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ReformedDeviant t1_jae62tr wrote

Higher salaries and improved working conditions generally attracts labor.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_jaeyceo wrote

Tell that to the 39 states that pay teachers less than in PA. I have a hard time believing there is huge shortage with how elderly the state has become. An issue may be that state colleges are the third most expensive in the country. PA is an odd states that plows dump trucks of money into k12 and hardly anything into colleges.

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Open_Veins_8 OP t1_jae4vfn wrote

As for the underlying conditions contributing to the root causes of the teacher shortage, the report suggests a lack of respect for teachers in the U.S. may be partially to blame, citing the favorable workplace conditions and generous pay teachers receive in other developed nations, and comparing the general treatment of American teachers to the treatment of those in other professions.

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sintactacle t1_jaeqgg3 wrote

I live in a somewhat rural area of the state and the lack of respect and resentment towards teachers is real for a segment of the population. They will fight against any attempt to raise local taxes to increase funding for schools. The thought of more of their paycheck going towards funding schools is something they cannot stomach because their pay is already suppressed and below average for their line of work.

They, or as they see it, nobody else, is putting a fight for them for their financial well-being so why should they be forced to improve the well-being of teachers and their own kids in school.

There's a reason teachers don't like living in this district they teach in due to the local hostility this scenario naturally creates. In their eyes, it's not okay to see a teacher drive a newer car then them, go out to eat at a restaurant when they rarely do or even have nicer clothes then them.

They don't want to risk the repercussions of trying to improve their own financial well-being or maybe it's not even a thought to them, I don't know. They would rather see others deal with their current struggles and misfortunes then try to improve their current situation.

It's a work harder, not smarter mentality they live by. Nobody should get more than the 2% a year "If you're lucky!" raise they have gotten each year for the past x years at company z. If you want to make more money, put in 30 hours of overtime. Instead of fighting for better wages, which they truly deserve, they'd rather do what they can to bring others down to their level.

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ThePizzaTimeBandit t1_jaf11mv wrote

I think part of the issue here that's not addressed is how grossly overpaid school administration can be. Raising taxes != teachers getting paid more. If it did, people's tunes might change. Just as an example, one superintendent in Reading school district makes 245k a year.

https://govsalaries.com/mumin-khalid-144652791

That's ridiculous, especially considering how economically depressed Reading is.

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ArlingtonHeights t1_jaf48ka wrote

This.

The number and cost of administration in schools has been increasing exponentially for decades while teacher salaries have stayed relatively flat.

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Pink_Slyvie t1_jaf3arc wrote

For a superintendent job, that doesn't seem too high, they would make more than that in the private sector with the needed skills.

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Pink_Slyvie t1_jaewt57 wrote

Raising taxes is one solution, an arguably better one is raising minimum wage to a living wage, the increased tax revenue would let them easily increase wages (I doubt they would, but still).

In reality though, teaching needs to be a universal. The quality of your education shouldn't be lower because the cost of living there is.

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tyrael459 t1_jaefpuh wrote

I’ll say it a million times: Everyone loves to bitch about teachers. They always have. But when your kids are home all the time or there are kids out and about at all hours of the day because schools are canceling classes from lack of teachers, tunes will change pretty quickly.

The ugly reality is that most of us wouldn’t make it a year as a teacher. We wouldn’t put up with their abysmal salaries and working conditions. It’s a thankless job that too many people have spit on for too long, and it’s gonna come back to bite us big time.

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rwilcox t1_jaeja07 wrote

Sadly “change” probably means letting some half PTSDed veteran (elder) Millennial get a teaching job with a handshake and $25k/year

Sooo many Iraq/Afghanistan war vets in PA… (really wish our way of treating vets was better than thoughts and prayers and hope 7 deployments Over There didn’t duck you up too much LOL let’s close some VAs)

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MonsterNog t1_jaerety wrote

I’m a full PTSD’d disabled military millennial and wouldn’t work for $25k a year

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tyrael459 t1_jaekwki wrote

Yea. It’ll be interesting to see what happens down the line in these states where they’re handing out certs to all sorts of people in hopes of filling the vacancies.

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Odd_Shirt_3556 t1_jaeqes9 wrote

Think education results will be bad, wait till the police/law enforcement hiring crisis comes home to roost. Bad teachers make stupid people. Bad cops make dead people.

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drxdrg08 t1_jaetxnf wrote

> their abysmal salaries

What is this based on?

There was plenty of discussion here about the Central Bucks school district.

And it was established that the median salary is $94,472 and $58,573 in benefits = $153,044 total compensation.

By what definition is this abysmal?

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Fightforoldc t1_jaeweh8 wrote

If there's a district paying 153k to teachers I'll put in tomorrow to change districts.

You should not add benefits to income. Benefits are not income, they are money taken out of income to assist you later.

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tyrael459 t1_jaey5ld wrote

My kid’s district just upped their step 1 salary over 50k for the first time ever. Not a heck of a lot of bachelor’s degree- required jobs that still hire under 50k, regardless of area. The teachers in this district also went without any sort of raise for five years. Not even a cost of living increase all that time.

And from what I hear, benefits aren’t what they used to be, either. High deductible plan that’s not too different from my own.

That’s pretty abysmal for a college-educated profession, if you ask me.

Central bucks may be much better off money-wise, I don’t know. They may also have a faculty that leans older and therefore has accumulated better salaries, I don’t know. And as the other guy said, adding benefits to someone’s salary like that is disingenuous.

Edit: Shit, sorry, I totally ducked that up. It’s actually a starting salary just over 30k for the first time. Holy shit lol

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Trout-Population t1_jaeu5dd wrote

School Boards across the state are being taken over by the ultra-right wing who want to make the next generation of students as dumb as they are, and making teacher's lives Hell in order to do it. Just look at that High School librarian in Bucks County who the school board demanded take down a poster of an Elie Weisel quote. If we want to fix the teacher shortage, we need to ensure good people win school board elections and stop this non-sense.

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drunkmonkey176 t1_jae8bcw wrote

I can't imagine being a teacher these days and having to deal with Y'all Qaeda trash.

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ProleAcademy t1_jaeoav6 wrote

I make a little over $60K doing a non-teaching job I am very much over, but has good work conditions and understanding supervisors.

I think I could love teaching, and I am considering getting my Level 1 certification but I wonder if I can afford the massive pay cut to deal with a 50% longer workday, constant harassment by Moms for Liberty and an administration that breathes down your neck about how you teach yet won't have your back when you need to discipline or hold back students whose actions require that. All while having to get another master's in five years.

Y'all need teachers in PA but you aren't willing to get them yet. If you aren't willing to a) push for centralized statewide funding that is equal per student and doubles teacher salaries or b) pay way more in property taxes, then you don't really want more teachers and you don't want a more stable, richer society for your children.

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yeags86 t1_jaeqa4i wrote

I don’t even have kids nor do me and the wife plan on them but I agree with this.

Also the sports shit is out of control. Why the fuck does the high school I went to need several astroturf fields? Waste of money.

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ProleAcademy t1_jaeqsvo wrote

$0 should be sent on football or administrators positions (beyond 1 principal per school and a superintendent) if you can't adequately fund and keep qualified teachers, social workers and provide free school meals

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1ndomitablespirit t1_jaejfq8 wrote

Get rid of half of the administrators and pay teachers more.

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dksmama t1_jaeo96t wrote

I agree with this..... There are 3 admins sitting gossiping every time I go into my son's school no matter what time of the day. My son's teacher is awesome and deserves double what she's paid.

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1ndomitablespirit t1_jaesrtl wrote

The ladies in the schools themselves aren't as large of a problem as the ones who run the districts. I worked IT in a school district for awhile and the amount of wasted time and money in the Administration office was staggering. I got to spend a lot of time in the schools and the Admin building and, generally, all the people who work in the school buildings are just doing the best they can with what they are given to work with.

No, I was left with the impression that great teachers couldn't be dragged from the classroom for buckets of cash. That's not why they do it. The bad teachers, many of whom really did become teachers because they had nowhere else to go, want out of the classroom as quick as humanly possible. The only place for them to go is Administration.

At least in the districts I worked in, a promotion out of a school meant your starting salary was now higher than any teacher salary in the district. A large district will spend millions a year on Admin salaries that only occasionally step foot in a school.

While I can't say for scientific certainty, I've worked in enough Education environments to see a trend. I know correlation isn't causation, but...I found that workplace politics were the number one determining factor in anything getting done in Admin. They left IT alone, but forget that IT sees all.

So, you have failed teachers who are know in charge of how students are taught. Since they couldn't handle the classroom, they don't understand how to educate children. When you factor in Common Core and No Child Left Behind, even a team of the most competent people would have trouble making that work. We don't have competent people working in schools. They either get marginalized, or pushed out.

These people also tend to branch out into the private industry that caters to schools: Curriculum, technology, etc. These are ALSO the people that interface with government. So the entire power structure of the education system are failed teachers who exploit the system for their own benefit.

This is a bit of hyperbole because there ARE good Administrators out there. They are just the minority and have to struggle with a corrupt system to get anything done.

Don't even get me started on School Boards!

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dksmama t1_jaet6dm wrote

I agree with everything you said.

The admins I'm talking about are highly paid administrators- not the front desk ladies that I love!

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NerdyRedneck45 t1_jaeo7dc wrote

I worked at the highest paying district in my area ($48k, one-year sub job) and spent my last roll of dimes on pencils. I quit teaching after a year when that contract was up when I realized I literally couldn’t afford it.

Also it was awful working conditions, no support, and I was miserable and probably would make the kids miserable if I stayed any longer. And I was making $15k more than some of the folks from my home district. How the hell.

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divacphys t1_jaeogzn wrote

Philly and the burbs pay pretty well. But it's the working conditions and the lack of respect from parents, students and admin

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dippin20s t1_jaekd1c wrote

pay them more and help them out in the classroom

check it out boys i solved the problem

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South_Divide_4329 t1_jaeruk9 wrote

I can’t wait for some form of minimum wage adjustment, cause I know I’m quitting my manual labor job immediately to go work at a Sheetz for $15hr/$20hr. We know dang well the other industries won’t adjust their pay in accordance, so inevitably there will be a larger shortage of not only teachers, but workers in fields across the board. I know my one buddy, who teaches US Government/Social-Studies here in PA, is bidding his time for an incremental wage increase across Pennsylvania so that he can leave his under-paid and under-appreciated job as an educator.

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hippata2023 t1_jaesjcn wrote

PA's handling of the education major is absurd. Students were petrified of being caught drinking underage (shocking!) because they were afraid of being found out and dismissed from their major.

There are just so many other professions that pay (substantially) more and demand far less. The only people who become teachers nowadays are the true zealots, and that population shrinks every year.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_jaexr8q wrote

This isnt an unbiased peer reviewed source. There could be motives behind promoting the idea there is a shortage. Teachers will say there is a shortage to justify higher pay, while school board will say we need more new teachers to push salaries lower. Does anybody know what the actual supply demand balance of teachers is in the state?

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