If you aren’t a teacher then you probably know one. They are feeling worn down as another school year comes to a close. Many are feeling beaten down by added responsibilities and pressures that come from their state, their district, and their campus.

In the interest of full disclosure, I started teaching in 1997. I made $28,000 back then, but that amount of money was more than reasonable for a single guy. I was able to afford an apartment, a car, and have a little bit left over. I am making over $70,000 now. Due to the economy, inflation, and other factors that amount of money ends up coming fairly close in terms of buying power.

What those outside the profession fail to understand is that those of us near the end feel grossly underappreciated just based on the pay. Beginning teachers in our district make well over $50,000. So, my Masters degree, special education stipend, and 25 years of public school experience net me less than $20,000 more than a beginning teacher.

The normal course during these times is to give us some breakfast tacos, nachos, and maybe a jean’s pass. Stores and restaurants around the community give us coupons or special deals. Sure, you might be a highly trained professional, you might spend countless extra hours grading papers and planning lessons, and you might spend hundreds of your own on supplies, so here is a two for one coupon at The Sizzler.

My sarcasm can be biting at times and this shouldn’t be the time for that. Our administration is trying to honor us the best way they know how. Each department is getting students to say something nice about their teachers. I do not officially work in a department like that. So, we are not a part of that. So, I’m paid like a teacher. I have that as my job description. I just don’t get treated like one.

Teachers don’t want a jeans pass. I can wear jeans any day I want. Extra food is nice. Any time I don’t have to pay for my own breakfast or lunch is good. Yet, the real key is when someone is thinking about me without being forced to think about me. I turned 50 this year. It took me guilting one of my colleagues into getting a card. Our campus honors employees of the month. It took a couple of us to guilt them into honoring our department. No one else would nominate any of us for an award like that.

I shouldn’t have to alert you that we are being left out of things. I shouldn’t have to make you feel guilty for not thinking of us in order to get some consideration. It should be given of their own free will. We should be valued and respected as professionals. We should be trusted to do our jobs. We should be valued for our expertise.

In terms of the politics of everything I will just say a couple of things. If you value me and my well-being don’t give me a gun. Don’t ask me to be Wyatt Earp on the open range. I trained to help students read, write, and add. I didn’t become a cop. I didn’t become a soldier. I became a teacher. Secondly, if you want to know what we are teaching your child then ask us. Don’t believe a YouTube video your cousin Larry sent you. Don’t believe some yahoo at some site that has never been in a classroom. We will tell you that CRT isn’t being taught. We will tell you what books are actually being taught. We will tell you what is actually being taught in science classes.

This all goes back to the beginning. Real appreciation happens 52 weeks out of the year. We shouldn’t have to wait until a random week in May before getting appreciated. That goes for every other profession as well.

For those that don’t know, this is teacher appreciation week. Don’t worry. I’m not fishing for compliments or gifts or anything like that. I simply bring this up to point out an obvious point that our beloved governor seems to have missed. He set up a task force.

It seems he doesn’t understand why there is a teacher shortage. We’ve talked in these spaces before about how the task force was set up at first. The first iteration had only two teachers with one housed at their district’s administrative office. Talk about missing the pulse of the people. You don’t have to be an educator or an expert in education to see the problem there.

The other problem is manifest in the week they chose to make teacher appreciation week. They’ve done this before and it never donned on anyone to somehow switch this up. In addition to being teacher appreciation week, it is also the week where we give the Biology, Algebra, and U.S. History state exams. It’s also the same week where most of the AP exams are given.

We appreciate you so much. Why don’t you wear jeans this week. We’ll have some nice breakfast burritos for you in the faculty lounge. Oh, also remember that if you do something wrong while proctoring the STAAR test we will be sure to pull your teacher’s license. Don’t forget your parting gift on the right.

Do we really need to ask why people are leaving the profession or refusing to enter it in the first place? I know some of you can’t get past the paywall but the headline here says it all. For those that don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, it says that a federal audit revealed that HISD under spent by 300 million dollars over a five year period.

Some guestimates conclude that HISD could raise their teacher salaries $10,000 a year across the board without batting an eye. These things usually filter their way down to neighboring school districts. No one wants to be left in the dust when the district next door suddenly boosts pay. However, it would be a big mistake if the task force concludes that we just need more money. Make no mistake, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but the idea of this particular week being teacher appreciation week is kind of a clue.

I had a lull in the middle of my career where I could have gone in other directions. Some here know that well. Ultimately, teaching was my first and best destiny. It just took awhile to find a place where I was comfortable and belonged. We often drop young teachers in the toughest places to teach with the most difficult situations to overcome. We offer very little support and then wonder why so many leave. It shouldn’t take blue ribbon committees and millions of dollars to figure this out. Just about any teacher can tell you this if you stop long enough to listen.

It is teacher appreciation week. I know these things get dizzying after awhile. We have to keep these things straight and many times we don’t know we are celebrating a profession until the calendar on the wall tells us we are. We have secretary’s day, librarian day, counselor’s week, and custodian’s day. That’s just in the education field. All we have to do is multiply that by all of the professions and we soon realize that every day on the calendar celebrates something.

Of course, the ultimate irony is that we are administering the STAAR test during our appreciation week. Thanks Texas. A number of people ask what we would want for our week. As a high school teacher, I am accustomed to getting nothing from our students. I see them only 45 minutes a day, so a large part of that is understandable. Still, Starbucks cards go to my wife because I don’t drink coffee. Nick nacks are nice as well, but I really don’t need anything along those lines.

A lot of people talk about teacher pay and that is a big deal in some areas of the state. For me, it’s not that big of a deal. I earn a comfortable living and I don’t really want for anything. The biggest two issues are related. I want to be treated like a professional adult and I want state testing to go away. I’ve mentioned my wife before. When she needs to go to the doctor she goes to the doctor. When she needs to take time off for other things she takes time off. She doesn’t get read the riot act or made to jump through hoops to get that done. I once had to bring in a doctor’s note for missing a summer professional development workshop that occurred outside of our contracted days. My word wasn’t good enough.

All that being said, there can be no greater irony than giving out the state tests during our week of appreciation. It is a not so subtle nod from the state telling us that they don’t trust us collectively. Yes, it is important that we figure out what kids have learned so that we can work on helping those that haven’t mastered those skills. We don’t need to base accountability on it and we don’t need to pay faceless corporations more than a billion dollars to write those tests. We have smart people that can write those tests on their own.

When you take the pandemic into account, we have missed upwards of five weeks of instruction by administering the five high school STAAR tests, the SAT and PSAT, TSIA exam, and AP exams,. Any time you take those tests you also have to take benchmark tests, mock tests, and take a week or so out of regular instruction to do specially designed test preparation. We have three weeks of school after this week in most districts. So, you are asking teachers to teach 36 weeks worth of information and skills into 28 weeks. For the English exams it is 24 weeks.

Meanwhile, the general direction of education is to provide students with an authentic experience so they can connect their learning to real world experiences. It’s hard to get more unauthentic than a state test. This would be the greatest gift the state could give to teachers. It would greatly reduce our stress and maybe keep more of us in the profession for longer. Maybe it doesn’t compete with e jeans day pass or breakfast burrito in our mail box, but what could possibly compete with those things?