teaching in America

This is so absurd, it is almost funny. Public school teaching in America was never a pretty picture. Now being a public school teacher in America during a pandemic that America is too partisan to handle is a nightmare. My heart goes out to every teacher trying to do the right thing, whether retiring early or boldly facing their duties despite the worst conditions. I hope this crisis upends our educational structures in place, and rebuilds a system that is actually sustainable for teachers with enough funding and less burnout. 

Written by a current teacher

 I’ve seen a frightening amount of people suggesting they deserve half of their property taxes back since they have become their children’s “teachers.” So I did some black magic (read: math) to see what that would look like.

Since it’s your first year teaching, you’ll start at the bottom of the salary scale. Just for fun, we’ll say you have your bachelors degree but no years of full-time teaching experience. In Unit 5 school district, your starting salary is $37,600.

That salary involves working 180 days, eight hours each day. Don’t worry, I won’t bother subtracting the institute days or parent/teacher conferences. So, your daily rate of pay would be:

$37,600 / 180 = $208.89

Not bad, but that rate assumes you’re teaching the full caseload of students. Just for fun, let’s say you have 100 students on your caseload (which is LOW for a high school teacher), so to figure out how much you should make for teaching your one student, let’s do:

$208.89 / 100 = $2.09

Now, since you’re not creating the lessons or grading the assignments, you surely don’t deserve full pay, so let’s split the cost between you and your student’s actual teacher:

$2.09 / 2 = $1.05

That $1.05 is for the full 8-hour day, but I doubt you’re ACTUALLY working that whole time. So your hourly rate:

$1.05 / 8 = $0.13

So for each hour you’re actively engaged with your child working on lessons, activities, homework, etc, congrats! You made $0.13!

Also, did I mention that you need to be fluent in Spanish and certified to teach Advanced Placement if you want to split my salary with me?

If you think that teachers would rather teach remotely than return to our classrooms, you’re wrong. But we WOULD rather teach remotely than expose ourselves, our loved ones, and our students to a deadly virus in the middle of a pandemic. As soon as it’s safe to return to our NORMAL classrooms (where I can pass out dice for games, kids can use my stash of expo markers, and we can bring in authentic foods from Spanish-speaking countries), teachers will be the first advocating to reopen. And we do plenty of active shooter drills and trainings, so when we say something isn’t safe, we know what we’re talking about.

But if you really think you’re the expert here, I will be happy to pay you $0.13 per hour you spend working with your kid on his Spanish homework. Pending evaluation, of course. You’ll need to be ranked proficient or excellent before your payout. You ARE familiar with the Danielson evaluation, right? I’ll need your binder of evidence and artifacts ASAP.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. I’ll see you in the virtual classroom.

via {fb}