'I Work 3 Jobs And Donate Blood Plasma to Pay the Bills.'This Is What It's Like to Be a Teacher
'I Work 3 Jobs And Donate Blood Plasma to Pay the Bills.' This Is What Its Like to Be a Teacher in America
By Katie Reilly
September 13, 2018
Hope Brown can make $60 donating plasma from her blood cells twice in one week, and a little more if she sells some of her clothes at a consignment store. Its usually just enough to cover an electric bill or a car payment. This financial juggling is now a part of her everyday lifesomething she never expected almost two decades ago when she earned a masters degree in secondary education and became a high school history teacher. Brown often works from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. at her school in Versailles, Ky., then goes to a second job manning the metal detectors and wrangling rowdy guests at Lexingtons Rupp Arena to supplement her $55,000 annual salary. With her husband, she also runs a historical tour company for extra money.
I truly love teaching, says the 52-year-old. But we are not paid for the work that we do.
That has become the rallying cry of many of Americas public-school teachers, who have staged walkouts and marches on six state capitols this year. From Arizona to Oklahoma, in states blue, red and purple, teachers have risen up to demand increases in salaries, benefits and funding for public education. Their outrage has struck a chord, reviving a national debate over the role and value of teachers and the future of public education.
For many teachers, this years uprising is decades in the making. The countrys roughly 3.2 million full-time public-school teachers (kindergarten through high school) are experiencing some of the worst wage stagnation of any profession, earning less on average, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than they did in 1990, according to Department of Education (DOE) data.
Meanwhile, the pay gap between teachers and other comparably educated professionals is now the largest on record. In 1994, public-school teachers in the U.S. earned 1.8% less per week than comparable workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank. By last year, they made 18.7% less. The situation is particularly grim in states such as Oklahoma, where teachers inflation-adjusted salaries actually decreased by about $8,000 in the last decade, to an average of $45,245 in 2016, according to DOE data. In Arizona, teachers average inflation-adjusted annual wages are down $5,000.
http://time.com/longform/teaching-in-america/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=time
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)and underpays his workers. Capitalism is a beautiful thing.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)He has been shamed a lot lately, so that may have been part of it.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)With reason. He externalizes his costs onto the taxpayers.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)tax increases and less write offs. No unions, heaven forbid.
Mosby
(16,310 posts)With her husbands income they probably make close to 6 figures.
Maybe they could have found a better example.
I work in retail (with a degree) and have never made more that 42K. Right now I'm between jobs and make 11.59 per hour at Target.
I fucking wish I made 55K.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)I have been fortunate in my life and I agree you have a point about another example could have been used but hers exemplifies the difficulty even at that rate due to the rising cost of living. I worry about the kids and their college debt too, how will they manage?
I wish we all were paid better, I'm in a bad place right now with my job and the supervisors I work for so I have a really bad attitude about the whole thing.
I took this job just so I wasn't sitting at home waiting for calls, it's unreal how people are treated these days in retail.