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Why You Want Your Kids’ Teachers to be Paid Well
by Hailey Johnson
American teachers make about $65,000 on average (Walker, 2021). The people molding our children — spending seven hours per day with them, teaching them how to process concepts, and largely dictating their futures (and therefore our futures) — make $65,000. Not only is their job inherently crucial and powerful, but it is also extremely demanding. Teachers adhere to core curriculum while creating and delivering detailed lesson plans, help twenty-five rowdy kids to be quiet and absorb material, deal with students’ difficult personal situations, and take home two to three hours of work after all of that every day (Weir, 2019). One of the most influential action steps this country should take to improve the American education system is increasing teachers’ salaries. And there are three main reasons why that is.
First, they would feel more appreciated, which increases confidence, cheerfulness, and efficacy in and out of the classroom. Feeling more appreciated in the workplace is associated with higher performance across every sector of industry. As we continue the metamorphosis of education from liberatory practice to marketed commodity education, teachers need to be paid as the professionals they truly are. Second, with teaching having a higher average salary, more people would be interested in becoming educators. With…
