The Top 11 Reasons Teachers are Undervalued
The Top 11 Reasons Teachers are Undervalued
We've all heard the complaints about teachers: They're lazy, they get the whole summer off. What do they even do all day with those kids? It's not like they actually produce anything. Once they get tenure it's impossible to get rid of them no matter how terrible they are and the union backs them up. I saw Michelle Rhee on TV and she says these teachers need to be held accountable. My state rep says the same thing, fire those lazy teachers!
Why do Americans put so little value in the people who choose teaching as a profession? Teachers educate children across this country every day. Many teachers work in communities crippled by poverty and struggle to keep schools open with crumbling buildings, outdated textbooks and school districts who lack funds even to provide basic school supplies for students. Teachers work many hours outside of their classroom and pay for far too much to keep their classrooms running from their own pockets. Here is a list of reasons teachers are undervalued according to teachers.
1. No one becomes a teacher for the money. It has been said many times that teachers don't choose this profession to get rich. Teaching as a profession has a very poor income to education ratio. All fifty states require public school teachers to complete a bachelor's degree, and many require master's degrees education before their first five years of teaching, and must further their education for certificate renewal every five years. By the time teachers retire, most have the same level of education as medical doctors, but will never come close to the amount of income of other professions. It's a fact that most teachers end their careers making as much money as other professions with the same level of education make at the beginning of their careers.
2. The teaching profession is dominated by women. Women's work has always been devalued compared to the work men do. Men have an easier time advancing in careers because primary family care is still traditionally seen as women's work. Once women become mothers they have less time to devote to their work and have to take jobs that allow them to care for their children. There is also still the outdated notion that women who work are single and don't need to be paid as much as men who are supporting a family. It's become a fact in modern times that many women support families and are still expected to accomplish it with less pay then men.
Men in education often are in administration positions, such as the superintendent or principal of the school. Their salaries are considerably higher than teacher salaries. Men who teach will also be paid extra money for coaching positions.
3. Teaching is work involving children. If you've had your car worked on recently by a mechanic you're familiar with being charged for labor along with new parts. Labor costs range from sixty to eighty dollars per hour depending on the work being done and where you live. No one can argue with the mechanic about this because unless you know how to fix cars you need the mechanic to do it for you.
Now what would your reaction be if a teacher informed you it would cost eighty dollars an hour to educate you children? You would probably tell that teacher some choice words before looking for another teacher who charged more reasonable rates. Fortunately schools don't do that, but teachers aren't paid nearly as much as the mechanic per hour to teach. Day care providers have it even worse. the average day care charges $3.75 per hour to care for one child, and that rate includes meals and resources the child uses in the day care center or home. Why we put less value on the care and education of children than we do on our cars is not a topic you hear discussed often, but it really should be.
4. Teachers don't "produce" anything. Teachers spend their work day in classrooms with students and books for nine months out of the year but at the end of that time what product exists to put value on their work? One argument education reformers have is that teachers need to be made accountable for their work, and therefore must be required to produce something tangible so that others can see that work. The tangible thing that has become the product in education are high stakes test scores. Rigorous testing is mandatory in all fifty states. Aggregate scores become the basis for rating schools on success and the rubric used to hold teachers accountable to creating a product for the public to see.
The problem with this is teachers know what they're producing in their classrooms are not products, but instead developing their students to become successful learners who can think critically, comprehend new concepts from a variety of learning resources and demonstrate their knowledge through either an assessment of their skills or expressing themselves. Today less achievement happens this way, as teachers are forced to prepare their students to do well on a test that in no way prepares them for a future in the adult world. To go back to the auto mechanic example, which would you rather have working on your car for eighty dollars an hour, the person who passed a standardized test, or the person who developed problem solving skills?
5. Teachers get the whole summer off. It's true that the traditional school year in the United States is based on the agricultural calendar. Children were needed at home during the summer to help with planting and harvesting crops. Most families don't live in agrarian communities now and giving children three months off during the summer when they don't need to do farm chores seems like a waste of time. Some schools have changed to a year round schedule, where shorter breaks are taken between school terms.
Parents can send their children to summer camp, but what about the teachers? The reality of "summer vacation" for teachers is very different than what you might imagine. Most teachers during the summer work summer jobs. They teach summer school classes or work for another employer during the summer. Remember how teachers have to keep going to school to get their certification renewed? Many teachers take summer classes during their vacation. Finally, many teachers need that summer to unwind from the stressful, busy year of teaching, but by the Fourth of July they start thinking about next fall and begin preparing for the new school year. Finally, and most important of all, many teachers look forward to their eight weeks off to do something they rarely get to do during the school year - spend time with their families.
6. Most work teachers do is never seen. Teachers for six to seven hours every day are in classrooms with students teaching lessons, modeling new skills and helping students as they practice and master those new skills. When do teachers grade papers, prepare new lesson plans, meet with parents, attend staff meetings, write tests and prep their room for the next day? Most of this work is done after the dismissal bell rings and students go home. The average amount of work teachers are required to do outside of their regular school day adds up to fourteen hour days for forty weeks out of the year.
Teachers grade papers at home. This is also where many teachers develop their lesson plans and tests. Most school websites have email addresses for teachers so parents and students can contact their teacher any time they want if they have questions about homework or other concerns. The time teachers spend becoming familiar with new content, research, attending workshops and classes to fulfill professional requirements adds up, and this is the work students and their parents never see them doing.
7. Teachers are expected to provide classroom materials at their own expense. This is becoming true even more with deep cuts to school budgets at the state level. All classrooms consume resources. Paper, pencils, scissors, glue, crayons, pencil sharpeners and the list is growing. If a teacher wants to include a hands-on activity as part of a lesson, many times she has to provide the materials needed for that activity. Where does the money come from to pay for these materials? Usually from her own pocket.
Anyone working in an office takes for granted if they need a new pen or a box of paperclips all they have to do is go to the supply room in their office building and take what they need. Teachers head to office supply stores and buy pens and paperclips if they need them. In some schools budgets are so small now teachers need to provide items like toilet paper so students can use the restroom while at school. Keep this in mind the next time there's a back to school sale and you see a man or woman ahead of you in the checkout aisle pushing a cart loaded with cases of school supplies.
8. Teachers don't stand up for themselves. Before teachers are called back to school the first week or two before the school year begins, new teachers will show up a few days earlier for new teacher orientation. During this time they get a refresher course in classroom management, where to take care of different issues related to teacher-school business, and then they get the Talk. The talk is where members of the school administration come in and tell you that as new teachers you need to behave much like a new enlisted recruit in the military. Blend in. Don't make waves. Don't get loud. Be invisible the first few years of your employment. Do that, and you'll survive.
This is because by Thanksgiving new teachers become aware of what working in a public school is really about. Getting upset or angry over what a new teacher experiences can be the end of their careers if they don't listen to what they were told at the beginning of the year. Teachers unfortunately take this advice to heart and remain quiet well into their seasoned veteran years. There is also the fear that if you're seen as a "trouble maker" the school administration will decide to not renew your contract for the next year.
9. Education reformers rarely ask for teacher input. Even though teachers have advanced degrees, hours of required professional development and years of boots on the ground experience in the classroom, teachers are rarely asked for their input for reforming education. Many of the education reformers today don't have backgrounds in education. They are politicians, heads of corporations and business owners who view education reform not so much as to make schools better, but as a way to change public education into a for-profit business.
A recent example of this happened in Michigan. The governor of the state found himself being publicly criticized for members of his administration staff meeting with other politicians, IT developers and education reformers in secret to develop an alternative to public education involving school vouchers - which are banned in Michigan per the state constitution. The secret group even called themselves "Skunk Works" after the group of engineers from Lockheed who worked on developing the jet engine during World War II. Not one member of this group was a teacher.
10. Teachers don't speak up when politicians or media make negative statements. Politicians and the media are both concerned about the same thing - staying popular and relevant. Politicians have to get re-elected. The news has to find ways to boost their ratings. Public Education has been the scapegoat for both for many years. Politicians insist that public schools fail because of lazy teachers and the powerful teacher unions that allow them to be lazy. The media broadcast these politicians on their news programs and then talk to "education reform experts" who spin the politician's message into short sound bites that the average person can digest. Suddenly, the average person on the street talks about teachers unions, tenure, and failing schools as if they're experts because they once went to school so they know what they're talking about.
Teachers need to speak up and tell the truth about the work they do educating children. Teachers today spend far too much time teaching to high stakes tests because the school's funding and their jobs are on the line. They spend anywhere from four to six years in school to be considered professionals, then have to compete with people who complete programs such as Teach For America, who only go through five weeks of training, because the state believes having teachers with less training means paying them less. This is where education reformers step in and offer solutions that have no proof they will make schools function better, except to make private companies richer at taxpayer expense. Michelle Rhee is a graduate of Teach For America.
11. Teachers devalue themselves as professionals. Teachers are the people who go to college to learn how to be effective educators. They learn the latest research-based pedagogy, curriculum standards, classroom management, best practices and methods for instruction of students in their classrooms. Then they need to be masters in their content area. They have to become scientists, mathematicians, historians, athletes, musicians, artists, and master language so they can teach everything else. They have the experience in the classroom where every day they have to test theories, make notes on outcomes and modify their lessons if they don't work. Nothing happens in a classroom today that doesn't come from careful research and implementation.
Despite all of this hard work, study and dedication to their profession, teachers are not the voices we hear when it comes to education reform. Corporate CEO's, politicians, lawyers and the media insist teachers have no clue how to do their job. This is why doctors tell butchers the best way to tie a crown roast. Butchers tell airline pilots the best way to fly a plane. Factory workers who build cars tell traffic engineers how to design roads so traffic flows better. Of course this doesn't happen, yet when someone running for office makes a speech about how schools are failing, and yet they're one of the politicians who voted to cut school funding, people never think it odd that someone who isn't an education professional seems to think they know how to teach.
Teachers are the ones who need to stand up and speak out for themselves. No one else is going to do it for us. President Obama supports school choice, TFA style teacher prep programs, Common Core, high-stakes testing and for profit charter schools. We have billionaires and huge corporations fighting against us, spreading disinformation about teachers and education because they want people to believe they have the solution to reform schools. Their reforms though are only designed to make themselves richer, not make our children better prepared for their future. Our children deserve better, and the only people who can speak for the benefits of public education are the professionals who spend day after day in the classroom, and the parents and supporters who know the real sacrifices we make.
We've all heard the complaints about teachers: They're lazy, they get the whole summer off. What do they even do all day with those kids? It's not like they actually produce anything. Once they get tenure it's impossible to get rid of them no matter how terrible they are and the union backs them up. I saw Michelle Rhee on TV and she says these teachers need to be held accountable. My state rep says the same thing, fire those lazy teachers!
Why do Americans put so little value in the people who choose teaching as a profession? Teachers educate children across this country every day. Many teachers work in communities crippled by poverty and struggle to keep schools open with crumbling buildings, outdated textbooks and school districts who lack funds even to provide basic school supplies for students. Teachers work many hours outside of their classroom and pay for far too much to keep their classrooms running from their own pockets. Here is a list of reasons teachers are undervalued according to teachers.
1. No one becomes a teacher for the money. It has been said many times that teachers don't choose this profession to get rich. Teaching as a profession has a very poor income to education ratio. All fifty states require public school teachers to complete a bachelor's degree, and many require master's degrees education before their first five years of teaching, and must further their education for certificate renewal every five years. By the time teachers retire, most have the same level of education as medical doctors, but will never come close to the amount of income of other professions. It's a fact that most teachers end their careers making as much money as other professions with the same level of education make at the beginning of their careers.
2. The teaching profession is dominated by women. Women's work has always been devalued compared to the work men do. Men have an easier time advancing in careers because primary family care is still traditionally seen as women's work. Once women become mothers they have less time to devote to their work and have to take jobs that allow them to care for their children. There is also still the outdated notion that women who work are single and don't need to be paid as much as men who are supporting a family. It's become a fact in modern times that many women support families and are still expected to accomplish it with less pay then men.
Men in education often are in administration positions, such as the superintendent or principal of the school. Their salaries are considerably higher than teacher salaries. Men who teach will also be paid extra money for coaching positions.
3. Teaching is work involving children. If you've had your car worked on recently by a mechanic you're familiar with being charged for labor along with new parts. Labor costs range from sixty to eighty dollars per hour depending on the work being done and where you live. No one can argue with the mechanic about this because unless you know how to fix cars you need the mechanic to do it for you.
Now what would your reaction be if a teacher informed you it would cost eighty dollars an hour to educate you children? You would probably tell that teacher some choice words before looking for another teacher who charged more reasonable rates. Fortunately schools don't do that, but teachers aren't paid nearly as much as the mechanic per hour to teach. Day care providers have it even worse. the average day care charges $3.75 per hour to care for one child, and that rate includes meals and resources the child uses in the day care center or home. Why we put less value on the care and education of children than we do on our cars is not a topic you hear discussed often, but it really should be.
4. Teachers don't "produce" anything. Teachers spend their work day in classrooms with students and books for nine months out of the year but at the end of that time what product exists to put value on their work? One argument education reformers have is that teachers need to be made accountable for their work, and therefore must be required to produce something tangible so that others can see that work. The tangible thing that has become the product in education are high stakes test scores. Rigorous testing is mandatory in all fifty states. Aggregate scores become the basis for rating schools on success and the rubric used to hold teachers accountable to creating a product for the public to see.
The problem with this is teachers know what they're producing in their classrooms are not products, but instead developing their students to become successful learners who can think critically, comprehend new concepts from a variety of learning resources and demonstrate their knowledge through either an assessment of their skills or expressing themselves. Today less achievement happens this way, as teachers are forced to prepare their students to do well on a test that in no way prepares them for a future in the adult world. To go back to the auto mechanic example, which would you rather have working on your car for eighty dollars an hour, the person who passed a standardized test, or the person who developed problem solving skills?
5. Teachers get the whole summer off. It's true that the traditional school year in the United States is based on the agricultural calendar. Children were needed at home during the summer to help with planting and harvesting crops. Most families don't live in agrarian communities now and giving children three months off during the summer when they don't need to do farm chores seems like a waste of time. Some schools have changed to a year round schedule, where shorter breaks are taken between school terms.
Parents can send their children to summer camp, but what about the teachers? The reality of "summer vacation" for teachers is very different than what you might imagine. Most teachers during the summer work summer jobs. They teach summer school classes or work for another employer during the summer. Remember how teachers have to keep going to school to get their certification renewed? Many teachers take summer classes during their vacation. Finally, many teachers need that summer to unwind from the stressful, busy year of teaching, but by the Fourth of July they start thinking about next fall and begin preparing for the new school year. Finally, and most important of all, many teachers look forward to their eight weeks off to do something they rarely get to do during the school year - spend time with their families.
6. Most work teachers do is never seen. Teachers for six to seven hours every day are in classrooms with students teaching lessons, modeling new skills and helping students as they practice and master those new skills. When do teachers grade papers, prepare new lesson plans, meet with parents, attend staff meetings, write tests and prep their room for the next day? Most of this work is done after the dismissal bell rings and students go home. The average amount of work teachers are required to do outside of their regular school day adds up to fourteen hour days for forty weeks out of the year.
Teachers grade papers at home. This is also where many teachers develop their lesson plans and tests. Most school websites have email addresses for teachers so parents and students can contact their teacher any time they want if they have questions about homework or other concerns. The time teachers spend becoming familiar with new content, research, attending workshops and classes to fulfill professional requirements adds up, and this is the work students and their parents never see them doing.
7. Teachers are expected to provide classroom materials at their own expense. This is becoming true even more with deep cuts to school budgets at the state level. All classrooms consume resources. Paper, pencils, scissors, glue, crayons, pencil sharpeners and the list is growing. If a teacher wants to include a hands-on activity as part of a lesson, many times she has to provide the materials needed for that activity. Where does the money come from to pay for these materials? Usually from her own pocket.
Anyone working in an office takes for granted if they need a new pen or a box of paperclips all they have to do is go to the supply room in their office building and take what they need. Teachers head to office supply stores and buy pens and paperclips if they need them. In some schools budgets are so small now teachers need to provide items like toilet paper so students can use the restroom while at school. Keep this in mind the next time there's a back to school sale and you see a man or woman ahead of you in the checkout aisle pushing a cart loaded with cases of school supplies.
8. Teachers don't stand up for themselves. Before teachers are called back to school the first week or two before the school year begins, new teachers will show up a few days earlier for new teacher orientation. During this time they get a refresher course in classroom management, where to take care of different issues related to teacher-school business, and then they get the Talk. The talk is where members of the school administration come in and tell you that as new teachers you need to behave much like a new enlisted recruit in the military. Blend in. Don't make waves. Don't get loud. Be invisible the first few years of your employment. Do that, and you'll survive.
This is because by Thanksgiving new teachers become aware of what working in a public school is really about. Getting upset or angry over what a new teacher experiences can be the end of their careers if they don't listen to what they were told at the beginning of the year. Teachers unfortunately take this advice to heart and remain quiet well into their seasoned veteran years. There is also the fear that if you're seen as a "trouble maker" the school administration will decide to not renew your contract for the next year.
9. Education reformers rarely ask for teacher input. Even though teachers have advanced degrees, hours of required professional development and years of boots on the ground experience in the classroom, teachers are rarely asked for their input for reforming education. Many of the education reformers today don't have backgrounds in education. They are politicians, heads of corporations and business owners who view education reform not so much as to make schools better, but as a way to change public education into a for-profit business.
A recent example of this happened in Michigan. The governor of the state found himself being publicly criticized for members of his administration staff meeting with other politicians, IT developers and education reformers in secret to develop an alternative to public education involving school vouchers - which are banned in Michigan per the state constitution. The secret group even called themselves "Skunk Works" after the group of engineers from Lockheed who worked on developing the jet engine during World War II. Not one member of this group was a teacher.
10. Teachers don't speak up when politicians or media make negative statements. Politicians and the media are both concerned about the same thing - staying popular and relevant. Politicians have to get re-elected. The news has to find ways to boost their ratings. Public Education has been the scapegoat for both for many years. Politicians insist that public schools fail because of lazy teachers and the powerful teacher unions that allow them to be lazy. The media broadcast these politicians on their news programs and then talk to "education reform experts" who spin the politician's message into short sound bites that the average person can digest. Suddenly, the average person on the street talks about teachers unions, tenure, and failing schools as if they're experts because they once went to school so they know what they're talking about.
Teachers need to speak up and tell the truth about the work they do educating children. Teachers today spend far too much time teaching to high stakes tests because the school's funding and their jobs are on the line. They spend anywhere from four to six years in school to be considered professionals, then have to compete with people who complete programs such as Teach For America, who only go through five weeks of training, because the state believes having teachers with less training means paying them less. This is where education reformers step in and offer solutions that have no proof they will make schools function better, except to make private companies richer at taxpayer expense. Michelle Rhee is a graduate of Teach For America.
11. Teachers devalue themselves as professionals. Teachers are the people who go to college to learn how to be effective educators. They learn the latest research-based pedagogy, curriculum standards, classroom management, best practices and methods for instruction of students in their classrooms. Then they need to be masters in their content area. They have to become scientists, mathematicians, historians, athletes, musicians, artists, and master language so they can teach everything else. They have the experience in the classroom where every day they have to test theories, make notes on outcomes and modify their lessons if they don't work. Nothing happens in a classroom today that doesn't come from careful research and implementation.
Despite all of this hard work, study and dedication to their profession, teachers are not the voices we hear when it comes to education reform. Corporate CEO's, politicians, lawyers and the media insist teachers have no clue how to do their job. This is why doctors tell butchers the best way to tie a crown roast. Butchers tell airline pilots the best way to fly a plane. Factory workers who build cars tell traffic engineers how to design roads so traffic flows better. Of course this doesn't happen, yet when someone running for office makes a speech about how schools are failing, and yet they're one of the politicians who voted to cut school funding, people never think it odd that someone who isn't an education professional seems to think they know how to teach.
Teachers are the ones who need to stand up and speak out for themselves. No one else is going to do it for us. President Obama supports school choice, TFA style teacher prep programs, Common Core, high-stakes testing and for profit charter schools. We have billionaires and huge corporations fighting against us, spreading disinformation about teachers and education because they want people to believe they have the solution to reform schools. Their reforms though are only designed to make themselves richer, not make our children better prepared for their future. Our children deserve better, and the only people who can speak for the benefits of public education are the professionals who spend day after day in the classroom, and the parents and supporters who know the real sacrifices we make.