Oklahoma Teacher: "I'd Be On Food Stamps" Without Second Job

[appalachiablue]

US News, "Oklahoma Teacher: 'I'd Be On Food Stamps' Without Second Job," April 2, 2018
Second Jobs Have Become a Necessity for Many Teachers in Oklahoma, Which Ranks Near the Bottom Annually in Educator Salaries.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — From rodeo announcer to custom-cabinet builder, second jobs have become a necessity for many teachers in Oklahoma, where educators are some of the lowest paid in the nation.
Thousands of teachers demonstrated Monday at the Capitol, in step with teachers in Kentucky, to voice dissatisfaction with salaries, school funding and other issues.

Here are some who moonlight to make ends meet, sometimes working more than 40 hours extra per week:

DORA BLACKMAN
Blackman, 45, teaches fifth grade at Healdton Public Schools in south-central Oklahoma.
Part-time jobs: Rodeo announcer and judge; waitress.
Hours worked outside teaching job: 46 per week.
"The reason I started doing the rodeo and announcing is so that I can pay for my daughter's college education," said Blackman, who took a $9,000 pay cut when she moved from Texas to Oklahoma in 2008. "I didn't want her to have to go into debt."

RAE LOVELACE
Lovelace, 35, teaches third grade at Leedey Public Schools in northwest Oklahoma.
Part-time job: Teaches special education for an online charter school.
Hours worked: 30 to 40 per week.
"I have to work that second job because I'm a single mom with a teenage daughter," Lovelace said. "If I didn't have a second job, I'd be on food stamps."

DAN HOLCOMB
Holcomb, 64, teaches science at Leedey Public Schools in northwest Oklahoma.
Part-time jobs: Lawn care and custom cabinetry.
Hours worked: At least 40 hours per week.
"Our youngest went into the oil field to be a welder, and he makes more than we do combined," said Holcomb, whose wife also is a public school teacher. "And he doesn't have a college degree."

MEGHANN NEELEY
Neeley, 40, is a second-grade teacher Newcastle Public Schools.
Part-time job: Online English instructor to children in China.
Hours worked: 20 hours a week.
"I shouldn't have to do it, but it is necessary just to make ends meet," Neeley said.

SHIANN JOHNSON
Johnson, 33, teaches third grade at McAlester Public Schools in southeast Oklahoma.
Part-time job: Tutoring.
Hours worked: 5 to 6 hours per week.
Johnson, whose husband also is a public school teacher, said: "Between the two of us, we have five jobs, and we also have two young children, so the time we spend on those extra jobs takes away from them."..

READ MORE:
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2018-04-02/oklahoma-teacher-id-be-on-food-stamps-without-second-job

Photos of teachers rallying for education at the Oklahoma Capitol in Oklahoma City on Monday, April 2, 2018,
from left, Dan Holcomb, a science teacher from Leedey, Okla., LaDonna Crampton, a third-grade teacher at Edmond Public Schools, Dora Blackman, a fifth-grade teacher from Healdton, Okla., and Rae Lovelace, a third-grade teacher from Leedey, Okla. All four have part time jobs to supplement their teaching income. (AP Photos/Sean Murphy) The Associated Press

[samplegirl]

1. Sad just

so damn sad. Second jobs seem to be a priority for many not just teachers.

[appalachiablue]

2. Indeed sad, and it's a national disgrace! Teachers in Germany are paid

equivalent to engineers, and teachers in South Korea receive more than here in the US. This Race to the Bottom must be changed- working an extra 45 hours a week tutoring, cleaning houses or driving a school bus is not what is best for the workers, students, families and communities. Or the future of this country...

[appalachiablue]

3. *The 5 Highest and Lowest Paying States for Teachers in the US,* CNBC, July 2017

*LOWEST:

1. Oklahoma

Annual mean wage: $42,460

2. Mississippi

Annual mean wage: $43,950

3. South Dakota

Annual mean wage: $44,210

4. North Carolina

Annual mean wage: $45,220

5. West Virginia

Annual mean wage: $45,240

*HIGHEST:

1. Alaska

Annual mean wage: $82,020

2. New York

Annual mean wage: $81,410

3. Connecticut

Annual mean wage: $76,260

4. New Jersey

Annual mean wage: $75,250

5. California

Annual mean wage: $74,940

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/the-5-highest-and-lowest-paying-states-for-teachers-in-the-us.html

[Behind the Aegis]

4. I have some sympathy.

Some! Sadly, many of these teachers voted in the assholes who have ravaged this state. While I think almost all teachers are way underpaid, it is hard to be overly sympathetic to those who actually contribute to their own situation. The upside? At least in this small town, there are grumblings of people finally voting democratic or just sitting out, though I dislike people not voting, given the state of affairs, I will adjust.

[appalachiablue]

5. Way wrong & must change. I also think of outnumbered BLUE votes, 2016 Pres. Election Map.

[Behind the Aegis]

6. Look at Oklahoma...not even a dot of blue!

Every...EVERY...other state has at least one dot of blue. OK is the ONLY state without a single blue county! There is a reason this state is in trouble.

ETA: It looks like West Virginia may also be without a single blue county.

[appalachiablue]

8. OK 420,000+ people voted HRC, 28.9%, darkest areas on this map maybe (?).

Similar to WVa., 26%+ voted for her too. This all has to change, soon...time to get to work Dems.!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Oklahoma,_2016

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. I noticed that. No blue anywhere.

Two of the worst states for education, and they're 100% sold on repuke criminals who turn their states into shitholes.

[appalachiablue]

10. This Can Be Done, ye of little faith! Keep up the fight..

[xmas74]

21. Once upon a time Oklahoma was a Democrat state.

My brother says his fellow citizens need to fight to bring it back.

[appalachiablue]

22. Absolutely, OK has produced many notable people in politics,

entertainment, sports, etc. including humorist Will Rogers, Sen. Eliz. Warren, more. It can go BLUE again!

West Va. was also a solid, loyal Blue state for decades till the mid 1990s. It still has hardcore Democrats, albeit outnumbered.
These states like others have also seen major out emigration, brain drain of talent like many teachers who recently left OK and other states because of the rotten, low pay.

We need to raise the minimum wage, maintain the safety net and a Lot more. Get people in All States fully employed in a national Green Jobs, Infrastructure Program like Pres. Obama proposed, similar to the CCC created by FDR in the 1930s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Oklahoma

CCC, Civilian Conservation Core, New Deal Program employed men age 17-28, during the Depression 1933-1942.
When Govt. worked for people, not corporations.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210434993

[LenaBaby61]

28. I have relatives who live in the Tulsa area, and most of their friends ...

Are STILL very much in love with tRumputin, and they buy into the meme that what's happening in their state is Pres. Obama's fault. Yep, MANY of their friends/acquaintances watch FoXXX Noose 24/7 and still hate on Pres. Obama. That, or they parrot the Hillary's a pedophile and that Bill raped Chelsea (Yep, they don't believe all of those inappropriate pictures tRump took with his daughter Ivunka, or what he said about him being "okay" with men calling her a piece of ass or that he'd date her if she wasn't his kid etc. though). They call anything negative that fatso says or does, fake news. I mean, how can you call something fake news that he SAYS or DOES.

By the way, several of my relatives friends are teachers who voted for Fatso-in-chief, and they're out there marching 😳, and like I said, they STILL support him and still hate Pres. Obama and Hillary. I do believe that a few of these teachers WILL see the light eventually. But that state is almost in the gutter just like Kansas is.

Can you reach those folks that are marching and who still support/love fatso? That state is run by thuglicans. End of story. You have to be pretty ignorant or racist or both to think that Pres. Obama has anything to do with the hideous plight of that state with all that RED running through it. Well, that or a racist imbecile too.

Lordt, a woman was the shooter @ Youtube headquarters, and she may have killed herself. It's over.

[tblue37]

31. See my post #30 below. nt

[appalachiablue]

11. #10

[ooky]

7. One look at that map and its not hard to figure out

where all the money has gone.

[moondust]

12. Dummies are easier to brainwash.

Smarties might figure out why they want dummies.

Besides, public schools require paying the evil taxes. EVIL!!!

[appalachiablue]

13. That scenario has to change, doesn't it. Or we're all lost, most anyway.

Americans and the Dems. must figure a way to assist, message and reach people. In a two-coast economy with the ongoing race to the bottom, along with other tensions esp. fabricated by RW news this will be difficult but not impossible. Use Brain! I say.



1928 Pres. Election Map, HOOVER elected after Coolidge, Harding- three consecutive GOP presidents, then 1929 disaster.



Crowds gather outside the New York Stock Exchange during the Wall Street crash of 1929.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. While I do have sympathy, and absolutely agree that teachers should be paid more,

I don't think food stamps kick in at what teachers are paid. If that's the case, then I've been eligible for food stamps much of my working life, and how did I not know that?

A couple of years ago I was in conversation with a teacher who was complaining about her salary, so I asked her what it was. A bit above 60k a year. I never earned that much.

Again, don't get me wrong. Teachers should be well paid. They should not be buying classroom supplies our of their pockets. But a lot of jobs command a lesser salary.

[appalachiablue]

16. What state was the complaining 60K teacher in?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. I'm in New Mexico, which is not

exactly a state noted for high teacher pay.

I think there's a lot of emphasis on beginning pay, which is generally low everywhere. But after a while teachers are earning decent wages.

I also think one huge problem, only peripherally connected to pay is the stupid requirement of additional college credits each and every year. I recall my older son's first grade teacher complaining that she had basically taken every single class there was out there for her (she'd probably been a teacher for 20 years at this point) and so she had to go through bullshit classes each and every summer. She also had to pay for those classes, which is also bullshit. Continuing education, or whatever they want to call it, should be at least 50% paid for by whoever is requiring it. And if the classes aren't meaningful to the teacher's continuing education, then why bother? I've never been a teacher but I can quickly think of alternative ways to accomplish these ends, and I bet real teachers can think of many more.

[appalachiablue]

18. Got it. I was going to ask whether it was the salary or other factors.

That's pointless BS about the annual requirement, and a big waste of her time. No wonder she was complaining. Teachers are jerked around in many ways like other employees. My sisters in law went thru the ringer on extra courses and summer workloads, but they loved their work, like another sister who teaches Montessori and hasn't had a raise in 10 years.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. Unfortunately, teachers are not the only ones who don't get raises.

The airline industry, in the late 1990s, froze and then lowered wages. At least some airlines (including the one I worked for some ten years) got out from under their pension obligations by declaring bankruptcy. My pension (and that of my fellow employees) is a bit less than one third of what it should be. I'm fortunate in that I never assumed that pension would be significant in my retirement. But the employees who worked for thirty or forty years and counted on it? They're screwed big time.

More recently I worked in a hospital, and the woman who did all of the training on the computer system hadn't received a raise in some 6 or 8 years, and this was back in 2010 or thereabouts. I no longer work there and never see her, but I'm horrified at that long term no raise. I have zero idea what she was making, but that's not the point. It's the no raise in all those years. Meanwhile the CEO of that hospital got regular raises at a percentage well above what any of the rank and file got.

Similarly, state and municipal pensions are being systematically eroded. And the argument that those employees took lower pay for the promise of a good pension doesn't even matter to me. It's the abrogating of the promise that matters. You do EXACTLY what Republicans claim you should do: work in a job for 20, 30, or more years, expecting a decent retirement at the end. And then those fuckers have the nerve to say, "My bad."

[appalachiablue]

23. There's a big GOP attault on govt. workers at the state & local level now I know.

And it was in the 80s during Reagan's reign that pensions/retirement plans were moved from being company liabilities to assets which made the funds easy for seizure I believe. Agree about the undisputed obligation public and private employers have to their workers' benefits programs, especially retirement. Hands off. Because of the instability in the stock market now I also wonder about the safety of many retirement funds. You're smart Not to have relied on any future pension plans which are disappearing.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

34. I wasn't so much smart as lucky.

I worked for a company for just over 10 years, long enough to be vested in the retirement plan. All of the estimates I got for the next 20 years indicated my pension would be about $100/month. So I never figured it into my retirement planning. Eventually it increased, and would have been a somewhat decent amount, although no where near enough to live on. then the company declared bankruptcy, handed over the pension obligation to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and when I started collecting, it was a third of what it should have been, although a bit more than the $100/month I'd originally figured I'd get.

It's the employees who played by the rules, who stayed with a company (or whatever job) for thirty or more years, being told all along there'd be a decent pension at the end and now WHAM! It's jerked out from under them.

I never worked anywhere else very long. I simply saved and invested a significant part of my income. Right now Social Security is about a third, what it's supposed to be, and income from investments is the other 2/3. The pension is very little.

[Yupster]

33. You are right

Teachers are wonderful and all that. Heck I was one for nine years myself, but there is an awful lot of misinformation on this topic.

1. A teacher making the average $ 42,000 a year is not going to qualify for food stamps. The starting minimum salary for a teacher in Oklahoma is $ 31,000. Most districts will start considerably higher than that.

2. The cost of living in Oklahoma is pretty low. Even in some of the larger cities like Tulsa, you can buy a perfectly nice 3 bedroom, 2 bath house for $ 90 - $ 100,000.

3. When a teacher says they didn't get a raise, they generally mean didn't get a raise aside from the normal step raise for having an extra year of experience. It's not unheard of a district rolling back the salary schedule, but it is incredibly rare.

While I taught I always had a summer job. I couldn't just sit home for so long.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

35. Yes. I do wonder at the claims of

teachers qualifying for food stamps, which I occasionally see.

[Demovictory9]

20. very sad

[onecent]

24. Without a second job she'd be on food stamps??????????????????

This used to be the USA......I don't think I've ever hated any other presidents than I have Dotard.

[indigovalley]

25. I am a teacher

I am a special education teacher in a small midwestern town. In my district, you need a masters degree and years of experience to get into the $50,000+ a year salary range. To hit our max pay (around $60,00) you need a second masters degree or it's equivalent. I reached the top pay level for my amount of education a few years ago so my pay won't increase much between now and retirement (I am 60 years old). I will never be eligible for that highest pay range as there was no way I could afford a second graduate degree.

It's common in my district for teachers to have second jobs. Most do not have advanced degrees. I totally understand the teachers in the article. I hear these types of stories from my colleagues all the time.

There are definitely other jobs where you are also underpaid for your worth and experience. What is so frustrating about teaching is the amount of education that is required to obtain and maintain your teaching license. Yet the financial gain in return for all that education is small. I am happy to be a teacher--I like the challenge of my students and work. But I wish we teachers were more valued. I'm not advocating that teachers should be paid huge salaries, but it would be nice to be paid for the education and experience we bring to the job.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

36. So if a teacher is making $50k a year,

depending on where she lives, I just don't get the second job thing. Unless you simply prefer working in the summer rather than staying home.

But if you have a spouse, and if that spouse makes the same $50k, that's a combined six figure salary.

My husband, when we were married, never made six figures. And I was a stay at home mom.

[indigovalley]

38. Not everyone is in that situation

Beginning teachers in my district make $36,000. Many teachers don't make anywhere near the $50,000 salary. Teachers wanting family medical coverage in my district have to pay several hundred dollars out of their paycheck monthly. Yes, if you are on the high end of the pay scale and have a spouse with a good job you will be OK. But not everyone is in that situation. We have younger teachers, some single parent, who are barely getting by due to the health care cost and the cost of living around here.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

39. Thank you for the further explanation.

And of course we all agree that no matter what your job or pay is, health care, certainly basic health care, should be covered.

[appalachiablue]

40. Thanks for your input. Too many areas of the US are experiencing

extremely high costs for housing and also health insurance which was one of the main grievances of the WVa. teachers who went on walk out in March. Their health care premiums had just shot up and the state is now involved in working out that issue.

[UncleTomsEvilBrother]

26. Yes, sad but...

...but one has to wonder how these teachers from Oklahoma and West Virginia voted. Did they go to the polls and vote against Hillary and her emails? Were they sold on the wall? Were the dog whistle anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-intellectual writhing of Joffrey Baratheon enough to make them vote against their own interests in 2016?

They would not be the first to have voted against their best interests, but one certainly can't help but wonder. Many of these teachers are marching are white women whose demographic majority voted for 45.

[Squinch]

27. If they stopped voting for Republicans, things would change. Sorry, but it's their own fault.

The majority of them vote R and are therefore dumber than mud fences.

[LeftInTX]

29. Only one teacher said this and she may not have her facts straight.

Regarding Food Stamp eligibility. For two people, gross is $1,726, net is $1,335/ $20,715/yr. (She is a single parent with a teenage daughter) OK base pay is $31,000


However, it is obvious she needs a second job to put food on the table and that is what matters.

[tblue37]

30. Raw Story quotes a teacher who remains a "loyal Republican" even as he complains

Last edited Tue Apr 3, 2018, 09:28 PM - Edit history (1)

that even with his Master's degree he must take menial jobs to make ends meet. Then he says he would vote for a fence post labeled with an R if necessary to get rid of the legislators who won't fix the problem.

Apparently he still wouldn't vote for a Democrat, though, even though it's the Republicans who undermine school funding and try to destroy public schools and push privatization.

These loyal Republicans can't put 2 and 2 together, even when they have advanced degrees.

[appalachiablue]

32. That's real bad, what the R teacher from OK said about loyalty in

a Raw Story article, I haven't seen that. This OP is from an AP/US News article. Funding for Oklahoma teachers was cut the most harshly of all US school systems after the 2008 financial crash and they are at the bottom of the pay scale nationally like AZ, WV, and several others. The harshness has been driving teachers out of state which is a serious negative.

I haven't seen any information about teacher voting records, whether those in OK sited in this article, or many others who recently are and have been protesting for better pay and compensation. But as I posted in #8, I do know that in OK, more than 480,000 people, 28.9% voted for Clinton in 2016. And in WVa., over 280,000 people, 26.8% voted D also.

The teacher walkouts have been reported in mainstream news and alternative news sites like Daily Kos and Democracy Now! since starting in March this year in WVa. Labor issues of this size are usually followed in the media, especially by the left and Democrats because of their long time support for US workers. The news coverage of the teachers issues has been positively accepted and IMO we can't condemn all people in a state especially when that many voters are known to have voted D.

Public school teachers in many states have been historically underpaid, undervalued and overworked, not only in R states. Factors include long held perceptions that teaching children/the teaching profession is babysitting, it's 'women's work' and due to the recent push for privatized schools and the GOP's renewed attack on most all public sector workers. Several relatives are teachers; one in a blue voting state hasn't seen a raise in 10 years.

[LenaBaby61]

37. "These loyal Republicans can't put 2 and 2 together, even when they have advanced degrees."

Yep, sounds a LOT like my relatives friends/acquaintences.

Your post is 100% on the mark here:

"Apparently he still wouldn't vote for a Democrat, though, even though it's the Republicans who undermine school funding and try to destroy public schools and push pretty privatization."

I've very little to NO sympathy for someone who thinks like this ^^

&

[Drahthaardogs]

41. This is nothing new. Both my parents taught. We qualified

For food stamps.

It's what we called as Americans.