How Shitty Is It?

 Re-upping the Update:

And how shitty is the pay? When I started with LAUSD in 1995, my starting salary was just short of $30,000. I just did a Google thing and that translates to about $58,000 today. A quick look at LAUSD's 2021-2022 salary table tells me that teachers in the district start today at just over $56,000. Teachers have actually lost money in the last 25+ years. Furthermore, unless they take extra classes, it takes them seven years of step increases to surpass my 1995 starting salary. 

If you are thinking, "Yeah, but teachers make up for it at the top end of the scale," and "stick around long enough and you make Hollywood money," you are incorrect. It's true that we have the opportunity to work our way up the scale, but it takes time and it's not as easy as it looks. For example, today's salary table (21-22) shows a top number of $89,245 after ten years during which the teacher completed an additional 98 semester units of study. 

The table defines a semester unit as "a minimum of 15 contact hours with an instructor and 30 hours of outside preparation" which comes to an additional 4410 hours of work in ten years on top of, you know, your job. For you math enthusiasts out there, that's 441 hours or 55.125 eight-hour days per year. It's no wonder that teachers find ways to take easier classes or cut corners if they can. Still, that's a shit-ton of work. Is it worth it?

Short answer: definitely. A colleague of mine used to say to new teachers: Give yourself a raise. He said it to me but I didn't listen. It cost me.

Long answer: not as worth it as it should be. Assuming you work those years and get to the top of the scale, then you have to work twenty years at the top of the scale and get a doctorate to max out at the biggest number on the table: $98,176. 

By comparison, in 95-96 the L.A. Times reported the recently settled contract paid $54,703 at the max. That's over $106,000 in today's money. 

Teachers will always look for ways to augment their actual salaries. We take extra assignments and work extra periods. We mentor and coach and teach during vacations. We work second jobs. 

What we don't do is get rich from teaching. In fact, we're going backward and a majority of teachers here in L.A. can not afford to live in the neighborhoods where they teach. Schooling is expensive, but don't blame teachers. And with all the bad bosses, the surveillance and screaming over "CRT," and gender identity, and sexuality, and test scores, and fucking books, don't blame teachers for leaving.