Teachers are such a fucked up system that its hard to visualize just how bad it is. Having worked in teacher support orgs in the past, I can tell you... its bad

Teachers are such a fucked up system that its hard to visualize just how bad it is. Having worked in teacher support orgs in the past, I can tell you... its bad. - There are definitely bad teachers out there. The older the get the worse they get. But what's really counter-intuitive is that the teacher filter is absolutely backwards. The teachers who are smart, tallented, and trully exceptional... they end up leaving and getting better professions. Anyone who is tallented with mathematics has a real chance at getting a job in IT/Programming. And I've seen trully caring teachers just leave because a 3x pay increase OVERNIGHT is much more of a quality of life improvement than any sort of feel good from teaching. The worst with no other opportunities stay. And the best lave. And sometimes the best stay, but it is an exception, not the rule. - Teachers are overworked, underpaid, and often pay from their own pocket. They burn out. Worse, they often can't afford to live where the work is. And to make things even worse, the more educated they are, the harder it is to find work. I know a PHD who wants to teach highschool because he loves it... he has to basically find a school so despearte for teachers that they can't pass on him, because any other school thinks that the small pay the union demands to increase him by is just not worth it. - Teachers in cities get paid so little they can't afford rent. Seriously, 50k salaries in NYC. Even at 60k its basically poverty pay, and you need a Masters!!! - 1 in 3 teachers burn out within a couple of years. This has been a very consistent statistic. 60k is far too low. I don't think teachers should be paid below 100k fresh out of school. The work is hard, and we need people fighting to get these positions by showing excellence. This is our future, we should not give it to the shittiest educators who can't afford not to be a teacher. Every time I talk to a teacher who's smart, all I can think of is "literally you can find work in the tech sector, even doing just customer service, for double your pay" My sister is working on her masters (lots of cost) and is a NYC teacher (not DOE, she gets paid a bit better working for a charter school). She cannot afford to move out of our parent's house because her quality of life would go down drastically because most of her money will go to survival. The fact that she gets to save 24k a year on rent (pretty much the minimum rent I could find that's not dilapidated) allows her to live even a bit. Not to mention that she has to still pay the 6-7 years of college tuition out of pocket. OH and she's specialized (special education).