To the next president of the United States,

As many of us know but choose to ignore, teachers are underpaid. Teachers get paid 14% of what other jobs with the same education get paid. The University of Pennsylvania study found that 33% of teachers leave within the first three years of beginning their careers and 46% leave within the first five. The numbers have been increasing since the late 1980s (Lehnardt).We should all stand together and raise their pay it's in all of our benefit, this way teachers would be more pushed to do better for themselves and their families.

People may say that our government doesn’t have the money to give the teachers higher pay, but in reality teachers are very important so I think we can find the money. If we work hard enough we can find the money we need to pay what teachers deserve.

It's crazy to think that teachers have to get other jobs like Erik Benner who has two kids and is unable to support them with his teacher salary, therefore he has to work weekdays at Trinity Springs Middle School and drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Is not reasonable to have a full time teacher work all day with students then go off to work all night just to support his family(Temin). Teachers' priorities should be to create lessons plans for their students or to grade their students' work which is not very possible if they have to go do other jobs instead of doing a job that should support them but doesn’t.

People's brains won't stop growing until we are 25, are our education is very important especially when we are young. When we are young we are all very impressionable, so our teachers have to make lesson plans and work that will get us to think more critically and get us to fully understand their lessons. Barack Obama said “The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of their skin or where they come from. It’s not who their parents are or how much money they have. It’s who their teacher is” (John). If one of the most important persons in America history even said that teachers are very important, this shows that we shouldn't treat them like we do now, underappreciated. Teachers are helping the brains for the future so underpaying them is not really a good way to thank them.

Teachers also go through a lot of issues in and out of work. In school they might not like their co workers but really who does. However teachers don’t only have to handle their co workers, they also are going to handle their students. In high schools you only have to handle your students for a hour a day but you do have 5 classes and over 100 students. However when you're a elementary teacher you have to handle your kids for the whole day. I guess if you enjoy kids it won't be a big deal but after a whole 9 months of that (a whole school year ) it gets really tiring. Teachers also have a whole life outside of school. Yet teachers don't seem to get distracted with their personal lives at work like students or other people do. That shows that they are very responsible and focused on what's important … their students

Going off the idea that teachers have their own issues out and in the workplace, teachers also have a lot of financial instability due to the lack of income. one cause of this is that approximately 92.4% of teachers spend their own money on their students or classrooms(Lehnardt). This shows that teachers put their students before their own need, this is a huge act of kindness that teachers don't need to do but choose to do. Also the most common reason a person leaves teaching is the low salary(Lehnardt). Which makes a lot of sense since you wouldn't stay at a job that takes up a lot of energy/work and a lot of resources. I wouldn't make much sense.

I am convinced that if we really want things to change, we can bring our community together and find a way to treat teachers how they deserve to get treated. If we manage to do this kids and families all over the country would be greatly impacted but for the better. I know it might be hard right now because of the lack of resources, but if we brainstorm ideas we can come up with an amazing one!