Karissa Patrick with the students of her co-op | Photo submitted by Karissa Patrick
Karissa Patrick splits her time between lecture halls and elementary school halls, all while risking the health and safety of herself and her loved ones.
“During quarantine, many parents weren’t able to dedicate the time necessary to keep their children’s education on track,” Patrick said. “Now we, the teachers, are working twice as hard to catch these kids up, all while dealing with the risk of COVID on our own health as well as the health and safety of our friends and family.”
Coronavirus complications
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, over 1,000 American teachers and school staff members have died due to the virus. This number reflects the level of dedication those in the K-12 workforce sustain. Through even these unprecedented times, they continue to serve their students and community at whatever cost.
Just as the circumstances of the current pandemic highlight this fact, they have simultaneously shone a light on disparities between this devotion and the average income of teachers.
Educators in the U.S., on average, make almost 20% less than college graduates working in other fields, and this disparity continues to increase over time. Since the mid-1990s, the gap has gone up by roughly 14%.
According to a 2021 report, 18% of public school teachers take on jobs outside of the classroom to support themselves financially and supplement the disparities in their salaries. However, sustaining that level of work is not plausible for all people.
Difficult sacrifices
Karissa Patrick, a senior early childhood education major at WSU, is in her third part-time teaching placement. Although this commitment only requires her to work in a classroom three days a week, she recently had to make the decision to quit her part-time fast-food job due to the intense amount of time and energy required for her to be a successful teacher.
“When I say it’s a full-time job–it’s your life. You have to dedicate every part of yourself,” Patrick said. “Even just three days a week I feel like I can’t juggle being in school…then trying to do another job plus my college classes.”
She is already making sacrifices for her career without even having a full-time job as a teacher.
“Also, I don’t live near my family so trying to get home to visit them is nearly impossible,” Patrick said, “I don’t get out of school until close to 4:30 on Fridays and I have to be back at 8:15 on Monday morning. It doesn’t leave much time on the weekend to go see my family.”
Catherine Livingston began her first teaching job at Little Miami Elementary in September of 2021. A recent WSU graduate, she is now beginning to experience the realities of the strict time commitment necessary for her career.
“I woke up this morning at 6:00, left my house [at] 6:30, got to school at 7:00, had a meeting before school…then I stayed until 5:00…then I came home and I’m about to do a few more hours of work before bed,” Livingston said, “but, you know, I do it all with a smile on my face.”
This is an example of a typical day-in-the-life for Livingston and many other teachers around the country: spending at least 10 hours a day in their classroom just to come home and continue working additional hours to prepare for the next day. Yet, this intense level of dedication is not adequately respected and rewarded through sufficient income.
Educator income
One potential link between low-wage earnings and professions in education is the career’s ties to gender.
“I think it’s because it started way back in the day as a position that women did, and…that history and where it comes from echoes in the current educational system,” Livingston said. “Like all systemic inequalities in America, you can still feel that history.”
Teaching has historically been a job taken on by women in our society. When women were first eligible to enroll in higher education, they were strongly encouraged to study to become teachers. This was due to an increased need for public school teachers as the system expanded and the fact that women were perceived as more nurturing than men.
Now, jobs typically performed by women are still seen as less valuable. Even within the same profession as early childhood educators make less than high school educators.
| Elementary School Educators | Middle-level Educators | High School Educators | |
| Percentage of Women | 74.8% | 59.9% | 50.4% |
| Percentage of Men | 20.8% | 34.1% | 44.8% |
| Median Income | $61,660 | $60,810 | $62,870 |
Of course, there are some exceptions to this notion. Nursing, for example, has long been a field dominated by women and it has seen continuous progress in diminishing disparities between job expectations and income. However, other careers–teaching among them–have failed to fully address the associations between the field’s dominant gender and perceived lesser value.
In recent years, teachers’ unions across the country have expressed their frustrations with their states’ education systems by performing teacher strikes. These demonstrations might be sparked by a number of causes, such as salaries, benefits, or issues with their schools’ infrastructures.
Overall, however, their motivations for demanding change lie in a desire to improve not only the lives of the educators but also those of who they are educating. Because, in spite of all of the issues and progress yet to come, there is still a spirit among teachers, guiding their passion for education.
“I love working with little kids and providing them with comfort and a home within the classroom,” Patrick said. “Whenever you see a kid learn how to read or be proud of themselves because they were able to solve a math problem it’s like, oh, this is why I’m doing this.”
It’s this unrelenting love for the profession that sustains those who take on the responsibility of being an educator as they continue to fight for their due respect.
“I have so much passion for [teaching]. I think about it 24/7,” said Livingston. “I think about my [students] as my own children, I love them so much. They bring me so much joy and I love seeing them grow and become smarter, kinder, and just more complete, fuller kids every single day…it makes me so happy to see them blossom.”
