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Protein Bars, Paper, a Rabbit: What Teachers Buy for their Classrooms with Their Own Cash.
(www.the74million.org)
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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I respect teachers, I help the pto, I donate time and money. And I vote for just about anything the school asks for. But I do get a little tired of the constant "outrage" the some teachers buy things for their job. Lot's of people do that. I buy things for my job, and generally they cost more. Focusing on this is really a distraction from the real problems. Asking teachers to do so many things beyond just teaching. Like social worker, phycologist, nurse, cell phone police, fight referee.... and all without the support they need from the administration, district, and state. Let's focus the outrage on that. That will give thier unions the clout they need to negotiate better compensation.
As a teacher, fuck no. I am furious I have to spend my little cash on resources.
My retirement plan is to off myself, let’s be outraged that we can’t even afford to live despite working our whole life.
Yes, your second paragraph is what I am talking about. Focus on the things that might be actionable. The reality is that teachers will probably always spend some of thier own money, just like other professionals. So raging against it is a distraction and it isn't an actionable problem really. Overall compensation, proper spending on support, not asking teachers to wear 27 hats... those are actionable. Those are what we need to be raging about, just like your last sentence.
It's not ok for a company or the government to make you buy things to support their business. If you are buying things for work with your own money and you arent self employed you are being taken advantage of. That's why this is a big deal. They are taking advantage of the love these teachers have to save some money. Not fair.
I got news for you. Business and the gov are taking advantage of all of us in far worse ways. They manipulate the economy to keep overall compensation down among other things.
And noone is making anyone spend thier own money in this situation. The fact is the powers that be are willing to pay for a specific level of quality in education. The teachers want to raise that level. So they are willing to use thier own money to do so. I work in software, and it is similar. The business is willing to pay for a certain level of quality. It is never as high as the user or the employees want. So we often spend our own time (money) to make it better quality. No business or government is going to pay for a quality level such that employees won't want to raise it more. That is just capitalism.
So the root of the problem is the disparity in desired quality for education.
We have been griping about teachers spending thier own money for longer than I have been alive. Almost nothing has been done. But imagine the gov just paid them all back. A few hundred a year per teacher on average. But what is really needed is many thousands per teacher per year.
The teachers unions around where I am are getting with the program. They told the district what they want, and they included that they want the state to pay for some of it. For too long unions have accepted agreements based on what the district can afford. But it really isn't the teachers problem that the state underfunded the district. And it is working. Teachers have some leverage right now. It needs to be used before it goes away.
I get where you're coming from but money is an immediate necessity so a teacher doesn't have to use what little cash they have to enrich the educational experience of their students instead of having enough to eat for themselves. Low pay is what's driving away so many good teachers from the profession in the first place.
I hear you, but being outraged by this has changed nothing in the last 20+ years. That is because it is just a distraction from the real issues that would lead to better pay.