Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out - The Hechinger Report

Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out - The Hechinger Report

Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out
Dissatisfied with low pay and school funding, teachers in more red states are poised to protest.

In 2015, Jennifer Vetter decided to change careers and become a teacher. The 46-year old quit her well-paying management job at an orthodontic clinic in Gilbert, Arizona, to go back to college full-time and become a special-education teacher. She received a scholarship to earn her master’s in education, refinanced her home to help with other expenses and went all in on her dream of teaching kids with special needs.

Then she got her first couple of paychecks. “With everything taken out, it was an absolute shock to me,” she says.

Vetter did the math. After health care costs, deductions for taxes and her pension, and the number of hours she was working – sometimes 10 or more hours per day – she was making about $6 an hour. Weekly, she made about $300.

Low pay has lead teachers across the country to organize and strike for better wages and greater investment in schools. In Arizona, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Colorado, the growing “Red for ed” movement is demanding legislatures in these red states invest more money in schools and school staff.

Tammy Kim is a freelance writer who wrote about teachers losing their grip on the middle class for The Hechinger Report. Continue reading: Edged out of the middle class, teachers are walking out - The Hechinger Report

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