Hi guys! Most responses to my original question focused on numbers, so I’m posting the 2nd and 3rd parts of the question separately. Here’s PT2: Why do we as a society accept such low pay for the K12 teaching profession?

The societal acceptance of subpar pay for educators goes back to it’s inception and it’s hard to get past this, especially if it means people need to pay for a service they are not directly using despite the fact that they directly benefit. K-12 Education is a profession that used to employ unmarried women who received room and board by staying with host families as part of their pay. Because they did not have families, were only allowed to be teachers until they had a husband, and their housing was arranged, society deemed they had very few expenses and needed only minimal payment.
Eventually female teachers were “allowed” to continue teaching after getting married but they had a husband to support the family so they did not need to be paid much.
Fast forward and you started to see teachers unions and demands for fair pay. Teachers had specialized training and needed to make more money to support themselves. This struggle led to a compromise that started the pay step scale with a base salary. The idea was to pay teachers less initially because schools did not want to invest money in a person who could leave in the first 5 years. Statistically speaking, women were most likely to get married, have children and quit in those first five years. Until recently, most teachers leaving the profession were in the first five years So, they started with a salary that was significantly lower than their Non education peers with equal education and training. They then increased this pay a little at a time to close the gap between the teacher pay and the typical pay of other fields with similar specialized skills and education.
As with anything, those who are new to negotiating and those on the outside don’t know why something is done (other than this is they way we do things). So, when levies weren’t passing or schools were financially struggling they would float the idea of the bad teacher automatically getting a raise and summers off. They would ask to put a freeze on the steps or ask teachers to take a pay cut and move down a step (steps that would never be returned even with a levy passage) to show the community that teachers understood the financial hardship and were willing to tighten their belts as well. So the gap between the education field and others grew larger. This might make you think to do away with it, however, the step system also established a system where each teacher was compensated appropriately in the district. It ensures that elementary or specials teachers are not paid less than high school or math teachers. That male teachers are not paid more than female teachers.
Even though we may not recognize it, society still sees education as a female job and politicians love the bad teacher narrative that they are going fix. Educators have learned to expect a lower pay but were typically compensated with much better health insurance and benefits. Now even these are being eroded. If you look closely, they will “give” you a 3% raise but you are paying more of the health premium so you make less. They are going with insurance companies that do Spousal Carveout, so you can no longer cover your spouse. This seems benign until you realize you are paying for 2 premiums, 2 deductibles and ,for some, 2 out of pocket maximums.
If all of this happened in a year or even five years, the disparity might make an impact. But this is a systemic problem deeply rooted in the idea that teachers don’t need money (even though it would never be phrased that way). K-12 Education does not make money. Society desperately wants a workforce willing to work “for the children” and asking to be paid appropriately is met with the greedy teachers and greedy teachers unions rhetoric because recognizing the truth means having to reallocate funding. It’s far easier to polarize society and especially teachers so things don’t have to change.
So, how do we get teachers on the same page and speaking with one voice? That’s the real question.

This has some merit but if you are dividing by 185 then you do not get paid time off for holidays or vacation breaks because those are not included in the 185. Additionally the number is actually much higher than 185 because teachers do not just work 8-4. Take all the time you work outside these hours, add that to the 185 and then divide. After that subtract the amount of your personal funds that you have had to use to do your job. How does that compare to those not in education with a job in their field with the same level of education and experience?

It’s not just teaching it’s most helping professions. I’m a school swk and worked in the hospital system on the psych unit for over 10 yrs. I was paid less there.

Because we only value education as free childcare and we don’t value the work of childcare very much because women have historically done it for free.

I KNOW we SAY we value education for other reasons but working through the pandemic has made it really really clear to me that the chief value is child care and we hope to get some added benefit of learning thrown in.

I really think it has a lot to do with the time we get off in the summer.

Don’t get me started on compensation! Like many other veteran teachers, we’re underpaid compared to the newer teachers with much less experience. We’ve put in a lot of our personal time and personal $$ into resources to enhance the curriculum and coach new hires for us to hand it to newer team members at zero or a miniscule fraction of additional pay. Meanwhile, the new hires walk out the door at dismissal and only work “contract hours.” The new teachers should put in the effort and struggle just like many of us did at the beginning! Sadly, the work ethic is drastically different than older generations, thus leading to a teacher shortage. Quiet quitting is on the rise. Only the strong survive public education!

Think about all the extra benifets we get as teachers. Paid time off, holidays off. A week in the fall, two weeks at Christmas, a week in the spring…..10ish weeks in the summer. We have healthcare benefits and a pension.

Our salary is for 185 days worth of work. Take your salary and divide by 185. You daily rate is probably higher than those who work year round jobs.

And I think we should stop saying we have summers off. Teaching is very very very intense work where you are caring for a large number of children and their parents in one respect or another. I know personally I NEED that time to recharge to be able to do my job well for the next year.

We say we have the summer off because we don’t value our emotional labor as caregivers. And when we don’t no one else will either.

This will not be a popular opinion but I feel that I’m fairly compensated. Between my salary, my retirement benefits, my health care benefits (including free medication and basic doctor care as well as mental care and access to drastically discounted fitness care), free PD, and 14 weeks off of work my “worth” is fairly compensated.
Yes, I understand that 9 of those weeks are technically unpaid.
Yes, I understand that my pay is higher than many in the country.
However, once I factor in medical and retirement benefits, my total compensation is just over 80,000 with 8 years of experience. I’ve had to pay for self-insured medical insurance so that benefit is real to me.

There are definitely misconceptions about how teachers are paid as well as what we are compensated for. I taught in OK with the following credentials: 7-12 English (BA); Sped (80-hour Autism focus); 5-12 Reading Certification; 13 years of classroom experience; Technical Writing certification; and a CDL with a school bus driving license. All that to say that I never made more than $37,000.00, until I negotiated my salary with a school that called me. I think a lot of people can't imagine transferring our required skills into private sector pay.

Perhaps we are no longer willing and a reason for epic teacher departures/crisis across the nation.

It’s a profession of women, historically underpaid!

I read this to my husband who is not a teacher and he thinks everyone besides teachers feel that since we don’t work for 8-10 weeks in the summer we do get paid fairly. I’m just putting it out there since he says that’s what most people think, and I didn’t see that already on this post. Arg.

Because it’s a monopoly with no competition and no market pressures. It’s not difficult people.