"Teachers Have It Easy": The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers

By Constance Macon and Constance Macon MSW

A passionate call to action for improving the working lives of public school teachers cites the typically low wages of today's educators and the consequences of current policies on the quality of education, sharing the personal stories of teachers from across the country, an analysis of typical public school working conditions, and misconceptions a This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1595581286
• ISBN13: 9781595581280
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: New Press
• Length: 355 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Experienced Tenured Teacher Faces Layoff

Art D. wrote "Salary comparisons fail to note that in private sector, there is no tenure. That is, teacher salaries can be stable for 35 years, while private sector workers face possible, quint-annual layoffs with salaries and benefits that can (and sometimes do) spiral downward." As a teacher with 9 years experience, I have faced 4 years where I have had to worry about whether or not I will have a job come August. Yes,...

Response to Ingram

Well, it is certainly about time someone wrote a book on this topic. Now the challege is to educate the systems and our society of the reality and demands of the teacher's job. This profession is misunderstood by many people, including the guys who sit around a table and make decisions for our systems, students and teachers. None of which I am sure have even been in the classroom in years, if at all. Ingram - I understand...

Thanks!

Any of us in teaching understand how difficult a job it is, how little recognition for our efforts we receive and how little respect from our peers we garner, yet it is difficult to argue with comments like "you're done at 3:00" "you have the entire summer off" "I'd just treat those kids like my own." Finally a book that explains that none of us are done at 3:00, we need the summer off to recoup and reenergize and those kids...

Educate yourself about what teachers go through with this book

This book combines statistic and qualitative data to give readers a frank and unsparing portrait of American education. For all of the talk about 'standards' and 'accountability' America expects its teachers to do so much with very little. Teachers are horribly paid for all of the work which they are expected to do--and their responsibilities keep on growing. This is madness. In my own home state of Texas, school teacher...