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The Endless Cycle of Teacher Strikes

 As I write this, teachers in San Francisco Unified School District are on strike for the first time in almost 50 years. Principals and custodians are also striking in solidarity. I looked up salaries to see how bad they were and... they're bad. If you're reading this from outside of the SF Bay Area and thinking "oh, this isn't this bad," please remember that San Francisco is one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. I think it may be number two after Manhattan. The average rent for a TINY studio apartment (400 square feet) in the city is $2,415 per month. The average rent for a three-bedroom apartment is $5,637. A month. (Teachers can't afford to buy property without generational wealth or a spouse who makes good money, so I'm only talking about rent)

 So when I tell you that a beginning teacher starts at just over $61,000 a year in SFUSD, I think you'll understand why my jaw dropped, even being used to poor teachers salary. That is, literally, poverty wages in San Francisco. ($105,000 is the cut-off for "low income" in San Francisco). The top, TOP salary for a teacher in SFUSD, a teacher with a master's degree and 26 years in the district, is just over $131,000.

 Now keep in mind that teachers have to, of course, pay taxes like everyone else, and pay quite a bit for healthcare, but they also pay a lot out of pocket for work supplies, school supplies that their students can't afford, food for kids who haven't eaten, etc.

 SO YES THEY SHOULD STRIKE.

"But the districts don't have any money either," you might say. And I know this is almost always the truth. I've seen district budgets. I know how education funding works and how some districts have nothing to cut anymore in order to pay teachers more. 

So what do we do? I wish I knew. I do know that this needs to change at a state level. The way California funds education is backwards. Until we have major change at a state level, we're going to see teacher strikes all over the state every few years, hurting teachers, students, and families. 

 I had a dream recently in which EVERY single district in the nine-county Bay Area went on strike at the same time and the state legislature decided they had to do something. I woke up and was really disappointed that it wasn't real, but I'm still hoping.

In my ideal world, every teachers' union and every Board of Education would go to Sacramento and demand change, rather than continue this cycle. Often, the teachers and the boards are set up as adversaries when they actually have a common enemy: the state funding. (I do realize this is easier said than done).

What can we do now? I don't know. Write to your legislators, of course, (you can find them here), but what else? Please share any and all ideas because as a state, we cannot keep doing this.

And good luck, SFUSD teachers. You deserve so, so much better.



 

 

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