What are some points about why teachers should earn more money?

Answer 1

Increase in Salary?

As someone who has substitute taught, both on a daily and longer-term basis in every grade from K to 12 and taught Pre-K, I can't think of any reason any grade should be singled out to get a raise unless all teachers do, except that...

Many Pre-K teachers, like those in Head Start or other good preschool programs, work on an hourly basis and get much less pay, while doing the same amount or more work as teachers in the other grades do. In many cases, they are held responsible for the children learning, just as other teachers are.

In that case, they certainly should be on the same pay scale and have the same benefits as teachers in grades K-12 have.

Answer 2

Educators today should earn more money for a number of reasons, including:

• Most teachers must be able to teach a variety of subjects at different age levels.
• Some teachers must be able to float to other classes as needed.
• Teachers are the main "educators" in life, in addition to parents.
• Teachers face a wide range of risks when teaching in schools now (which was not the case even 20 to 30 years ago).
• Many classes have bi-lingual students, so the teacher must know English and another language (usually Spanish).
• Teachers are, in effect, losing money 3 months every year for "summer vacation". That means they must save enough money over 9 months of school to survive those 3 months.

Answer 3

The theory behind the belief that there are benefits to paying teachers higher salaries is that we would have better teachers. In reality, it may or may not be true, though higher salaries might attract some who would not otherwise teach to enter the profession, it would not necessarily mean that they would be better teachers.