Teacher Posts Salary on Facebook, Asks Why She's Paid so Little Even With a College Degree
Fed up with low pay and nearly meaningless salary bumps, an Arizona teacher posted her salary to Facebook alongside an exasperated message, according to multiple reports this week. Whispering Wind Academy teacher Elisabeth Milich wrote her pay was not a living wage.
A picture of paperwork, apparently revealing her pay of $35,490 per year, showed her getting an additional $131 in pay the next year after taking developmental classes, according to Arizona newspaper The Republic. Milich has since deleted the photo.
"This is my new pay after taking a few professional development classes," she wrote in the post, via The Republic. "I actually laughed when I saw the old salary vs. the new one. I mean really, I need a college degree to make this? I paid 80,000 for a college degree, I then paid several hundred more to transfer my certification to Az.
Milich continued later: "The reality is without my husband’s income I could NEVER be an educator in this state! I’m sad for my single mom teacher friends working three jobs to make ends meet! Something must be done."
The post from Milich drew enough attention to warrant an apparent response from Arizona's governor, Doug Ducey. In a radio interview he said: "Our teacher pay last year went up 4.4 percent to an average pay of $48,000. Now, that's not enough and I want to see it rise from there," according to KMOV.
"My hope is that our state takes a hard look at this crisis. There are vacancies all over the state because they can't find teachers," Milich told the Republic.
Across the country in 2016-17, teachers made an average salary of $58,950, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Arizona was well below the national average at $47,403.
Teachers in West Virginia recently went on strike that resulted in them earning a 5 percent pay raise.
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