Unpopular opinion: DCPS teachers are super well paid!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this discussion alarming. There is so much people don't understand about the reality on the ground.

For example, did you know that a recent survey showed over half of recent entrants are thinking about at least leaving the current employer by 2027? More than a quarter in some places are thinking about leaving the profession entirely.

Another data point shows over 40% of these workers are thinking about or definitely leaving their chosen field.

I just don't understand how all of these arm-chair bloviators can talk about teaching is and how extreme the desire there is to leave the field without understanding all of this...

Well played, PP. Though most people won't bother to click those links or put in the mental effort necessarily to understand the point.

These links are about lawyers and doctors. Maybe they would have less burn out if they got summers off like teachers!

But they are so well-compensated! It's almost like compensation alone is not enough to retain everyone in a profession, especially when the work itself may be a bad fit for certain people, or when some people wind up in poorly run organizations where no amount of fit and high compensation can make up for bad management or culture.

Again, teachers often seem to think they are making arguments unique to the teaching profession when many of their complaints are shared by other professionals. I feel like teachers often view themselves as separate from other professionals, arguing both that they are paid less and their work is uniquely difficult or unpleasant. But the core point of this thread is that teachers, at least in DC, are pretty in line with other professionals in terms of pay AND job satisfaction. Sure, most doctors and some lawyers make way more than public school teachers. But I can think of a bunch of lawyer jobs in DC where starting pay is under 100k, for instance, and where the ceiling on pay is like 120k at the most. And these are people who probably had to borrow a minimum of 50k to become attorneys -- most teachers don't need to do that even if they get their masters.

I just wish teachers viewed themselves as the peers of parents, instead of locked in some battle to argue who "owes" each other and who has it worse. It's this weird zero sum game with no real winners. I don't think it makes sense for me to be giving my kids' teachers lots of gift cards and expensive gifts (we always send thank you cards and do participate in reasonable teacher appreciation efforts). But I also don't expect my kids' teachers to be available nights and weekends or spending their own money on classroom supplies.

I just think an attitude of mutual respect would go a long way here. So I don't get the effort to try and guilt parents into believing that teachers are to be pitied. Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this discussion alarming. There is so much people don't understand about the reality on the ground.

For example, did you know that a recent survey showed over half of recent entrants are thinking about at least leaving the current employer by 2027? More than a quarter in some places are thinking about leaving the profession entirely.

Another data point shows over 40% of these workers are thinking about or definitely leaving their chosen field.

I just don't understand how all of these arm-chair bloviators can talk about teaching is and how extreme the desire there is to leave the field without understanding all of this...

Well played, PP. Though most people won't bother to click those links or put in the mental effort necessarily to understand the point.

These links are about lawyers and doctors. Maybe they would have less burn out if they got summers off like teachers!

But they are so well-compensated! It's almost like compensation alone is not enough to retain everyone in a profession, especially when the work itself may be a bad fit for certain people, or when some people wind up in poorly run organizations where no amount of fit and high compensation can make up for bad management or culture.

Again, teachers often seem to think they are making arguments unique to the teaching profession when many of their complaints are shared by other professionals. I feel like teachers often view themselves as separate from other professionals, arguing both that they are paid less and their work is uniquely difficult or unpleasant. But the core point of this thread is that teachers, at least in DC, are pretty in line with other professionals in terms of pay AND job satisfaction. Sure, most doctors and some lawyers make way more than public school teachers. But I can think of a bunch of lawyer jobs in DC where starting pay is under 100k, for instance, and where the ceiling on pay is like 120k at the most. And these are people who probably had to borrow a minimum of 50k to become attorneys -- most teachers don't need to do that even if they get their masters.

I just wish teachers viewed themselves as the peers of parents, instead of locked in some battle to argue who "owes" each other and who has it worse. It's this weird zero sum game with no real winners. I don't think it makes sense for me to be giving my kids' teachers lots of gift cards and expensive gifts (we always send thank you cards and do participate in reasonable teacher appreciation efforts). But I also don't expect my kids' teachers to be available nights and weekends or spending their own money on classroom supplies.

I just think an attitude of mutual respect would go a long way here. So I don't get the effort to try and guilt parents into believing that teachers are to be pitied. Why?

Teacher here. I don’t need you to pity me. I also don’t need you to write me cards or get me gifts.

I do wish DCUM would acknowledge that I understand my job better than non-teachers do. This thread is filled with posts telling me I’m lucky because I get summers off and because I get paid well (80K). If I dare to mention that the job is hard and I feel overworked, I’m immediately met with “oh, yeah? My job is hard! Why do you think you’re special?”

I don’t think I’m special. I do think that I understand my job, and the many challenges inherent to teaching, far better than somebody on DCUM who has never taught. I would never presume to know what a doctor or lawyer does each day, nor would I question the challenges of their job. But I’ve posted here about the challenges of mine, and I’ve been immediately dismissed and told I don’t understand that others have it hard, too.

So partnership works both ways. I bend over backwards for my students and their parents. All I ask in return is the respect that I might know my job and its conditions a little more than you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this discussion alarming. There is so much people don't understand about the reality on the ground.

For example, did you know that a recent survey showed over half of recent entrants are thinking about at least leaving the current employer by 2027? More than a quarter in some places are thinking about leaving the profession entirely.

Another data point shows over 40% of these workers are thinking about or definitely leaving their chosen field.

I just don't understand how all of these arm-chair bloviators can talk about teaching is and how extreme the desire there is to leave the field without understanding all of this...

Well played, PP. Though most people won't bother to click those links or put in the mental effort necessarily to understand the point.

These links are about lawyers and doctors. Maybe they would have less burn out if they got summers off like teachers!

But they are so well-compensated! It's almost like compensation alone is not enough to retain everyone in a profession, especially when the work itself may be a bad fit for certain people, or when some people wind up in poorly run organizations where no amount of fit and high compensation can make up for bad management or culture.

Again, teachers often seem to think they are making arguments unique to the teaching profession when many of their complaints are shared by other professionals. I feel like teachers often view themselves as separate from other professionals, arguing both that they are paid less and their work is uniquely difficult or unpleasant. But the core point of this thread is that teachers, at least in DC, are pretty in line with other professionals in terms of pay AND job satisfaction. Sure, most doctors and some lawyers make way more than public school teachers. But I can think of a bunch of lawyer jobs in DC where starting pay is under 100k, for instance, and where the ceiling on pay is like 120k at the most. And these are people who probably had to borrow a minimum of 50k to become attorneys -- most teachers don't need to do that even if they get their masters.

I just wish teachers viewed themselves as the peers of parents, instead of locked in some battle to argue who "owes" each other and who has it worse. It's this weird zero sum game with no real winners. I don't think it makes sense for me to be giving my kids' teachers lots of gift cards and expensive gifts (we always send thank you cards and do participate in reasonable teacher appreciation efforts). But I also don't expect my kids' teachers to be available nights and weekends or spending their own money on classroom supplies.

I just think an attitude of mutual respect would go a long way here. So I don't get the effort to try and guilt parents into believing that teachers are to be pitied. Why?

Teacher here. I don’t need you to pity me. I also don’t need you to write me cards or get me gifts.

I do wish DCUM would acknowledge that I understand my job better than non-teachers do. This thread is filled with posts telling me I’m lucky because I get summers off and because I get paid well (80K). If I dare to mention that the job is hard and I feel overworked, I’m immediately met with “oh, yeah? My job is hard! Why do you think you’re special?”

I don’t think I’m special. I do think that I understand my job, and the many challenges inherent to teaching, far better than somebody on DCUM who has never taught. I would never presume to know what a doctor or lawyer does each day, nor would I question the challenges of their job. But I’ve posted here about the challenges of mine, and I’ve been immediately dismissed and told I don’t understand that others have it hard, too.

So partnership works both ways. I bend over backwards for my students and their parents. All I ask in return is the respect that I might know my job and its conditions a little more than you.

I am finding this topic--or maybe just the direction that it has gone in recently--super interesting. I have been an attorney for the past decade. Before I changed careers and went to law school, I was an urban high school teacher for over a decade in a region with a higher cost-of-living than DC. I am also the child of a long-term (now retired) teacher in a wealthy DC suburb and a (now retired) GS-15 federal employee. When I was a teacher, I was earning a slightly lower salary than I would have if I had been teaching in DC at that time and FAR less than I would have earned teaching in a wealthy DC suburb at that time. Given my personal experiences as an urban teacher and now a lawyer, and having watched my parents serve in their positions for 30+ years, I think DC teacher are underpaid.

It is indisputable that teaching does not require the same level of education as law (for example), but at least in my experience, being a teacher is a much more challenging and draining job, at least if you're doing it well... and that (not the salary) was the primary reason why I left teaching. That said, I don't really know if someone who has never taught for at least a few years or been in a close familial relationship with a teacher can really understand how much [good] teachers work or how challenging the work is. Most years I had three preps (subjects/classes to prepare), including at least one AP course, and one prep period per day. There is no way I could create meaningful lessons for three different preps, do all of my grading/respond to student work, attend to my administrative duties, call and email parents, use the bathroom, and eat my lunch (no matter what time my prep period was, it was the only time I ever had to eat during the day) in 50 minutes per day... but the work still had to get done, so I did it after school every evening and over the weekend.

As a result, I was working an average of 70 hrs/week as a teacher... I basically felt like I had to choose to leave teaching, to start doing the absolute minimum possible at work and do a crappy job (which would have still taken about 50 hrs/week), or to not have a family. I wanted a family and didn't want to be a shitty teacher, so I chose to leave teaching. I now have a kid and work about 50 hrs most week... I make a ton more money and, if I'm being honest about it, my actual work is much less draining and the challenges are very different (but overall much more positive). I do miss high schoolers, but I do not miss being a teacher. My teacher parent worked about 50 hrs/week doing the bare minimum and wasn't particularly good at their job, but they still made a lot more than a teacher in DC would have! My government employee parent worked 40 hrs/week at a job that wasn't onerous and made more money than my teacher parent--they do have a master's degree, just like I had as a teacher, not a professional degree.

All of that said, this doesn't mean that I think I am obligated to give gifts to my kid's teacher or that anyone should be obligated to give gifts to their kids' teachers... and I'm sorry some parents feel that way. I do, however, respect my kid's teachers a heck of a lot and I do whatever I can to make their job easier... and that's all I ever wanted from my students' parents when I was teaching: acknowledgment that I had a challenging job and was doing my absolute best, even if I wasn't always perfect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this discussion alarming. There is so much people don't understand about the reality on the ground.

For example, did you know that a recent survey showed over half of recent entrants are thinking about at least leaving the current employer by 2027? More than a quarter in some places are thinking about leaving the profession entirely.

Another data point shows over 40% of these workers are thinking about or definitely leaving their chosen field.

I just don't understand how all of these arm-chair bloviators can talk about teaching is and how extreme the desire there is to leave the field without understanding all of this...

Well played, PP. Though most people won't bother to click those links or put in the mental effort necessarily to understand the point.

These links are about lawyers and doctors. Maybe they would have less burn out if they got summers off like teachers!

But they are so well-compensated! It's almost like compensation alone is not enough to retain everyone in a profession, especially when the work itself may be a bad fit for certain people, or when some people wind up in poorly run organizations where no amount of fit and high compensation can make up for bad management or culture.

Again, teachers often seem to think they are making arguments unique to the teaching profession when many of their complaints are shared by other professionals. I feel like teachers often view themselves as separate from other professionals, arguing both that they are paid less and their work is uniquely difficult or unpleasant. But the core point of this thread is that teachers, at least in DC, are pretty in line with other professionals in terms of pay AND job satisfaction. Sure, most doctors and some lawyers make way more than public school teachers. But I can think of a bunch of lawyer jobs in DC where starting pay is under 100k, for instance, and where the ceiling on pay is like 120k at the most. And these are people who probably had to borrow a minimum of 50k to become attorneys -- most teachers don't need to do that even if they get their masters.

I just wish teachers viewed themselves as the peers of parents, instead of locked in some battle to argue who "owes" each other and who has it worse. It's this weird zero sum game with no real winners. I don't think it makes sense for me to be giving my kids' teachers lots of gift cards and expensive gifts (we always send thank you cards and do participate in reasonable teacher appreciation efforts). But I also don't expect my kids' teachers to be available nights and weekends or spending their own money on classroom supplies.

I just think an attitude of mutual respect would go a long way here. So I don't get the effort to try and guilt parents into believing that teachers are to be pitied. Why?

Teacher here. I don’t need you to pity me. I also don’t need you to write me cards or get me gifts.

I do wish DCUM would acknowledge that I understand my job better than non-teachers do. This thread is filled with posts telling me I’m lucky because I get summers off and because I get paid well (80K). If I dare to mention that the job is hard and I feel overworked, I’m immediately met with “oh, yeah? My job is hard! Why do you think you’re special?”

I don’t think I’m special. I do think that I understand my job, and the many challenges inherent to teaching, far better than somebody on DCUM who has never taught. I would never presume to know what a doctor or lawyer does each day, nor would I question the challenges of their job. But I’ve posted here about the challenges of mine, and I’ve been immediately dismissed and told I don’t understand that others have it hard, too.

So partnership works both ways. I bend over backwards for my students and their parents. All I ask in return is the respect that I might know my job and its conditions a little more than you.

I am finding this topic--or maybe just the direction that it has gone in recently--super interesting. I have been an attorney for the past decade. Before I changed careers and went to law school, I was an urban high school teacher for over a decade in a region with a higher cost-of-living than DC. I am also the child of a long-term (now retired) teacher in a wealthy DC suburb and a (now retired) GS-15 federal employee. When I was a teacher, I was earning a slightly lower salary than I would have if I had been teaching in DC at that time and FAR less than I would have earned teaching in a wealthy DC suburb at that time. Given my personal experiences as an urban teacher and now a lawyer, and having watched my parents serve in their positions for 30+ years, I think DC teacher are underpaid.

It is indisputable that teaching does not require the same level of education as law (for example), but at least in my experience, being a teacher is a much more challenging and draining job, at least if you're doing it well... and that (not the salary) was the primary reason why I left teaching. That said, I don't really know if someone who has never taught for at least a few years or been in a close familial relationship with a teacher can really understand how much [good] teachers work or how challenging the work is. Most years I had three preps (subjects/classes to prepare), including at least one AP course, and one prep period per day. There is no way I could create meaningful lessons for three different preps, do all of my grading/respond to student work, attend to my administrative duties, call and email parents, use the bathroom, and eat my lunch (no matter what time my prep period was, it was the only time I ever had to eat during the day) in 50 minutes per day... but the work still had to get done, so I did it after school every evening and over the weekend.

As a result, I was working an average of 70 hrs/week as a teacher... I basically felt like I had to choose to leave teaching, to start doing the absolute minimum possible at work and do a crappy job (which would have still taken about 50 hrs/week), or to not have a family. I wanted a family and didn't want to be a shitty teacher, so I chose to leave teaching. I now have a kid and work about 50 hrs most week... I make a ton more money and, if I'm being honest about it, my actual work is much less draining and the challenges are very different (but overall much more positive). I do miss high schoolers, but I do not miss being a teacher. My teacher parent worked about 50 hrs/week doing the bare minimum and wasn't particularly good at their job, but they still made a lot more than a teacher in DC would have! My government employee parent worked 40 hrs/week at a job that wasn't onerous and made more money than my teacher parent--they do have a master's degree, just like I had as a teacher, not a professional degree.

All of that said, this doesn't mean that I think I am obligated to give gifts to my kid's teacher or that anyone should be obligated to give gifts to their kids' teachers... and I'm sorry some parents feel that way. I do, however, respect my kid's teachers a heck of a lot and I do whatever I can to make their job easier... and that's all I ever wanted from my students' parents when I was teaching: acknowledgment that I had a challenging job and was doing my absolute best, even if I wasn't always perfect.

Thank you, sincerely, for this acknowledgment that teaching can be hard. That’s really all some of us need: to be understood. Our experiences are so often dismissed.

Thank you, and I’m glad you’ve landed somewhere good for you!

[Anonymous]

I greatly respect my kids' teachers and I think they are doing their best (well, most of them). I appreciate all the hard work they do. I definitely don't have the temperament to work with kids all day!

That said, I think their pay is fair, and I do think summers off (along with other breaks) is a definite perk! Nothing wrong with recognizing this. My job offers free dinner, which I would never claim is not a perk, even though using it means I'm working late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I greatly respect my kids' teachers and I think they are doing their best (well, most of them). I appreciate all the hard work they do. I definitely don't have the temperament to work with kids all day!

That said, I think their pay is fair, and I do think summers off (along with other breaks) is a definite perk! Nothing wrong with recognizing this. My job offers free dinner, which I would never claim is not a perk, even though using it means I'm working late.

The point of the past few pages is that the perks you see (summers and pay) aren’t as much of a perk to people in the profession.

As teachers continue to quit, districts will need to finally address the working conditions. It isn’t pay that is driving people away. It’s conditions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I greatly respect my kids' teachers and I think they are doing their best (well, most of them). I appreciate all the hard work they do. I definitely don't have the temperament to work with kids all day!

That said, I think their pay is fair, and I do think summers off (along with other breaks) is a definite perk! Nothing wrong with recognizing this. My job offers free dinner, which I would never claim is not a perk, even though using it means I'm working late.

The point of the past few pages is that the perks you see (summers and pay) aren’t as much of a perk to people in the profession.

As teachers continue to quit, districts will need to finally address the working conditions. It isn’t pay that is driving people away. It’s conditions.

Conditions that seem to have a lot to do with bureaucracy.

Which parents have minimal role in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I greatly respect my kids' teachers and I think they are doing their best (well, most of them). I appreciate all the hard work they do. I definitely don't have the temperament to work with kids all day!

That said, I think their pay is fair, and I do think summers off (along with other breaks) is a definite perk! Nothing wrong with recognizing this. My job offers free dinner, which I would never claim is not a perk, even though using it means I'm working late.

The point of the past few pages is that the perks you see (summers and pay) aren’t as much of a perk to people in the profession.

As teachers continue to quit, districts will need to finally address the working conditions. It isn’t pay that is driving people away. It’s conditions.

Conditions that seem to have a lot to do with bureaucracy.

Which parents have minimal role in.

Nobody on this thread (and I’ve read the entire thing) has said parents are the problem.

Several teachers, including me, have simply asked to be the judges of their own working conditions. Many of us feel the pay and the highly-praised summers aren’t good enough compensation for the conditions. It’s okay for us to feel that way, and dismissing our experiences is a tad disrespectful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this discussion alarming. There is so much people don't understand about the reality on the ground.

For example, did you know that a recent survey showed over half of recent entrants are thinking about at least leaving the current employer by 2027? More than a quarter in some places are thinking about leaving the profession entirely.

Another data point shows over 40% of these workers are thinking about or definitely leaving their chosen field.

I just don't understand how all of these arm-chair bloviators can talk about teaching is and how extreme the desire there is to leave the field without understanding all of this...

Well played, PP. Though most people won't bother to click those links or put in the mental effort necessarily to understand the point.

These links are about lawyers and doctors. Maybe they would have less burn out if they got summers off like teachers!

But they are so well-compensated! It's almost like compensation alone is not enough to retain everyone in a profession, especially when the work itself may be a bad fit for certain people, or when some people wind up in poorly run organizations where no amount of fit and high compensation can make up for bad management or culture.

Again, teachers often seem to think they are making arguments unique to the teaching profession when many of their complaints are shared by other professionals. I feel like teachers often view themselves as separate from other professionals, arguing both that they are paid less and their work is uniquely difficult or unpleasant. But the core point of this thread is that teachers, at least in DC, are pretty in line with other professionals in terms of pay AND job satisfaction. Sure, most doctors and some lawyers make way more than public school teachers. But I can think of a bunch of lawyer jobs in DC where starting pay is under 100k, for instance, and where the ceiling on pay is like 120k at the most. And these are people who probably had to borrow a minimum of 50k to become attorneys -- most teachers don't need to do that even if they get their masters.

I just wish teachers viewed themselves as the peers of parents, instead of locked in some battle to argue who "owes" each other and who has it worse. It's this weird zero sum game with no real winners. I don't think it makes sense for me to be giving my kids' teachers lots of gift cards and expensive gifts (we always send thank you cards and do participate in reasonable teacher appreciation efforts). But I also don't expect my kids' teachers to be available nights and weekends or spending their own money on classroom supplies.

I just think an attitude of mutual respect would go a long way here. So I don't get the effort to try and guilt parents into believing that teachers are to be pitied. Why?

Teacher here. I don’t need you to pity me. I also don’t need you to write me cards or get me gifts.

I do wish DCUM would acknowledge that I understand my job better than non-teachers do. This thread is filled with posts telling me I’m lucky because I get summers off and because I get paid well (80K). If I dare to mention that the job is hard and I feel overworked, I’m immediately met with “oh, yeah? My job is hard! Why do you think you’re special?”

I don’t think I’m special. I do think that I understand my job, and the many challenges inherent to teaching, far better than somebody on DCUM who has never taught. I would never presume to know what a doctor or lawyer does each day, nor would I question the challenges of their job. But I’ve posted here about the challenges of mine, and I’ve been immediately dismissed and told I don’t understand that others have it hard, too.

So partnership works both ways. I bend over backwards for my students and their parents. All I ask in return is the respect that I might know my job and its conditions a little more than you.

I am finding this topic--or maybe just the direction that it has gone in recently--super interesting. I have been an attorney for the past decade. Before I changed careers and went to law school, I was an urban high school teacher for over a decade in a region with a higher cost-of-living than DC. I am also the child of a long-term (now retired) teacher in a wealthy DC suburb and a (now retired) GS-15 federal employee. When I was a teacher, I was earning a slightly lower salary than I would have if I had been teaching in DC at that time and FAR less than I would have earned teaching in a wealthy DC suburb at that time. Given my personal experiences as an urban teacher and now a lawyer, and having watched my parents serve in their positions for 30+ years, I think DC teacher are underpaid.

It is indisputable that teaching does not require the same level of education as law (for example), but at least in my experience, being a teacher is a much more challenging and draining job, at least if you're doing it well... and that (not the salary) was the primary reason why I left teaching. That said, I don't really know if someone who has never taught for at least a few years or been in a close familial relationship with a teacher can really understand how much [good] teachers work or how challenging the work is. Most years I had three preps (subjects/classes to prepare), including at least one AP course, and one prep period per day. There is no way I could create meaningful lessons for three different preps, do all of my grading/respond to student work, attend to my administrative duties, call and email parents, use the bathroom, and eat my lunch (no matter what time my prep period was, it was the only time I ever had to eat during the day) in 50 minutes per day... but the work still had to get done, so I did it after school every evening and over the weekend.

As a result, I was working an average of 70 hrs/week as a teacher... I basically felt like I had to choose to leave teaching, to start doing the absolute minimum possible at work and do a crappy job (which would have still taken about 50 hrs/week), or to not have a family. I wanted a family and didn't want to be a shitty teacher, so I chose to leave teaching. I now have a kid and work about 50 hrs most week... I make a ton more money and, if I'm being honest about it, my actual work is much less draining and the challenges are very different (but overall much more positive). I do miss high schoolers, but I do not miss being a teacher. My teacher parent worked about 50 hrs/week doing the bare minimum and wasn't particularly good at their job, but they still made a lot more than a teacher in DC would have! My government employee parent worked 40 hrs/week at a job that wasn't onerous and made more money than my teacher parent--they do have a master's degree, just like I had as a teacher, not a professional degree.

All of that said, this doesn't mean that I think I am obligated to give gifts to my kid's teacher or that anyone should be obligated to give gifts to their kids' teachers... and I'm sorry some parents feel that way. I do, however, respect my kid's teachers a heck of a lot and I do whatever I can to make their job easier... and that's all I ever wanted from my students' parents when I was teaching: acknowledgment that I had a challenging job and was doing my absolute best, even if I wasn't always perfect.

Nice post. I agree with you. I can imagine it is draining to be with kids or teenagers all day long. I certainly could not do it

[Anonymous]

Having been a teacher and now a paralegal, the amount of stress in my day has vastly decreased, even though the problems I work on are much higher stakes than in teaching. I cannot believe I get to use the restroom whenever I want instead of once per day at the end of my 8 hour shift. If I have a doctor's appointment for myself or my child, I don't have to spend 2 unpaid hours at home the night before preparing detailed instructions, worksheets, and lesson plans for a substitute on how to present my current content and differentiate it for the varying levels of need in my Special Education class.

If my child needs to go to the hospital, I don't have to worry about my supervisor emailing me from the ER that she still expects me to submit additional sub plans. If I'm harassed at my law firm, I can leave at any time and get a different job anywhere I want. In teaching, if you leave a building in the middle of the year, it's considered breaking your employment contract with the entire county, which means you will be unable to be hired by any other school in the entire county. You are not allowed to quit your job from August to June.

I can take a 5 minute call from my child's doctor's office confirming her appointment, instead of having to call when I get out at 4 and hope the receptionist is still there. I'm allowed to have lunch! I get to sit and eat without a supervisor forcing me to cover another teacher's class during my "lunch break", unpaid. There's a clause in teaching contracts where you agree to do "other duties as assigned" by a supervisor, which turns into forced unpaid overtime and no breaks. Refusing to comply will get you written up for insubordination.

All in all, while the actual job duties of teaching are less stressful than legal work, the working conditions are so vastly superior that I honestly don't feel like I'm working at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS teachers are not only extremely well paid, they also get pensions, unlike virtually all other city employees (and unlike basically all private sector employees). They can retire with full benefits at 55! It's an amazing deal.

It just sucks that we couldn't reserve high pay for high performing teachers, given how terrible (generally speaking) DC schools are.

I’ve posted on other threads about teachers - I’m an attorney (former legal aid, public defender, prosecutor over the course of my career) who is applying to Teach for America as a midlife career changer. I wanted to be a teacher since I was a kid, but was pushed in another direction by judgmental parents who are now thankfully dead.

I have a few years prior teaching experience at the university level when I was a graduate TA and later adjunct faculty.

In anticipation of going to work in Title I schools as a teacher, I recently took a job working in a before and after school program at my local YMCA. These kids all attend Title I schools and 80% are on vouchers because they are from low income families.

All I can say is that given the kind of behaviors I have witnessed in just a few short weeks in this job, I have lowered my expectations to an aspiration that I will be able to help a few kids every year to actually substantially advance in their education.

These kids are being failed in the home first and foremost, and it is unrealistic to expect a single teacher (even with an aide or two in the classroom) to fix all the problems they bring with them to school and impart substantial learning on top of that. Teachers are spending 50% of their classroom time on management and discipline because kids are out of control, disrespectful, coming to school after consuming Dunkin’ or other sugary crap which drives mood swings and provides the brain with zero useful energy for learning.

Our most struggling schools are warehousing kids because the kids aren’t parented, not because the teachers are terrible. And many folks in our society want to force more births that are unwanted on people who shouldn’t be parents at all.

And yes, at this point I fully expect to use the program to get my teaching license and then to move to a district where the majority of the kids are actually parented.

Hi! I know this is an old post but I too am a midlife career changer! Became a teacher at 38 yo! I did my alternative teaching certification with Urban Teachers now (City Teaching Alliance). I would highly recommend you go through CTA as they provide ongoing coaching and other support I would consider vital the first years of teaching. Additionally, you receive a Masters in Education after your second year through their partner university. During my time it was Johns Hopkins University, now its American University. The first two years are hell but once it's over, it's over.

BTW, I know some teachers who taught at Title I schools the first 3 years of the program (it's compulsory) before moving on to other school districts with higher performing schools, Montessori schools or Gifted and Talented schools.

[Anonymous]

Here's the thing. DCPS is an extremely hostile place to work. I worked at DCPS for 17 years, in both poor and affluent neighborhoods. I could have stayed longer, but I just couldn't see doing that to myself. In addition to the stress of working in uncomfortable spaces with poor indoor air quality, confronted by badly behaved students, without the support of parents or administrators, we also have to deal with a punitive and arbitrary evaluation system, constantly worrying about losing our jobs or being penalized in some other way, including losing step increases. The pay never made up for the truly miserable working conditions. After I retired, it took me years to deal with the PTSD. However, I immediately experienced better health. I have a good friend who is a truly gifted teacher who left teaching last year to work for a utility. His observation is that he now gets paid substantially more for doing substantially less work.