Think of every teacher you’ve ever had. Consider each of them, both your favorites and the ones you wish you could forget. Ponder all of the little moments that make up your childhood education, all the way up through high school, from the disappointed talks after the substitute teacher left a bad note to the oddly strict bathroom pass rules.
Now think of the first time you heard a teacher swear. The first time a teacher spoke to you like an adult. The times that you saw your teachers outside of school, maybe at the grocery store, and you were unsure of whether or not to say hello. Times when your teachers broke through the mold of “teacher” we’ve created in our minds. When that younger version of yourself was shocked into realizing that teachers are people — people with dreams, lives and limits, just like any other person.
Teachers have a monumental responsibility: shaping America’s youth. At a minimum, they must be able to maintain a clean and orderly classroom; create comprehensive multimedia lesson plans; provide individualized interactive learning; assess student progress and regularly communicate that progress to students and parents; collaborate with school faculty and pay close attention to students’ behavior and emotional well-being. Expectations for teachers even go beyond the classroom — because education is viewed as a mechanism for social mobility, teachers are considered the vanguard for America’s struggle to reduce inequality.
That’s quite a comprehensive list. With such burdensome tasks, it would make sense for teachers to be treated with respect and given proper compensation and benefits, right? Apparently not!
During the 2015-2016 school year, about one-third of new teachers and 18% of regular, full-time public school teachers had to work second jobs, just to make ends meet. One in five teachers in the United States have a second job, which magnifies the educator’s relative burden compared to other occupations.
The situation for teachers is only getting worse. Average teacher pay (when adjusted for inflation) has declined throughout the last decade. According to the National Education Association, the average (nominal) salary of American teachers in 2021-2022 was about $66,000. In 2013 dollars, however, that’s only $54,225 — about $2,000 less than the average salary in 2013. Compared to other professions with the same level of education, teachers’ wages were 23.5% less in 2021, a wage penalty that increased from 18.7% in 2017.
Simply put, there are high expectations and low wages for teachers. Most people already know that. That’s because headlines in recent years showcase our teachers’ fight for fair benefits and wages. Last week in Los Angeles, employees from support staff to teachers of the second-largest school district in the country were on strike, demanding higher wages. Teachers in San Rafael, Calif., just authorized a strike after negotiating with the San Rafael City Schools since November. Earlier this month, teachers in Woodburn, Ore., threatened to strike, pointing out the many resignations in the district in the last few years.
Even those that are not formally considered educators have felt these burdens. Here at the University of Michigan, with the Graduate Employees’ Organization currently on strike for the second time in three years, we know about strikes impeding education all too well. They, too, are demanding higher wages. These instructors, at the University for their own education rather than teaching as a profession, face similar challenges of being undervalued for their labor.
Another consequence of the high-stress and low-paying conditions set for teachers is the profession’s worsening retention rate. The turnover rate for teachers reached a new high this year, which has been attributed mostly to the pandemic. According to a survey by the RAND Corporation, one in four teachers considered leaving their jobs during the 2020-21 school year, even if they didn’t actually go through with it. There is reportedly more job-related stress for school staff, specifically principals in this survey, who are people of Color, identify as female and are in high-poverty areas.
Obviously, this is bad for American education. How we treat our teachers has consequences: The U.S. education system lags behind other countries in terms of academic achievement. And when teachers are paid more, students do better. The work of teachers is crucial for society as a whole, but it is more so impactful at the individual level. The first part of this article asked you to think about your past teachers; whether good or bad, those memories are vivid, proving the importance of the role that teachers play in our lives.
However, their impact on the nation shouldn’t be the reason that teachers should get equitable pay and benefits. They should get those things simply because they are people. We shouldn’t need to argue for teachers’ jobs to have greater importance or need to point out how the declining retention rate and frequency of labor strikes further harm education.
Instead of viewing the millions of teachers in the U.S. solely as their occupation, we should be seeing them first as people with human limits and rights to a safe, healthy working environment. With 44% of schools reporting that they don’t have the capabilities to provide mental health services to students in need, teachers are forced to take on a larger role to compensate for that lack of care. These burdens are already taking their toll on teachers, with 79% of teachers reporting experiencing work-related anxiousness and one in 10 teachers being prescribed antidepressant medication to combat job pressures. The mental health of teachers is deteriorating, to the point that people are either leaving or never joining the profession at all.
Placing the burdensome weight of America’s entire education, social work and social justice system onto teachers and expecting them to do it with little support, and even less compensation, cannot continue. It has become quite obvious that teachers are willing to do what it takes to get the respect they deserve. Until there’s a change in the treatment of teachers, these strikes and bad retention rates are just going to continue. Then it’s the students paying the cost at the end of it all.
Jamie Murray is an Opinion Columnist that writes about American politics and interpersonal relations. She can be reached at jamiemu@umich.edu.