A real education: The plight of teachers 

Administrators - too many of them and they all make 6 figures or more. The corruption is at the top.

Teachers are trained, certified professionals just like accountants and engineers. They hold college degrees plus teaching credentials and many have advanced degrees. Most have completed extensive coursework in learning theory and educational practice and are required to continue their education throughout their careers. They deserve to be fairly compensated and treated as the professionals they are.

One of the consequences of the obsession over standardized tests is that it has completely robbed teachers of any classroom autonomy. Teachers are told what to teach, when to teach, and how to teach it. And every year more "programs" get added by the district that teachers are expected to implement, which is basically a way of getting teachers to do more work but for the same pay. And each year it gets worse & worse. You can only squeeze so much blood from a stone. At some point something's gotta give.

My husband left teaching because how he was treated everyday. There is NO SUPPORT

I left teaching (18 years!) because of the poor treatment not because of the pay. It’s a battle EVERY SINGLE DAY. Not worth it.

Teaching should be a highly paid profession.

The biggest issue I have as a teacher is that we are constantly being told how to do our job by non- professionals. Every day we have people that know nothing about education making decisions for us and our profession just like the senator in this story (who probably hasn't stepped inside a classroom in over 30 years.) What's worse is that the public knows we're being treated and paid unfairly yet does NOTHING to change it simply because it's not happening to them. No one would ever tell a doctor how to do their job but EVERYONE is quick to tell an teacher that they're not doing their job correctly.

I have no idea how teachers do it. Almost every teacher I talk to says they love teaching but the paperwork and discipline issues are getting to be too much. Let these highly trained, well educated people do what they are trained & educated to do! Administrators and politicians need to get out of the way.

In many countries, teaching is considered a prestigious profession that is highly paid.

"You can read this because of teachers" - I think that says it all!

Common sense would say; "Why would anyone in their right mind want to work as a teacher in a public school? Forget the pay...think of it as a job that is now considered dangerous.

I quit after 10 years and homeschool my kids. I enjoyed teaching, but I wanted my children to be educated and not schooled in an institution. The testing was my biggest complaint.

I was a student teacher, I loved my students. We would laugh while learning geometry, I would sit with groups listening to them debating over different methods to solve a problem, I would hear their stories and relate to them with my own experiences. It was so damn rewarding. But I had to stop a month before the school year ended due to horrible burnout....I had so many lesson plans to write, create activities, listen to critique from my supervisor, etc... I was and still am so exhausted, there were so many responsibilities required from the school, parents, the math department, students, and my supervisor. I value teachers 1000x more now than ever before.

That "average' teacher salary is grossly exaggerated. Someone is fudging the numbers in order to dupe more people into going into the teaching profession. I started in teaching in California in 2006 at 40,000. I stayed in the system ten years and had worked up to $60,000 but only by moving to the Silicon Valley area, where rents were out of control. By living in that area I was far above average. I then moved to another state, because California is corrupt, and no, I do not vote for those same policies in my new home. But in my new state, I was offered three teaching jobs at 26,000 per year, 28,000 and 33,000. I taught for two more years until I could transition out. I was willing to try to work at the 33,000 per year job. But I easily found a job earning 10,000 per year more and now I literally work from 9-5 instead of 7:30-4:30 or 5:00 like I did as a teacher. And I am not asked to chaperone dances or sporting events because no parents are willing to do it. And I get a full hour lunch break, and two 15 minute breaks each day. I had a number of students tell me I was the best math teacher they ever had, but after serving 4 years in the military and 12+ years in education, I have done my part. I wish I could have stayed on and retired as a teacher but its not even just the low pay, its the corruption in the system. I took a lot of flak from administrators trying to pressure me to lower my standards and pass a failing student. I don't want to be in that place anymore when its clear most parents don't care. Young people should stay out of teaching; the system is not going to improve until it gets bad enough to grab the public's attention.

I’m a teacher entering my 5th year in dc public schools and I’m already considering leaving the profession. Even though in dc the salary is pretty high but the demands are ridiculous.

As a student I never understood why parents, administrators and the government are so terrible to teachers. Even as a high schoolers a decade ago, I saw how parents saw school as a cheap babysitting service and would have the gall to demand their class skipping kid get an A or demand personal texts for updates. All the while i knew half my teachers had second jobs and didnt deserve the treatment they had. I would gladly pay higher taxes if it was a guaranteed that they'd go to the school district and to the teachers and not some weird and lying town/city/nation "yeah yeah we got money" flex.

I'm not one of those teachers whose 1st job was teaching, I worked retail "full-part time" for over a decade before entering the classroom. The thing ppl don't understand that I wish they did about the weekends, holidays, and summers off thing is that it's nigh impossible to leave work at work. Even if it were possible to have my 'to-do' list done for school, the mental baggage is relentless. I can't leave it at school b/c teaching comes from the heart and I take that home. Teaching is a lifestyle choice. At many jobs you can "hide" for a bit..smoke break, check facebook in the bathroom, "look busy", disappear into your own thoughts for a minute, zone out...that doesn't happen at school. You are ALWAYS "on" from the minute you get there.

I grew up in a very small town in the California desert. I graduated from high school over forty years ago. My teachers were excellent. I don't know how they fared economically, but I do know this: they were EXTREMELY RESPECTED by everyone and thus very effective at their craft. Today, I don't think you could pay me enough to teach in my hometown. It's such a shame.

At the very least, public school teachers should have their student loans forgiven after 5 years. People say, "Thank you for your service" to the US military. They need to be saying that to public school teachers for sure!!!

I taught for one year in rural Missouri during the 2010-2011 school year and my starting salary was just under 27K a year. I looked around at my colleagues that had been teaching 20 even 30 plus years with one, sometimes two graduate degrees and they were only making around 35K to 40K a year. Most of them worked second jobs just to support their families. Our art teacher had to buy her own supplies for her classes, in fact all of us had to work around the lack of funding in one form or another. My 10th grade World History books were from the 1980's and still had the USSR in them! That one year was enough for me, and I heeded the advice of all the veteran educators around me and got out after one year to make a better future for myself. I wasn't the only one to leave education out of my 2010 graduating class, hardly any of my college classmates remain in the profession for the reasons mentioned above and many more. It's sad that there is such a lack of respect and funding invested into our national education system. As a nation we will be reaping the negatives of these ill thought out decisions for years to come.

I retired for that exact reason and now volunteer in a classroom on my own time reading with children which I love 💗 Teachers are only human and can only take so much stress. My last year I suffered PTSD from all the pressures and mandates that were falling on me as a teacher and thankfully my husband and I saved like crazy which gave me the way out of being responsible for a classroom so I Retired! We are not being treated well in schools and sometimes are being bullied by coworkers and parents😔

I wish I could give this video a million likes. I’m married to a teacher and know this story all too well.

I agree that our pay is too low and standardized tests are too high, but I’m surprised more teachers didn’t mention the biggest problem - out of control discipline issues, esp in cheating, and the lack of parental involvement to help correct the behavior. It’s just a lot. Sadly, I had to step away.

As a former teacher, I spent 90% of my time trying to motivate the 10% that did not want to be there

Seeing that teacher cry was truly heartbreaking.

If you can read this, thank a teacher. 💖👏👏👏👏👏

Talk about the debt incurred to get a credential!

I'm watching this at 8:13 pm. I am a teacher and have been working since 7:00 am and still have about an hour more of work to do today. Teachers do not get summers off--they make up a small portion of the extra hours they work during the school year.

My daughter left Atlanta Ga. School system to teach overseas.

There is no respect to the teachers. I once had control over my classroom... that quickly changed and then I was micromanaged to the point of insanity. My students appreciated me, admin took that away.

I love teaching. I never imagined that after 34 years of teaching I would still be living paycheck to paycheck. For the past 9 years my paycheck has been less every year due to rising insurance costs and small salary “increases” that don’t keep up with the cost of living.

I always thought of it as my calling. I love the kids & I see great things everyday. I also hear parents blaming, complaining, and draining the schools. I also have students that disrupt the right to a public education. My school had 4 code reds in a month. One where we ran a mile to the high school & hid for 5 hours. I have 7 7th graders that are changing their gender & their issues outweigh their academics. 70% of my students are being raised by grandparents or relatives. I'd say more than half of my students label themselves bi-polar, ADHD, ODD, On the spectrum, etc. The mental health needs are blocking academics. Social media has provided them a false sense of friendships, beauty, intelligence, and emotional strength. We are in big trouble. My job has always been to be many roles to these kids. My ongoing trainings never end. But raises & benefits ended years ago. Proud to say I've worked with great people. Ashamed to say I've seen teachers be labeled as bad by out of touch parents. I have made teaching my life. But at age 49, I might've made a huge mistake. But now, what options do I have?

This video is one of the reasons why I made my channel to help teacher grow the money they do make.

The stupid teaching to tests has ruined the education of our st a te. Students still can't think

It's really sad. Teaching is an extremely demanding profession! Teachers are under so much pressure to perform up to school district, state. and Federal standards. They have to take a lot of flack from parents and school administrators. Even at the end of the day, their work is still not done They have to grade papers. They have afterschool conferences with parents. They have to do lesson plans. They have to teach their classes according to schedule. They don't have time to deal with special needs students; nor to give them the individualized attention that they really need. And that's why a lot of teachers today are just simply leaving the profession!

The salary in the beginning of this video is highly inflated. In KY most beginning teachers start out well under $30K per year. The future of education is online classes.

Just look at Mississippi. Thier top superintendent makes 300k a year. While the teachers make 35. A state that spends the least amount as possible on education. Corruption

I left teaching after 11 years and was rated highly effective 9 of those 11. I just couldn't stand being poor anymore. Since leaving, I work where I'm paid more than double but don't have the passion that I have for teaching. What this episode didn't mention is the lack of support that teachers get from parents and administrators. So many students are below grade level yet admin and parents force the teachers to pass the students. There are incredibly challenging discipline problems. We need to spend money on smaller sized classrooms in neighborhood schools (not the mega thousand-plus kids per graduating class) and pay teachers commensurate with their expertise and expectations we have of them. Public education is the great equalizer. As Ben Franklin stated, "... a good school in every district--all studied and appreciated as they merit--are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty".

I graduated from high school just under a decade ago and I could definitely see how grueling it can be to be a teacher. So many teachers would only pass out busy work and sit at their desk because the rest was just not worth it.

How do you justify a teacher's wages in this day and age in a world where a person can get $6,000,000-50,000,000 million contracts for throwing or shooting a ball? Unreal....🤨smh.

I'm a fourth grade teacher and this video could not have been more true. Especially when the man talked about the hours.

Teachers hold the future in their hands, thus should be paid as such. Without them, our nation would fall apart and fail even more than it is!

I teach at the high school level. I'm starting my 12th year and have my Master's. Including teaching, I have four jobs...four!!!! My house is only 50k, my car is paid off, I don't go to the movies, I don't go shopping (occasionally used), etc. I don't have a spouse to split the cost of living with. I'm still paying student loans, even though I lived at home during college, a VERY 'affordable' college (and I've been paying well over the minimum payment). I am able to make it fine, but if the car breaks down, I need to call a plumber, etc., there goes the little progress I had made with saving. I wouldn't say I have the three extra jobs to make ends meet, one would be enough. I have three extra jobs so that I am able to take a cheap vacation once a year, go out to eat a couple times a month, and not feel the impact as badly when I have to pay for an emergency. My raise this year is finally enough, by my standards, but only because I am teaching an overload, meaning I teach an extra class period. Our maximum class size is 32 or 33. There is know way to keep up with that many students. I'm considering leaving, but not just because of the money, but because of administration and parents. I followed my school's policy last week with an issue that arose. They didn't follow through, leaving me less powerful than the students. I had a parent show up, after my contract time, to yell at me because her son was failing. She hadn't even spoken to her son (he had been absent and chose not to do his make-up work). She kept going on and on about what I was going to do to change his grade. On top of this, I have to worry about whether or not I'm going to get shot at work. I do worry when I have to write a kid up or if they earn a bad grade about how they might retaliate.

Began my 26 year teaching career bursting with pride that I had become a teacher ❤️ 👩🏼‍🏫 ❤️ Left the profession embarrassed that all I became was a teacher. 😢

I have so much respect for what teachers have to endure. I have several friends/family that are educators that are well educated with inadequate pay. They deal with unlimited meetings, paying for certifications, paperwork, disrespect, violence, horrible parents, and abusive administrations. Let's not forget, they spend their private time working off campus and spend their own funds as well. They have to navigate so many personalities and issues with the students themselves, it's crazy. It just never ends. People tried to get me to go into teaching in college, saying that I would have the summers off. It just wasn't my thing. I went into finance instead. After seeing what's become of my teacher friends 25 years later, no thank you. I always joke with friends that given the amount of people avoiding teaching and the pressures of it. They will begin to hire anyone with a pulse to put up with this nonsense.

This is an amazingly accurate piece of journalism. We need mainstream media to bring this issue to the forefront. Teachers continue to be overworked and under paid. It's an absolute shame. The current philosophy of education in our country includes inefficient and excessive meetings, paperwork, and most importantly, avoid law suits at all costs. The excessive and inefficient amount of meetings, paperwork, and threats of lawsuits is detrimental to both teachers and students. Major changes in education are desperately needed. Let's start with common sense and teacher input. Politicians, who have never been educators, should not be developing and implementing education policies and curriculum. Stay tuned for more. I apologise for the lengthy comments.

It takes a special person who is filled with love and passion for their schools and students! I went to public school and teachers were cussed out beaten by students and underpaid! One of my teachers would have to buy supplies for her students who’s parents couldn’t afford them but she had to purchase out of her own pocket! That’s not her responsibility but she loved her kids so much she didn’t care and that’s a teacher who should be given a raise! Every teacher is special and makes students education worth it!

I’m a teacher and have been for 4 years. I’m now going back to get my masters degree in a different profession to change my career. I know many teacher are done with being under payed and leaving the profession now.

This is what happens when government is in charge of your paycheck. A public school teacher from Miami.

My teachers often worked 2 jobs or taught night classes at a community college. It was sad because I had such amazing teachers.

I teach in one of the few communities in the US where teachers are well paid and compensated. Here on Long Island, NY we are well respected and compensated and you’ll never hear me complain. My heart bleeds for these teachers who work so hard and are deserving of a salary that at least a bachelor’s degree would earn you!

They'll just get teachers from the Philippines...

A way to think about it is the more you pay the teachers, the more they will strive for their students

Going to a local Community College. I have had some great teachers who helped me succeed in classes. Those are the ones who deserve $80k or more because they care !

There are teachers in my family. Years in the classroom. From Preschool through High School. Public, private and charter school employees. I thought about using my degree and getting my certificate to become a teacher in my state. I love to see children learn. I just couldn't deal with the politics and the pay. Teachers are amazing. Shout out to my 6 the grade teacher. Ms. Haynes. But they are overworked, underpaid and under appreciated. I bow down to anyone who who goes into this field. It truly takes a certain type of human being to become a teacher. I applaud and Thank You.

Teachers are as precious as water. Without them we can never learn nor live....

My confusion is WHY there has to be more taxes. Cut the budget in other areas of the state. I was a teacher in CA the richest state yet spends the least on education. They spend more on prisons 😂 Our priorities are messed up. Invest in our kids and teachers!

I'm an educator abroad, I recently got qualified as a teacher. However, even though I would love to, I will never teach in my home country (the US)... for these exact reasons. 1. Low pay 2. Public perception of teachers in the US 3. I have no desire to be a political puppet. Things need to change. The US needs to make teaching a realistic career and not demand that all teachers be martyrs.

Spoken like a true teacher.. “ We still make it work..”... As a 23 year teaching veteran, I totally agree with this news story. The profession has changed so much in the time I have been there. I love what I do.. I just wish there was more respect for this profession.

There are two issues here, pay and workload. What I saw happening was my workload gradually doubled to a point where I was doing the job of two people for the same pay, another way that school districts and school boards keep costs down. I typically spent an additional 15 hours a week doing paperwork and prep for students as well as meeting time. You don’t really make a living wage until you have been in teaching for 10 years and it really depends on the school district. Smaller districts pay quite a bit less than the larger ones. I loved my job as a public school speech therapist but retired earlier than I planned because the workload just became impossible. Ironically COVID hit 6 months later. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be now for teachers to have to deal with that on top of everything else. One last thing, mental health issues have become common place and I’m talking moderate to severe mental issues. We need universal health care so that kids get the help they need before they end up in the criminal justice system. As a taxpayer I would much rather support schools than prisons.

It takes so much dedication, passion and hard work to be a teacher, yet it's underpaid.. Almost everywhere!

The fact that teachers have to go through so much effort to get the basic resources they need to do their jobs is honestly depressing

I'm a substitute teacher. yesterday I worked a half hour before school with no pay and I worked a half hour after school got out on my own time. I'm paid $90 for a full day of teaching. I do some planning and cleaning up on my own time. I taught at a school for half a day--$45 and then got a terrible review from the teacher. I left the classroom messy. I was mean (she didn't say how I was mean) I didn't follow the lesson plans. (You should have seen them full of stickies, cross out and writing over and inserts. ) I was to teach six things in one hour. There were things marked "If there's time" and there wasn't time. She said the students complained to their parents about me and they were really upset. She still didn't state what I did. I have been blacklisted from that school. All that terrible treatment and abuse for $45!

I am amazed at how little teachers are paid given the stress and discipline issues they deal with everyday. They deserve better!

8th year teacher and I’m trying to figure out how to buy a good fan since we don’t have air conditioning and the high was 90 degrees today.

To all the teachers I absolutely admire and respect you. We desperately need you. I wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes. That’s money well spent. God Bless you 📚😊

This always shocks me. I grew up in NJ & now live in PA. These teachers are doing great.

I admire Ms. Hicks she went about it the absolute best way possible...

As a teacher, at first, I would laugh to myself that I was poorer than most of my students. Now it is just a fact.

Considering that teachers are highly skilled workers, they should demand more of a wage premium in rural areas. Teachers also need more faculty support staff such as psychologists and in some places security to give students all the kinds of support they need

This is happening at colleges too. The place I worked started me off as a fulltime non tenured track professor in 2005 at 17,500. It increased to 19,500 by 2010 They gave us a pay adjustment for cost of living in 2014 to 28,000. I was let go in 2016 because they needed to downsize due to the reckless spending of the previous administration. Yeah my 28,000 was totally the problem. Now my husband, who still works there is at risk of losing his job because they want to make more cuts. He barely makes 30,000. It's long past time for us to move into a different field. Many colleges are leaning on adjunct armies vs paying fulltime and as much as we both loved our students we want to work 1 job and start our own family. These administrators and politicians should be ashamed of themselves. We lose amazing teachers each year because of this horseshit. Then they wonder why their schools fail and students dont want to go to their small colleges. Hire good people, given them living wages, let them build strong programs that will attract students and donors. Or keep building rock walls in the student campus center so the kids can feel like they had an experience while they blew 40,000 a year. *sigh*

we need to respect our teachers and pay them what they are worth!

Nurses are going through the same thing

I don’t understand why the senator would tell the lady that she was lying. That’s really bad if a senator did that. The senator should do the research. Especially if they’re on the education committee and deal with that kind of stuff. That was very unprofessional of the senator to say that to the face of the teacher. She introduced herself to the senator and immediately was called a liar? Not cool at all! Shame on whichever senator did that! As I said that I realize there are scenarios where I think certain people are lying, and I guess I don’t give them the benefit of the doubt, but those are in different politically motivated deals. I tend to be very conservative but teachers do deserve a lot more money because they do a lot of things, and they are helping teach the leaders of tomorrow!

I am a teacher, and it is absolutely true about meetings. We now have at least two a week for various purposes. We have one every Tuesday for Professional Development, even though this takes away from the time we need to plan lessons. We have meetings on Wednesday and have to review data and fill out forms. Sometimes it is helpful to my teaching, but more often not. I had a meeting about a student on Thursday morning so was pulled out of class. This kind of stuff happens all the time, and yet our workload increases every year. It is literally an impossible job at this point because there is not enough time to fit in everything we're supposed to teach. However, it is a wonderful job when you can make it work. That is the stress of it. You have to constantly make it work, and it's just so difficult. We need more money, smaller class sizes, more planning time, and more support for kids.

I make $33k a year and I’d be HAPPY if I had to pay an extra $1,000 a year in taxes if it means better teacher pay.

One of the BIGGEST problems in the profession in my oppinion AS A TEACHER is TEACHERS who will ACCEPT LOW PAY FOR THE GOOD OF THE KIDS. You cannot do best by the students if you cannot do best by yourself. I WALKED out of 3 interviews when they told me I was going to make in the low 30's starting. I told them flat out I am worth more than that and if that was the starting point I saw no reason to discuss anything further with them. I now have a teaching job in an urban school making over 50k. TEACHERS cannot be afraid to walk or find a different school to teach at. So long as teachers will accept low pay, it will be offered. This issue goes deeper as professors in ed school indoctrinate ed students to believe low salaries are acceptable because WE DO IT FOR THE KIDS. That culture needs to fundamentally change. Ed schools are training teachers to be saviors at the expense of themselves. PS I am NOT conservative and I went through ed school AFTER 8+ years of teaching college as an adjunct. I truly believe MOST the problems in modern American education can trace back to education school and how it trains teachers.

Teachers are leaving the profession and new (competent) teachers are hard to find. So, many school systems rely on the "paraprofessionals" (fancy word for teacher's aides) to take up the slack, as in my school district - performing the same duties as certified teachers but for a LOW hourly wage (I make $11.37 an hour, and only when I am there, not salary), with a minimum requirement of 60 credit hours of college (doesn't matter what they are), or passing a test of "proficiency". No benefits at all (like health insurance). We teach reading (only training was a couple hours of videos, watching a Master's degreed children's literacy expert teach other Master's degree level teachers), we substitute teach because we are there when there are no subs available (but don't get the pay of a contracted sub, which is more), and "other duties as required" - all in violation of the guidelines of the government funding that pays our wages. It happens I have an education degree and experience (but have not been in education for 30 years, and decided to slow down my professional employment pace but still needed a job), but I am the only one in my school who does. Others have degrees like criminal justice and some have no degree at all, just the minimum needed to be there. When I see videos like this one, I nod and think about how much I dread going to work tomorrow. Why do I go? Like the teachers here who do it for the kids.

Imagine a society losing their greatest educators: ones who dedicated their lives to not only mastering a subject but also the patience to articulate complex topics into a comprehensible level. When we lose our greatest educators, the whole system starts to deteriorate, starting with the students' quality of education, then quality of life/career, and eventually large policy decisions

Teachers are expected to do soooooo much and are not paid for their efforts. Many bring their work home to keep up with demand and still struggle. And the students come in with so many issues not having to do with school and are expected to sit and learn for eight hours. We need to support and pay our educators what they deserve!!

This is heart breaking. I come from a family of teachers and after I graduated college I seriously considered teaching in the public schools where I was raised, I even started teaching adults Spanish at a private company. As my sister left the country to teach abroad I quickly realized that we here in the states do not value teachers anywhere close to where they deserve to be. Long story short I stopped teaching and dropped my aspirations after hearing many many nightmare stories. It shouldn’t be this way. Dealing with parents and politicians, the list of problems comes from so many angles that we’ve lost sight of what’s truly the most important thing here, America’s future. We’re robbing these kids and hard working adults from their pursuit to knowledge and happiness by being entangled in the endless web of greed and entitlement.

I work at a school district as a sub for the classified staff, health clerk, teachers aide ect... I've seen teachers go home CRYING because the administration gives them no support! Kids behavior is getting worse too especially the older kids they are violent. I would not be able to work as a teacher.

Walk into a school in a foreign country, there's a principal and teachers. Walk into a US school, and the number of non-teachers on staff, including deans, counselors, specialists, clerks and secretaries is to such an extent, that I had no idea who they are or what they do. At my current school, they outnumber the teachers. I'm in my last year of teaching in the US, before I return home, and so I was pulled out of the classroom to assist in the office. And here I've discovered that the staff didn't know how to do a shocking amount of basic computer skills that I, as a teacher, needed. I've built databases, updated student files, been asked to do dozens of different tasks for different people - and found holes through both digital and paper records, that point to these people not doing their jobs. The office is isolated from the students, and it's a social place. This is the staff that force meetings, present checklists, and micromanage teachers. And the staff makes far more than the teachers. My students miss me, my fellow teachers are sad to see me go. My administration appreciated that I was the only teacher able to keep up with every requirement. But this final lesson in the US school system has just firmed my resolve to not return to teaching in the US. The number of problems is just too massive.

Texas has passed many laws that free teachers from paperwork, protect your planning time, give us rights to request students be removed when they are violent but districts force teachers to fight the legal battle... Lots of districts still work in bad faith despite the laws in place.. sad situation

Teachers deserve so much more than what they receive

This is one of the big reasons why I am trying to get out of education. Along with increasing disrespect from students and me making less than a garbage man I'm getting out of it. Going to try Nurse Anesthesia

I've had the same experiences during the short time I taught. It's a sad state for education and I can't see it changing any time in the near future.

Yes, I had to do the same, got a second job, 25 + hours a week.

Teachers are unsung heroes, especially in America.

I left teaching 13 years because we'd had a baby and the cost of childcare was going to take my entire monthly paycheck. Why pay someone else to raise my baby? I miss teaching, but I will never go back- I am not the type to shut up and do what I am told, I thought that trait would make me an excellent teacher, but in reality it just made my life in the school harder because of administration and policy.

I'm a vendor for a small school district here in California and through the years I've gotten to know the staff at the main office. What was surprising is not how many administrators there are but how many administrative assistants who were making 6 figure and close-to 6 figure salaries. This is NOT a high income area, mind you, this a low-income, mostly immigrant community. The thought of what it takes to maintain a payroll for the entire non-teaching staff in this building is staggering.

The thing is, you don't have to raise taxes to fund education better. We need to reallocate taxes from overbloated portions of the budget.

It's definitely the high debt those teacher come with after college. The pay isn't enough for them to pay their debts while also trying to live their lives. They can't buy homes, cars, or have children. Now that I recall those years in High School I could see their stress but didn't connect it with low pay.

Teachers are involved in the development of our most valuable and precious resource ...our children. They should be paid to reflect the enormous value to society they provide.

I’m a second year teacher in Florida and I make less than $34,000 a year. My mentor who has 13 years of experience and a masters doesn’t make $40,000. The other teacher in my subject area at school works a second job at a pizza place in town with our high schoolers.

I want to leave teaching, but have no idea what else is out there for us. Does anyone have any suggestions?

My heart hurts. This is why a lot of public educators send their own kids to private schools. No kid left behind has destroyed public education.

Besides being a stay at home parent (no pay by the way) TEACHING should be paid the most. Waaayyy more than athletes.

Saw this today and yes, I moved from Oklahoma to another state that pays much higher. Teaching can be extremely stressful but that doesn't mean I should receive crappy pay.

wow this is so emotional for me to watch- i'm just a childcare parapro but its crazy how teachers are underpaid.