Review of "Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers"
I apologize for my delay in responding to your last post. I have been reading and considering the points made in Teachers Have It Easy. I have so much to tell you. Overwhelmingly, however, I am struck by how many of the questions that we casually brainstormed over dinner are addressed in the book. For instance:
- How do you get the most qualified professionals in the classroom given the low salary? Given the salary, how can you attract people of color or multilingual candidates to the classroom?
- How can you attract math and science teachers into a school system when they can take jobs in industry and make double what they would make in the classroom?
- What do you do for a teacher who consistently gets results? What is the relationship between performance and incentives?
- How do you combat the societal view that teachers may, in fact, be making what they deserve? Why is our work unrecognized?
The book addresses these questions through Studs Terkel-esque vignettes about teachers and their experiences. There are countless examples of teachers working full-time in their classrooms and carrying a part-time odd job to make ends meet. Or, there are heart-wrenching stories of people who want to be teachers, but cannot afford to be because they have obligations to their families, medical expenses, etc. It's troubling. We're professionals, and this book paints a picture of a passionate, educated workforce that is demoralized predominantly because of their paycheck.
I thought I'd share a few relevant quotes with you to drive our next discussion.
"Much like missionary work or a stint in the Peace Corps, teaching is seen by thousands of the best young people as a two- or three-year assignment before the have to get serious about settling down and creating a proper economic nest for their families. Those who try to build families around teachers' salaries must be exceedingly resourceful-or independently wealthy." p72
I know that paired with our discussion of teacher pay and tenure, we talked about the effect that #TeachForAmerica has had on the climate of urban schools like ours. This two- to three-year charity stint is our reality. I am particularly struck by the last clause, however, because I think of how many [predominantly White] Corps Members we've had at our school who could "afford" to teach -- myself included -- instead of community members or Oakland natives. I hope that we get this salary problem fixed in the very near future. I am so hopeful about the impact that our past students could make as teachers in our community, but sadly if we don't fix this, many of them cannot afford to teach. This gives us a timeline...
In thinking about the effects of this transient teaching force, I was drawn to this quote, which hits close to home.
"In urban schools with high concentrations of poor students, the public school may be the only place in their lives where students can depend on a modicum of continuity. But in those very schools, according to estimates based on [the National Center for Education Statistics] figures, about 50 percent of teachers leave within the first five years." p168
So now, not only are we hiring individuals who can afford to be paid at sub-professional levels, but we are creating traumatizing conditions in which we expect our neediest students to learn. Hmm. This seems like a set-up. It is a set-up. What if we could pay qualified professionals from within a community a wage that was reflective of their work and their impact on students? Would schools be a more healing place? I cannot help but wonder if the results would be tangible and visible -- I think they would. Unfortunately, I will get to see the effect of 60%+ turnover at our school next year.
I could go on for ages. Instead, I think that we should plan another date.
One final thought: "Bringing the very best people to the job is a challenges, and all the recruiting tools in education won't make a difference until one of them is competitive pay."
