I started my career teaching in a Catholic school. I taught there for ten years. I loved it. The students were all college bound, and parent expectations were incredibly high. My standardized test averages were out of this world, but we honestly never talked about it in our school. My husband was also teaching at a Catholic high school and still is to this day. The community found in the private school was amazing. I saw it as a way to live my beliefs. It made teaching a dream job for both of us.
It was, however, incredibly tough surviving on two private school teachers' salaries. We made about 60% of what the local public school teachers made. A friend of ours did a survey about finances for her master's program and interviewed us. She told us that based upon the information we gave her, we were classified as being in the upper lower class. We knew we were struggling, but we were shocked that two college graduates would only make enough to be considered in the upper lower class. It was a tough decision to make, but when our children were born, we made the decision that one of us would move to the public school. We needed to make sure that at least one of us would have a reasonable pension. Since the private high school paid a little better than the elementary school, I was the one who switched. It was then that I became a union girl.
I've been teaching in the public school now for 25 years. My husband has continued to teach in the Catholic high school the entire time. We are both nearing retirement, and I see the difference between the two systems pretty clearly.
The Catholic School is a wonderful place for the kids and their parents. It is an incredibly high level school academically. They aren't hampered by the effects of NCLB. The teachers, however, are still struggling after all these years. They have very little say in anything that happens in the school. They are at the mercy of their administration and parents.
For a while, the administration was committed to making conditions better for the teachers, at least monetarily. At one point, they were up to 80% of the pay local public school teachers got. It's fallen since the downturn in the economy, but the teachers have no recourse. Teaching conditions and hiring and firing have often been a problem. The teachers have no say in how most decisions regarding their working conditions are handled. It's been somewhat of a roller coaster watching it. Over the years, I've seen private school teachers go to court because something the school did was actually illegal. Most often, they did nothing to fight back against unfair practices. The turnover in my husband's school has always been pretty high. The teachers who stay do so out of a sense of mission. They see it as their calling.
I instantly saw the value of having a union when I moved to the public school. Make no mistake, the difference in the two schools was not the teachers. It was in the parents and kids. When I taught in a Catholic school and had a problem with a child, I would call the parents and they'd assure me that they'd take care of it and they did. Many of the parents of the public school kids I taught were completely uninvolved. If I had a problem with a child at school, some parents would even tell me to stop bothering them because since it was happening at school it was entirely my problem. Many didn't even return my calls. I would go an entire year without meeting some of the parents. That was unheard of in the Catholic school, where the parents were completely available and always actively involved. Parents at the private school instilled a real sense of value for education, which wasn't always the case with public school parents.
I knew that my higher pay, and better working conditions were all due to the union. In no way did I think that my pay should be lowered to the level of pay of the private school. I thought their pay should be raised to at least equal mine. In fact, I thought all of our pay levels should be raised. My evidence for this was the fact that my teaching partner's daughter was an entry level emergency room nurse who made more in her first year than her father had after 30 years of teaching. Another teacher's son was laid off after his first year teaching, but he didn't mind because he said he'd just go back to his job as a waiter where he made more than he had as a teacher. My bank account says that teachers are absolutely not overpaid. Without my union, it would be even worse. From my experience, the only group that is actually trying to make things better for teachers these days is the union. For this reason, I'm a proud union girl.