Remember when you were a kid, and it was so strange to see a teacher outside of school? I remember the first time I saw a member of my school’s staff working at a fast-food place during the summer, and I was so confused because (at that young age) I had no idea teachers could work in kitchens!
Today, though, there’s a better-than-fair chance that your child’s teacher also has a side job, not just during the summer but while school is in session. Even so, they still may struggle to make ends meet.
Teachers’ salaries (like most folks’ paychecks) aren’t keeping up with rising prices, and it’s damaging to these professionals, to our kids, and to society to leave them struggling.
Most Teachers Are Taking On Second Jobs, Many During The School Year
When schools close for the summer, many teachers’ paychecks pause. (Some choose to structure their pay so that it’s split equally year-round, but there are still weeks or months with no new earnings from their primary income.)
During that time, it’s not uncommon for teachers to take on other jobs, often related to teaching, such as working at a summer school or tutoring program, or partaking in curriculum development programs. Sometimes, summer jobs may be completely unrelated to education, or teachers may use this break to work on their own professional development.
In the most recent survey, though, Gallup finds that teachers are doing far more, even during the school year.
A majority (62%) report that they’ve taken on extra work related to teaching. This could be tutoring, developing a curriculum to sell on sites like Teachers Pay Teachers, coaching sports teams, or working at extracurricular events at their schools.
About a third (33%) say they’re working other jobs unrelated to education, including food service, retail, freelance work, or running their own business.
Of all these teachers, only 15% say they don’t work at their second job during the school year.
School Days Are Long Days
We’re all familiar with the trope that teachers have it easy, since they only work until 3 in the afternoon and get holidays, summers, and weekends off. Anyone who is actually aware of how teachers work, though, knows that trope is tripe.
In truth, teachers are usually at school before the students show up, and stay after students go home. Then, they spend chunks of their evenings grading, and their weekends planning lessons for the next week.
A school day might run around 7 hours for students, but the average teacher puts in far more time than that. Then, if they’re heading to a second job, that means they have very little time to spend with their own families and to recuperate from the day’s stress.
In turn, that means we’re demanding that our kids’ teachers return to school still exhausted and jump right back into cramming knowledge into our babies’ brains, whether they want it or not.
About a quarter say this negatively affects their work (2% say it has a “very negative” effect and 22% say “somewhat negative”), and this is more so when the side job isn’t teaching-related.
Are We Paying Teachers Enough?
The same Gallup poll finds that only 28% of teachers say they’re comfortable with their present household income. (Note that’s household income, not just their own.) Another 52% characterize their current status as “getting by,” and 21% are “finding it difficult.”
Like many other professions, teacher pay has stagnated while costs have grown. In fact, adjusted for inflation, the Fordham Institute reports that in 40 of the 50 U.S. states, teacher pay has actually fallen. (In three states, inflation-adjusted teaching wages have fallen by more than 20%.)
In fact, the Economic Policy Institute reported in 2024 that teachers were being paid about 73 cents for every dollar paid to a professional working in another field with an equivalent degree.
Meanwhile, prices on everything teachers need to live and work (rent/mortgage, gasoline, electricity, food, etc.) as well as the classroom supplies they provide out of pocket, just keep rising.
Meanwhile, We Demand More Of Teachers
Teachers are filling more and more roles.
Increasingly, they’re having to learn to handle new technology that wasn’t in the classroom when they started their jobs. Many schools across the U.S. no longer have textbooks at all, but expect kids to learn on tablets and laptops, with software that teachers must first learn, and then teach children to master.
They’re managing classrooms in a time when active shooter drills are a normal part of the school year. Their students are dealing with poverty, and are still feeling the ripple effects from a pandemic that robbed many of them of grandparents or other loved ones and gave a shock to their routines, social lives, and mental health.
Teachers keep showing up for students who may not have a full meal other than the one served in the cafeteria, for students who don’t have a coat or shoes that fit, and for students who are suffering the behavioral problems that come with all these struggles.
According to Education Week, teachers are suffering burnout and stress at about twice the rate of professionals in other fields, and it’s no surprise.
Teachers Keep Showing Up; Can We Show Up For Them?
Despite all this, teachers keep showing up and keep planning to. The same Education Week report above, which showed teachers experiencing about twice as much burnout and stress as their peers in other fields, also showed that fewer teachers than other professionals are interested in leaving their jobs because of this stress.
We can press our legislators to recognize the value of teachers and to do so financially. The legislature of my state, North Carolina, for example, is still delaying passage of a budget for the year, which the North Carolina Justice Center notes has resulted in frozen teacher salaries. Here, they’re not even getting the expected pay raises, and won’t, unless and until we get our legislators moving on their behalf.
Let’s be clear: it isn’t just hurting our teachers. Matt Ellinwood, Director of the Education & Law Project, tells the NCJC that this failure to pay teachers adequately and provide a budget that allows them to do their jobs has been robbing our kids of educational opportunities for generations.
That’s for one state, but every other state where teachers are being undercompensated is in a similar situation. When teachers are forced to seek a second income to survive, it’s not only cheating them but also denying our kids the education they are constitutionally guaranteed, the NCJC explains.
If we don’t stand up for teachers, they may not be available to keep standing up for our kids.