Passion Over Pay: That’s the Problem

By Sydney Pruner

Classroom teachers make ends meet by working seven hours a day, five days a week. But when the school day ends and the bell rings, many disperse to do their secondary professions so they actually can afford to live. To get the personal experience of what goes on behind the teacher’s desk, I interviewed Carrie Loeber, Blake Connelly, Katie Franco, and Juliana Lynch, as well as Tim Abel–all of whom work second jobs.

All around the world, country by country, state to state, one common thread between educators is the belief that teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions. Learning, they say, is the utmost important thing about societal fulfillment. So, if we value the need for education, why are teachers/educators not paid like it?

The reality of passion over pay has prevalence all over America. Specifically in Oklahoma, public school teachers can get between $39,601 and $56,049 in a yearly salary. According to a study by gobankingrates.com, you need to make $62,691.10 in order to live comfortably as a renter in Oklahoma. That at its lowest puts teachers $23,090 under the livable wage, which entails costs like housing, utilities, retirement funds, and other expenses that come with living in America.

“I could go down the street and be a manager at Chick-fil-A with half the stress and get paid more right now, PHD in hand,” said Connelly when asked why he does what he does. “It's abysmal what they pay teachers in the state of Oklahoma. The most important job in society and we’re not investing in teachers; we see this with the major teacher shortage in Oklahoma right now.”

Connelly has not one, but five jobs outside of his contracted classroom teacher job at Jenks High School. He recognizes that this profession has to have an aspect of passion because no one is in it for the money.

This is not an issue that has gone unheard; in 2018 there was a teacher walkout that resulted in teachers getting their first pay raise in nearly a decade. Though a success at the time, now, five years later, the cost of living has sizably increased whereas salary has not. To make up for the cash differences, many educators make ends meet with a second job. Every teacher interviewed for this article had an active role to advocate for change when this occurred in 2018.

Abel is a math teacher at the high school who also coaches football for the 8th grade football team. He talked about the burnout that teachers experience when they have to work above and beyond.

“That's the reality of being a human, exhaustion does kick in, especially around Wednesdays when I am faced with a full day of teaching and then games back-to-back to where I am essentially working 72 hours straight,” said Abel.

As a coach and a teacher, he is not alone in this. Loeber is an Ap Psych and Avid teacher at Jenks High School who shares the same story. She is a mother, a wife, a teacher, and a cheer sponsor. To get extra money she does private lessons, but in spite of all of these jobs she states that her husband’s income is necessary to make ends meet. But not every teacher has this, especially early on in their career.

Franco brought to light that her financial situation would be completely different without her husband, who makes more than her paycheck. He works as a mailman, where he did not need a college education, whereas Franco needed a Bachelor's degree and a teaching certificate to become a classroom teacher (which took multiple years of higher education). Additionally, his job provides more benefits than hers. Franco has turned to picking up a side gig in sports apparel just to make some extra money.

I thought it would be interesting to see what an up-and-coming teacher believed, and if she really knew what she was getting into. Lynch is a senior in her teaching program at TU. At this point in her teaching program, she is actively working as a full time student and a coach.

“I know what I’m getting into,” said Lynch. “I want to shape the lives of children for the better and being a coach and being a teacher is what it's about at the end of the day.”

From Franco, who has been loyal to Jenks for 19 years, to Lynch who hasn’t started year 1 as a teacher, the reality is that teachers work tirelessly to make ends meet. Teachers say that this is a large component to the burnout rate of young/new teachers. Why work as an educator when a fast food restaurant that requires no college education will pay more?

A good teacher is like a candle—it consumes itself to light the way for others.

– Mustafa Kemal Atatürk