Teacher tax
Just some of my personal purchases for my classroom.
“$10,000, easily," said the experienced teacher without hesitation. Was she talking about a hiring bonus? A raise? The amount of stipend for being Nation Board Certified? No—this is the amount of her own money she’d put into her own classroom.
It was 2016, I was still working on my masters degree and had asked for advice on what the real classroom would be like. I’d asked as a fluke; I’d run out of other questions. What had she spent it on? That amount certainly it was one big-ticket item or new technology. Wrong. It was simply four or five years worth of day-to-day supplies and more expensive literacy materials that her classroom lacked when she’d arrived.
At the time, I’d dismissed this as a one-off. Certainly she was just particular or needy!
Not the case again. After five years of teaching, I too have spent some thousands of my own money keeping my classroom operational. Not fun and fancy—merely functional. I can’t think of even one classroom teacher I’ve met that doesn’t supplement their meager building or district provided classroom budget with basic materials.
It’s an equity issue.
When I began teaching primary in public school, the biggest expenditures in my own classrooms were alternative seating and centers. Primary-age students can’t sit in one location all day, and some students need quiet or calm areas for work and soothing. Districts using center-based curricula should factor the cost of center materials upon their implementation: tables, seating, and consumables. Somewhere in a warehouse sits a bunch of unused desks, reading tables, stools, paper and file sorters, etc. I am sure I could request some of these through the school principal, but these tasks are low priority on the command chain from administration to facilities. The process is so tedious or opaque that I preferred to acquire my own supplies.
My next biggest expenditure has been work for students. I should have some gold-level status for the amount I have spent on TeachersPayTeachers. I have worked in schools that required a tremendous amount of assignments for students—as much as an hours-worth of homework in math and literacy alone for second grade, not counting any work to be completed in class. Again, there are some consumables provided by the district curricula, but not enough that are: Common-core aligned, differentiated, engaging, and ready-to-use.
How is this an equity issue? Couldn’t teachers just stop doing this?
At the present moment, no. In the future, with change, districts and buildings could support teachers more to provide basics for classrooms. Teachers will likely continue on spending for treats or decor—do your thing. How could teachers avoid spending and advocating for basics for each class?
Here are some ideas:
A facilities lottery or other system for interested teachers to select furniture. Seriously—let me down there and have a look.
Ad-hoc curricular review teams that upload consumable materials (worksheets or links to digital materials). When launching a new curriculum, it’s hard to know what will be needed before delivering the instruction. After a year, teachers and department staff will have an idea of what is lacking and how to best get needed materials on the district LMS to avoid teachers scrambling and paying for material on pay sites like TeachersPayTeachers.
Retaining staff is critical. When teachers move grades, buildings, or out of the profession, knowledge of these materials or the processes to acquire them leave as well.
Placing a supply burden on teachers ends up wasting money and time. Time with teachers is particularly important for Title I and poorer schools to prioritize; the less time I spent in my planning, the more I could synthesize material for students, review student work for next steps, or make supplementary engaging lessons. Until districts account for the true cost of each classroom—and teachers expose the widespread severity of the issue—we continue to have a teacher tax.
