She got a job working in a corporate office for a big company. This is pretty typical of not-retail-worker-salary beating out public sector nine times out of ten.
Why would someone ever be a teacher for <50k? Anybody with an education background can move to Seattle, Washington (or other state close to big city pay) and be a corporate trainer and move up to a director level role and get paid many times what they would ever be paid as a teacher…
…except so many want to stay near family, not be near a big city, can’t move because of xyz, want a couple months off each year… etc etc etc.
To quote somebody: Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense.
Just isn’t that way today and there is a big political and economic mess in the way of getting there.
Educated young people overthrow governments. You do the math.
I would but there’s no teachers so I don’t know math
Mission accomplished
Uneducated people overthrow governments. Educated people involve themselves so they make a better, longer lasting, more stable and effective government in the long run.
There’s this consistent delusion that if we just burn everything down and start anew that this time it will all work out for the best.
It hasn’t worked for the past two millenia, it’s not going to magically work now. All it does is give rise to new fascist states.
They also want children to learn, which is the biggest thing that draws them to the job and gets them to accept shitty pay.
Teachers should get paid way more than they do.
The mess is allowing decades of union-busting to be effective. Teachers in my state of Victoria (Australia) are heavily unionised, so US$50k is the starting salary. You would absolutely be making what she is now, $64k, if you’d worked for 8yrs like she had.
Edit: And that’s just for public teaching jobs. Australia has way more private schools than the US and those pay even more. With 8yrs of experience it would be easy to get one of those positions and be making $70k.
Those salaries still sound far too low for a teacher, especially since, as I understand it, your dollar doesn’t buy you guys as much as our (US) dollar, or is that just in electronics and video games?
Either way, the vice principal in The Breakfast Club cites that he’s making $35,000 a year in 1985. I’ll assume that’s the higher end of the scale since he’s admin, and has been teaching for years at that point. The thing is that adjusted for inflation that $35,000 is closer to $87,000 today. It’s not just teachers either. No essential worker has had a raise since the early 1970s, in fact we’ve had pay cuts when you look at inflation, and expected productivity.
Edit: just noticed you specified US dollars, sorry.
25 years ago in my suburban Chicago public high school district, my stats teacher brought out the teacher pay schedule for us to play with.
There were six columns:
Bachelors, bachelors+30, bachelors+60 Masters, masters+30, masters+60
The +30 or +60 refer to credit hours of additional college coursework
Each row showed the number of years of experience.
In 1998, the upper-left (fresh out of college, no experience) salary was around $38,500 or something.
The bottom right (masters+60 or doctorate, and 30 or 35 years of experience [I forget]) was $151,000. And they got a great pension (fatter than what teachers in IL starting now will get).
You also got a small multiplier for each extra curricular you ran.
We had mostly excellent teachers as a result. Couple of duds too, but that’s life. 70+% of graduating seniors went to college of some kind within two years. I believe I went to a good school.
But this is what happens when you fund schools through property taxes: the good neighborhoods get good schools, and it propels a virtuous cycle. The bad neighborhoods get bad schools, and they just spiral downward. It’s a dumb way to fund education.
Teaching needs to be a cushy, highly competitive job with entry pay starting at 100k a year. It needs to attract the very best and brightest.
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I see it as part of the contract between the government and the people. All citizens are asked to help plant trees they won’t get to enjoy the shade of.
So, expensive for me who is already completely priced out of ever responsibly having children. We all have a responsibility to the future generations so I’d still vote for it. But oof. It is a tough sell to place even more tax burden on people who will never realize the benefits.
It’s not a sell for the people who will have children. It’s a sell for the children who will grow up under that education and have their job prospects determined by it. Hey - weren’t you once a child?
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It is a tough sell to place even more tax burden on people who will never realize the benefits.
But you will. We all benefit from a well-educated society. A poorly educated workforce isn’t competitive with one that is well-educated, and they attract employers with jobs that can take advantage of them. They provide the work for good-paying jobs and drive the economy we’re growing old in and hopefully retiring from someday.
Public education benefits everyone, not just the children.
The headline is really misleading. She now works for Costco corporate doing marketing training. The typical store employee is still around $18/hour.
This just in: Corporate jobs pay more than public school teaching jobs. Film at eleven!
The headline is really misleading. She now works for Costco corporate doing marketing training. The typical store employee is still around $18/hour.
Downvoting you, because you are mischaracterizing the article content.
The first half of it describes how she started there and the regular positions she had, before she moved up and into the teaching position she has at corporate office, which is similar to the teaching position she had before; both are of a teaching.
From the article…
At first, I made $18.50 an hour — a little less than what I earned as a teacher. I put in 40-hour workweeks, five days a week, and got a $1-per-hour raise when I hit 1,000 hours.
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School teachers often get physically and verbally abused by both parents and students, with the abusers getting little to no reprocussions. In a corporate environment that would get you fired or arrested.
Yes. But that’s not how salaries are determined. Based on that teachers and front-facing retail workers would be the highest paid jobs
Except that we have education requirements for teachers, and retail will hire just about anyone.
The reason teachers aren’t paid well is because we have a culture of funding public services like absolute shit. So despite low supply and high demand for teachers, we just keep adding more and more kids to each teacher, and giving them less and less supplies to work with. While letting wages stagnate.
People need to stop applying free-market thinking to our public services.
My school district is one of the few that pays a competitive wage to be private industry to their teachers in the U.S. The local teacher unions are extremely strong and have had numerous strikes over the years.
They unionized the non-certificated staff and they have gone on strike as well.
This past summer they were getting 100+ applicants for every open teacher position. Every open position is filled easily.
I assume not a conservative state, and in an area with affluent people?
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Just because its obvious doesn’t mean its not also bullshit.
Education is the single most important thing affecting a societies longevity and well-being. If the people responsible for that education aren’t able to support themselves, it erodes the very foundation of the country.
Whether or not it affects the bottom line of an investment firm may be an important metric to you but it doesn’t necessarily mean what’s best for everyone.
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Thats what most capitalists do, and is how we got into this mess in the first place.
Maybe stop looking at what makes the greatest fiscal value and you might start seeing why people are complaining about.
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Doing training in the corporate offices of a for-profit company is going to pay more than a school teacher. This shouldn’t be news to anyone.
And the first half of the article? When you keep describing again and again is the latter half.
The whole article is about somebody’s career profession change and advancement, not just change.
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How TF am I mischaracterizing it? The teacher in this story got a pay bump by taking a marketing job with Costco corporate, not by working in the warehouse. The headline implies that she got a raise by working for her local Costco. That’s misleading.
Well then in that case your reading comprehension is pretty bad.
In September 2022, I started full-time on the memberships team at a new warehouse in Athens, Georgia. I had two 15-minute breaks, and 30 minutes for lunch. Otherwise, I was on my feet all day.
At first, I made $18.50 an hour — a little less than what I earned as a teacher. I put in 40-hour workweeks, five days a week, and got a $1-per-hour raise when I hit 1,000 hours.
The article also describes how she worked in the bakery.
My reading comprehension is fine. Do you understand the difference between the headline and the article?
To recap, my critique is that the headline obscures the real story – that she got a raise by getting a corporate job. “Works at Costco” clearly implies working at a store, not corporate.
The important thing to remember is that she’s still a teacher. She’s just not teaching children anymore, since it doesn’t pay enough. This should be a wake up call to most people…
You are why downvotes should be more common on Lemmy. You’re grossly misrepresenting the article and story.
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It’s not even the teachers in my daughter’s public middle school I have a problem with. It’s the substitutes. They do things like talk conservative politics and threaten any kid who does anything with a 3-day suspension. Crazy shit. These people should not be around children. But the school system gets what they pay for.
And the teachers aren’t all that much better. One put an actual cross and bible quote in her classroom. Again, a public school. I contacted the Freedom From Religion Foundation to get that taken care of. And it was.
I’m my state, substitutes don’t need to have their credential. You get some rough candidates as a result.
That’s usually why they’re substitutes, they have a degree, but no credentials.
I was so annoyed in high school though, because I actually did have a biology teacher who was the opposite. That boogeyman anti-faith “evolutionist” strawman.
He openly polled the class and asked each student, row by row, if they were religious, and that they had to choose between “make believe” and science.
It pissed me off not so much because of what he did, but that he proved that there really were science teachers like that, and all the anti-science conservative families whose children took his class would be using that story as an example of the “evil anti-God agenda” of science educators.
in my opinion, every science teacher should be exactly like that
Child students are a captive audience. The classroom should be a safe place for them regardless of the beliefs they’re taught at home. No teacher should be mocking or bullying students. Let the science and truth speak for itself.
This reads like a bad ad.
Because it’s basically right wing propaganda very subtly pushing the message that we should privatize education and that corporations are good
Then it failed, because it made me want to nationalise education completely and make it free of charge, and to give teachers immense salaries
I’ve asked local Costco workers what it’s like working for Costco. They say the company treats them very well.
Everyone who can should shop there, max markup is 14%, they stand by their products, generous warrantees AND they treat their people very well
Any work reform, pro Union, ethical consumers out there should actively shun Walmart, shove a finger into Amazon’s ass, and shop Costco when possible, support an ethical supply chain
I feel this story buries this: Costco above other stores is a step up from most careers
I bought a router from Costco once and a week later they mailed me a check for $20, explaining that they lowered the price on the item after I bought it. Like, who does that? They have an amazing return policy too. Costco is awesome. If you drive a lot, then just the gas savings alone will cover the cost of membership. If you do most of your shopping there then the executive membership rebate at the end of the year will cover the entire cost of membership plus some extra money.
Edit: oh, and they sell hearing aids and hearing aid batteries at cost, which can save people who are hard of hearing thousands of dollars. Literally thousands of dollars on a one time purchase. For example, they have the top of the line Rexton hearing aids for $1499. Those cost $6,500 at any normal audiologist office.
I have a close friend from high school who has worked there for 15 years now, she said she never thought Costco would be more than a summer job between college searching but she’s happy there and they treat her well. Nothing wrong with that
Well it’s nothing wrong with working at a company who treats their employees well, it’s sad that there are so few companies that we can name off the top of our heads like Costco in the US. What’s sadder is how poorly the teachers in this country are treated.
I work in a Costco. They treat me very well. Far better than the Walmart I worked at prior. Pay is far better too. As an example, I helped run the night shift as an Overnight Support Manager at Walmart. My topped out pay in that role was 50 cents an hour more than my starting pay at Costco. Now, 18 months later, I make more as a frontline grunt at Costco than I did in that management role.
3 years from now, as a frontline grunt, I’ll be making more than the Assistant Manager I worked under at Walmart.
I found your comments weird but the Wal-Marts in the US appear to be garbage.
Just read that average ASM makes $40k a year. The Wal-Mart Canada average salary is $60k. All of the ASMs that I kneel about at the store I worked at made over $100k.
The amount of other shit that you have to do and the long hours makes the US ASM position very unappealing.
The Wal-Marts in Canada also do not have a top threshold for wage. You continue you get you little wage increase each year.
Costco Canada does have a wage cap based on role in Canada. It’s only 3 dollars above min wage here. But you reach that 3 dollars much faster than you would at Walmart
Teacher in school makes half of what teacher in Costco makes sounds like endgame for scociety.
Actually, 2/3rds. If she’s earning 50% more, that means the previous wage was 100 and now is 150. 100 / 150 is 0.6666… or 66.66%, 2/3rds.
Sorry for the pedantism, but it’s the kind of math that needs to be correct to avoid misunderstandings.
Still an awfully sad thing, tho. Teachers should be paid the same as doctors, IMHO.
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If anyone here lives in California, please express your support for AB-938. It increases teacher pay and attempts to maintain it at an inflation adjusted level.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB938
Let you assembly person know we need this now.
c/aboringdystopia
Not only that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more job satisfaction in retail than teaching. Teaching in the US is a dog, and I’m frankly amazed they haven’t already run out of teachers.
Not just the US.
You also didn’t read the article, at all - clearly
Yeah, you got me
This is becoming more and more common overall.
An acquaintance of mine I met while working a help desk job: He was in process of getting his degrees to become a teacher, did so and taught high school math for 5 years. As much as he loved, and took pride in, the work he did with teens and making a difference, the continued stress of a bullshit administration (at 2 different schools and districts) took its toll. He left, becoming a corporate training (see, still teaching) and I’ve seen a marked difference in his attitude and life. He has less stress and a fatter paycheck.
Teachers shouldn’t be put though the wringer and not be expected to react. “There’s no workers shortage, just a shortage of slave labor” is more evident in their profession than any other (outside possibly food service).
When I got sick Costco graciously moved me to a food prep and service position!
<_< That’s so great…
Good thing us Lemmings read more than just the headline, right? Right??
Top comment says NOOOOOOO
A Costco recruiter wrote this article (and probably made this post)
Clearly there would be a bias there, but are they wrong?
While I’m one that normally would suspect such a thing myself, honestly, they wouldn’t need to, they already have such a great rep in the states where they’re located.
lemmy should ban corporate lobbyists
The beauty of lemmy is that if you can come up with a way to do that effectively, you can just host your own instance that does that.
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Far-right media and muslim extremist are going hand in hand, blaming school of turning kids transgender. I cant believe I just wrote that sentence. Here in Canada and Québec, no one wants to work in school anymore because of those brainwashed idiots, and I dont blame them. You think school teachers have a agenda because they try to teach kids about having basic human decency? Then fucking school your kids at home and let’s see how that goes. I am fed up will all those idiots who chose to boycott their brain.
If enough teacher leave, maybe we’ll start to pay them more
Some states? Maybe. Georgia (as mentioned in the article), likely not. There has been a continual war on education in the US and we see it on display every election cycle.
Despite their best efforts (including paying teachers in red states poverty wages), those who would keep us dumb and scared are frustrated to find a new generation that doesn’t give a fuck about division along arbitrary demographic lines and is increasingly aware of class warfare.
This drives further education cuts and cries from extremist/hate motivated groups to further crack down on our schools because these parents are so weak willed as to be offended by diversity and critical thinking.
I hope these are the last dying wails of this kind of hatred and ignorance, but I’m not taking that for granted. Vote, educate, and promote solidarity and unity at every opportunity because the shitheels who are on the other side will fight tooth and nail to destroy education funding and cut down our teaching corps.
Edit: How a teacher of eight years experience is making $47k a year is a travesty.
Florida’s approach was just to give anyone with a police or military background a teaching license.
They won’t up teacher pay. They’ll just hire shittier teachers because the primary highlight of public education is that it is free daycare for their exhausted, working parents.
“primary highlight of public education is that it is free daycare for their exhausted, working parents.”
In their eyes. That doesn’t make it true. Education is, and should be treated as, the backbone of society.
Nah, the only people that will still be teaching will be ideological extremists and people that want to hang out with children for other reasons.
Oof…you’re probably right to a degree. And that will make culture war polarization even worse when it comes to what is taught in public schools. It will be a sad state of things, when the majority of teachers are mere activists.
As I understand it, the problem with teacher pay is with corruption in the school system, not the schools themselves not getting enough money. They have plenty of money, but they’re still not paying their teachers well.
They’ll just shut down the schools
Well thats depressing
An inspiration, all teachers should do this!
