Teaching- Oh, It's Women's Work

After evaluating the salary increases over the past 20 years to the Washington State Salary Schedule for teacher's, I noted that the average increase in wages at the state level was 3%. In the financial world 3% is considered to be normal inflation and therefore, if you don't get at least a 3% increase in wages each year you are falling behind in the purchasing power of your dollar. So I guess what you can say about the State of Washington's "paramount duty" to fund education in the state of Washington is that they have been able to keep the teacher's salary up with basic inflation. There are a couple of problems with letting the State of Washington off the hook with this passing grade. One is that we do not experience general or average inflation and we are certainly not experiencing it now. Inflation this year is between 5 and 7 percent depending on which index you use and very few indexes include the cost of housing, or gas, or the price of higher education. This year the number is up because it reflects the actual rise in prices of food; like milk and eggs and cereal. While inflation indexes can be manipulated in a lot of ways by the economic pundits of our society, they can't hide inflation when it hits food prices. So you can bet your bottom dollar that in reality a teacher has lost serious ground in his status among the middle class, the 3% inflation adjustment by the state of Washington falling far short of what it means to keep our salaries current with inflation.
So over the past year as I have become more and more active in the union and I talk to other union people and I ask the question, "Why is this such a poorly paid profession?" The answer that rings the harshest to my ears and is a constant refrain is that, "Teaching, Oh, It's Women's Work." When I hear that, I think to myself where am I in the 19th century. If it was women's work it is certainly not now. I am certainly not a woman and moreover, hold your horses, haven't we already gone through already two generations where women have been seen as equals with men and may not be discriminated against in the workplace. So if that is the case and women can't be discriminated against in the workplace and there are many non-women in the field, Who is getting away with the attitude that you can pay the professional teachers much less then say you have to pay the "manly" professions of Doctors and Lawyers, Accountants and Brokers.
It is high time that this profession is recognized for its difficulty but even more so for the importance of the service it provides to our society and paid commensurate with the benefits we bring our society. A lawyer handles the courts, a doctor handles the human body, and Accountant handles the books. What do we handle. We handle the education of our future generations. Exactly what kind of value is that. I believe it is inestimable and yet the Teaching profession is the most poorly paid profession of any of the professions. As you see from the picture of my family and the blurb about me, you can see that one of my daughters is at Boston University, getting a degree in English and secondary teaching. Today's costs to send my daughter to school are approximately $50,000 a year. For those of you with young kids just wait to see what is coming your way. As I figure it, if she had to borrow all the money and pay it back with interest, she would need to work for a decade and save most of her money during that time to repay the loans. And she wants to be a Teacher? SW

There seem to be problmes with this blog so I am looking for a new place to domain this blog. I will be talking with the WEA about it. SHMUEL