Growing up, I witnessed my mom work tirelessly as an amazing teacher for many students. She first started out as a young, eager teacher in 1997. Now, my mom has been working as a teacher for over 27 years, with only seven left until she retires. Over the years, she has grown as an educator and given her students the opportunity to appreciate books as much as she does. 

During those years, she has gone out of her way to give her students the best learning experience and find their passion for reading. 

But my mom’s story isn’t one that is unique. Other teachers work vigorously to give their students the best education, feeling like they are not fully compensated for everything they do. Nowadays, teachers wear many hats. They work as mediators, caregivers and mentors all while cultivating a positive learning environment to help their students grow. All across America, young teachers struggle to find purpose to stay in their profession when they are not paid enough to live comfortably. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, people in the Chicago area tend to spend an average of $80,264 per year. Considering that new teachers do not make a lot of money, it is clear that they will not be able to live comfortably until progressing in their career and earning a higher salary. In 2019, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a bill that raised the minimum salary for teachers to $40,000. Although this was an improvement, first year teachers in the state of Illinois do not make enough money to live comfortably.

MTSS interventionist Suzanne Billman has been at Kaneland for 21 years and has personally seen the decline in people wanting to join the profession. When Billman first started, she was a young teacher living on a small salary trying to manage working in a school. However, in more recent years, Billman has noticed a positive shift in attitude towards her salary. 

“I feel like my salary is fine, but it does take a lot of schooling,” Billman said. “But fresh teachers, young teachers, would be unhappy with their pay. They don’t make much money.” 

As young teachers don’t make a livable wage fresh out of college, it can be hard to afford necessities like housing and groceries. Teachers who choose to spend time earning their masters degree will eventually be paid more money, but their time spent earning that degree comes with a price as juggling both teaching and learning at the same time can be difficult. 

“Most beginning teachers have another job or have to have a roommate or have to live at home until they’re earning more with their masters,” Billman said. 

Aside from the low starting salary teachers earn, classroom behavior has become an issue in recent years. According to the National Library of Medicine, during the pandemic the absence of social outings, extracurriculars and attending school left many kids isolated from interaction. As a result, adolescents had a hard time returning to school and were left with behavioral issues due to their lack of socialization. 

In 2020 the pandemic altered the workplace for not only teachers but professionals everywhere. Specifically, teachers had to adapt to teaching lessons online while students lost that connection they had with teachers. When the pandemic hit, fourth grade educator Mary Doranski was on her 23rd year of teaching. Because the closing of schools was an abrupt decision, teachers were left to adjust to changes they had never experienced before. 

“The year that we had the COVID-19 shutdown, I had been here quite a while and was making a good salary. I felt like it was difficult, but I was earning a decent living,” Doranski said. “But if I was a new teacher, I would have thought that this is very difficult for me to do and they’re paying me hardly anything.”

One teacher in particular that Doranski described started working shortly before the pandemic hit and chose to stay in her profession as she was very passionate about teaching. She chose to remain anonymous for her interview, as she is not tenured yet. 

“In recent years, behaviors have been really hard,” she said. “A lot of it is putting out fires and dealing with behaviors, and I feel like I don’t do much teaching.”

A large misconception about educators, specifically elementary teachers, is that their job cannot be difficult as it is just looking after kids. However this is not true. In most classrooms, teachers have to spend their time correcting students’ behavior, which is not the job they signed up for. One of the potential reasons why there is a teacher shortage could be because most people do not have the patience to work in a public school where behavior has become a big problem.

“Sometimes we have to be the social worker in our classroom because maybe ours is busy at the time,” the anonymous teacher said. “We also just have rough conversations with the kids and that can be difficult. I only know a little bit about that sort of stuff, but I went to school to be a teacher, not a social worker.”

One argument as to why teachers have so many responsibilities with little pay is that they are offered plenty of benefits. While the benefits are great compared to other jobs, they still aren’t comparable to getting a higher pay. According to The National Education Association, a 2018 study found that educators typically pay considerably more for health insurance than state employees and local employees of the government. With the combination of low pay and expensive benefits, teaching does not seem like a stable job to most people deciding what path they want to take. Kaneland High School math teacher Daniel Ponczek (or Ponz, as he is most commonly known) shares his own thoughts on why many students steer away from education.

“It’s kind of tough for somebody to want to leave their other profession to come to teaching just on health benefits,” Ponz said. “They are important though, and it’s kind of a perk to keep teachers motivated to stay here.” 

With many teachers leaving their jobs, there are many districts filled with under experienced or unqualified teachers. Experienced educators can improve the quality of education students receive because of their maturity and experience. Although she is  grateful for young teachers wanting to join the profession, Doranski notices a gap in experienced teachers and young teachers in relation to their success with teaching.

“If you have people who want to stay in the profession, kids will get a better education,” Doranski noted. “In the future you will have more experienced people who have more content knowledge, classroom management skills, strategies for teaching and more.”

The ongoing problem that most affects the public education system is the nationwide teacher shortage. According to Teachers of Tomorrow, 86% of public schools have a difficult time finding educators. Whether the teacher shortage is due to low interest in the profession, student behavior issues or the modest starting salary, it is clearly impacting public schools around the U.S.

Ponz has also noticed a decline in people wanting to go into the teaching profession. His idea to fix the problem would be raising the starting salary for new teachers and providing more support such as aids and paraprofessionals. 

“If you raise that wage, you might have more people that are interested, who want to become educators,” Ponz said. “That would be great for the profession.”

When you take into consideration supply and demand, it would only make sense to raise the starting salary for teachers to attract more into the profession. If public schools are looking to fill positions, raising their salaries to be more competitive would help to eliminate the ongoing teacher shortage in the U.S. 

As the teacher shortage continues to affect public schools all over the country, a change must be made to solve the underlying problems. To bring more educators into the profession and fix the teacher shortage, the public education system needs to invest in supporting our teachers when it comes to behavioral issues, health benefits and funding a higher starting salary.