Teachers deserve better

Most people have one job.

Maybe it’s being a student, an engineer or a doctor. But no matter what you do, you go to work or school with a list of tasks you’re expected to fulfill. For teachers, it’s not that simple. In minutes, they go from educator to doctor, psychologist to athletic coach. Nowadays, they’re also being asked to become protectors.

But as educators are increasingly required to wear more hats, their pay decreases.

According to Axios, the average pay for teachers in Florida has decreased $2,000 from 2010 to 2016 both in terms of actual pay and pay adjusted for the cost of living.

It’s not just Florida. This week, teachers in Oklahoma are on strike, protesting lack of pay and increasing class sizes. The strike comes after a successful strike in West Virginia where schools were closed for nearly two weeks when teachers across the state refused to work without higher pay. In the end they received a 5 percent pay raise.

But you won’t see this type of action in Florida. Florida teachers are not allowed to go on strike because of collective bargaining and because Florida is a right-to-work state, according to NPR. Teachers get to negotiate their contracts and working conditions, and in turn they cannot strike — it’s against the Florida Constitution.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t support better pay for Florida teachers. In fact, we need to make sure young people aren’t discouraged from going into the education profession.

According to a 2017 report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. pays its teachers, on average, 60 percent less than similarly educated professionals in other countries.

The 456-page annual report examined countries like Argentina, China and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the most worrying part of the findings is the idea that teaching is becoming “increasingly unattractive for young people.”

If this is true and the workforce decreases, what will become of the education system in the U.S.? What will happen when we don’t have enough people to guide our future leaders? Teachers matter, and we should value their place in society.

The U.S. has a problem with respecting the educators of future generations, and their pay is the start of it. We must start recognizing the important role teachers play in helping children succeed.

Nowadays, there is an underlying belief in our society that teachers “don’t work much.” This is not true. Teaching is not an 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. job. The OECD report explains these professionals spend an average of 1,005 hours working per year.

Teachers should get a raise — not just because they need it, but because they deserve it. They deserve more than just an appreciation day each May.

If we really want to show them they make a difference, we should give them a paycheck to match — not just a continental breakfast once a year.