31-year-old teacher quit her job. Now she works at Costco—and boosted her income by 50%: ‘I've never been happier' (these are not feel good stories, this is sad)

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨return2ozma@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨workreform@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/business/money-report/31-year-old-quit-her-teaching-job-now-she-works-at-costco-and-boosted-her-income-by-50-ive-never-been-happier/3228144/

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elephantium@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The headline is really misleading. She now works for Costco corporate doing marketing training.

This just in: Corporate jobs pay more than public school teaching jobs. Film at eleven!

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- CosmicCleric@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  The headline is really misleading. She now works for Costco corporate doing marketing training. The typical store employee is still around $18/hour.
  
  Downvoting you, because you are mischaracterizing the article content.
  
  The first half of it describes how she started there and the regular positions she had, before she moved up and into the teaching position she has at corporate office, which is similar to the teaching position she had before; both are of a teaching.
  
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  - bob_wiley@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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  - elephantium@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    How TF am I mischaracterizing it? The teacher in this story got a pay bump by taking a marketing job with Costco corporate, not by working in the warehouse. The headline implies that she got a raise by working for her local Costco. That’s misleading.
    
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- Bonehead@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The important thing to remember is that she's still a teacher. She's just not teaching children anymore, since it doesn't pay enough. This should be a wake up call to most people...
  
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- BrainisfineIthink@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You are why downvotes should be more common on Lemmy. You’re grossly misrepresenting the article and story.
  
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just_change_it@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
She got a job working in a corporate office for a big company. This is pretty typical of not-retail-worker-salary beating out public sector nine times out of ten.

Why would someone ever be a teacher for <50k? Anybody with an education background can move to Seattle, Washington (or other state close to big city pay) and be a corporate trainer and move up to a director level role and get paid many times what they would ever be paid as a teacher…

…except so many want to stay near family, not be near a big city, can’t move because of xyz, want a couple months off each year… etc etc etc.

To quote somebody: Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense.

Just isn’t that way today and there is a big political and economic mess in the way of getting there.

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- curiousaur@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Educated young people overthrow governments. You do the math.
  
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  - HerbalGamer@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I would but there’s no teachers so I don’t know math
    
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  - Zorque@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Uneducated people overthrow governments. Educated people involve themselves so they make a better, longer lasting, more stable and effective government in the long run.
    
    There's this consistent delusion that if we just burn everything down and start anew that this time it will all work out for the best.
    
    It hasn't worked for the past two millenia, it's not going to magically work now. All it does is give rise to new fascist states.
    
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  - PR3CiSiON@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    But maybe educated young people will join the govt a well, and make it better, so that we will not want to overthrow the govt.
    
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- snooggums@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  They also want children to learn, which is the biggest thing that draws them to the job and gets them to accept shitty pay.
  
  Teachers should get paid way more than they do.
  
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- princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The mess is allowing decades of union-busting to be effective. Teachers in my state of Victoria are heavily unionised, so US$50k is the starting salary. You would absolutely be making what she is now, $64k, if you’d worked for 8yrs like she had.
  
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  - AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Those salaries still sound far too low for a teacher, especially since, as I understand it, your dollar doesn’t buy you guys as much as our dollar, or is that just in electronics and video games?
    
    Either way, the vice principal in The Breakfast Club cites that he’s making $35,000 a year in 1985. I’ll assume that’s the higher end of the scale since he’s admin, and has been teaching for years at that point. The thing is that adjusted for inflation that $35,000 is closer to $87,000 today. It’s not just teachers either. No essential worker has had a raise since the early 1970s, in fact we’ve had pay cuts when you look at inflation, and expected productivity.
    
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- _Mantissa@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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  - assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I see it as part of the contract between the government and the people. All citizens are asked to help plant trees they won’t get to enjoy the shade of.
    
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  - ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    It is a tough sell to place even more tax burden on people who will never realize the benefits.
    
    But you will. We all benefit from a well-educated society. A poorly educated workforce isn’t competitive with one that is well-educated, and they attract employers with jobs that can take advantage of them. They provide the work for good-paying jobs and drive the economy we’re growing old in and hopefully retiring from someday.
    
    Public education benefits everyone, not just the children.
    
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  - Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    So, expensive for me who is already completely priced out of ever responsibly having children. We all have a responsibility to the future generations so I’d still vote for it. But oof. It is a tough sell to place even more tax burden on people who will never realize the benefits.
    
    It’s not a sell for the people who will have children. It’s a sell for the children who will grow up under that education and have their job prospects determined by it. Hey - weren’t you once a child?
    
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  - brcl@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I would say we need to do a full assessment of where our tax dollars are going. I feel we could find a lot of money to put towards the items that matter by cutting out government ineptitude.
    
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  - andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You’re ignoring the massive amount of students on IEPs who require special services, as well as the fact that online education requires family support and motivation.
    
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- assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Teaching needs to be a cushy, highly competitive job with entry pay starting at 100k a year. It needs to attract the very best and brightest.
  
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- andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I live in Oklahoma. I make $40k/year teaching. I can not afford the up front cost of moving to Seattle. Long term I’d love to end up in a corporate job, but because teaching is so shit and a lot of people are leaving, transitional jobs are difficult to find.
  
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  - just_change_it@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Seattle was just TFA’s literal job location.
    
    You could move to Oklahoma City or Tulsa or something. If you can’t save a few grand to move anywhere whatsoever i’d suggest getting a second job a couple nights a week or over the summer during break to make enough to do so. It’s your livelihood anyway.
    
    Today: What do you do when you need a new car to get to work and yours stops working from age? give up? walk many miles to work? assume the fetal position until death? I promise there is a possible way in this world to have enough to relocate, the only question is what you’re willing to sacrifice to get it done. My wife lived on rice and beans for months while she saved up enough to afford tuition which ultimately made her income go from a few hundred dollars a month in another country to a little over a thousand. She learned English on her own and got a job that was a two hour commute from her home and made even more money. Now she makes over double what you do. I’m not saying it’s easy, i’m not saying it’s fair, i’m just saying it’s possible.
    
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zell565@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
“Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce; they should be making six figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to it citizens, just like national defense.”

I hate how a 23 year old quote from the West Wing is still so relevant…

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- tea@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Next line speaks to that…still.
  
  “That’s my position. We just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.”
  
  This might be the most memorable quote from the entire run of the West Wing for me. Our teachers are doing their job out of good will and our society is taking advantage of them because their value far outstrips what they are paid.
  
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  - tym@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    We’re several generations deep into a manufactured apathy meant to fragment and dilute any workers rights reforms
    
    We stumbled into work from home due to the pandemic, but that genie will be put back in the bottle within 2 generations.
    
    Robber barons never left, they just got smarter.
    
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- Acters@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  All of this is true,
  instead of happening in schools for the advancement of knowledge,
  it is happening in corporations for profits and egotistical power trips.
  
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LegionEris@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

When I got sick Costco graciously moved me to a food prep and service position!

<_< That’s so great…

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FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s not even the teachers in my daughter’s public middle school I have a problem with. It’s the substitutes. They do things like talk conservative politics and threaten any kid who does anything with a 3-day suspension. Crazy shit. These people should not be around children. But the school system gets what they pay for.

And the teachers aren’t all that much better. One put an actual cross and bible quote in her classroom. Again, a public school. I contacted the Freedom From Religion Foundation to get that taken care of. And it was.

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- chiliedogg@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I was so annoyed in high school though, because I actually did have a biology teacher who was the opposite. That boogeyman anti-faith “evolutionist” strawman.
  
  He openly polled the class and asked each student, row by row, if they were religious, and that they had to choose between “make believe” and science.
  
  It pissed me off not so much because of what he did, but that he proved that there really were science teachers like that, and all the anti-science conservative families whose children took his class would be using that story as an example of the “evil anti-God agenda” of science educators.
  
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  - sturmblast@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    in my opinion, every science teacher should be exactly like that
    
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- HessiaNerd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I’m my state, substitutes don’t need to have their credential. You get some rough candidates as a result.
  
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  - andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    In my state, teachers don’t have to have their credential.
    
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TheRealJefe@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This is becoming more and more common overall.

An acquaintance of mine I met while working a help desk job: He was in process of getting his degrees to become a teacher, did so and taught high school math for 5 years. As much as he loved, and took pride in, the work he did with teens and making a difference, the continued stress of a bullshit administration (at 2 different schools and districts) took its toll. He left, becoming a corporate training (see, still teaching) and I’ve seen a marked difference in his attitude and life. He has less stress and a fatter paycheck.

Teachers shouldn’t be put though the wringer and not be expected to react. “There’s no workers shortage, just a shortage of slave labor” is more evident in their profession than any other (outside possibly food service).

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- Okkai@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You’re 100% right. My wife has a masters degree in education and spent 7 years as an English teacher with 3 very different types of schools in different districts. She left to be an instructional designer (with zero experience in that field) and nearly doubled her salary overnight.
  
  If America wants to take education seriously they need to stop screwing over teachers.
  
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  - serpentofnumbers@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    America* does not take education seriously. This is evident from 50 years of Republican policy.
    
    *legislators
    
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  - LiquidPhD@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    If you don’t mind telling, how did she find an instructional design job? My wife is looking to make a similar transition. Any tips for trying to make the switch?
    
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Mowcherie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’ve asked local Costco workers what it’s like working for Costco. They say the company treats them very well.

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- Worstdriver@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I work in a Costco. They treat me very well. Far better than the Walmart I worked at prior. Pay is far better too. As an example, I helped run the night shift as an Overnight Support Manager at Walmart. My topped out pay in that role was 50 cents an hour more than my starting pay at Costco. Now, 18 months later, I make more as a frontline grunt at Costco than I did in that management role.
  
  3 years from now, as a frontline grunt, I’ll be making more than the Assistant Manager I worked under at Walmart.
  
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  - PM_ME_FEET_PICS@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I found your comments weird but the Wal-Marts in the US appear to be garbage.
    
    Just read that average ASM makes $40k a year. The Wal-Mart Canada average salary is $60k. All of the ASMs that I kneel about at the store I worked at made over $100k.
    
    The amount of other shit that you have to do and the long hours makes the US ASM position very unappealing.
    
    The Wal-Marts in Canada also do not have a top threshold for wage. You continue you get you little wage increase each year.
    
    Costco Canada does have a wage cap based on role in Canada. It’s only 3 dollars above min wage here. But you reach that 3 dollars much faster than you would at Walmart
    
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- triclops6@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Everyone who can should shop there, max markup is 14%, they stand by their products, generous warrantees AND they treat their people very well
  
  Any work reform, pro Union, ethical consumers out there should actively shun Walmart, shove a finger into Amazon’s ass, and shop Costco when possible, support an ethical supply chain
  
  I feel this story buries this: Costco above other stores is a step up from most careers
  
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- thorbot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I have a close friend from high school who has worked there for 15 years now, she said she never thought Costco would be more than a summer job between college searching but she’s happy there and they treat her well. Nothing wrong with that
  
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  - CryptidBestiary@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Well it’s nothing wrong with working at a company who treats their employees well, it’s sad that there are so few companies that we can name off the top of our heads in the US. What’s sadder is how poorly the teachers in this country are treated.
    
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TWeaK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This is less of a news report and more of an ad for Costco.

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- zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Bullshit jobs are paying better than shit jobs. Might be a sign corporations are sitting on most of the money.
  
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Vaggumon@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This reads like a bad ad.

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- kautau@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Because it’s basically right wing propaganda very subtly pushing the message that we should privatize education and that corporations are good
  
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  - irmoz@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Then it failed, because it made me want to nationalise education completely and make it free of charge, and to give teachers immense salaries
    
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uis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Teacher makes half of what Costco employer makes sounds like endgame for scociety.

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- Anarch157a@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Actually, 2/3rds. If she’s earning 50% more, that means the previous wage was 100 and now is 150. 100 / 150 is 0.6666… or 66.66%, 2/3rds.
  
  Sorry for the pedantism, but it’s the kind of math that needs to be correct to avoid misunderstandings.
  
  Still an awfully sad thing, tho. Teachers should be paid the same as doctors, IMHO.
  
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  - FordPrefect@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Aaaand the fact that a correction on this was even relevant… Oof
    
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  - buzz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    But have u calculated the summer offs and pensions?
    
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- HessiaNerd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  If anyone here lives in California, please express your support for AB-938. It increases teacher pay and attempts to maintain it at an inflation adjusted level.
  
  …legislature.ca.gov/…/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_i…
  
  Let you assembly person know we need this now.
  
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- ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  c/aboringdystopia
  
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PP_BOY_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
A Costco recruiter wrote this article (and probably made this post)

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- Kalkaline@leminal.space ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Clearly there would be a bias there, but are they wrong?
  
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- _number8_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  lemmy should ban corporate lobbyists
  
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  - Wilzax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    The beauty of lemmy is that if you can come up with a way to do that effectively, you can just host your own instance that does that.
    
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- CosmicCleric@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  While I’m one that normally would suspect such a thing myself, honestly, they wouldn’t need to, they already have such a great rep in the states where they’re located.
  
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  - Candybar121@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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woodenskewer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
welcome to costco, i love you

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conditional_soup@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Not only that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more job satisfaction in retail than teaching. Teaching in the US is a dog, and I’m frankly amazed they haven’t already run out of teachers.

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- Hyperreality@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Not just the US.
  
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- cooopsspace@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You also didn’t read the article, at all - clearly
  
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  - conditional_soup@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yeah, you got me
    
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MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
An inspiration, all teachers should do this!

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Ryan213@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Good thing us Lemmings read more than just the headline, right? Right??

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- BrainisfineIthink@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Top comment says NOOOOOOO
  
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realcaseyrollins ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If enough teacher leave, maybe we'll start to pay them more
- iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Some states? Maybe. Georgia (as mentioned in the article), likely not. There has been a continual war on education in the US and we see it on display every election cycle.
  
  Despite their best efforts (including paying teachers in red states poverty wages), those who would keep us dumb and scared are frustrated to find a new generation that doesn’t give a fuck about division along arbitrary demographic lines and is increasingly aware of class warfare.
  
  This drives further education cuts and cries from extremist/hate motivated groups to further crack down on our schools because these parents are so weak as to be offended by diversity and critical thinking.
  
  I hope these are the last dying wails of this kind of hatred and ignorance, but I’m not taking that for granted. Vote, educate, and promote solidarity and unity at every opportunity because the shitheels who are on the other side will fight tooth and nail to destroy education funding and cut down our teaching corps.
  
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- Murais@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Florida’s approach was just to give anyone with a police or military background a teaching license.
  
  They won’t up teacher pay. They’ll just higher shittier teachers because the primary highlight of public education is that it is free daycare for their exhausted, working parents.
  
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  - dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    “primary highlight of public education is that it is free daycare for their exhausted, working parents.”
    
    In their eyes. That doesn’t make it true. Education is, and should be treated as, the backbone of society.
    
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  - andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Oklahoma is doing the same. My first year I was teaching the other “teachers” the material they were expected to teach students.
    
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BiNonBi@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Well thats depressing

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buzz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Well, why do I feel there is something about summer breaks. Dont teachers get summer breaks?

Also state pension - am I wring that there is a pension included? And with Costco there is no pension.

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Hazdaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Stop going into fields that pay like shit. I don’t really see the problem here.

You have graduate after graduate complain that the jobs in their field pay like crap… but you could easily have researched what the pay rate is for these careers before you even started your degree. If it isn’t as much as you want to make, then find something better.

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PeterPoopshit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’ve had the opposite experience. I left my job in fast food management in 2017 to pursue better options and it ended up being the most expensive mistake of my life. I was making $24/hr. I was self sufficient. I haven’t made anywhere near as much since. The grass is always greener on the other side, folks.

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WuTang@lemmy.ninja ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Zelensky, ok, we will give you $325M more. It’s like your conflict at 5000miles away touches us directly.

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pyromaniac_donkey@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Being a teacher in a multicultural city certainly must be one the seventh circles of hell.

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