It’s been a stereotype for at least the last 50 years. Why has this never changed? Why has organized labor not had a substantial effect for such an essential part of the workforce?
The GOP is fully to blame.
They sell the American public on the idea that any taxes are bad, no matter what they are meant to fund. When they are in power they cut public services, give tax breaks to corporations, and schedule tax raises to occur when they’re out of power.
When they aren’t in power they yell about taxes nonstop to make sure democrats are too scared to re-fund them, so they don’t get voted out.
Cycle after cycle, and now there’s no money to give the teachers.
There’s also the feedback loop where they point at the broken underfunded public services and are like “see how shit public services are? They’re a waste of taxes. We could gut them to save you money”
Absolutely intentionally designed to be that way by the GOP and blatantly obvious when you look at their voting records.
They’ve conditioned people to be so against taxes that you have a significant portion of the public saying things like, “why should my taxes fund public schools if my children graduated 20 years ago?”
This country is full of rotten people.
I’ve heard people say this with my own IRL ears. It’s completely indefensible.
It’s a very common sentiment. It comes from people with no kids as well, which is bad enough, but when it’s boomers who had kids go to public school for k-12, it’s just another level.
One of their main arguments against taxes is that government will always waste tax dollars due to corruption and incompetence… Which is a self fulfilling prophecy, as they’ve proven to be some of the most corrupt and incompetent political leaders in history.
That’s by design
A dumb population is easier to control, which is why Republicans since Reagan have been slashing education whenever possible, trying to inject theocracy on there as much as possible, because religious dumb fucks are even easier to control
That cutting salaries helps them with their greed is just a cherry on top of the vomit cake
L
That cutting salaries helps them with their greed is just a cherry on top of the vomit cake
L
/r/redditsniper OH SHIT THEY’VE HIT LEMMY NOW
The answer is always greed.
Teachers tend to like teaching. It’s a rewarding, “feel good” career. You know that you are helping kids, you get to watch them at their best. And, yes, sometimes at their worst, too, but that’s part of the deal - like watching your puppy chew up your couch and shit on the floor. Still worth it.
Since teachers tend to be passionate, they put up with a lot of bullshit admin/management. Moreso than you might at a soulless corporate job. This isn’t limited to teachers, either. Consider other careers where people put up with bullshit, and you’ll see a lot of parallels.
Art is a great parallel example. Everyone loves great art, artists love making art - but many people don’t want to pay for art. That’s why there’s so many passionate actors and musicians, but so few of them manage to eke out a living as a true professional. The passion is there, they are driven by their love of art, not by the material rewards.
The business world loves to take advantage of passion.
Let me tell you a story about a man named Ronald Reagan.
the actor!?
Who’s the president in 1985?!
Please, go on
Supply and demand, along with historic sexism.
- teaching (up to high school) has historically been predominantly women. And yes women used to be paid much less. That gap has narrowed a lot but “women’s work” still tends to pay less
- there are hundreds of thousands of teachers. There are huge numbers. There’s always another
- while it takes a lot to be a good teacher, it’s not so much to “teach”
So I think we have a history of low pay, the vast number militants against that changing, and to appearance anyone can be a “teacher”
Don’t get me wrong my family has significant history in the field and deep respect for the importance and to the huge impact a good teacher can make on someone’s future. But when my kid wanted to teach, after saying I would be so proud as would the vast array of ancestors, I added that you need to be aware of poor pay. To translate to video game, it’s doing life in hard mode
Forget what it says on the tin. To truly understand a society, look at its institutions.
Education isn’t valued by the sociopaths that run the US.
Clarification: Education is so dangerous to the ruling class that they are attempting to remove it.
It hasn’t been for some time.
“Education” is indoctrination. That’s why kids are forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s why I was taught about Columbus. It’s why I believed that “Honest Abe” fought for the rights of slaves.
All bullshit, but each was a small building block to believing that somehow the US was a special place, a blessed nation, where personal expression and equality and opportunity were valued and hard work meant success.
And the sad thing - even at its worst, the US is still a better place to live than 80% of the world.
And the sad thing - even at its worst, the US is still a better place to live than 80% of the world.
I’d say it depends on what you value. If one is born of a certain caste (or above) and wants to accumulate stuff, I’d say you’re right.
We don’t really have castes in the US. But yes, being poor sucks anywhere in the world.
I was speaking more in terms of infrastructure and public assistance. For example, I was able to get a student loan and an education in the States. I have clean, potable tap water. Dependable utilities. Those sorts of things.
We don’t really have castes in the US. But yes
I’d argue the US does. Things such as zipcode and skin color determine outcomes and are inescapable. Economic mobility doesn’t exist as it does in the myth of the American dream. Sure if one is really lucky and works very hard, one can move from living in or on the edge of disaster to being a few paychecks away from disaster.
I was speaking more in terms of infrastructure and public assistance. For example, I was able to get a student loan and an education in the States. I have clean, potable tap water. Dependable utilities. Those sorts of things.
I’d argue that’s not true either. Again, it depends on your zipcode. So many places don’t have potable water, reliable services, or functional infrastructure. One’s ability to get student loans depends on what zipcode they’re born into.
The US government wants people to be stupid so they can be manipulated more easily
There are two parts. First, they aren’t as underpaid as most people think in most cases. The union isn’t dumb. When they negotiate they look at the long term. A career teacher (30 to 35 years) can retire at about 55 give or take depending on the district. And they will get something like 80% of thier salary for the rest of thier life. They will also get subsidized health insurance. And in some states, all of that is tax free. That is a ton of money and a ton of security. And for many, they can retire, collect pension, and go get another job at the same time if they want. I make more than double what teachers make best case, and my wife works too for a 6 figure salary. I can’t possibly retire at 55, let alone feel secure doing so. I also have been laid off twice over the last 30 years, where as most teacher don’t have to worry about that after 10 years. Now, I get to take vacation anytime of the year, I can change jobs or move and not mess up my future benefits. I don’t have to deal with parents. Lots of intangible benefits to not being a teacher. But the point is the union ensures those less obvious benefits, which keeps the current salary low. This keeps the optics of drastically underpaid teachers so that the union can still negotiate for more with public sentiment on thier side. So while they are still underpaid, it isn’t as drastic as it would appear.
The other reason is simple. There are a lot of teachers. Like a lot a lot. And schools are generally built to a higher standard of saftey, so they are much more expensive than other building types. All of this adds up to a very high cost. Education is typically one of the largest expenditures for a state budget. Poloticians could dump more money into it, but it isn’t likely to be enough to make a difference that will get them reelected. So they put money other places that will get them votes.
That’s your reasons why.
There’s a wild spread on both pay and the requirements to work as a teacher. Some places require barely more than a pulse. Some places require years of schooling. Some places pay teachers no better than shelf-stockers. Some pay a decent wage and/or have a decent pension/benefits system. It’s definitely not a monoculture.
Because if public education pumped out smart kids, no one would vote Republican.
Not just in the US.
All the other answers are correct.
Republicans / conservatives in the US are a poison. Delusional, evil. Either opportunist pieces of shit or certifiably the dumbest people in the world.
Their existence is a net negative, period, full stop. Their non-existence…well, take that as you will.
are they not underpaid everywhere else too? I don’t think this is a USA only issue, all public teachers where I live with the exception of teachers for universities complain about low salary
No, in many Euro countires it’s a good-paying middle-class job with reasonable hours. in rich places in the USA, it’s also a good paying job, but the vast majority of the USA isn’t wealthy, it’s poor.
The underpaid people at uni are all the non-tenture track faculty. tenure track faculty are paid well, usually more than double non-tenure faculty.
In Germany it’s just primary school teachers. For secondary school teachers, I think the wages are solid. The working conditions are still absolutely shit which is why I turned away from the profession (at least for now). But the wages are not the problem there.
School budgets are tied to property taxes for the district the schools serve.
