Teachers are quitting their jobs at the highest rate since 2001

[Hekate]

8. Saw a LTTE the other day saying a teacher's strike would hurt poor families hardest. The problem is

...that teachers themselves are poor. They don't make fabulous salaries/benefits, they must purchase all or nearly all classroom supplies out of their own salaries, and they work far beyond the school-day preparing lessons, grading, writing reports, counseling parents, counseling students -- so that if you factor all of that into a presumptive hourly wage, it's pretty low. And stressful.

I've known many teachers in my adult life, and most are devoted to their students and love their profession.

I come from a long line of schoolteachers, back to a great-great grandmother who taught in a sod hut in Nebraska. I always thought it was a noble profession, though I chose not to teach myself. But in the past 30+ years, the voters of this country have been deluded into believing their taxes are wasted on public education. Long sad complex story, but here we are now.