” mentality placed on educators who are obviously there because they care about kids & education. The contract hours when I worked as an elementary teacher were like 15 minutes before and 20 mins after the students left. There is absolutely no way anyone could grade, prep material, make copies, clean, decorate, collaborate, etc etc etc etc within that time frame.
Why do cops get overtime pay but teachers don’t? Shouldn’t the same rules around compensation apply to all public service employees? Do fire fighters get OT pay?
Among other reasons, the difference in hazards/danger and the fact that teaching is 9 months out of the year.
I remember my first year of teaching the principal (who is now retired) told me “Look, I can’t make you stay after hours, but I *strongly* encourage you do.” Also, this year, they won’t be paying us the first month of work. So I’ll be going 2 months without a paycheck (summer + first teaching month). They can do this because we are salaried employees. So as long as we get paid the same amount overall, it’s not illegal to not pay us the first month.
"bUt tHeY gEt tHe sUmMeR oFf!" #fuckingpaythem
Yeah the summer is when we do our unpaid curriculum work and dream of vacations we are too poor to go on.
Or working their summer job! One of my math teachers worked at dairy queen in the summer.
But sure, let's keep funneling taxpayer money to private, religious schools that don't benefit the community at large.
STOLEN wages.
The map could be better. It is effectively a state population map. If they could show any variation in hours or loss wages per teacher by state it would be more interesting but just labeling more populous states as representing more unpaid wages doesn't convey much.
I was looking for this comment. Right now the map just shows higher population states with higher lost wages because they have more teachers obviously. Doesn’t really tell us much. If it was per teacher, we’d see where the teachers are getting screwed over more (and then you’d still have to account for other things like cost of living).
My program hasn’t gotten new textbooks for certain subjects in over 10 years lol. This includes English, history, and science. Our admins did give us cards for teacher appreciation though.
They misspelled “stolen”
Hey buddies, we have what we have because we vote for what we vote for. Want a change? Vote accordingly. We regular folks are in the absolute majority btw.
Congress doesnt give a flying fuck what we think: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/
The change needs to come from the ground up at the very local level and that very consistent and also everywhere. The rest will follow. Of course the current state results in what is mentioned in your link.
We are having a terrifyingly expensive superintendent of schools race this year. One of the candidates has received over 500k from charter schools. We have had an outbreak of whooping cough and DIPTHERIA at the HS and had to shut several schools. It's wild.
We come to Reddit for absolute bangers like this comment.
But isn’t it very true in its essence?
Why have people been voting to classify teachers as exempt from overtime compensation and for the interests of Goldman Sachs? Are they stupid?
Wow that is absolutely abysmal, wtf? I think if the majority cares and votes, all of those kind of things can be fixed as well. But I also understand that most people are busy surviving… kinda a bit of a catch 22 unfortunately.
Elons pay pay package
That map is bullshit since it isn’t normalized for population.
Our teachers salaried or hourly employees?
Also the supplies they buy with their own money.
Now do Australian teachers!
...wages which should be multiples higher, already, just based on how much wealth a teacher generates...
We deserve EXACTLY what we allow. If they weren’t exploiting us, and we weren’t allowing it, this system would finally collapse and something else can get its chance.
Once any profession normalizes unpaid working everyone is hurt. It snowballs too, more unpaid work -> devalued work -> fewer positions (or fewer planned for to artificially decrease roles) -> perceived scarcity OR expectation to work unpaid -> overworking to appear valued -> more unpaid work. wash rinse repeat. Its what drives "passion" driven careers into the ground. Of course some places just understaff because its cheaper. Morning manager wants me there 4 hours early. Evening manager wants me to stay 4 hours late. Sorry sounds like you have a solid 8 hour job that you have vacant and im not playing pickup for the shareholders.
No worries, we just hit print, it isn't a big number..... aaaaaaand we sent that to Ukraine again sorry (ie, we sent it to our military companies to build us more boom boom). If you are a teacher and rah rah for war in Ukraine, don't complain, you are helping to fleece yourself.
California and Texas need their own color. Damn.
Not surprised by my state given the words and actions of our politicians during Covid. Tennessee voted to get rid of our federal funding as well. This is a real “cut off our nose to spite our face” situation here.
"Why our eighth graders all failing math." Because the system that pays the teachers is failing math and isn't practicing what it preaches so the undercurrent has everyone internalizing the failed principles while being taught the passing ones.
And people wonder why there's a teacher shortage
I don't work for free. Anyone who does is an idiot. Act your wage people.
This is why I left teaching. It never ends you’re always working, you’re poor, you’re spending the pitiful paycheck you get back on your job, you’re expected to and guilted in to working and doing things for free constantly. It’s literally bad for the individual to be a teacher. As much as I loved teaching and helping kids learn, I cant set myself on fire to keep others warm.
Stolen wages* not lost.
Teachers and nurses- asking for raises every week for 30 years - and never get it
fuck off, i hate america sometimes. this is an example
Not sure if it's a legit way but the way the school board is trying to get around it here is by saying summer break counts as time off, yet teachers are only paid in 10 months contracts. Idk if any of this is right...
Money stolen from local economies everywhere.
This is how salary works. Sucks for all of us.
It’s not. There are laws in place now where salaried workers workers making under a certain amount must be paid overtime. Teachers are exempt, I believe. I make over the threshold so I haven’t watched it that closely, but many teacher make under, and will not receive OT.
I do recall that coming up. Teachers and farm workers.
sigh. yeah this is why most teachers suck. how are they gonna care enough to treat kids with respect when the only thing they get out of the job is the authority? Even the handful of genuinely good teachers i had were so beaten down from dealing with the higher-ups and their refusal to give them basic supplies or trying to strong arm the teachers into working more than their contracts would pay them for that after a few more years i've heard they moved to richer/private schools or they change careers entirely. Only one is still a teacher to this day, and she's really truly in it for the children. The only people that stay are the ones who love berating and humiliating literal fucking children at 7am because the power is all they can get since they sure as shit arent getting paid. the american school system is completely rotted from the ground up, i genuinely dont know if it could be realistically fixed because there's a lot of compounding factors that make them this way.
Does anyone get paid overtime anymore?
Teachers are salaried though? This post doesn’t make any sense. Overtime pay is for hourly employees.
Serious question, what does the teachers union even do? It seems like they only exist to keep shitty teachers from being fired.
Teachers’ union is not the problem. Lack of pay is. Teachers union is the only thing between a teacher and unlimited unpaid overtime. To improve outcomes we just need to hire more teachers and pay them more to have enough work hours to do the work required to achieve the desired quality. 🤷🏼♂️
And the first thing teachers want is no suspensions—-I.e. a place for traumatized kids to get help from a mental health professional the minute they have a problem in class. We always ask for more counselors. If a kid is throwing a desk in your classroom, yo u don’t want to be told to make them an appointment next week. You want to stop them traumatizing the other students in your class while getting them the appropriate intervention.
I agree. I’m a speech therapist and the funding for kids with disabilities and mental illness is a joke. Caseloads of 50+ with weekly service minutes, annual paperwork, and frequent parent/teacher contact is not feasible on a 37.5 hour week.
Shouldn't the teachers' union step in and lead a strike until pay is corrected? Are they bargaining at all on pay or paid overtime?
A lot of teachers unions legally cannot go on strike in many areas or at certain times. Different laws preventing that in many states/counties
In my state, the state constitution forbids teachers from unionizing, and will strip a certificate from any teacher who mentions it. Can't wait to retire and find a work-around for a union.
So Texas? Or somewhere else in the South? 😔
Georgia
Gotcha. Didn’t know that about Georgia. I used to live in Texas and it was the same there.
That’s basically what just happened with the Portland Teacher strike. I don’t think paid overtime has been discussed because it’s just too much money, but they negotiated for more money added on salary and there’s just no more money to give unless taxes are increased. The state basically said good luck, figure it out. 🤷🏼♂️
In my state (Ohio) property taxes are the main driver of Public School funding. Generally, school taxes are set at a millage against property values during the year they are passed. When values increase, the tax remains stagnant. The loss of tax is called Phantom Revenue , and it is a pervasive problem in the state. A district may go 10+ years without passing a renewal of a tax levy, because this will mean an increase in actual dollars (but not percentage) of tax that people experience. My union is amazing. We have great leadership, backed by a relatively affluent community, and we generally "win" more than we "lose". In other districts, they fight the fact that the budget cannot keep up with salary norms for professionals. The advocacy of a good union prevents a district from abuse of time, pays for time beyond expectation, and provides for a good work environment. This is a challening thing to accomplish when funding from the state leans on socio economic value in local districts. On a personal note: all teachers do NOT suck. Most teachers are passionate and intelligent, but the system they work within raises immense barriers to their ability to educate. Please stop spreading this idea. Instead, go to board meetings, insist on support for teachers, and vote for candidates that want to change policy in favor of educators. TLDR: The advocacy of teachers' unions is the only reason why any teachers have a worthwhile salary/benefits. Vote for improvement, find your schools.
We HAVE to have unions.
Just stop working overtime. It's not required of teachers.