Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com
Recently we celebrated National Teacher Appreciation week. Business partners provided lunches. Schools purchased small gifts like sunglasses, cinnamon rolls, and key chains. Some parents scrambled to find unopened Christmas gifts of perfume or lotion, to re-gift to their child’s favorite teacher, and local media did feel good stories.
My guess is teachers loved those tokens of appreciation, because it doesn’t happen often, especially since they’ve just endured the never-ending slog between Christmas and Easter.
But even with the gifts and free food, many labor advocates criticize appreciation weeks, saying that “If a profession needs a specific week to feel valued, it often points to systemic issues with compensation, workload, and societal respect.”
I agree.
In many ways the teaching profession collectively feels like the old Rodney Dangerfield tagline, “I tell ya, I get no respect.”
So, why do professionals dedicated to the future of kids feel this way? There are a couple of reasons. First, is the compensation/ working conditions, and second is the use of public schools and teachers as political punching bags.
Salary and working conditions
I understand salary isn’t everything. But it’s a lot if a young teacher is coming out of college with a $75,000 to $100,000 loan debt. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average starting salary for teachers is 73 cents for every dollar earned by other similarly degreed professions. This “teacher pay penalty” contributes to growing shortage of highly trained professionals willing to take a vow of poverty.
Yes, the Iowa legislature raised teachers’ starting salaries in 2025. But that didn’t help veteran teachers, since most salary schedules were wiped out in 2017. Those with eleven to 30 years teaching received little. Insurance increases and inflation quickly ate much of the new teacher pay increase.
This isn’t new. When I started teaching in 1979, my wife and I took a walk with my first check in hand. She asked, “Is this for two weeks?” I whispered, “No for a month.” I took a pay cut from my summer job to teach.
Most teachers outfit their own classrooms. According to the Adopt a Classroom website, teachers spend an average of $895 per year out of pocket on their classrooms.
Teachers don’t walk away when the bell rings. Most lug mounds of papers home and spend hours grading, planning, and phoning or messaging parents.
Class sizes are too large and planning time too rare. Unlike doctors and lawyers, teachers don’t have waiting rooms. They’re smacked in the face with issues and problems all at once. AI estimates teachers make 1,500 educational decisions every day.
Once a student is assigned to a classroom, he/she becomes one of “their kids.” Often “their kids” arrive with learning issues, and deep emotional trouble. A classroom is a microcosm of our cities and towns. Teachers are the mayor and city council rolled into one.
Political punching bags
Republicans gained the trifecta of government after the 2016 elections. Former Senate Majority leader Bill Dix said, “The message I’m taking from voters is they expect us to kick the door in.”
They did. Teachers were hit with the political shrapnel.
The GOP majority pitted private vs public schools in unfair competition. They banned books and classroom discussion they didn’t like. They picked on students they saw as “different,” and pretended teachers indoctrinated students.
They’re still at it.
Zach Lahn, a GOP candidate for governor, is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV ads calling teachers “Marxists,” and accusing teachers of indoctrinating students to hate our country. Adam Steen, another Republican running for governor, claims in his own commercial, “Our values are under attack. This is a battle of good versus evil.”
Remember during the COVID-19 pandemic, when teachers were essential and considered heroes worth millions? Let’s show appreciation with our votes and actions for more than a week.