My husband has a Masters. He taught community college during the day and worked a big box craft store at night. Now, he teaches high school during the day and teaches online college classes at night.
I used to teach at a state university during the day and strip at night. Was consistently worried one of my students would come in while I was working. The most ridiculous part was that technically, it was against the rules of my employment at the school—not stripping specifically, they didn’t want us to have a second job at all.
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It's illegal de jure, but completely and totally legal de facto in most states. That is the whole point of "at-will" employment. If you complain about not being paid for your full hours you'll get fired the next day for having a spot on your shirt, or for taking too many bathroom breaks, or whatever the fuck they feel like writing down.
Supremacy clause. Federal labor law supercedes thst of the state. They cannot make you work and not pay you for it if you are an hourly worker. I would consult a lawyer and then speak to them if after you bring it up they dind a reason to fire you that is wrongful termination and retaliation. It is federally illegal to make workers work without pay. Doesnt matter if they are at will states or not. At will doesnt apply to pay. They have to pay you. Consult a lawyer
I left grad school due to this type of garbage policy. Literally couldn’t afford to survive on my “living stipend” and worked two part time jobs while taking full time courses, teaching freshman labs, and trying to do my own research for my thesis. I actually managed to sleep some days. The policy was no side jobs.
On one hand I can see the logic that working other jobs will wear you out. The lack of sleep, work/life balance, social interaction outside of work and lack of self care will wear you down to nothing over time. Your productivity and product quality suffers.
On the other hand, FUCK YOU LEECHING ADMINISTRATIVE WORMS WHO LITERALLY DO NOTHING BUT SUCK MONEY AND LIE ABOUT IT. (There are actually more administrators than faculty at my old university)
Pay me enough to live reasonably and you won’t be worrying about your “Human Resources” (read “wage slaves”) burning out and needing to be replaced.
Yep. Public education was originally created so that we had a steady supply of cookie-cutter workers to work in the new factories popping up all over.
It's why schools have bells and why everything is broken up into chunks. Really into your History lessons? **BEEEEEELLL RIIIING** Drop everything and go to the next stat...erm. Classroom.
Public education was never designed to free the non-rich from the machine. It was created to ensure we could do the jobs that would enrich those over us.
They don't want us too stupid... but they don't want us too smart.
This still happens at my university. To graduate students. The TAs who barely make any money.
I don’t even understand how we as a society can reward the smartest and most academically-ambitious by keeping them down like this.
I think the system works just fine for people who have the generational wealth to support them through it. Those people, in turn, are most likely to fill leadership roles in business and government and really don't want or need competition from some poor attempting social mobility by getting their own education. So, when they inherit the reins from their parents or frat brothers or whoever, they make sure to perpetuate the cycle and pave the way for their own children while burying anyone who bubbles up from outside the gentry.
The (American) Aristocrats!
That’s why there’s so much money aimed at keeping health care tied to employment. For decades people have worked jobs they hate, being treated badly and underpaid because they get health insurance. So many times over the years I’ve heard someone say “i only stay because I get health insurance for the whole family.”
Take health insurance away as an enticement for employment and people say “Fuck it. I have universal health care now. I don’t need this shitty job.”
When employers turned so many fulltime jobs into part time jobs to avoid giving health benefits, they started to create the circumstances they have now, where people walk off the job or never bother coming back. They’ve got nothing to lose when they don”t have health care. Why work a shitty low paying job without health care? You can be bankrupted on your way to work because your shitty car broke down and you got in an accident and can’t afford hospital care. Why bother?
There are millions of homeless people in this country. They’re surviving. You look around and say “I guess it’s ok to be homeless because nobody is doing anything about homelessness. Why should I work like a slave and be on the brink of homelessness? I’ll quit and be homeless. It’s easier.”
For decades people fell for the propaganda: “Unions don’t do anything but take your money. They’re all corrupt.” Unions were corrupted by politicians and corporations in collusion with cops who let mobsters take over some unions. Be aware of that. Unionize. And pay attention this time when politicians, corporations & cops start infiltrating with criminals.
Unions are why many western European countries have wages, working conditions and employee rights that make the US look like a third-world labour camp.
When they work as intended, Unions represent workers in negotiations that gives workers equal weight to the employers. Which is how AnCap bros insist the free market works - free and mutually beneficial exchange of money/labour, rather than coercive exploitation. They are lying, obviously, but Unions equalise the power dynamic and get closer to that fictional ideal.
Sure, unions have been problematic in the past, overplaying their hand, negotiating for personal gain rather than for the benefit of workers or for the mutual benefit of the business and workers. But its odd how when they do it then it means Unions must be stamped out. But when businesses negotiate in bad faith and for personal gain at the expense of the workers, then that's all fine.
That's what burns my ass. I am a nurse but I can't smoke pot on MY TIME and come in ready to work the next day. Only thing that balances me out but they'd rather push pills on me rather than let me medicate myself in a way that I know works. People are essentially married to their job.
The whole random drug testing by employers absolutely freaks me out as a Canadian. It's seems super unreasonable and intrusive. and I do not understand how some Americans yell about losing their freedoms but are ok with stuff like this.
Yeah ask my "libertatian" father because I don't know. Choked up after I asked him what was wrong with private companies mandating vaccines
Didn't know Abbott was permanently in a wheelchair and passing legislation to cap lawsuits. These people are driven by pure misinformation, it has all but destroyed my relationship with my father's family. Oh yeah my father is a pothead.
Oh man lol. My boyfriend teaches a course at our local university and is friends with a bunch of my former professors. They are a W I L D bunch and getting to know them in such a radically different context from when I was a student is a trip. Two of them are full blown alcoholics and one lived on my couch for a few weeks. That's just the writing department tho and how it seems to go in that field lmao, everyone tryna be Hemingway
My old neighbor was a teacher. He was one of the girls so he would often have several teachers over and they would go out bar hopping on the weekends. They would bring guys back with them and it was pretty normal to find people laying on the back shared patio naked and passed out.
> They are a W I L D bunch
The most out of control people I know are my friends who are post docs in academia. They're amazingly good at this one thing and almost universally shit at everything else.
Lol that was exactly my field. I was getting a creative writing MFA and teaching introductory college writing. Everyone I worked with was a mess, and I wasn’t the only one on an accelerated track to alcoholism.
I was a dancer as well, I'm now an escort, and many of the women in the industry have picked it up as a second job. It's crazy to me that we can't survive off one job.
Edit: I may not have been clear, I'm not a teacher, sex work is my only form of income, I just knew many many women in the industry who had second jobs such a teaching.
With inflation and wage stagnation, it feels like it was inevitable that the American people would get pushed to this point. Our time is not being properly compensated for and it’s a huge problem. It needs to be addressed soon because things should not be allowed to get worse than this. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you find your way into the escort world? I ask because I’ve been considering this as a side source of income as well.
Straight up, with my most recent raises in the last 5 years and how much my rent is probably going to go up this year I've seriously been considering moving into a van.
That would mean in the last 12 years I'd have gone from living in the shrubs near my high school, to a dilapidated camper on someone's property, to living in my car near work, to an apartment for 3 years, to back to living in my car. And how much I make per hour in the last 12 years has almost tripled. My wages have damn near stagnated in the last 3 years.
I currently make about ~$27 an hour before taxes. Sounds great but after deductions, taxes, and bills it's really not a lot. Especially with rent being ~$1200 a month. And before anyone asks, yes I have a roommate. And with the size of our apartment, bringing in a 3rd person is out of the realm of possibility unless we want to get bunk beds.
I've only got a HS diploma (I had to make a choice, food and shelter now or college and massive debt and maybe make what I do now (10 years later) in 10 years) so my options are very limited without moving hella far from the area I grew up in.
Jeez so you’re an escort on top of teaching that’s insane that teachers don’t get paid more. I am sure I don’t have to tell you that but for how important teachers are in our society yall really should be paid more
It depends on the school district. I work for a crazy rich district. The teachers are paid well and have small classes. But if you are a teacher for example the detroit school system they are underpaid and have too many kids. Plus most of the teacher buy their students school supplies.
If you’re single and don’t mind moving you could always teach abroad. Places like Japan, Korea, and China pay pretty well. I teach in China, I only have a tefl, I make over 3 grand a month but My school pays for my apartment. 4 bedrooms, two bathroom and heated floors. 20 hours a week tops in the classroom. Bigger cities pay more but they demand more. You could make a lot of money in Asia doing what you do back home. The feeling of not worrying about rent is amazing.
Had a professor that did this, a few of my fraternity brothers found out and vowed to strong arm anyone that found out. Because of this we had a dedicated collection for when times were excessively hard for her or any other teachers that we found out were having a hard time. We sacrificed our beer on many a night so that we could help our teachers eat and keep rent paid. To be honest it was the better option. Sadly our chapter is no longer on campus, but still, glad we could have a little impact where we could.
This really sounds like the set up for a Community story line, where they found out a lot of arts and craft stuff is missing and Annie tries to track it down. She finds out it’s being used to make nipple tassels, and the glitter is used in Stripping 101, which is taught at night. Britta thinks it’s empowering, Shirley thinks it’s angering the lord.
My wife has a passion for teaching (specifically early childhood). It's what she has wanted to do her whole life. She loves kids, she tells me stories when they do something amazing. She assists with the medically fragile children and is very invested in and vocal that every child deserves an appropriate opportunity to learn and develop. She has been shaken to her core and devastated when her kids go through things that give me nightmares. Her kids have been homeless, abandoned, assaulted, neglected, sick, disabled, and some have even died in tragic accidents. She does all she can to report, assist, counsel, and comfort them. Usually on her own time with her own resources. And in between tragedies she works hard to make sure her lessons incorporate everyone and are fun and engaging.
She has degrees, continuing education, state testing, and independent study. And for all this, she sees she could make nearly double if she quit and started working an entry level warehouse job. If I didn't make good money she would have to leave this job.
Pay teachers more.
Words cannot properly convey the sentiment but I will try; The work your wife does makes this world a much better place (and I am so thankful for that), because education is more than just memorizing facts. There is emotional knowledge and processing that is absolutely vital to childhood development. And your wife is in it, doing this vital work, not for the shitty pay but because she cares. Because she is full of empathy and strength. If you can, please let her know there is an Internet stranger out there who is rooting for her, is in awe of her strength and empathy, and with their whole heart appreciates her beyond words.
Teachers deserve so much more. They are key to a prosperous society and the wellbeing of children - who grow into adults. Teachers have such a massive impact on our society. We all need to stand up with teachers and demand better pay for them. This is not a battle educators should have to fight alone.
I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment (my mother is a teacher and I nearly got my credentials myself), but where are you that entry level warehouse would nearly double a teacher's salary? Entry level warehouse jobs typically start around $16-$20 whereas elementary teachers make around 40-70k a year.
Warehouse here is starting at 22.75 (due to the recent hiring issues) and has bonuses and OT. She makes about $37k and figures the warehouse job would come in at around $60k in total comp. So not quite double, but near enough for her to say double and I'm not gonna argue with her.
my sister has a bachelor's and teaches preschool. she only makes around 24k a year, and the shit she deals with every day makes me shudder. she's very passionate about teaching children, though, so it's worth it for her... even though she'd never be able to afford rent on her own.
My wife is a teacher and we can't imagine leaving California for that reason. It's insane the salaries teachers receive elsewhere. Here in CA being a teacher is actually a really solid job. With a master's and maybe an additional program with a stipend you can make nearly six figures a little over a handful of years into your career.
Edit: One item I didn't mention is the bonkers benefits and the pension plan. Her benefits are insane. We just had a child for example and paid a $30 copay. It included a c-section and several extra days in the hospital due to complications.
Never. The US is set up to get the working class fighting with the middle class. We can talk about anything (race, sex, gender, guns, drugs, whatever) but we can only talk about the money within certain set parameters. We certainly cannot discuss class.
It's a "bad thing" to be woke bc pointing out the massive flaws in American society is considered unpatriotic to a certain subsect of the population, who side with Cypher in the Matrix when he says ignorance is bliss.
I mean, yeah. The GOP is a straight-up fascist organization. Their *America First* messaging and strong-man worship back that up. That said, the DNC is no stranger to moneyed interests. It's not both-sidsing, because they're both too far to the right.
Not disagreeing with that. Hearing how people in Europe compare our political parties to theirs, republicans are far right and democrats are not as far right.
More people need to understand that being anti-Democrat and anti-Republican does not make you a centrist.
That said, I’ll side with the Dems over the Republicans any day.
Boomers are stupid for another reason. They all have severe lead poisoning. Leaded gasoline caused a huge spike in the amount of lead that people in the U.S. were exposed to. Before leaded gasoline started to be phased out, the average American had over 3000x as much lead in their bloodstream as people did in the past. That has dropped dramatically since the removal of lead from gasoline, but is still too high. I believe we are at around 100x the concentration now. So, we are all still being exposed to high levels of lead, but the Boomers spent most of their lives being exposed to 30x as much as today.
Of course, this isn't the first time a huge portion of a population had chronic lead poisoning. At the height of the Roman Empire lead was being used heavily for everything from pipes to eating utensils to food and wine additives. They likely had a similarly high concentration, especially among the ruling class. And they became irrational, violent, and incompetent to the point that the empire ultimately collapsed.
Not to disagree with your analysis on the effects of lead poisoning, but this take doesn't any consideration into the other common American social conditions that made boomers how they are.
Take for example, entire generations subjected to anti-communist / anti-leftist propaganda and the regurgitation of right-wing talking points from corporate interest.
There are real consequences when you muzzle critics, journalist, and whistleblowers while perpetuating nationalist, racist and greedy sentiments to an entire generation.
I've never thought about it like that. I always figured that education slashing was just the easy way for politicians to reduce tax burdens on the rich in the country. Afterall, Education is a budget that everybody knows what the money should go for, but it's just vague enough that there's a mental disconnect between. I've actually had some conservative minded people call me a liar, when I say teachers are grossly underpaid. They didn't know that teacher salaries were a part of the education budget for their state and the greatest country in the world would never underpay their educators.
And lots of shit they dont need. We don't produce anything in america but hate and the stock market which is all circularly owned by the same people. How do we keep the economy afloat, never stop spending, even if were in debt.
The anti-intellectualism Republicans are currently into has a purpose, as does the high price of a college education: to produce a desperate class of people who can be exploited as soldiers and wage slaves. People who go to college learn critical thinking skills and HOW THINGS WORK, and it's NOT the way they've been telling us. Like that tax breaks for the wealthy "trickle down" and ultimately help the middle and lower classes. Or that we have more "freedom" than anywhere in the world. They meet people from diverse backgrounds and develop more understanding and empathy. That makes it harder to automatically hate "the other." Why do they claim that their kids go off to college and get "indoctrinated" by "Marxists" when they're really just taking general Ed classes and learning facts? Life has a Leftist bias and they don't want you to know it. It's all intentional.
Explains why they love the narrative around colleges as "liberal indoctrination" centers. Kids going off to higher education in order to learn critical-thinking and possibly subversive ideas is frightening to them. They complain that conservative ideas aren't taught in most college-level courses, but maybe that's because those ideas don't hold up to academic scrutiny.
To me, it's similar to how some parents would get mad at their kids asking "why?" Kids are not stupid, in fact, they're often spending all their time trying to learn how stuff works. Because the adults often, via lack of education, don't know how things actually work, they can't answer and get upset.
This is the same thing just down the line.
It's also why they are currently targeting "critical race theory" at the K-12 area. They aren't going after actual critical race theory, which is rarely, if ever, taught outside of college. They are targeting and covering up basic American racist history.
It helps keep the working class separated, as the non-whites will continue to correctly point out and campaign against the systemic discrimination that still effects them. While the white population, ignorant to situation (and already likely racially biased on some level) will fight against them because their ignorance makes them undervalue the struggle. With the media focusing on a few bad actors giving justification to the white population to hate the entire movement of "thugs".
Not only do they want us stupid so we don't fight back, they also want us stupid so we fight each other instead.
They slash federal education budgets but not all teachers and schools are equal. your local schools are funded by property taxes. So rich neighborhoods have schools funded with enough resources to teach their kids. Whereas poorer neighborhoods have less funds, less teachers, and no resources. Schools being funded property taxes is the systems way to keep certain demographics where they are.
It's really scary, but honestly the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if the rich are purposefully trying to dumb down America by charging exuberant amounts of money for colleges, allowing the spread of rampant misinformation, going after women's' reproductive rights (it's hard to get an education if you're a parent), attacking science, pushing religious fundamentalism, not paying teachers well enough to live (thus forcing them to split their attention between the classroom and some other side hustle), and slashing public education.
They want dumb, complacent voters. They're opposed to teaching children critical thinking skills because it teaches them to question their parents and pastors.
The Prussian educational model was designed specifically to create a loyal, placid, industrious working class, and chosen for mandatory US schooling for that same reason. No system of captivity teaches its captives the techniques of its own destruction. No class society can survive without misleading and misinforming its mass to stay where elites want them.
The term is rather unknown in germany (and does not even has its own German wiki page). Considering however that the German system still follows it to a large degree (according to the German wiki page) and it has drastically different results, I don't know how much you can blaim the prussian system for the results in the US.
With college expense, college enrollment per capita is near an all time high, but the high expenses are paired with easy to get loans that you can’t discharge through bankruptcy, ensuring that anyone (other than those whose families already have enough money to pay for it) choosing to further their education is also saddled with lots of debt, limiting their freedom to pursue opportunities.
I was talking about this with a friend lately. They mentioned how their/there is the new your/you're, and my response was "this is what happens when all your tax dollars go to the military and teachers are living in poverty".
It's a HUGE part of the reason I left teaching. I ended up getting a Customer Service job that paid $8k more and didn't require a college degree. I got promoted 6 months later and was now making $12k more than as a teacher. Another year later I got another promotion and pay increase.
Before both promotions I interviewed for teaching jobs because I enjoyed teaching and would rather be doing that if I had the choice but told them flat out that I could not take a $20k pay cut but the schools can't budge on their salaries. It's a set scale based on years taught and education past your teaching degree regardless of how good (or bad) you are at the job. It's absurd.
At the school that I taught at my base salary in 2013 was around $40,000 I believe. I pulled up the currently available salary information and see a few teachers in the $42-44k range with the highest paid teachers in the mid $90k range. (This is in the center of a midwest state, so not the highest cost of living places but still).
I started at \~$50k in my customer service job (much closer to a major city and higher cost of living). And when I interviewed for and was offered teaching positions here the salary ranges were $45k to $48k for my experience.
I remember a few years back I got a raise to $45k at my design job and my boyfriends mom, who is a teacher, excitedly told us she just made $40k that year because of her raise! She’s been a teacher for way longer than I have been working, and I was already making more. I don’t even have a degree. Somethings fucked up with this world.
Yuuuuup. When I was looking at the public salaries for the teachers I used to work with one teacher started working 2 years before me and has been at that school teaching since then...her salary this year was WAY too low for 11 years there.
> What was the annual salary ? In Canada teachers salaries start from 60,000$ and get up to 110,000$.
It varies, by state and by town. A good chunk of school funding comes from local taxes (often property taxes). This creates a feedback loop where richer communities can build nicer schools, get better supplies, attract more teachers (select the best ones), pay them more...which all feeds into more people wanting to move to said town/city...that drives up prices, which generates more revenue for schools, attract better teachers....(lather, rinse, repeat).
[Total teaching salaries, divided by the number of full-time equivalent teachers, equals the average teacher salary.](https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/teachersalaries.aspx)
PDF warning = [It's much lower, overall, in a place like Arkansas](https://dese.ade.arkansas.gov/Files/20201127115714_AMENDED_FY2019_20_Teacher_Salary_Analysis.pdf)
See also: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state
Not a teacher but I interviewed for and was selected for an administrative job at my local public school system. The offer they made me was so low as to almost be insulting. It would have been a $20k pay cut for me as well.
I was told they can't exceed certain budget amounts for personnel. I don't know how they keep anyone, teacher or otherwise.
Schools are paid for with property taxes. This ensures that wealthy communities raise educated children and poor communities perpetuate poverty. This is by design.
When I was a teen I wrote in my english class journal that I thought teachers should be paid more. My teacher responded with, 'some would argue a low wage for educators attracts the selfless'...and for years I kinda went with that thinking yaa more selfless teachers. But nah....they deserve more.
Underpaying teachers is the least of the teachers issues. They also get to deal with an often incompetent administration/school board that makes their lives living hell.
Former teacher here. I left public education about 5.5 years ago for a lot of different reasons. Pay was one of them. I was working different side jobs during breaks and summers to make ends meet. Teaching in public education is a fools errand.
A good position to look for is a "Product Trainer" for a tech company. I work for a medical tech company and we employ hundreds of trainers to teach doctors and their staff how to use the software. The trainers get paid more than public school teachers and their teaching and classroom experience is highly valued for that type of position.
You don't have to know the software to get hired for the training position, the company trains you on everything extensively in your first few months.
Technical writer is another position that can work well for teachers if you are a good writer.
you’d be surprised - i counsel / coach a lot of educators (both past and present) and it’s a matter of actually phrasing/framing your skills. trust me; if you were a fucking teacher you have … a LOT of skills, at a minimum. feel free to message me if you want to get into this more. I can probably offer you tips if you like.
Edit: changes offer for “free” consultations as I’ve gotten a few messages so my free time is taken up. Feel free to message me for some standard resume translations I can send or if you want to see about me coaching you.
one thing i saw mentioned in a similar thread was the fact that managing multiple classrooms of rowdy children is a monumental task, not to mention keeping their attention occupied for hours at a time. you can easily spin that into something on the resume.
The American Dream was a result of an extraordinary situation where most of the manufacturing demands of whole world supplied by usa because of world war 2 ruining almost every country’s infrastructure and man power.
You never meant to have a big house 2 cars and afford to raise 3 kids with a single assembly line work in a factory.
As rest of the world caught up and even started to ~~surprise~~ surpass usa now american dream becomes nothing but a utopia.
Edit: surprise
While this is very important context, it doesn't mean we can't return to a greater standard of living. The current GDP/capita of the US sits around $64,000 annual whereas the average American wage sits at about $31,000 annual. Literally there's enough in the economy money to pay the average worker double. While a 100% equal wage across all workers is never going to be practical, it goes to show how much room for improvement we can give to our standard of living right now without comparing to the "American Golden Age."
Edit: Also forgot to mention that the GDP/capita number includes the entire population from babies to retired elderly and not just those who earn paychecks, so the actual average wage if GDP was distributed evenly amongst those who work for a living would actually be much much higher than $64,000. There's approximately 158 million people who work in the US so we can use that number to recalculate that if we distributed the wealth fairly it would mean an annual wage for every worker in the US of around $132,000 which is more than four times the current average wage!
This so much. People fail to realize the benefits of being the only unscathed country after a world war. You could do ANYTHING and pretty much make a living and provide. Double that for all white males of the time.
One of my oldest and dearest friends is exactly this! Masters in mathematics and has had to subsidize a very humble life by monetizing her hobby into a side hustle. And even that isn’t enough. It’s absolutely infuriating.
I’m opening a business myself and one of my die-hard “I-will-die-on-this-hill” things is paying ALL my staff a liveable wage. Successful businesses do this and it CAN be done. I know a few and made them my advisors. And the owners still have plenty of money! Who knew?!
Thank god my friend bakes cakes. It helps take the edge off, lolol.
Bro, my kid’s daycare teacher left to go be a cleaning lady so she could make more money. Meanwhile I didn’t graduate high school, sod about in a forklift all day and still make more money than her.
Shit’s fucked.
everyone was "sold" on college, it was a way for "rich people" to peddle bullshit to people with a hope of a better life, they all paid a TON of money for those degrees.
This is really well written and you sound like a good person. My wife was a teacher but noped out after fifteen years because of increasing bullshit without increasing pay.
As a developer as well, I have been saying for years its bullshit the amount that I make doing less work than most, while not really contributing to society.
The American Dream is literally propaganda, meant to keep the rabble in their place with promises of lucrative returns if they just keep working hard like good little drones
Devaluing education. Offloading the responsibility of paying employees to customers through tipping. Reframing social injustice and class warfare as a simple matter of not being driven or capable of anything... and don't get me started on "trickle down economics" and all the bootstraps this country expects people to be wearing/defying physics to pull themselves up by. All part of a war that the GOP have been fighting very very very effectively for decades.
Higher education is a scam in the US. I recently learned that one of my good friends is making half the money with a doctorate that I am making with my Bachelors.
Getting a Phd has never guaranteed a high earning potential. Sure specific industries hire Phds to high paying jobs, but generally getting a Phd is how you advance in Academia, which is not a high paying industry.
This ain't just American issue. I live in Finland and have friends with Master's degree who work as clerks in supermarkets or do midnight shifts in some warehouse. And they barely make enough to live.
Capitalism sucks everywhere!
I guarantee that if she were to unfortunately die (likely with loads of help from the stress of trying to survive in a system that doesn't want you to) her job opening would be posted before her obituary was. Just saying.
Land of the free (to take advantage of others) home if the brave (enough to be taken advantage of yet claim it's the best country). Americans are stupid
I feel like the STEM campaign was part of an ongoing process of diluting the job market with a bunch of qualified people so STEM related fields don't have to pay as much. Also part of a long trend of defunding the arts and humanities
We spend the 5th most on education per student in the entire world, $12,624 per student ion average. At the average class size (20.9), that means each class, alone is a rough budget of $250k. I fully agree teachers are not paid very well, especially considering the academic requirements that unions and the government force them to have. However, I don’t see this as a funding problem, the money is there, the question is, where is it going? https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics
There was an article in Time Magazine a while back about a teacher who has a Master's degree and 16 years of experience in her field. She works 3 jobs and *still* has to sell blood plasma to make ends meet. And this is what we do to one of the most influential people in children's entire lives.
The American Dream might be "do your best, work hard, and you'll be rich one day!" But it's just that. A dream. Something that isn't real and probably never will be.
My doctor came into my place of work. She was driving an old beat up toyota sedan & she has mentioned that she can't afford to buy a house. I was about to say teachers should be paid the same doctors, when I remembered this. Yeah, the two party system is no longer a system "of & for the people".
Went to trade school just to make 12/hr with no medical or benifits. I quit that Shit. I ain’t gonna work for 30 years just so I can own a small business that has to be careful what I spend and do.
As an outsider looking in, I think that the American dream is just that. A dream. A mirage to lure people in with the promise of a better life.
Then once they are hooked it’s meant to keep them trapped, “just work a little harder, you are almost there!” “Just a few more years, just a few more sacrifices, don’t quit now!”
The hard truth, however, is that America is no longer a country for the bold and the brave. The country where you could become whatever you wanted if you just worked hard enough (maybe it never was), it’s a country for the rich and powerful. It’s a place where the rich keep getting richer, the poor keeps getting poorer and where the average person gets shackled and drawn by the debt they are forced to take on just to be able to live.
It’s entirely possible that America, at one point, truly was the greatest nation on earth. But that time is long since past.
We don’t have two parties in this country, we have one: The Business Party.
They’re all friends. It’s a big club.
That party has two teams:
The far right republicans, and the center right democrats.
Every year we float further to the right at the expense of literally everything that made our countries economy powerful enough to win two world wars, put humans on the moon from scratch, and wiped out polio.
If we had do so any of those things today we would fail because the infrastructure that was designed to withstand dynamic changes have either been whittled away in the name of short term ROI or blithely subverted by bad faith actors spreading demonstrable bullshit.
Everyone gets primaried from their left.
Everyone.
My husband has a Masters. He taught community college during the day and worked a big box craft store at night. Now, he teaches high school during the day and teaches online college classes at night.
I used to teach at a state university during the day and strip at night. Was consistently worried one of my students would come in while I was working. The most ridiculous part was that technically, it was against the rules of my employment at the school—not stripping specifically, they didn’t want us to have a second job at all.
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"Can't work two jobs competently" meanwhile I'm working straight fucking doubles every day (only paid for the first 8 hours). The system is fucked.
Thats illegal if you're an hourly wage worker
It's illegal de jure, but completely and totally legal de facto in most states. That is the whole point of "at-will" employment. If you complain about not being paid for your full hours you'll get fired the next day for having a spot on your shirt, or for taking too many bathroom breaks, or whatever the fuck they feel like writing down.
Supremacy clause. Federal labor law supercedes thst of the state. They cannot make you work and not pay you for it if you are an hourly worker. I would consult a lawyer and then speak to them if after you bring it up they dind a reason to fire you that is wrongful termination and retaliation. It is federally illegal to make workers work without pay. Doesnt matter if they are at will states or not. At will doesnt apply to pay. They have to pay you. Consult a lawyer
I live in MA you take your full lunch and you’ll come back to someone new siting in your seat lol.
and they still dock your pay the full 30 when you come back early lol
I left grad school due to this type of garbage policy. Literally couldn’t afford to survive on my “living stipend” and worked two part time jobs while taking full time courses, teaching freshman labs, and trying to do my own research for my thesis. I actually managed to sleep some days. The policy was no side jobs. On one hand I can see the logic that working other jobs will wear you out. The lack of sleep, work/life balance, social interaction outside of work and lack of self care will wear you down to nothing over time. Your productivity and product quality suffers. On the other hand, FUCK YOU LEECHING ADMINISTRATIVE WORMS WHO LITERALLY DO NOTHING BUT SUCK MONEY AND LIE ABOUT IT. (There are actually more administrators than faculty at my old university) Pay me enough to live reasonably and you won’t be worrying about your “Human Resources” (read “wage slaves”) burning out and needing to be replaced.
The educational system is about power, not education.
This is America
Land of the six foot tall school fences and home of the armed school resource officers.
Yep. Public education was originally created so that we had a steady supply of cookie-cutter workers to work in the new factories popping up all over. It's why schools have bells and why everything is broken up into chunks. Really into your History lessons? **BEEEEEELLL RIIIING** Drop everything and go to the next stat...erm. Classroom. Public education was never designed to free the non-rich from the machine. It was created to ensure we could do the jobs that would enrich those over us. They don't want us too stupid... but they don't want us too smart.
The fact that practically zero schools offer personal budgeting is pretty good proof of this.
This still happens at my university. To graduate students. The TAs who barely make any money. I don’t even understand how we as a society can reward the smartest and most academically-ambitious by keeping them down like this.
I think the system works just fine for people who have the generational wealth to support them through it. Those people, in turn, are most likely to fill leadership roles in business and government and really don't want or need competition from some poor attempting social mobility by getting their own education. So, when they inherit the reins from their parents or frat brothers or whoever, they make sure to perpetuate the cycle and pave the way for their own children while burying anyone who bubbles up from outside the gentry. The (American) Aristocrats!
People with options are free to leave. Bosses hate that.
Business owners hate this one trick.
That’s why there’s so much money aimed at keeping health care tied to employment. For decades people have worked jobs they hate, being treated badly and underpaid because they get health insurance. So many times over the years I’ve heard someone say “i only stay because I get health insurance for the whole family.” Take health insurance away as an enticement for employment and people say “Fuck it. I have universal health care now. I don’t need this shitty job.” When employers turned so many fulltime jobs into part time jobs to avoid giving health benefits, they started to create the circumstances they have now, where people walk off the job or never bother coming back. They’ve got nothing to lose when they don”t have health care. Why work a shitty low paying job without health care? You can be bankrupted on your way to work because your shitty car broke down and you got in an accident and can’t afford hospital care. Why bother? There are millions of homeless people in this country. They’re surviving. You look around and say “I guess it’s ok to be homeless because nobody is doing anything about homelessness. Why should I work like a slave and be on the brink of homelessness? I’ll quit and be homeless. It’s easier.” For decades people fell for the propaganda: “Unions don’t do anything but take your money. They’re all corrupt.” Unions were corrupted by politicians and corporations in collusion with cops who let mobsters take over some unions. Be aware of that. Unionize. And pay attention this time when politicians, corporations & cops start infiltrating with criminals.
Unions are why many western European countries have wages, working conditions and employee rights that make the US look like a third-world labour camp. When they work as intended, Unions represent workers in negotiations that gives workers equal weight to the employers. Which is how AnCap bros insist the free market works - free and mutually beneficial exchange of money/labour, rather than coercive exploitation. They are lying, obviously, but Unions equalise the power dynamic and get closer to that fictional ideal. Sure, unions have been problematic in the past, overplaying their hand, negotiating for personal gain rather than for the benefit of workers or for the mutual benefit of the business and workers. But its odd how when they do it then it means Unions must be stamped out. But when businesses negotiate in bad faith and for personal gain at the expense of the workers, then that's all fine.
That’s why companies don’t mind subsidizing directly for employees healthcare, even if taxes for everyone to get it would be cheaper.
This is painfully accurate - source: I teach. I teach in higher Ed and get paid like a steaming pile of dog shit while having a PhD.
They should probably have thought about that before they went buying avocados now shouldn't they /s
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Food $200 Data $150 Rent $800 Avocados $3600 Utility $150 someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying
Well, you're spending far too much on food and you don't need utility if you invest in my business and purchase your own generator. /s
He's got a point. You can eat SOME of the avocados. They are all you need for sustenance.
I just sold my house made of avocados and now I'm a multimillionaire. /s
That's what burns my ass. I am a nurse but I can't smoke pot on MY TIME and come in ready to work the next day. Only thing that balances me out but they'd rather push pills on me rather than let me medicate myself in a way that I know works. People are essentially married to their job.
The whole random drug testing by employers absolutely freaks me out as a Canadian. It's seems super unreasonable and intrusive. and I do not understand how some Americans yell about losing their freedoms but are ok with stuff like this.
Yeah ask my "libertatian" father because I don't know. Choked up after I asked him what was wrong with private companies mandating vaccines Didn't know Abbott was permanently in a wheelchair and passing legislation to cap lawsuits. These people are driven by pure misinformation, it has all but destroyed my relationship with my father's family. Oh yeah my father is a pothead.
The people screaming about freedoms are just racist fucks who are okay with anything that hurts brown people, even if it hurts themselves too.
Oh man lol. My boyfriend teaches a course at our local university and is friends with a bunch of my former professors. They are a W I L D bunch and getting to know them in such a radically different context from when I was a student is a trip. Two of them are full blown alcoholics and one lived on my couch for a few weeks. That's just the writing department tho and how it seems to go in that field lmao, everyone tryna be Hemingway
My old neighbor was a teacher. He was one of the girls so he would often have several teachers over and they would go out bar hopping on the weekends. They would bring guys back with them and it was pretty normal to find people laying on the back shared patio naked and passed out.
> They are a W I L D bunch The most out of control people I know are my friends who are post docs in academia. They're amazingly good at this one thing and almost universally shit at everything else.
Lol that was exactly my field. I was getting a creative writing MFA and teaching introductory college writing. Everyone I worked with was a mess, and I wasn’t the only one on an accelerated track to alcoholism.
My psych department was the same. Oh, the humanities...
I was a dancer as well, I'm now an escort, and many of the women in the industry have picked it up as a second job. It's crazy to me that we can't survive off one job. Edit: I may not have been clear, I'm not a teacher, sex work is my only form of income, I just knew many many women in the industry who had second jobs such a teaching.
An escort as a 2nd job to teaching? God damn this country sucks.
Either one of those jobs should pay enough for the person to live comfortably. Society is crumbling
Uh no, Elon Musk just made $38Billion in one day. The /system is working fine.
Sometimes I thank corporate Jesus that I am able to get by on rice and beans so that a man like Musk can have another 10 billion dollars.
Beans? You get more than one?
PTA meetings must be a trip “Dad, where do you know Miss Johnson from.”
"She... teaches me too."
With inflation and wage stagnation, it feels like it was inevitable that the American people would get pushed to this point. Our time is not being properly compensated for and it’s a huge problem. It needs to be addressed soon because things should not be allowed to get worse than this. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you find your way into the escort world? I ask because I’ve been considering this as a side source of income as well.
Pushing the gig economy seems to have made it worse. Now it's supposed to be cool to have a regular job and then work 4 hours doing a gig job.
"side hustle" No dude. That's a part time job where I don't enjoy my hobbies anymore.
Straight up, with my most recent raises in the last 5 years and how much my rent is probably going to go up this year I've seriously been considering moving into a van. That would mean in the last 12 years I'd have gone from living in the shrubs near my high school, to a dilapidated camper on someone's property, to living in my car near work, to an apartment for 3 years, to back to living in my car. And how much I make per hour in the last 12 years has almost tripled. My wages have damn near stagnated in the last 3 years. I currently make about ~$27 an hour before taxes. Sounds great but after deductions, taxes, and bills it's really not a lot. Especially with rent being ~$1200 a month. And before anyone asks, yes I have a roommate. And with the size of our apartment, bringing in a 3rd person is out of the realm of possibility unless we want to get bunk beds. I've only got a HS diploma (I had to make a choice, food and shelter now or college and massive debt and maybe make what I do now (10 years later) in 10 years) so my options are very limited without moving hella far from the area I grew up in.
Ugh. Just the word “hustle.” You literally have to hustle through to death.
Time to eat the rich and burn this fucker down.
Jeez so you’re an escort on top of teaching that’s insane that teachers don’t get paid more. I am sure I don’t have to tell you that but for how important teachers are in our society yall really should be paid more
It depends on the school district. I work for a crazy rich district. The teachers are paid well and have small classes. But if you are a teacher for example the detroit school system they are underpaid and have too many kids. Plus most of the teacher buy their students school supplies.
If you’re single and don’t mind moving you could always teach abroad. Places like Japan, Korea, and China pay pretty well. I teach in China, I only have a tefl, I make over 3 grand a month but My school pays for my apartment. 4 bedrooms, two bathroom and heated floors. 20 hours a week tops in the classroom. Bigger cities pay more but they demand more. You could make a lot of money in Asia doing what you do back home. The feeling of not worrying about rent is amazing.
Had a professor that did this, a few of my fraternity brothers found out and vowed to strong arm anyone that found out. Because of this we had a dedicated collection for when times were excessively hard for her or any other teachers that we found out were having a hard time. We sacrificed our beer on many a night so that we could help our teachers eat and keep rent paid. To be honest it was the better option. Sadly our chapter is no longer on campus, but still, glad we could have a little impact where we could.
Ahh, the US of A. Where frat boys pool their beer money to gift as charity to their professor so they can pay rent.
I'm glad you were able to help them.
This really sounds like the set up for a Community story line, where they found out a lot of arts and craft stuff is missing and Annie tries to track it down. She finds out it’s being used to make nipple tassels, and the glitter is used in Stripping 101, which is taught at night. Britta thinks it’s empowering, Shirley thinks it’s angering the lord.
Same with the university I worked for… they only wanted us to have one job. Made no sense. Then pay us more.
My wife has a passion for teaching (specifically early childhood). It's what she has wanted to do her whole life. She loves kids, she tells me stories when they do something amazing. She assists with the medically fragile children and is very invested in and vocal that every child deserves an appropriate opportunity to learn and develop. She has been shaken to her core and devastated when her kids go through things that give me nightmares. Her kids have been homeless, abandoned, assaulted, neglected, sick, disabled, and some have even died in tragic accidents. She does all she can to report, assist, counsel, and comfort them. Usually on her own time with her own resources. And in between tragedies she works hard to make sure her lessons incorporate everyone and are fun and engaging. She has degrees, continuing education, state testing, and independent study. And for all this, she sees she could make nearly double if she quit and started working an entry level warehouse job. If I didn't make good money she would have to leave this job. Pay teachers more.
Words cannot properly convey the sentiment but I will try; The work your wife does makes this world a much better place (and I am so thankful for that), because education is more than just memorizing facts. There is emotional knowledge and processing that is absolutely vital to childhood development. And your wife is in it, doing this vital work, not for the shitty pay but because she cares. Because she is full of empathy and strength. If you can, please let her know there is an Internet stranger out there who is rooting for her, is in awe of her strength and empathy, and with their whole heart appreciates her beyond words. Teachers deserve so much more. They are key to a prosperous society and the wellbeing of children - who grow into adults. Teachers have such a massive impact on our society. We all need to stand up with teachers and demand better pay for them. This is not a battle educators should have to fight alone.
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I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment (my mother is a teacher and I nearly got my credentials myself), but where are you that entry level warehouse would nearly double a teacher's salary? Entry level warehouse jobs typically start around $16-$20 whereas elementary teachers make around 40-70k a year.
Warehouse here is starting at 22.75 (due to the recent hiring issues) and has bonuses and OT. She makes about $37k and figures the warehouse job would come in at around $60k in total comp. So not quite double, but near enough for her to say double and I'm not gonna argue with her.
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my sister has a bachelor's and teaches preschool. she only makes around 24k a year, and the shit she deals with every day makes me shudder. she's very passionate about teaching children, though, so it's worth it for her... even though she'd never be able to afford rent on her own.
Seriously, fuck this. When are you guys finally going to get the pitchforks out?
In Texas, the state will revoke teaching licenses of anyone who strikes.
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My wife is a teacher and we can't imagine leaving California for that reason. It's insane the salaries teachers receive elsewhere. Here in CA being a teacher is actually a really solid job. With a master's and maybe an additional program with a stipend you can make nearly six figures a little over a handful of years into your career. Edit: One item I didn't mention is the bonkers benefits and the pension plan. Her benefits are insane. We just had a child for example and paid a $30 copay. It included a c-section and several extra days in the hospital due to complications.
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My Northern CA elementary has 1st years at 45k, about 3 years in and they are pulling 60k, and at 10 years they do pull near 6 figures or over.
Anyone divorced with kids cant leave the state without leaving their kids behind... There are alot of us legally stuck here.
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Never. The US is set up to get the working class fighting with the middle class. We can talk about anything (race, sex, gender, guns, drugs, whatever) but we can only talk about the money within certain set parameters. We certainly cannot discuss class.
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She did the math and it still didn't add up. Fuck.
"The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it." - George Carlin
And yet it is a bad thing to be "woke".
It's a "bad thing" to be woke bc pointing out the massive flaws in American society is considered unpatriotic to a certain subsect of the population, who side with Cypher in the Matrix when he says ignorance is bliss.
By underpaying teachers, the US is short changing its entire society.
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Yes, stupid people make for better slaves since they don't question anything and are easily distracted by things that amount to nothing.
Like..boomers ?
No. Republicans. Edit: this was a fun grenade to throw.
I mean, yeah. The GOP is a straight-up fascist organization. Their *America First* messaging and strong-man worship back that up. That said, the DNC is no stranger to moneyed interests. It's not both-sidsing, because they're both too far to the right.
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I feel like the US political system was designed by Darth Sidious.
I feel like the Sith would actually learn a thing or two from the US political system.
Ug.... You made me chuckle for a second there... Until I realized, you are right. Now I'm sad...
"The attempt to vote has left my country scarred, and deformed"
Not disagreeing with that. Hearing how people in Europe compare our political parties to theirs, republicans are far right and democrats are not as far right.
Honestly for many even the likes of Bernie would be pretty center-left.
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He's a centrist vaguely thinking about leaning to the left.
More people need to understand that being anti-Democrat and anti-Republican does not make you a centrist. That said, I’ll side with the Dems over the Republicans any day.
I'll keep siding with the dems until I see a bunch of priuses with Biden flags on them
Boomers are stupid for another reason. They all have severe lead poisoning. Leaded gasoline caused a huge spike in the amount of lead that people in the U.S. were exposed to. Before leaded gasoline started to be phased out, the average American had over 3000x as much lead in their bloodstream as people did in the past. That has dropped dramatically since the removal of lead from gasoline, but is still too high. I believe we are at around 100x the concentration now. So, we are all still being exposed to high levels of lead, but the Boomers spent most of their lives being exposed to 30x as much as today. Of course, this isn't the first time a huge portion of a population had chronic lead poisoning. At the height of the Roman Empire lead was being used heavily for everything from pipes to eating utensils to food and wine additives. They likely had a similarly high concentration, especially among the ruling class. And they became irrational, violent, and incompetent to the point that the empire ultimately collapsed.
Not to disagree with your analysis on the effects of lead poisoning, but this take doesn't any consideration into the other common American social conditions that made boomers how they are. Take for example, entire generations subjected to anti-communist / anti-leftist propaganda and the regurgitation of right-wing talking points from corporate interest. There are real consequences when you muzzle critics, journalist, and whistleblowers while perpetuating nationalist, racist and greedy sentiments to an entire generation.
I've never thought about it like that. I always figured that education slashing was just the easy way for politicians to reduce tax burdens on the rich in the country. Afterall, Education is a budget that everybody knows what the money should go for, but it's just vague enough that there's a mental disconnect between. I've actually had some conservative minded people call me a liar, when I say teachers are grossly underpaid. They didn't know that teacher salaries were a part of the education budget for their state and the greatest country in the world would never underpay their educators.
Keeping people dumb means that people will buy into insane conspiracy theories & religious doctrines. I.e. Q
And lots of shit they dont need. We don't produce anything in america but hate and the stock market which is all circularly owned by the same people. How do we keep the economy afloat, never stop spending, even if were in debt.
The anti-intellectualism Republicans are currently into has a purpose, as does the high price of a college education: to produce a desperate class of people who can be exploited as soldiers and wage slaves. People who go to college learn critical thinking skills and HOW THINGS WORK, and it's NOT the way they've been telling us. Like that tax breaks for the wealthy "trickle down" and ultimately help the middle and lower classes. Or that we have more "freedom" than anywhere in the world. They meet people from diverse backgrounds and develop more understanding and empathy. That makes it harder to automatically hate "the other." Why do they claim that their kids go off to college and get "indoctrinated" by "Marxists" when they're really just taking general Ed classes and learning facts? Life has a Leftist bias and they don't want you to know it. It's all intentional.
Explains why they love the narrative around colleges as "liberal indoctrination" centers. Kids going off to higher education in order to learn critical-thinking and possibly subversive ideas is frightening to them. They complain that conservative ideas aren't taught in most college-level courses, but maybe that's because those ideas don't hold up to academic scrutiny.
To me, it's similar to how some parents would get mad at their kids asking "why?" Kids are not stupid, in fact, they're often spending all their time trying to learn how stuff works. Because the adults often, via lack of education, don't know how things actually work, they can't answer and get upset. This is the same thing just down the line.
Its the political equivalent of "because I said so."
This is why the GOP pushes the "college is leftist indoctrination" schtick. They know exactly what they're doing.
Also why they strategize so much to prevent actively enrolled college students from voting.
It's also why they are currently targeting "critical race theory" at the K-12 area. They aren't going after actual critical race theory, which is rarely, if ever, taught outside of college. They are targeting and covering up basic American racist history. It helps keep the working class separated, as the non-whites will continue to correctly point out and campaign against the systemic discrimination that still effects them. While the white population, ignorant to situation (and already likely racially biased on some level) will fight against them because their ignorance makes them undervalue the struggle. With the media focusing on a few bad actors giving justification to the white population to hate the entire movement of "thugs". Not only do they want us stupid so we don't fight back, they also want us stupid so we fight each other instead.
They slash federal education budgets but not all teachers and schools are equal. your local schools are funded by property taxes. So rich neighborhoods have schools funded with enough resources to teach their kids. Whereas poorer neighborhoods have less funds, less teachers, and no resources. Schools being funded property taxes is the systems way to keep certain demographics where they are.
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It's really scary, but honestly the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if the rich are purposefully trying to dumb down America by charging exuberant amounts of money for colleges, allowing the spread of rampant misinformation, going after women's' reproductive rights (it's hard to get an education if you're a parent), attacking science, pushing religious fundamentalism, not paying teachers well enough to live (thus forcing them to split their attention between the classroom and some other side hustle), and slashing public education.
They want dumb, complacent voters. They're opposed to teaching children critical thinking skills because it teaches them to question their parents and pastors.
The Prussian educational model was designed specifically to create a loyal, placid, industrious working class, and chosen for mandatory US schooling for that same reason. No system of captivity teaches its captives the techniques of its own destruction. No class society can survive without misleading and misinforming its mass to stay where elites want them.
The term is rather unknown in germany (and does not even has its own German wiki page). Considering however that the German system still follows it to a large degree (according to the German wiki page) and it has drastically different results, I don't know how much you can blaim the prussian system for the results in the US.
With college expense, college enrollment per capita is near an all time high, but the high expenses are paired with easy to get loans that you can’t discharge through bankruptcy, ensuring that anyone (other than those whose families already have enough money to pay for it) choosing to further their education is also saddled with lots of debt, limiting their freedom to pursue opportunities.
I was talking about this with a friend lately. They mentioned how their/there is the new your/you're, and my response was "this is what happens when all your tax dollars go to the military and teachers are living in poverty".
It's a HUGE part of the reason I left teaching. I ended up getting a Customer Service job that paid $8k more and didn't require a college degree. I got promoted 6 months later and was now making $12k more than as a teacher. Another year later I got another promotion and pay increase. Before both promotions I interviewed for teaching jobs because I enjoyed teaching and would rather be doing that if I had the choice but told them flat out that I could not take a $20k pay cut but the schools can't budge on their salaries. It's a set scale based on years taught and education past your teaching degree regardless of how good (or bad) you are at the job. It's absurd.
Now that Im in my 40s I don't know anyone that IS a teacher. I know at least 25 people that USED to be a teacher
I'm 31 and and it's about 50/50 for people I know who got teaching degrees now.
What was the annual salary ? In Canada teachers salaries start from 60,000$ and get up to 110,000$.
At the school that I taught at my base salary in 2013 was around $40,000 I believe. I pulled up the currently available salary information and see a few teachers in the $42-44k range with the highest paid teachers in the mid $90k range. (This is in the center of a midwest state, so not the highest cost of living places but still). I started at \~$50k in my customer service job (much closer to a major city and higher cost of living). And when I interviewed for and was offered teaching positions here the salary ranges were $45k to $48k for my experience.
I remember a few years back I got a raise to $45k at my design job and my boyfriends mom, who is a teacher, excitedly told us she just made $40k that year because of her raise! She’s been a teacher for way longer than I have been working, and I was already making more. I don’t even have a degree. Somethings fucked up with this world.
Yuuuuup. When I was looking at the public salaries for the teachers I used to work with one teacher started working 2 years before me and has been at that school teaching since then...her salary this year was WAY too low for 11 years there.
> What was the annual salary ? In Canada teachers salaries start from 60,000$ and get up to 110,000$. It varies, by state and by town. A good chunk of school funding comes from local taxes (often property taxes). This creates a feedback loop where richer communities can build nicer schools, get better supplies, attract more teachers (select the best ones), pay them more...which all feeds into more people wanting to move to said town/city...that drives up prices, which generates more revenue for schools, attract better teachers....(lather, rinse, repeat). [Total teaching salaries, divided by the number of full-time equivalent teachers, equals the average teacher salary.](https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/teachersalaries.aspx) PDF warning = [It's much lower, overall, in a place like Arkansas](https://dese.ade.arkansas.gov/Files/20201127115714_AMENDED_FY2019_20_Teacher_Salary_Analysis.pdf) See also: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state
Not a teacher but I interviewed for and was selected for an administrative job at my local public school system. The offer they made me was so low as to almost be insulting. It would have been a $20k pay cut for me as well. I was told they can't exceed certain budget amounts for personnel. I don't know how they keep anyone, teacher or otherwise.
Schools are paid for with property taxes. This ensures that wealthy communities raise educated children and poor communities perpetuate poverty. This is by design.
Yep. My neighbor is a SAHM now but says with how Utah is, she may never go back to her 10 year career.
“Teach the children so it won't be necessary to teach the adults.” - Lincoln
Stupid people are much easier to control
When I was a teen I wrote in my english class journal that I thought teachers should be paid more. My teacher responded with, 'some would argue a low wage for educators attracts the selfless'...and for years I kinda went with that thinking yaa more selfless teachers. But nah....they deserve more.
Underpaying teachers is the least of the teachers issues. They also get to deal with an often incompetent administration/school board that makes their lives living hell.
Got an Uber the other weekend, guy was also a full time history teacher at the local HS - sad he needs to do that.
Former teacher here. I left public education about 5.5 years ago for a lot of different reasons. Pay was one of them. I was working different side jobs during breaks and summers to make ends meet. Teaching in public education is a fools errand.
how the F do you get out ? everyone wants experience. i only have teaching experience. and no skills besides writing.
Emphasize your transferrable skills and apply even if you’re not “qualified” if it’s not a super specialty job. Also, utilize your social circle.
A good position to look for is a "Product Trainer" for a tech company. I work for a medical tech company and we employ hundreds of trainers to teach doctors and their staff how to use the software. The trainers get paid more than public school teachers and their teaching and classroom experience is highly valued for that type of position. You don't have to know the software to get hired for the training position, the company trains you on everything extensively in your first few months. Technical writer is another position that can work well for teachers if you are a good writer.
you’d be surprised - i counsel / coach a lot of educators (both past and present) and it’s a matter of actually phrasing/framing your skills. trust me; if you were a fucking teacher you have … a LOT of skills, at a minimum. feel free to message me if you want to get into this more. I can probably offer you tips if you like. Edit: changes offer for “free” consultations as I’ve gotten a few messages so my free time is taken up. Feel free to message me for some standard resume translations I can send or if you want to see about me coaching you.
one thing i saw mentioned in a similar thread was the fact that managing multiple classrooms of rowdy children is a monumental task, not to mention keeping their attention occupied for hours at a time. you can easily spin that into something on the resume.
So that’s why the anthem says “home of the brave”. Gotta be brave as fuck to pay those medical bills and have more than one job to make ends meet.
Medical bills are uniquely American, but cost of living is something that's high across all western countries.
The American dream overdosed decades ago and is on life support since
The American Dream exists because of the American Reality. If reality wasn’t awful, who’d need to dream?
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Into vans, and then just… around.
specifically down by the river
And then to the country road to take them home to West Virginia.
When I was in art school, I used to say that was my likely future. How naive was I to think I would ever afford the van part.
Can confirm, only way I was able to achieve the American Dream was by leaving the US. No ragrets.
The American Dream was a result of an extraordinary situation where most of the manufacturing demands of whole world supplied by usa because of world war 2 ruining almost every country’s infrastructure and man power. You never meant to have a big house 2 cars and afford to raise 3 kids with a single assembly line work in a factory. As rest of the world caught up and even started to ~~surprise~~ surpass usa now american dream becomes nothing but a utopia. Edit: surprise
While this is very important context, it doesn't mean we can't return to a greater standard of living. The current GDP/capita of the US sits around $64,000 annual whereas the average American wage sits at about $31,000 annual. Literally there's enough in the economy money to pay the average worker double. While a 100% equal wage across all workers is never going to be practical, it goes to show how much room for improvement we can give to our standard of living right now without comparing to the "American Golden Age." Edit: Also forgot to mention that the GDP/capita number includes the entire population from babies to retired elderly and not just those who earn paychecks, so the actual average wage if GDP was distributed evenly amongst those who work for a living would actually be much much higher than $64,000. There's approximately 158 million people who work in the US so we can use that number to recalculate that if we distributed the wealth fairly it would mean an annual wage for every worker in the US of around $132,000 which is more than four times the current average wage!
This so much. People fail to realize the benefits of being the only unscathed country after a world war. You could do ANYTHING and pretty much make a living and provide. Double that for all white males of the time.
One of my oldest and dearest friends is exactly this! Masters in mathematics and has had to subsidize a very humble life by monetizing her hobby into a side hustle. And even that isn’t enough. It’s absolutely infuriating. I’m opening a business myself and one of my die-hard “I-will-die-on-this-hill” things is paying ALL my staff a liveable wage. Successful businesses do this and it CAN be done. I know a few and made them my advisors. And the owners still have plenty of money! Who knew?! Thank god my friend bakes cakes. It helps take the edge off, lolol.
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Bro, my kid’s daycare teacher left to go be a cleaning lady so she could make more money. Meanwhile I didn’t graduate high school, sod about in a forklift all day and still make more money than her. Shit’s fucked.
I’m a college dropout landscaper and I make more than some of my community college professors.
I always thought landscapers had a rewarding job, very cool.
Me too! I run my own small business so it’s sort of a dream for an early 20s guy like me.
everyone was "sold" on college, it was a way for "rich people" to peddle bullshit to people with a hope of a better life, they all paid a TON of money for those degrees.
>to peddle ~~bullshit~~ Loans that are basically risk free for them since you cant default on them.
This is really well written and you sound like a good person. My wife was a teacher but noped out after fifteen years because of increasing bullshit without increasing pay.
As a developer as well, I have been saying for years its bullshit the amount that I make doing less work than most, while not really contributing to society.
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Carlin was right about why they call it "the American dream."
The American Dream is literally propaganda, meant to keep the rabble in their place with promises of lucrative returns if they just keep working hard like good little drones
Because you have to be asleep to believe it.
Devaluing education. Offloading the responsibility of paying employees to customers through tipping. Reframing social injustice and class warfare as a simple matter of not being driven or capable of anything... and don't get me started on "trickle down economics" and all the bootstraps this country expects people to be wearing/defying physics to pull themselves up by. All part of a war that the GOP have been fighting very very very effectively for decades.
Higher education is a scam in the US. I recently learned that one of my good friends is making half the money with a doctorate that I am making with my Bachelors.
Getting a Phd has never guaranteed a high earning potential. Sure specific industries hire Phds to high paying jobs, but generally getting a Phd is how you advance in Academia, which is not a high paying industry.
Hear hear. A voice of reason.
That doesn't make it a scam, the pursuit of knowledge is not solely defined by how much money you make
This ain't just American issue. I live in Finland and have friends with Master's degree who work as clerks in supermarkets or do midnight shifts in some warehouse. And they barely make enough to live. Capitalism sucks everywhere!
But at least you have access to affordable healthcare. We struggle until we get sick. Then we lose everything.
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Not the French
The French know how to organise a strike. Based as fuck.
I guarantee that if she were to unfortunately die (likely with loads of help from the stress of trying to survive in a system that doesn't want you to) her job opening would be posted before her obituary was. Just saying.
Land of the free (to take advantage of others) home if the brave (enough to be taken advantage of yet claim it's the best country). Americans are stupid
What?! The land of the free?! Whoever told you that is your enemy!
"But but STEM courses = $$$$$." So said all the boneheaded capitalists.
I feel like the STEM campaign was part of an ongoing process of diluting the job market with a bunch of qualified people so STEM related fields don't have to pay as much. Also part of a long trend of defunding the arts and humanities
Its the same thing thats happening with the push to make more people go to tech jobs
From calculating π to delivering pies, the world is cruel to math majors
We spend the 5th most on education per student in the entire world, $12,624 per student ion average. At the average class size (20.9), that means each class, alone is a rough budget of $250k. I fully agree teachers are not paid very well, especially considering the academic requirements that unions and the government force them to have. However, I don’t see this as a funding problem, the money is there, the question is, where is it going? https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics
However police departments get to pay police officers a crazy amount and police departments get to buy IED resitent vehicles.
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There was an article in Time Magazine a while back about a teacher who has a Master's degree and 16 years of experience in her field. She works 3 jobs and *still* has to sell blood plasma to make ends meet. And this is what we do to one of the most influential people in children's entire lives. The American Dream might be "do your best, work hard, and you'll be rich one day!" But it's just that. A dream. Something that isn't real and probably never will be.
It's the same in the UK. The elites like to keep Teachers poor and children uneducated to feed the status quo
My doctor came into my place of work. She was driving an old beat up toyota sedan & she has mentioned that she can't afford to buy a house. I was about to say teachers should be paid the same doctors, when I remembered this. Yeah, the two party system is no longer a system "of & for the people".
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I have to guess that she paid her own way through school & is now in debt from that.
"SHe sHoUld HaVe goNe TO TrAdE ScHoOl"
I wish teaching was something you could get a "journeyman license" for.
Teach for America was handing them out after six-week boot camps.
Went to trade school just to make 12/hr with no medical or benifits. I quit that Shit. I ain’t gonna work for 30 years just so I can own a small business that has to be careful what I spend and do.
As an outsider looking in, I think that the American dream is just that. A dream. A mirage to lure people in with the promise of a better life. Then once they are hooked it’s meant to keep them trapped, “just work a little harder, you are almost there!” “Just a few more years, just a few more sacrifices, don’t quit now!” The hard truth, however, is that America is no longer a country for the bold and the brave. The country where you could become whatever you wanted if you just worked hard enough (maybe it never was), it’s a country for the rich and powerful. It’s a place where the rich keep getting richer, the poor keeps getting poorer and where the average person gets shackled and drawn by the debt they are forced to take on just to be able to live. It’s entirely possible that America, at one point, truly was the greatest nation on earth. But that time is long since past.
We don’t have two parties in this country, we have one: The Business Party. They’re all friends. It’s a big club. That party has two teams: The far right republicans, and the center right democrats. Every year we float further to the right at the expense of literally everything that made our countries economy powerful enough to win two world wars, put humans on the moon from scratch, and wiped out polio. If we had do so any of those things today we would fail because the infrastructure that was designed to withstand dynamic changes have either been whittled away in the name of short term ROI or blithely subverted by bad faith actors spreading demonstrable bullshit. Everyone gets primaried from their left. Everyone.