Central Piedmont Community College ENG 112 Report: Low Teachers Pay

This report investigates the issue of low teacher pay in the United States, exploring the profession, providing evidence, and analyzing the implications. The report begins with an overview of the teaching profession and the requirements to become a teacher in the US. It then presents evidence of low teacher pay, including global salary reductions, financial hardships faced by teachers, and teacher shortages. The report highlights statistics and facts, such as low pay in certain states, and the impact of gender wage gaps. It also examines the consequences of low pay, including teacher strikes and the impact on teachers' mental health. The conclusion emphasizes that teachers in the US are not adequately compensated and that the teaching profession is undervalued. The report also includes a bibliography of sources used.

9/17/2019
RUNNING HEAD: TEACHING
ENGLISH
LOW TEACHERS PAY

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Profession overview.........................................................................................................................3
Evidences.........................................................................................................................................3
Explanation......................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................6

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Abstract
The report initiates by providing a brief overview of the teaching profession. It focuses
on the aspect of becoming a teacher in the United States. The next section emphasizes on the
various practical examples and evidence that proves that teachers are paid low in inadequately
with respect to their knowledge and occupation. It also provides various statistical figures with
respect teaching profession in United States and global world.

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Introduction
The report is prepared on the title ‘Low teacher’s pay’. Teaching is one of the customary
profession. It is a highly upright occupation as an educator acts as a candle that lights up the lives
of the individuals. However, it has emerged as a major interrogation that whether teachers are
waged satisfactorily or not in United States. The report provides significant information about
the profession of teaching. It showcases the various evidences that determines the condition of
teaching profession at the current state. It includes actual facts and figures that provides an
insight of the teaching profession in United Sates. The given evidences and explanation will
suggest that teachers are not paid adequately.
The key purpose of the report is to emphasize on the major aspect of the given topic. It
also provides an opportunity to upgrades the knowledge.
Profession Overview
Teaching is a profession that gave rise to other professions. It is a profession that assists
the individual to in gaining adequate knowledge about the academics, society and global world.
It enables the individual to sustain in the world. It is responsible for developing the mind and
personality. It provides a base to achieve a respectable and high position in the society as well as
in the corporate world. Additionally, the main objective behind the teaching profession is not
profit or monetary gains but bettering the society at large. Thus, teaching is a meaningful and
highly respectable job as it aims at imparting and sharing knowledge (Hooks, 2014).
It is examined that becoming a teacher is not an easy task in the United States. This is
because, an individual should be highly educated. It requires a preparation of around five years
to establish footprints in the teaching profession (Boser, 2014). They have to get a certification
from the state government to initiate their teaching practices. Thus, investment done in the
teaching profession does not matches the pay (Lederman, 2014). This can be viewed from the
evidences discussed in the proceeding section.
Evidences
From the global perspective, it is studied that there is a reduction of 4.5% on the average
teacher salary (Long , 2019). Additionally, a 52 year old teacher has states that ‘I work 3 jobs
and donate blood plasma to pay the bills’ (Reilly, 2018). This statement was given by the history

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teacher named as ‘Hope Brown’ of Woodford Country High Scholl. She donates her plasma
from the blood to make her electricity and car payment. The above statement alone shows the
economic hardship faced by the teachers in United States because of low wage rate. This can
also be viewed from the figure presented below:
Figure1: Bar graph focusing on teachers wages
Source: (Myers , 2019)
It is examined that United States is facing a shortage of teachers. Thus, it acts as an
evident that teaching profession is paid less in monetary terms. It is researched that around
300000 teachers have left the profession. Hence, it ultimately resulted in declining number of
teachers in the United States (Myers , 2019). It is researched that from the initial time, teachers
of elementary schools are paid considerably low (Temin , 2019). According to the Department of
Education, teachers are paid 5% lower than the previous years. It emphasis on the five states in
United States with lowest teacher pay. It includes Colorado, West Virginia, Oklahoma,
Mississippi and South Dakota. It is highly surprising too know that in all these states, teachers

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are paid below the average pay of $58,951 (Picchi , 2018). Thus, it states that teacher’s condition
is really severe in certain states in United States.
Additionally, Payscale is one of the facts that resulted in the low teacher’s pay. Some
degree of gender wage gap is still prevalent in United States as well as in other countries like
India. Similarly, teaching profession is mainly marked by the female gender. Thus, one of the
reason for low teachers’ pay is women dominance in the teaching field. The above evidence give
rise to another fact supporting the title. It is examined that Women’s are less likely to negotiate
in professional life. Thus, it also results in low teachers’ pay (Darling-Hammond, 2015).
Explanation
As per the various facts and media news, it states that teaching profession is not
appreciated in United States. Hence, it lacks proper Payscale. This profession provides relatively
low wage rate as compared to other professions in United States. This in turn, resulted to serious
mass strikes by teachers in United States in 2018. This strike was led by a total of 35000 teachers
(Sainato , 2019). Low Payscale has also given rise to the stress and depression among the
American teachers (Ryan, 2017). Thus, it has directly affected the mental health and well-being
of the teachers (Ednewsdaily , 2019).
Conclusion
The report focuses on the title ‘Low teachers’ pay’. From the above discussion, it is
assessed that teaching is a highly respectable profession. However, it is assed that it is not much
appreciated in the United States. It is evident from the factors such as low wage rate, mass strike
by teachers and reduction in teacher’s number. The above discussion states that because of low
wage rate, American teachers are facing issues with health and finance availability. Hence, it is
evident that teachers are not paid adequately in the United States. Additionally, it also states that
teaching profession is not much valued. Therefore, it lacks proper Payscale.

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Bibliography
Boser, U. (2014). Teacher Diversity Revisited: A New State-by-State Analysis. Center for
American Progress.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2015). Want to close the achievement gap? Close the teaching gap.
American Educator, 38(4), 14-18.
Ednewsdaily . (2019). It’s Time To Support The Mental Health & Well Being of Teachers.
Retrieved September 17, 2019, from http://www.ednewsdaily.com/its-
time-to-support-the-mental-health-well-being-of-teachers/
Hooks, B. (2014). Teaching to transgress. Abingdon: Routledge.
Lederman, N. G. (2014). Research on teaching and learning of nature of science. Abingdon :
Routledge .
Long , C. (2019). Average Teacher Salary Down 4.5% Over Past Decade. Retrieved September
17, 2019, from http://neatoday.org/2019/04/29/national-average-teacher-
salary/
Myers , K. (2019). America's teacher shortage, driven by low pay, is 'worse than we thought'.
Retrieved September 17, 2019, from
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/teacher-shortage-us-low-pay-
161926212.html
Picchi , A. (2018). The 9 states where teachers have it worst. Retrieved September 17, 2019
Reilly, K. (2018). I Work 3 Jobs And Donate Blood Plasma to Pay the Bills.' This Is What It’s
Like to Be a Teacher in America. Retrieved September 13, 2019, from
https://time.com/longform/teaching-in-america/
Ryan, S. V. (2017). Leaving the teaching profession: The role of teacher stress and educational
accountability policies on turnover intent. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 66, 1-11.
Sainato , M. (2019). Low pay, large classes, funding cuts: behind new wave of US teachers'
strikes. Retrieved September 17, 2019, from

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https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/27/low-pay-large-
classes-funding-cuts-behind-new-wave-of-us-teachers-strikes
Temin , P. (2019). Low Pay, Low Quality. Retrieved September 17, 2019, from
https://www.educationnext.org/low-pay-low-quality/