\Teachers in our nation have repeatedly gone on strike in protest of their lack of compensation.
One instructor revealed her salary online by posting her pay stub after deciding to participate in the debate. And that created quite a stir.
Most people wouldn’t do what Elisabeth Coate Milich did. Because she wanted to raise awareness about the salary teachers receive in a nation where people don’t usually discuss their finances and earnings in public, the Arizona schoolteacher chose to share her pay stub on social media for everyone to see.
Milich wanted to demonstrate that she and her coworkers do not get a living wage in spite of the extensive education needed to become teachers. According to TODAY, Milich’s Facebook post revealed that she only received a $131 rise in a year, as her income increased from $35,490 to $35,621, despite being deleted due to the overwhelming negative comments she received.
In her post, Milich stated, “I actually laughed when I saw the old salary versus the new one.”
“To make this, do I need a college degree? Although I am aware of my little income, when
It appears to me in black and white. “Wow!” I exclaim. Even though I genuinely enjoy teaching, you can’t survive on it when you consider the pay.
According to CBS News, Milich, a longtime educator who teaches second grade at Phoenix’s Whispering Wind Academy, says she contemplated whether or not to post her salary. Although Milich’s picture is more depressing than most, she ultimately made the decision that she wanted to demonstrate what a teaching wage actually looks like in her state.
Even though Arizona has among of the lowest-paid public school teachers in the country, their average pay is not $35,621, as shown on Milich’s pay stub.
In contrast, the average income is $47,218 annually, which is still low when compared to the national average of $58,353 per year, according to National Education Association research.
Even while those figures sound far better than what Milich’s photo conveyed, she took sure to note that teachers are frequently left to cover the cost of student materials like tape and markers without receiving payment. Twenty years after graduating from college, she is still making loan payments.
Milich claims that she would be in serious trouble if it weren’t for her husband’s pay. She is aware of this as some of her colleagues educators aren’t as fortunate to have a second source of income. “To make ends meet, my teacher friends with whom I work work three or four jobs,” Milich said. She continued, “I know kindergarten teachers who work all day and then go work as waitresses at Applebee’s.”
She asserted, “If you are a single person trying to make it on what we make, you couldn’t do it.” Research seems to support her argument that teaching is becoming an unsustainable career. Indeed, a 2017 investigation conducted by Arizona State University’s
Arizona’s teacher recruitment and retention rates are at “crisis” levels, according to the Morrison Institute for Public Policy. According to the report, elementary school teachers in Arizona receive the lowest salaries in the nation, and 42% of newly hired teachers quit their jobs within three years.