In recent local news, there is a representative in Washington who is lambasting teachers for asking for a raise in pay. She says that teachers have the weekends, evenings, and summers off, that teachers knew they were going into a sector which did not pay well, and that they have excellent benefits.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/lawmakers-facebook-post-blasts-teachers/nYTkm/
Huh.
Perhaps she needs a little education. Teachers are paid for their number of days of work - usually about 180 days. I know that some districts provide the option to spread the salary over the entire year (instead of receiving pay only during the 9 months of a school year), so that teachers will receive a paycheck during the summer. It is still the same amount of pay. They are not getting paid for their summer off.
The term "summer off" riles up a lot of teachers I know, and here is why: the summertime is the best time of year to catch up on the latest teaching trends, updating professional knowledge, and attending seminars. Which most teachers I know, pay for out of pocket. The state licensing requires that you complete X amount of credit hours before issuing a new license. And we pay for the license, too. For example, my license costs $100. That does not include the classes I took in order to earn the license - over $1000 spent there. Guess who pays for the professional development that we take while enjoying our "summers off"? Oh, that's right, we do. Some districts used to pay for the development, but that was cut when we first starting trimming budgets. I have worked with a teacher for the past four years every summer to review and update lessons, units, and teaching strategies. Discussion of what we have seen in class, in schools, and in the news allows us to determine whether we are serving our students to the best of our ability. And as we adopt new curriculum (Common Core), teachers will spend their time off learning how best to incorporate those requirements. I don't think that qualifies as "summers off".
Many teachers I know spend evenings, weekends, and summers with their second job, which is typically mentoring or tutoring students, one on one. How many representatives spend their "off hours" working a second job which is making up for the lack of political leadership? I say this because large class sizes (we are talking in the teens for private schools, thirties in elementary, and sixty students and more in high school classes), affect the quality of teaching. Behavioral and Special Education students require more one on one time in the classroom, which is provided - however, with a larger class size, comes more of these students, which means that the other students are left without that extra attention. And so they come into teacher's homes, or meet at the local library for tutoring and assistance. How many teachers spend their evenings with a stack of papers to grade on their laps, not really focusing on their own families? How many weekends are spent planning lessons, buying supplies, and entering grades? Does this representative think that teachers get paid overtime for this? There is no overtime when you are a teacher. We do, however, get to pay back our student loans for our Masters or Doctorates in Teaching, Counseling, Education, or Administration.
I wonder who paid this representative's access to office supplies. My guess is the taxpayers, of whom teachers are a part. Who pays for school supplies in the classroom? After the district, it's the teachers, along with the parents who are able to school shop with their students. And when you have 30 kids in a classroom, with conservatively half of whom don't have school supplies, that cost stacks up. And yet, teachers supply their students with everything they can provide to give each student the best chance at learning. So teachers spend their "summers off" watching the sales, so that they can spend their own money to provide supplies for their next batch of students. For example, Dixon Ticonderoga yellow pencils run about $2.79/dozen. Estimate a dozen pencils per student in the school year, and you are looking at about $83 out of pocket expense.
This representative is right, people who chose the teaching profession did not choose it because of low pay. Does that mean that teachers don't have the right to seek reasonable pay for their work? Perhaps if all the teachers became legislators, we would see some quality education in this country. And I would invite legislators to spend an entire day in a classroom. I suspect they would change their tunes pretty quickly. How many legislators have to deal with groups of people who spit, bite, have bloody noses, throw up, cough, or urinate (sometimes all in one day)? Do they have to take yearly courses in infectious disease, child abuse, and sexual assault? Teachers get to do all of that, and more.
I saw a post on Facebook recently about some possible responses to critics of summer break, and I think perhaps this under educated representative might need to take a peek at it...
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/2013/06/five-responses-critics-summer-break?eml=Teachers/e/201306018/Facebook///SMO/Teachers/TopTeaching/Christy/
Last but not least, it is important to note that legislation to re-work the teacher pension system is definitely needed. But when teachers who have not had any pay increases in several years certainly have a right to ask for it. Particularly when the political leadership spends taxpayer dollars with no thought about where it is coming from.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart to the teachers out there... and for the people who have a clue as to what teachers do every day, whether school is in session or not.
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