North Carolina educator Shalon Matthews had her salary frozen not long after she started teaching several years ago. Last week, the North Carolina legislature passed new law that will cost teachers more to receive the same benefits. Shalon is beginning to run out of reasons to stay in the profession. “The pay isn’t great. Benefits were a perk, and now that’s gone.”
She is not alone in her frustration. And this blog post does not purport that there is anyone specific to blame. When money and budgets dwindle, hard and unpopular decisions have to be made. People suffer.
The point of this post is to reconcile the events in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and other states with the current Administration’s plans to make becoming and staying qualified as a teacher or principal more difficult and expensive.
Becoming and staying a teacher continuously becomes less attractive. Shalon adds, “Whenever there is a change, its never good.” She has a point. Never in her career has there been any news of a pay increase, benefits increase, or new policy that reduces the schools’ overwhelming responsibilities.
In the mid 1990s, then governor George W. Bush issued changes that increased teacher pay significantly in Texas. Other than that, all news had been bad news.
Laws continuously change to hold schools more accountable for student learning, well being, and safety. Fair enough. The laws also keep increasing the school’s culpability for what happens in a student’s home, how they get to school, how much they eat, what they are eating, the decisions that they make outside of class, what they are wearing, what NOT to say to them regarding what they are wearing, etc.
Teachers' jobs are often held over their heads because of these matters.
Again, its hard to find one person to blame. But it is the reality of the situation. Where do we get teachers who want to do all this…and keep doing it when the number of hoops they have to jump through increases while pay and benefits don’t?
Need another reason to question the attractiveness of teaching? Read this article about abused teachers.
If you have a solution, please leave it here. The world will be better for it.
She is not alone in her frustration. And this blog post does not purport that there is anyone specific to blame. When money and budgets dwindle, hard and unpopular decisions have to be made. People suffer.
The point of this post is to reconcile the events in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and other states with the current Administration’s plans to make becoming and staying qualified as a teacher or principal more difficult and expensive.
Becoming and staying a teacher continuously becomes less attractive. Shalon adds, “Whenever there is a change, its never good.” She has a point. Never in her career has there been any news of a pay increase, benefits increase, or new policy that reduces the schools’ overwhelming responsibilities.
In the mid 1990s, then governor George W. Bush issued changes that increased teacher pay significantly in Texas. Other than that, all news had been bad news.
Laws continuously change to hold schools more accountable for student learning, well being, and safety. Fair enough. The laws also keep increasing the school’s culpability for what happens in a student’s home, how they get to school, how much they eat, what they are eating, the decisions that they make outside of class, what they are wearing, what NOT to say to them regarding what they are wearing, etc.
Teachers' jobs are often held over their heads because of these matters.
Again, its hard to find one person to blame. But it is the reality of the situation. Where do we get teachers who want to do all this…and keep doing it when the number of hoops they have to jump through increases while pay and benefits don’t?
Need another reason to question the attractiveness of teaching? Read this article about abused teachers.
If you have a solution, please leave it here. The world will be better for it.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/10/teachers.aspx