It is no surprise that teachers are not the highest paid. In fact, high school teachers in Virginia at the beginning of their careers get paid from 21k-52k and more experienced teachers get paid 46k-78k. However, times have changed and someone can not walk into a 7-eleven with $5 and walk out with 10 different items; as prices go up, so should the salary of the teachers.

Teachers should definitely get paid more because of what their job entails. Being a teacher is such an underpaid job, and it shouldn’t be given how much time and energy they put into their jobs; They work hard educating their students, who are the future of the country. With that being said, it is saddening that they don’t get paid at least 60k per year . 

As a mother of three, history teacher Brooke Whitlow has recognized the challenges of the low salary for high school teachers.

“The salary is not competitive if you consider the surrounding areas, and we are in the bottom three in terms of teacher salaries,” Whitlow said. “ We are professionals and get college degrees to do this and we have to keep retaking classes to renew the license. We have high stakes to teach the next generation.”

Teachers go through a lot both mentally and physically for what they do and don’t get enough credit for it. For the teachers that have families, they have to worry about if they will have enough money to pay bills, pay rent, or for something as simple as having enough to get the groceries, it’s just not healthy.  People think teaching is such an easy job and everyone can do it well and that is simply not true.That salary may have been substantial half a century ago, but in today’s society it is not enough for the amount of work and effort they put into the job.

Overall, teachers need to be paid more or people will not want to be teachers in the future because it wouldn’t be the best way to support yourself financially. I would pay them a fair amount based on the hard work that they do and the toll it takes on their lives both time-wise, mentally, physically and so on.