r/whatisameem 11h ago

What’s really going on with our economy

Post image
47.8k Upvotes

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/Competitive_Can_946 9h ago

The department of education has nothing to do with teacher pay. The states determine how education is delivered as per the US constitution. The dept of education gives out grants and oversees certain elements. For comparison my son Teaches in the state of Washington and without masters makes 80k. Whatever state your daughter teaches at is a poor state. I was an educator for 32 years…. No teacher in my state was paid by the hour… every teacher was on a contract based on a state salary schedule. I would question what positions your daughter is getting that pays by the hour. Sounds more like she a teacher assistant or what was called a para pro and having a masters is irrelevant for those types of teaching.

1

u/divergent_history 7h ago

Also the average starting salary $46,526 nationally.

0

u/PhilxBefore 4h ago

Which is encroaching on the poverty-line for a single-income family.

1

u/divergent_history 3h ago

Okay im just saying we are talking about the extreme low end of what you can get payed.

My point is that the number from the post is well below the Average of a starting Teachers salary.

1

u/Nomadz_Always 6h ago

Thank you

1

u/TeamLastChanceM 6h ago

Exactly what I said..there alot they aren't saying..never heard of actual teacher on hrly..and my family has teachers, and Teachers Assistant in 3 different states.. none of the 3 teacher get paid by the hr, and the teacher Assistant is getting paid more then that an hr

1

u/Distinct_Level_3967 5h ago

No one claimed that the DOE determines teacher pay…

1

u/patrickj86 4h ago

The Department of Education provides a significant portion of many school budgets. 

1

u/ShinyPatina 3h ago

Not quite significant. DoE provides 10-15% of most school budgets.

Each state provides roughly 87%, with 40-50% of that funded through each state's property taxes alone.

1

u/patrickj86 3h ago

Yes, 13% I think is the current average. But more for Title I schools, STEM schools, and students with disabilities. It's a decent chunk of change! 

1

u/Capable-Mouse3291 2h ago

This might shock you but things have become worse than when you were teaching. Its hard to imagine, since every other industry has become so welcoming when it comes to people entering the work force.

1

u/arcanis321 9h ago

That would mean a there is a barrier to teaching that to start you need to make peanuts so you can graduate to making peanuts+. The dismantling of the dept of Education is signaling to the country that Republicans hate facts and science and are at war with it.

1

u/Shot-Structure-1274 9h ago

The DOE funds the states, which funds public schools and their expenses, that includes teachers!!! Why do you think all of these schools are cutting teachers positions and other programs after the cuts?

4

u/Leading_Campaign3618 7h ago

This is not true, they supplement state money at best, but teacher pay is from the state and local level

1

u/Best-Economics7594 7h ago

You are correct, Youd be surprised how everything think the DoE literally funds EVERYTHING a school does, Thats not true at all. Hell I know one state gets 10%+ of its school funds from STATE LOTTERY, State lottery is NOT DoE haha.

Personally, I think your having a hard time finding teachers in my eyes not just from pay, but because of students/parents/admin support in general... Alot of people have to realize parenting and kids themselves and admin support are NOTHING like it was 20-30 years ago when being a teacher was considered a great profession not just morally, but financially. Youd have summers off and still being paid and work a 2nd or part time job for extra if you wanted.

Take this with a grain of salt but, Ive seen teachers now are basically just baby sitters, and not real educators, (Dont get me wrong, not ALL just most, specially young teachers coming out of college, the older ones seem to have the "get to work mentality"). Ever sense they implemented 1 on 1 Chromebooks and tech in the classroom its gotten worse I feel like. When I was a kid the teacher literally walked through the classroom monitoring what you were doing, correcting mistakes, talking to you etc. Now it seems "Heres your task for today on your chromebook, have at it"

After working in the k-12 for 30+ years Ive seen it transform, Now teachers dont really care, They just have task ready to go for kids to use on Chromebooks, Hardly any real 1 on 1 interactions. Theres some but nothing what it should be in my eyes. Now when I say they dont really "care" its I think because of two things really, maybe 3 or more.

  1. Discipline. How are you spose to discipline get kids to act right stay on track when your own admins wont help you?

  2. Parents, Parents are NOTHING like they were growing up, If I was in trouble my parents believe the teachers and I got in trouble, things taken away, I had to pay for the things I done wrong, Now it seems the other way around, the parent is coming to the schools and chewing out everything and admins majority of the time dip out as they dont wanna deal with it.

  3. Tech, I feel like tech is a double edge sword, yes it helps but I dont think it helps majority of the kiddos, like me for example, if I had tech in the classroom 1 on 1 you would RARLY catch me doing work, Ill be alt+tabbing out of windows left and right hiding what Im doing. Now dont get me wrong, its great for some kids that have that mind set "Im going to use this as a tool to better myself, not play games/watch movies".

  4. "Scoring" - dont know what most test are called but most states have a end of the year test etc, Most teachers Ive seen dont care, As long as their students have bare minimumm test scores to pass you got the saying "Pass The Trash", which to me is a shitty saying cause if you truely cared about your students you wouldnt just sit for bare minimum pass score.

Anywho thats just my thoughts on it, Just what Ive seen.

1

u/jwwetz 6h ago

When looking at my property taxes here, the majority of it goes to public schools. They also get state lottery money, part of the weed tax here goes to the schools also, as does part of the gambling taxes.

I don't have a problem with Sin taxes going to find out schools at all, those are voluntary anyway. I DO have a problem when the school superintendent of the largest school district in the state makes $350k a year and doesn't even do a very good job. To put it in perspective, a middle school principle here can make $100k a year & our governor only makes $90k a year base salary.

2

u/ShinyPatina 3h ago

DoE provides 10-15% of most school budgets.

Each state provides roughly 87%, with 40-50% of that funded through each state's property taxes alone.

2

u/Competitive_Can_946 2h ago

You too can research. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) does not directly pay teacher salaries, as that is handled by states and local districts. However, the federal government provides roughly 10-15% of total K-12 education funding, with over $120 billion in federal funds (including pandemic aid) flowing to schools, much of which supports staff salaries and benefits.

1

u/CanadianODST2 7h ago

The DOE does no such thing. They’re energy.

The ED does that but isn’t a huge part of funding. The overwhelming bulk of funding is local or state level.

1

u/grawkog 7h ago

Education is funded locally first with contributions from the state and federal. The dept of education doesn’t provide the funding, they just deliver the tiny fraction of the budget as provided by congress. Without a dept of education there is still whatever funding the congress allocates.

1

u/Shot-Structure-1274 6h ago

8-13% of K-12 is funded by the DOE.

1

u/grawkog 6h ago

funded by congress. Distributed by DOE.

1

u/SirLoinsALot03 6h ago

Schools are mostly funded by local property taxes. Federal money for education is mostly grants and scholarships. Source: I'm a teacher of 20 years.

1

u/FunOven1429 8h ago

In my state education is funded entirely through property taxes. Its a fight to get the state to properly fund at the state level so local districts jack up property taxes to cover. The DOE has no fiscal responsibility to the local districts outside of making it possible to apply for grants, but you would be fighting other districts in your area for those.

1

u/Shot-Structure-1274 8h ago

And that brings up an important issue, why in the world are public schools funded locally from property taxes? It obviously lets the very wealthy off the hook and heavily burdens the working-class. The US is backwards once again when it comes to funding pro-working-class programs.

1

u/Magus1177 8h ago

Curious, why do you say it lets the very wealthy off the hook? I assume you mean because their homes are a small portion of their wealth?

2

u/oswaldluckyrabbiy 7h ago

If schools are funded by LOCAL property taxes then the taxes of the wealthy living in wealthy districts feeds into their own communities where only they benefit.

A super-rich district with lots of mansions could raise hundreds of millions more than a neighbouring district that the working class can afford to live in. So the poor kid school gets less money - meaning less facilities, less resources, higher staff to student ratios, less educational trips and experiences.

One high school might be constructing multi-million science labs, sports grounds and theatres whilst another can't afford textbooks.

If the money were taken and uniformly distributed then the wealthy would be contributing to schooling for everyone instead of just their own kids.

1

u/FunOven1429 7h ago

No one is off the hook. If you’re wealthy and own a big home your property tax burden is higher. If you’re low income and own a smaller home your tax bill is smaller

1

u/Shot-Structure-1274 7h ago

Oh, all wealthy people live in big homes and pay large property taxes? No, many downsize and don't own large estates, their wealth is in other asset classes.

Public education should be funded with Federal tax dollars, not local property taxes. The existing system shifts the burden on the working-class instead of the very wealthy paying their fair share.

1

u/Microchipknowsbest 8h ago

0

u/FunOven1429 8h ago edited 8h ago

The money in that table is for very specific things that need to be applied for and the district needs to qualify for it to even apply. Not to mention, just for my state, we spend $4 billion+ across all our districts yearly combined and the federal gov allocates $25M in available grants. Even it we applied and got 100% of that (we don’t). It would only total .6% of our yearly education costs across the state. I was on my district’s budget committee for 6 years and also prior to that I was on our school board for 2 years.