SHARED STORIES |
“I used to be a community college instructor. It’s important that you understand why I’m not anymore… I chose to leave community college teaching due to low wages well before the influx of students from MassEducate, and well before bursts of inflation exacerbated strain on earnings. ”I loved my job, and please forgive this expression of pride, but I was very good at it. I enjoyed crafting tailored plans to the individual personalities and needs of each class that incorporated their experiences and related to the world around them. As you can imagine, this takes time, effort, and constant dedication to meeting evolving best practices, which requires more time and effort on top of that. I’m not special either; this is just what good teaching is. Any teacher with the spirit of a modern educator strives to do this, and they do it because they feel called to uplifting their communities through education. They certainly aren’t doing it for the money. I did this for nearly ten years before I had a difficult choice to make because I was not making a livable wage doing this work. I could have continued this way at the expense of my own wellbeing, or I could have done my job poorly just so I could fit in an untenable amount of it, or I could have left the profession. I chose to leave. Others chose to leave as well. More will do so, and our community college students will suffer for it. A QCC colleague with a PhD and 15 years of teaching community college students admitted that her child’s much younger elementary school PE teacher makes $30,000 more a year than she does. How much longer do you expect her to hold out? In a recent statement, Massachusetts Commissioner of Higher Education, Noe Ortega, asserted that, “Now more than ever, it is essential to ensure that all individuals – regardless of background or circumstance – have support, resources, and pathways to success. Higher education must remain a guiding force for inclusion, excellence, and social and economic mobility.” We’re thrilled that MassEducate removes the financial barrier for students to achieve this, truly, but it’s not enough to just get students in the door at community colleges. We’re not going to move the needle on their preparedness for the workforce or further education without the faculty and staff to get them there. For those that don’t leave the profession, and for the diminishing number of young professionals who choose to enter the profession, consider the other options: sacrifice their own wellbeing and compromise the quality of their teaching just so they can fit more classes into a semester or take on multiple jobs out of pure necessity to meet the basic cost of living in Massachusetts. Is this the quality of education you’re saying you want to provide for already disadvantaged students? An inadequate number of faculty and staff who are too burnt out to innovate, to evolve, to stay current, or to even respond to students’ questions and concerns? It flies in the face of MassEducate’s promise of economic mobility for all its residents if we don’t also commit to quality education. I haven’t even mentioned yet that I chose to leave community college teaching due to low wages well before the influx of students from MassEducate, and well before bursts of inflation exacerbated strain on earnings. That’s why funding MassEducate without funding pay equity for community college faculty and staff feels performative. It’s also objectively unsustainable and unproductive. What is your plan to retain and adequately serve vulnerable community college students through graduation and transfer without recruiting and retaining properly trained faculty and staff? If you truly believe in uplifting our Massachusetts communities through education as much as its educators do, you’ll see why it’s imperative to raise their wages to match the cost of living of today. |