The Teacher Retention Is A Serious Problem

As a young student, I have always aspired to become a teacher. Growing up, what I realized was that teaching is my future. Teaching is all I have focused on for years, slowly preparing myself to become a teacher. It is my passion and it was I believe I am meant to do. The only thing that worried me over all was the amount of money that a beginning teacher gets paid. I worry because of my future family. I worry that I won't be able to support them with a low-paying salary that teachers receive. I do not want to juggle around more than one job because that would bring stress and take away my focus from teaching. Though it is not about the money and I would never do it for the money, I worry that I won't be able to live off a teacher salary. Teacher pay should increase because higher salaries would improve the quality of the candidates applying for teaching positions, retaining teachers will become easier, and overall to improve the quality of teachers so the success of students would improve.

     High school teachers’ average salary varies across the world. The United States is said to be one of the richest countries in the world, yet our teachers are being paid one of the lowest amounts. The Education Intelligence Agency, author of the article “Ohio Teacher Overcomes Union’s Tolerance” published an International Teacher Salary Report ranking the fifty states by “how much the average salary exceeded per capita personal income.” According to the Education Intelligence Agency Ohio’s percentage rate is only fifty- five point one percent. According to the Education Intelligence Agency the lowest state percentage is in South Dakota at twenty- three point six percent and the highest state percentage is

The low pay for our educators is causing many negative effects. New York Times shows that the low income is causing sixty-two percent of teachers to have a second job outside of their teaching jobs. Just to have enough money to support their families and make ends meet. Most everyone decides to college to prevent having these struggles with money, and to avoid having to work multiple jobs, when they get older; however, not when it comes to living off of only a teacher’s income, the struggles to have enough money are interminable. This low pay is also causing most teachers to retire, and find new jobs. New York Times states, “every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the

The past decade has been hard on teachers, especially in 2002, when President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind went into effect. This brought about yearly testing from 3rd grade to 8th grade. If every child was not “proficient” and was “left behind” by the the education system then the school would be subject to sanctions. The worst

Did you know that only one of a thousand teachers is fired for performance-related reasons? Teachers with bad performance are not being fired in America, which is caused the fact that teachers are backed up by tenure, but it can be fixed through changing the criteria a teacher should be fired on. Today, I will go over in detail what the problem, causes, and solution is to the issue of having bad teachers keep their job in America. So, first and foremost, I will discuss the problem about bad teachers not being fired.

some people may be scared off from becoming a teacher because of their pay. why is it so low?

A teacher’s salary has come a very long way in the U.S. from 1980 to now, it went from 15 (elementary) and 16(secondary) thousand a year to 57 and 59 thousand a year as average. That is a pretty decent change in just a little over thirty years. But as the salary went up so has the cost of living, so, in reality, it is not much help. Texas is the state with the most teachers since 2014. Texas has a total of 342,257 and California comes in second while New York comes in third (statista). That is a lot of people, who all happen to be on a state salary schedule in Texas. What this means is that teachers all get paid the starts salary and depending on who has been there longer than others determine who gets a bonus or raise.

This is another factor which could lead to high teacher turnover in the United States. The current teacher average salary has just gone higher by less than 4 percent from the salary of nearly two decades ago. This way, the teachers are not able to cope with the high inflation and escalated cost of life with this pay. This makes teachers to have high mobility rate in search for better jobs or the so called greener pastures.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranking, the United States of America is considered mediocre in its educational performance. In a competitive world where average is just not adequate for the well-being of a nation, experts have theorized that to improve the country’s education our schools need to revaluate different factors of the education system. Some have even speculated these factors are the teacher’s tenure. In fact, some claim tenure is the reason why the United States’ education system quality is on its downward slope. In order for one to determine if the country’s education is suffering from tenure, one need to have a full understanding of its function and how teachers use tenure. One would also need to know the benefits of this contract by understanding how tenure relates to discrimination, academic freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of religion. However, one would also need to have knowledge of the cons of teacher’s tenure by analyzing how the dance of the lemon’s policy and the reassignment centers do not allow teachers to improve and how much tenure can cost the school districts.

Finally teachers don't get paid much. Many people don't are thinking of becoming a teacher don’t become one because of that reason. Luckily there is still enough teachers to go

Public educators care not about the money when going into this field of work, they care about the children, the environment, and the willingness to help others. Though teachers typically do not worry about the pay, it would be appreciated greatly if they actually got paid for the work they put into their job. According to the National Education Association, “Cutting teacher pay is not the solution for economic woes” (Kowarski). Kowarski states “Every teacher I know is making sacrifices, some have lost homes and cars”. Teachers give so much for so little in return. On average Kansas teachers make around forty to forty-five thousand dollars annually. This is not enough money for all they do for kids. They spend money out of their pocket to get

Many people turn away from teaching because of the low income salary, and the thought of continuing school for the next twenty plus years scares them, yet they don’t

Many colleges and universities throughout the United States and several other countries face a common problem. Student retention is a growing problem across the nation for all ethnic groups and all ages. Each individual who chooses to drop out of school has their own personal reasons as to why they do. However, many drops out can be completely avoided. When students drop out they are not clearly thinking about how it’s going to affect their future, the future of their children and even grandchildren. Although there are several reasons as to why students drop out of school, we will be exploring a few as it relates to why student retention is a growing problem.

With beginning teachers usually earning entirely less than other college graduates, the profession is at loss of top-notch, quality people who tend to find jobs seeking more money. Almost 50 percent leave the profession within 5 years, lured by higher pay and prestige elsewhere in the booming U.S. economy (World, 1999, par. 7). Starting teachers average a $25,735 salary in the United States compared to an engineer earning $56,820 or a physical therapist earning $56,600 (Engineer, 2000, par.1). And what signal does it send out about the value of good teachers and a good education when a 45-year-old teacher with a master’s degree earns $45,000 a year and a 25-year-old out of law school often starts at $80,000, considering a six year education for a master’s degree and a seven year education for a law degree (Greenhouse, 2002, par. 4)? A teacher is also given no compensation for the long hours spent basically in overtime work. The teacher’s day does not end when they leave school because if lesson plans, grading, or planning is not completed, it will have to be finished on their own time. Accountants, paralegals, and engineers all are compensated and get paid overtime for work that does not get completed in a regular day or if they want to stay and

After teaching, people either tend to retire or find work in other fields. Some teach until they are able to retire, but some cannot afford to retire so end up taking a different job to earn more money. Educators can retire after 35 years of teaching or at the age of 6, earning around forty thousand dollars to seventy thousand dollars a year after retirement. Most public educators use that money to pay off the rest of their debts and tend to not lose all of their money. After teachers retire, some even end up coming back to teach for a few more years because they miss the kids or the environment, or because they need more money. “The discontinuation of work with the arrival of retirement is a process surrounded by complexity and challenges,