How Much To Pay Pastor For Memorial Service

Pictured: Teachers and supporters hold signs and march during a protest over the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, U.S., on Monday, Sept. 21, 2020. Credit: Paul Frangipane/Bloomberg/Getty Images

In 2018, teacher protests swept the country with educators speaking out against widespread public school upkeep cuts and wage stagnation. Those protests led to strikes, including the Los Angeles teachers' strike in Grand Park on January 22, 2019, in Los Angeles, California. There, thousands of teachers — and supportive parents and students — celebrated a seeming victory when the United Teachers Los Angeles union and the Los Angeles Unified School Commune struck a deal that included capping class sizes, providing funding for school nurses and increasing educator pay.

While this victory was significant, information technology besides serves as a attestation to the ongoing issues plaguing the U.s.' education organization. If waves of protestors aren't enough to convince you of the issues surrounding teacher pay (and other concerns raised by educators), then peradventure these shocking numbers volition. Bacon.com listed $44,926 as the average starting bacon for public educators on August 27, 2021. On the other end of the pay calibration, tiptop-paid U.South. elementary school teachers make $71,000 annually, while top-paid loftier school teachers make between $71,000 – $81,000 a year on boilerplate. Meanwhile, in Luxembourg, the highest average salary for elementary school teachers is 114,000 euros (or $133,316.16) annually.

Looking at things on a state-by-state basis, New York teachers come up out on tiptop, making a median salary of $85,258 (via United states Today) — though New York also requires teachers to earn a main's degree inside their first 5 years of being on the task, a caveat that can create more than barriers for fledgling educators. Other states that compare to New York's payscale include California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Alaska, but so many others land on the contrary end of the spectrum, including Oklahoma, where "one-half of all teachers are [fabricated] less than $33,630 a year" in 2019.

Teachers Spend Their Own Money on Supplies and Agree Second Jobs — but This Shouldn't Be the Norm

EdTech Magazine asked, "If you were offered a job that paid an average annual salary of $49,000 and required you to piece of work 12- to sixteen-hour days, would you lot take information technology?" Sounds rough, doesn't information technology? Well, sadly, that's the norm for the majority of teachers in the U.S. Teachers spent an average of $745 of their own money on classroom supplies during the 2019/2020 school year. Teachers also paid approximately $252 out of pocket on altitude learning materials during the spring of 2020.

Pictured: Chris Frank, a teacher at Yung Wing School P.Southward. 124, prepares his classroom for the school twelvemonth on September 8, 2020, in New York City. Credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

To brand matters more frustrating, the National Pedagogy Association (NEA) found that roughly xvi% of teachers held second jobs over the summer, while xx% relied on secondary income year-round in 2019. If at-schoolhouse secondary jobs are counted — coaching sports, teaching extra courses, helping with extracurriculars — that figure jumps to 59%. The lesser line? Public schools should be funded adequately; teachers should exist compensated fairly for all they do. Despite all of this, Education Week legislators scaled dorsum or outright nixed plans to raise teacher pay when the initially pandemic striking.

What Information technology'south Similar to Exist a Instructor During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Educators were abruptly thrust into a public wellness crisis in March 2020. Despite teachers' best efforts, most schools, especially public schools, didn't take roadmaps to deal with all-virtual learning scenarios. In fact, plenty of universities and otherwise privately funded schools with seemingly huge endowments weren't well-equipped either. Between technological roadblocks and the fact that many students don't have access to computers, tablets or the cyberspace at home, the novel coronavirus pandemic certainly spotlighted discrepancies and shortcomings in the American education organization.

Pictured: Gladys Alvarez, a fifth grade teacher at Manchester Ave. Elementary Schoolhouse in South Los Angeles, California, talks to her students over Zoom. Credit: Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

In August 2020, the White House formally declared teachers essential workers, noting that they are "critical infrastructure workers" — or, in other words, disquisitional to the infrastructure of reopening the state and bolstering the economy. However, unlike other essential workers, teachers practice not ever take the training and background to mitigate all of these public health concerns. Funding for PPE and other essential, virus-combating supplies is not always available or particularly arable. Despite this, educators must potentially take chances their health, their families, and their lives to teach their students.

It's indisputable that teachers are essential members of our communities, simply they are also people who, just like all of u.s.a., are navigating the horrors of this pandemic. Often, they go beyond the phone call of their chore descriptions — even outside of the classroom. "My students have lost family members, and at that place's a lot of trauma nosotros are not addressing," Jessyca Mathews, an English language instructor at Carman-Ainsworth High School in Flint, Michigan, told Time. "When COVID hitting, I had kids who were texting me in the eye of the night, and I answered them every single time."

Mathews is not alone in her dedication to her students. "My colleagues and I have been stressed since spring break considering we care, and nosotros're worried and we know the ins and outs of our jobs," Kara Stoltenberg, a language arts teacher at Norman Loftier School in Norman, Oklahoma, told Time. "And we know that what the CDC is recommending for in-person learning merely isn't really feasible, because the lack of funding that we've had for a decade." In states that were more severely impacted past the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers drafted wills and obituaries ahead of the school year.

This is peak dystopian-level disturbing, but, what'south peradventure nigh disturbing of all is that none of these issues — from teacher pay to how nosotros value teachers' lives and wellness — are new. Instead, the pandemic has revealed every crack and fault line in the U.Southward. education system. Information technology falls on the states to reflect on the lessons nosotros've learned amid the COVID-xix and strive to improve American didactics for teachers and students.