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As a first-year teacher entering the profession, I have already seen what I feel is a very alarming trend in education — we are hanging on by a thread. I was one of only four that graduated from the B.S. Secondary Education Life Science program at the University of Maine this past May.
Many of my talented classmates are graduating with their education degree but choosing not to use it because the amount of time, dedication, and effort that we put into teaching is not reflected in our pay.
Seasoned colleagues share stories of living paycheck to paycheck, unable to accrue any amount of savings even while working full-time and participating in additional paid opportunities. Another one of my colleagues recently shared with me that when they began teaching, they needed to apply for food stamps simply to get by. For professionals that have such an impact on the lives of many people in our state, we need to do better.
Don’t get me wrong, we love our jobs. As teachers we have one of the best jobs in the world. We love our kids. But like any Mainer does, we deserve fair compensation for our time and expertise.
Our role in society is essential. We work hard to provide our students with a quality education because that is exactly what they deserve. Our communities must recognize that change needs to be made if we want to continue providing Maine students with the best education possible.
We should all be concerned about the current trends that we are seeing in education. The decreasing number of teachers entering the profession is alarming and demands immediate action. According to the Maine Department of Education the number of teachers completing Educator Preparation programs in Maine has dropped by 53 percent since 2010 — the third largest decline in the nation. Without swift action, who will fill our classrooms in the future? We must attract and recruit the next generation of educators, while retaining those who have given so much to our schools already.
If we truly value the investment of education, we must pay educators fairly. I urge you to ask your legislators to support LD 974 and LD 1064, two bills aimed at doing just that. We can’t afford not to.
Kendrah Willey
Dover-Foxcroft
