Teacher Strikes, Benefits, Dedication, and Difficulties

Persons teaching in public schools engage in a magnificent profession. Indeed, perhaps it is the most important one, since the way educators train children affects the children’s lives and society for a lifetime as these children go on to use their education to benefit themselves and others.

Teachers in various locations often protest pay, benefits, working conditions, etc. The current Chicago teachers’ strike is the case most in the news now. A Chicago Tribune article yesterday[1] (October 26) indicates a settlement of that strike may be near. I hope so. 

Work Conditions

I sympathize with teachers. Perhaps their greatest need is better work conditions.

Children today face many distractions due to cell phones, iPads, and social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Furthermore, it must be difficult to teach children who are dealing with drug abuse, homelessness, being raised by single parents or grandparents, etc.

Somehow we need to find ways to virtually eliminate drug abuse, drastically lower divorce rates, and help children realize that acquiring a quality education is more important than texting friends or acquaintances dozens or hundreds of times daily.

Teacher Pay

Personally, I’d love for teachers to be paid much better. I rarely watch professional sports and think it would be great if the millions of dollars paid to professional athletes and their coaches were paid to public school teachers instead.

But professional sports are funded voluntarily by persons who attend them and the owners of the teams. Society and its citizens are responsible for the way the money is spent. If people who complain about the high pay of professional athletes stop attending games and stop watching them on television and the Internet, I’m confident their pay will decrease significantly.

In contrast to privately funded professional sports, public school systems are funded by taxpayer dollars. How many taxpayers want their taxes raised?

Furthermore, while teachers earn much less than highly paid professional athletes, they do apparently earn what I consider a nice wage. The Bureau of Labor Statistics[2] states that in 2018 median pay for kindergarten and elementary school teachers was $57,930 per year. For high school teachers it was $60,320 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics[3].

I’m confident teachers earning these amounts (or even significantly less) who budget well can live a middleclass lifestyle in typical jurisdictions in the United States. It’s important to note that these salaries vary by location and experience. Also, by definition, half of teachers make less than the median, while half earn more.

Teacher Dedication

Ideally teachers ought to be in the profession because they feel called to it, not for high pay.

Teaching is a profession, not just a job. I think persons entering the profession ought to be people sincerely interested in performing it well and that enjoy doing so.

Ideally, teachers would be so dedicated to helping students learn useful information and gain skills to apply what they learn constructively that they would never seek to retire as long as they remain healthy enough to perform their jobs.

I would love to see more highly qualified persons enter the teaching profession and stay in it for decades.

Some Things That Might Help Teachers

Increasing teacher pay might help. But I think improving benefits to teachers, reducing class sizes, providing quality classroom materials, and offering a better support system (teachers’ aides, counselors, nurses, security personnel, etc.) can help more.

Perhaps the greatest need teachers face is for parents and other citizens to take actions to improve home and school situations. If we dramatically reduce drug abuse, divorce, bullying, and homelessness through a change in the way our society functions, it can make teachers’ jobs less stressful and less time-consuming.

The school system bureaucracy is a problem also. Two of my friends here in Kentucky where I live who care about students and enjoyed teaching left—I think primarily due to frustration over the bureaucracy of the system. One of them has since returned to teaching. And I’d love to see more burned-out teachers get revived and back into it.

Teacher Strikes

I despise teacher strikes. I’m not saying teachers are always wrong to strike. But whenever a strike occurs, it demonstrates a failure of a school system to meet reasonable teachers’ needs, a failure of teachers to behave responsibly, or both. We need to find a better way to resolve these differences.

Teacher Hours

Teachers’ hours vary dramatically. Some teachers probably work perhaps 7 hours a day, five days a week, and are off on weekends, take long breaks at Christmas, and enjoy a three-month vacation in the summer, in addition to a weeklong spring break and other holidays during the school year. These teachers may put forth a lackadaisical effort in the classroom, with limited preparation or interest in their students.

However, I hope such teachers are the exception. Many teachers arrive early, stay after school, set up times to meet with parents outside of school hours, attend PTA meetings, help out on extracurricular activities such as athletic events, school newspapers, etc., and attend college during the summer to add to their education. In addition, they devote numerous hours outside classroom time to developing lesson plans, writing and grading tests and homework assignments, etc. They may spend much money from their personal paychecks to buy needed school supplies for their classrooms, pay for lunches for children who can’t afford them, etc.

Poor teachers are among the most overpaid workers in the United States. Quality teachers are among the most underpaid ones.

Closing Thoughts

We need to recruit more quality teachers, and we need to treat them better. We also need to improve or replace the poor ones.

Hire and seek to retain the best qualified persons regardless of their background, political party, family connections, etc.

I sincerely believe that the most dedicated teachers are so devoted to their profession and their students and enjoy their work so much that they often lack the desire for retirement, time off, or more pay. They are so busy working happily that they don’t spend all the money they make now.

What these dedicated teachers need most may be support from parents/guardians and the community that enables them to focus on teaching, instead of dealing with drug overdoses, bullying, hungry, sleepy, and/or homeless students, children who lack adequate discipline or support at home to make them ready for school, a burdensome bureaucracy, and probably numerous other issues that I can’t even imagine.

Small classes with quality instructors may be especially important for young children in preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary school grades. This can help them get off to a good start. In later grades, once children are established in good habits, perhaps larger class sizes are more appropriate.

Furthermore, in certain schools where it may not be feasible to provide a quality teacher in certain specialized subjects, maybe video lectures from superb instructors elsewhere could be broadcast via Internet, closed-circuit television, DVD, etc. For example, self-motivated, advanced physics students might benefit more from watching a superb lecture online than from a poorly trained in-person instructor. Questions and answers could be provided via email, text messaging, etc. Maybe some outstanding physics, chemistry, and history lecturers can attract audiences and salaries that rival or exceed those of professional athletes.

Let’s improve working conditions for teachers, let’s attract more quality teachers into the profession, and let’s weed out or improve the bad ones. Our society’s future may depend on it.

ENDNOTES:           

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[1] Madeline Buckley; “CPS strike updates: CTU president to speak at Near East Side rally as negotiations set to continue Saturday”; Chicago Tribune; October 26, 2019; webpage accessed October 26, 2019; https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-cps-strike-chicago-teachers-union-updates-20191026-igiywrczazcf7oonzvrydam5gq-story.html

[2] “Kindergarten and Elementary School  Teachers”; Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor; webpage last modified September 4, 2019; webpage accessed October 26, 2019; https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/kindergarten-and-elementary-school-teachers.htm#targetText=Kindergarten%20and%20elementary%20school%20teachers%20generally%20work%20during%20school%20hours,grading%20papers%20and%20preparing%20lessons. 

[3] “High School Teachers”; Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor; webpage last updated September 19, 2019; webpage accessed October 26, 2019; https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/high-school-teachers.htm

NOTE:

This article submitted to Google Blogger on October 27, 2019 is based on one the author submitted to Craft News Report, a website operated by his friend Paul Craft, on October 26, 2019. This Blogger article was last revised on June 22, 2021.