The Importance of Paying Good Teachers Well

I made a decision this week and despite my feelings of loyalty, I know it is the right decision for my family. I am leaving teaching. I’m not sure if this is a permanent decision, but it is necessary. My decision is not about the administration nor the students.

My decision is based solely on money.

I cannot afford to work any longer.

My husband and I should be able to live a comfortable life. We are both professionals and together we make more than so many. We have a child, rent an apartment, pay for a car, pay for childcare, and we never splurge on anything fun. We have not been to the movies in almost 2.5 years and going to Taco Bell is a luxury. We don’t shop for ourselves and we don’t travel. We don’t purchase things on credit and we try to find deals. But we are broke. We are living paycheck-to- paycheck on a salary that would sustain us if we lived somewhere else.

We are stressed and for what?

We did what we were supposed to do: we succeeded in school and went on to college and I even got a Masters. My mother promised me that if I did all of that I would be able to live a charmed life. But I am not.

We are not.

I take my child to a sitter for 10 hours a day so that I can bust my ass at work to educate children in a system that doesn’t want me to succeed. I take on other projects at school to earn extra money only to be told that there is no money in the budget left to pay me. I work a second and sometimes third job just to make ends meet (and they never do because the more I work the more I have to pay in childcare). I am challenged on a daily basis by students and the administration. I am too exhausted to give my daughter the attention she deserves and I am angry.

This is not the life that I have struggled to put together.

This is not the life that I want.

We talk a lot about teacher pay, but no one ever says the hard cold truth: the only way to retain good teachers is to pay them better. Plain and simple. Teachers need to provide for their own before they can provide for others, but the current system says that teachers are second-class citizens and are not worthy of being paid a professional’s wage.

We talk a lot about TFA and why it’s member’s move on after two years, but no one says that the bottom line is staying in the classroom is not where the money is. And while I think the program does need to do a better job at encouraging rentention, I also know that no one wants to be working all the time (as most good teacher are) for less than what a Customer Service Manager with less education is paid ($54,000/yr according to PayScale.com).

So, I have decided to leave teaching all together right now, rather than go to a better paying district. I am a good teacher. I finally believe that. But good teachers are a dime-a-dozen in the better paying districts. I am not needed there. I am needed in the inner-city. I am needed there but I cannot afford to stay there.

Teaching in a NYC Public School is my civic duty but being honorable doesn’t pay the bills.

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