If you know a teacher or two in North Carolina, and you've been on social media in the last day or so, you know that NC legislators are at it again. Yesterday, Governor Pat McCrory announced that he is making it a goal in the near future to raise teacher salaries. When I first saw the headline, I was ecstatic. Finally, the hardest working people I know will get what they deserve. But when I read the article, I realized just how wrong the state has managed to get it...once again.
Pat McCrory's plan is to pay new teachers with 0-5 years of experience $33,000 a year starting in the 2015-2016 school year. That is up from the current $30,800 that first year teachers in NC receive giving teachers with 1-5 years of experience a $2,200 dollar raise. Teachers with 6 and 7 years of experience will also be raised to $33,000 giving them between a $1,780-1,330 raise for the 2015-2016. All of this sounds great. ($33,000 is still a slap in the face when you consider the hours teachers work, but hey, you've heard all of this before). But then, the state's proposed plan gets really stupid. Teachers with 8 years of experience or more won't receive any raises. If you have 8 years of experience, you are going to be making $30 more a year than someone with 0 years of experience.
Before you tell teachers that they only work 10 months out of the year and that they should be thankful that they have a job in this economy, etc, let me tell you a little bit about what being an 8th year teacher in the 2015-2016 school year will be like. As an 8th year teacher, you've put almost a decade of work into your CAREER. You're probably in your early 30s at this point, and many of you have young families. You are attempting to raise a family on a small and offensive salary, and a good portion of it probably goes towards benefits for your children. Let's just hope you married someone that went into a more lucrative career. If you are unmarried without a partner's income to help you, then you are living off of less than $2,000 a month. After rent (because Lord knows you could not possibly own a house since down payments are not a part of your vocabulary), car payment, phone, electricity/water, groceries, gas, student loans, you're probably left with between $50-100. This money allows you to splurge on items such as co-pays, toiletries, and schools supplies that the state no longer pays for. As an 8th year teacher, you came into the profession just in time for the pay freeze. You do not have dental insurance. You went back to graduate school just in time to find out that you weren't going to get the pay-raise for having an advanced degree, and now you cannot even pay back your student loans. You are teaching classes of at least 30 that will take an arbitrary state-mandated test that was probably created to justify someone's job who makes twice what a classroom teacher makes. Now, you are finding out that your state legislators want to give every single teacher that has less experience than you more money.
Pat McCrory, this is a slap in the face.
I am not against North Carolina paying their new teachers more money. I have many former students who will be stepping in the classroom in the next few years; they will benefit from this proposed bill. But at what cost? What North Carolina legislators might not realize is that experience matters in teaching. If I want teaching advice, I talk to a veteran teacher. For my first three years, I was partnered with a veteran teacher who helped me fill out paperwork, understand the school culture, gave me classroom management tips, and literally acted as a shoulder to cry on. New teachers need these veteran teachers. I would not have survived my first 3 years without the mentors I had. If the state pays first year teachers more or as much money as veteran teachers, they are messing with the eco-system (of course, messing with eco-systems is not something NC legislators seem to worry about). There will be rifts and resentment. Successful schools are dependent on collaboration between teachers, levels, and departments; without collaboration, the students and the entire culture of the school suffers. By not offering increases across the board, the state is communicating to veteran teachers that their experience and time is not valued. The state is telling its veteran teachers that they don't matter, and they aren't appreciated. What will happen to those crucial relationships between veterans and beginners after this proposed pay raise?
Teachers frequently refer to being in the classroom as "being in the trenches." I was never crazy about this figure of speech because I always thought the connotation was negative. But North Carolina legislators have made this figure of speech truer than I ever thought it would be. They have waged war on their teachers. (I guess as a teacher who left the state to make a living wage, I would be a deserter). They are putting teachers up against impossible odds with classes of 30 or more students, outdated and insufficient texts and materials, barely-to-non-living wages, a curriculum that demands both quality and quantity, and now it seems like the state is determined to turn teachers on one another through an inequitable pay scale that kicks veteran teachers while they are down.
The effects of this demoralizing treatment of veteran teachers is not pretty. When teachers are devalued on a state level, eventually they start to see these attitudes trickle down as the profession is deprofessionalized, and the career is treated more like a job. They start to experience this same lack of worth in their own classrooms. Undervalued eventually translates to unqualified, and parents and students will start to mistrust the teachers that the state thinks so little of. Teachers begin to feel like they are working against the parents, students, and the state instead of working with them. By de-professionalizing teachers, our state has ironically created a teacher-centered classroom. Teachers are the problem. Teachers are the solution. So where are the students in this equation?
If you live in North Carolina and you are a fan of common sense, public education, or your children's future, please get in touch with Pat McCrory; let him know that this will not do. Posting on social media about how upset we are is good; it spreads the word. But Pat McCrory is not your Facebook friend. He does not read this blog. And true, he might not read all of his e-mails, but someone does. Please shoot him a quick message and let him know that you value veteran teachers. And if you have the time, hug a teacher.
Pat McCrory's plan is to pay new teachers with 0-5 years of experience $33,000 a year starting in the 2015-2016 school year. That is up from the current $30,800 that first year teachers in NC receive giving teachers with 1-5 years of experience a $2,200 dollar raise. Teachers with 6 and 7 years of experience will also be raised to $33,000 giving them between a $1,780-1,330 raise for the 2015-2016. All of this sounds great. ($33,000 is still a slap in the face when you consider the hours teachers work, but hey, you've heard all of this before). But then, the state's proposed plan gets really stupid. Teachers with 8 years of experience or more won't receive any raises. If you have 8 years of experience, you are going to be making $30 more a year than someone with 0 years of experience.
Before you tell teachers that they only work 10 months out of the year and that they should be thankful that they have a job in this economy, etc, let me tell you a little bit about what being an 8th year teacher in the 2015-2016 school year will be like. As an 8th year teacher, you've put almost a decade of work into your CAREER. You're probably in your early 30s at this point, and many of you have young families. You are attempting to raise a family on a small and offensive salary, and a good portion of it probably goes towards benefits for your children. Let's just hope you married someone that went into a more lucrative career. If you are unmarried without a partner's income to help you, then you are living off of less than $2,000 a month. After rent (because Lord knows you could not possibly own a house since down payments are not a part of your vocabulary), car payment, phone, electricity/water, groceries, gas, student loans, you're probably left with between $50-100. This money allows you to splurge on items such as co-pays, toiletries, and schools supplies that the state no longer pays for. As an 8th year teacher, you came into the profession just in time for the pay freeze. You do not have dental insurance. You went back to graduate school just in time to find out that you weren't going to get the pay-raise for having an advanced degree, and now you cannot even pay back your student loans. You are teaching classes of at least 30 that will take an arbitrary state-mandated test that was probably created to justify someone's job who makes twice what a classroom teacher makes. Now, you are finding out that your state legislators want to give every single teacher that has less experience than you more money.
Pat McCrory, this is a slap in the face.
I am not against North Carolina paying their new teachers more money. I have many former students who will be stepping in the classroom in the next few years; they will benefit from this proposed bill. But at what cost? What North Carolina legislators might not realize is that experience matters in teaching. If I want teaching advice, I talk to a veteran teacher. For my first three years, I was partnered with a veteran teacher who helped me fill out paperwork, understand the school culture, gave me classroom management tips, and literally acted as a shoulder to cry on. New teachers need these veteran teachers. I would not have survived my first 3 years without the mentors I had. If the state pays first year teachers more or as much money as veteran teachers, they are messing with the eco-system (of course, messing with eco-systems is not something NC legislators seem to worry about). There will be rifts and resentment. Successful schools are dependent on collaboration between teachers, levels, and departments; without collaboration, the students and the entire culture of the school suffers. By not offering increases across the board, the state is communicating to veteran teachers that their experience and time is not valued. The state is telling its veteran teachers that they don't matter, and they aren't appreciated. What will happen to those crucial relationships between veterans and beginners after this proposed pay raise?
Teachers frequently refer to being in the classroom as "being in the trenches." I was never crazy about this figure of speech because I always thought the connotation was negative. But North Carolina legislators have made this figure of speech truer than I ever thought it would be. They have waged war on their teachers. (I guess as a teacher who left the state to make a living wage, I would be a deserter). They are putting teachers up against impossible odds with classes of 30 or more students, outdated and insufficient texts and materials, barely-to-non-living wages, a curriculum that demands both quality and quantity, and now it seems like the state is determined to turn teachers on one another through an inequitable pay scale that kicks veteran teachers while they are down.
The effects of this demoralizing treatment of veteran teachers is not pretty. When teachers are devalued on a state level, eventually they start to see these attitudes trickle down as the profession is deprofessionalized, and the career is treated more like a job. They start to experience this same lack of worth in their own classrooms. Undervalued eventually translates to unqualified, and parents and students will start to mistrust the teachers that the state thinks so little of. Teachers begin to feel like they are working against the parents, students, and the state instead of working with them. By de-professionalizing teachers, our state has ironically created a teacher-centered classroom. Teachers are the problem. Teachers are the solution. So where are the students in this equation?
If you live in North Carolina and you are a fan of common sense, public education, or your children's future, please get in touch with Pat McCrory; let him know that this will not do. Posting on social media about how upset we are is good; it spreads the word. But Pat McCrory is not your Facebook friend. He does not read this blog. And true, he might not read all of his e-mails, but someone does. Please shoot him a quick message and let him know that you value veteran teachers. And if you have the time, hug a teacher.
Thank you. You hit the nail on the head.
ReplyDeletePat McCrory has my vote...said no teacher ever.
ReplyDeleteTeachers work but they are not the hardest working. Stupid statement. Go work a manual labor job...
ReplyDeleteAnd tenure should be put to rest. No one should have tenure. Bad teachers with tenure? That makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteThe documentary "The American Teacher," is focused around the claim that the way to improve education in America is linked to having the brightest teachers in the classroom. They then talk about how attracting the best teachers is related to paying the teachers well. Many of the bright students don't go into teaching because of the low pay. The documentary (based off a Dave Eggers book) shows how we need to pay teachers more.
ReplyDeleteMaybe-----this will attract some of the brightest minds into teaching. That's a step in the right direction. 3,000 per year is something. But as you said------this is not going to keep teachers in the profession. The documentary shows about 3 excellent former teachers-------who could not afford to be teachers. They were very skilled people, but didn't get paid enough. And these teachers were sad and the schools were sad and the students were sad.
Nate
Here's a link to the documentary:
http://vimeo.com/23031070
Thanks for always being such a thoughtful reader. Hope you're doing well. I will definitely check out this documentary.
Delete