The education system

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One of my biggest pet peeves about my job is how I have to pay for everything out of pocket. Every year I have to pay for my aide license, and if I want my sub license, I have to pay for that. I also have to pay to have my background check done every five years. Maybe this wouldn't be as annoying if they paid me more than they do for what I do, but they don't. We are historically underpaid. Teachers aren't paid the best either for what they are made to deal with. People keep saying, well, teachers have paid summers off. They don't. Teachers oftentimes have the option if they want, to have their entire pay while they're working, or they can spread it out over 12 months, but they are not paid for the entire year. They actually have to pay for a lot of stuff themselves. They have to pay for most things in their classrooms. If parents don't buy school supplies, that often falls on the teachers. Teachers pay to get their degree, and they pay for everything after that. People always get upset with teachers over things, but teachers usually aren't the problem (there are exceptions, obviously) the problem is those making the decisions for the schools and what funding should go where. The people making the most money are the ones who either haven't stepped foot into a classroom at all, or they haven't stepped foot into one in years. They have no idea what we are dealing with. We have had people come in and thank paras for everything we do with words, but not once have they thought to thank us in other ways by, I don't know, giving us a significant pay raise, or at least paying for us to have our background check and annual license. It would be different if the pay was better; I wouldn't mind as much having to pay for things if what they paid was better. It's easy to say, well, maybe you should go get another job then, but I love my job. If those of us who do these jobs all went and got a new job, who would be left? Everyone who says being a teacher is easy or who says if they don't like it they should leave, well, I have news: many teachers are leaving the profession due to burnout. Working in a school is a thankless job. They get some appreciation here and there, but the vast majority of people don't appreciate the sacrifices they make for this job. Paras are thanked even less. The people who appreciate paras the most are the teachers we are in with. I will always have a teacher's back, because they have always had mine. When you are a para you are part of a team. You work with your kid, but you also help the classroom teacher. I have no problem doing extra work to help a teacher out. Last year I did things like cutting things out, laminating, making letters with the Ellison, watching the class so the teacher could step out and use the bathroom or just take a breather. I've taken kids outside while the teacher stayed in with a handful. You build trust with each other and do things to help each other out. Last year, the teacher followed a kid to encore so I could take an important phone call. The teachers I have worked with are absolutely amazing, and I never have a problem helping them when they need it. I am not saying every teacher is amazing, because there are some genuinely terrible ones out there, but if people could see the kind of stuff a teacher has to deal with on a daily basis, they would agree the pay needs to be higher. I always tell people that if you think you can do better, then go get your teaching license, go get a job as a para. Spend an entire week in a classroom and tell us how easy it is and what you think should be done differently. People are constantly complaining about their tax dollars going to the school, not realizing how horribly underpaid the people who actually work with their kids are. Now there are all kinds of budget cuts in our education department. They no longer consider teaching a professional degree, and this makes those who want graduate teaching degrees will have a harder time getting loans they need, because the loan cap is 100k, whereas law and medicine have a 200k cap. The argument is that you don't need a graduate degree to get a job in teaching, but it makes it more difficult for teachers to get advanced degrees to further their careers or get certain training. It just shows once again that teachers are undervalued. Paras are even more undervalued. If you work in education and you don't have one of the higher paying postions that don't directly work with kids, you are going to struggle. If you work in education, you aren't in it for the money. I could rant for hours on this subject. People want to complain about the education in this country while continuously refusing to vote for school levies, voting for people who are known for wanting to take money from education, and complaining about things like having to pay for their child's school supplies. I don't think parents or teachers should have to pay for school supplies, but if people don't want their tax dollars going to education, this is exactly what happens. You don't get to complain about the incompetence of education while also continuously refusing to pay for public education. It starts with taxpayers and the higher-ups in the school district making decisions on what to do with money, and the less money the district makes, the less that goes to students' education, because the people at the top always have to take their cut before letting the rest trickle down. Some districts learned the hard way about how serious it was to not pass a school levy when their high school kids stopped having busing, and programs were cut. Everyone here claimed that was a threat; it wasn't a threat. Thankfully, our levy passed, but so many people weren't happy about it. I don't always agree with how money is spent either, but I had several coworkers who would have been fired if it didn't pass; my son wouldn't have been able to be bussed to school, after-school programs and classes like music and art would be cut from the district, and there were people who genuinely didn't care. They kept saying the school was bluffing, and I know very well they weren't, because I saw the teachers that got talked to about what this would mean for their job if it didn't pass. So the next time people want to complain about the sorry excuse for an education system this country has, maybe they should start thinking twice when they vote and knowing what they're voting for.