62 Percent of American Teachers Work Two Jobs

[Hannah Bell]

This may be news to those who believe that those fat cat teachers have it made in the shade. From today's NYTimes, some clips from an op-ed by Eggers and Calegari:

At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.

So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/05/62-percent-of-american-teachers-work.html

[Ex Lurker]

1. My friend the HS math teacher has a part time janitorial/maintenance job year round,

and works on a house painting crew during the summer. He already has his twenty years in with the school system. He keeps threatening to retire and go to painting full time.

[B Calm]

2. It's not unusual for a teacher to have a summer job.

[dkf]

3. But if the South Koreans are paying their top students 250% to become teachers...

How do we justify paying top dollar for those we recruited from the bottom tier? Don't we need to transition to top achieving top paid teachers? And won't that mean getting rid of probably the majority of those we have now?

[sammytko]

4. it's a "throw-away" profession - its everyone's back up plan

"If I lose my job, I can be a teacher" - who hasn't heard a degreed person make that statement. We, as the adults do not respect the profession.

[ejpoeta]

5. we live on $43k..... and i can tell you that it is not living high on the hog.

we are just under the cap for state health insurance, so at least we have that.... and our house is paid off. but we still struggle with three kids. well, i hesitate to actually call it struggling because we are living good compared to what we were before. but this idea that teachers are living it up is ridiculous.

i think in this society we do not seem to value experience anymore. there are things teachers that have been actually teaching for years know that the young ones don't. the idea that we wouldn't want to make sure we have those experienced teachers there making a decent living.