Teachers vs. Athletes

Every A day I come in early to see my math teacher Mrs. Corry, to ask her questions about the homework. Mrs. Corry is always willing to help me with anything I don’t understand. I deeply appreciate the time she spends with me and all of her students in need. It makes me sad to know that she will be paid less money throughout the whole school year than some professional baseball players will make in one inning. This pay difference is a problem in our world that needs to be changed. Professional athletes should be paid less money, and school teachers should be paid more.

            There are a few reasons why this should change, but the first reason is that teacher’s pay should increase so that more qualified and gifted teachers would go into the field. There could be so many more great teachers if it was a higher paying job.  It’s as simple as this: if you want good teachers to teach, then pay them more money. Many qualified teaching candidates feel they cannot choose teaching as a career because they can’t support a family with a teacher’s salary. For example, my dad is great at teaching and would have loved to be a law teacher. However, there are six kids in my family, and so my dad had to choose a different career to support our family. While some teachers have financial problems, athletes are making more money than they can spend. It was reported that at one point, Michael Jordan was making $160 per second, which means that he was paid about $78,000,000 that year. If you compare this to a teacher, who makes about 43,000 per year, there is a drastic difference. Can you imagine how many amazing teachers would choose this as a job if they could make $78,000,000 a year?

Even though the pay is low, some teachers still choose this career, but they have to become qualified by going to college. The second reason that teachers should be paid more is that teachers make a financial investment to become teachers. They must pay for the training and education in college to qualify them for their job. Professional athletes, on the other hand, rarely spend any money on their college education (if they go to college), when they begin their professions, professional athletes make millions while teachers make relatively little. There is a saying that tells us, “You’ve have to spend money to make money.” In most cases this is true; however, teachers spend the money to go to college, but are paid much less money than those athletes who didn’t spend a penny. Not only are teachers giving up their money, but they also spend four or more years of their time in college. Since athletes don’t need anything but skill to qualify them for their jobs, they don’t have to put any time into college.

Although people may say that athletes play a big role in children’s lives, they don’t contribute nearly as much to society as teachers. School teachers spend time with children every school day teaching them math, science, English, and history. They are educating them and helping prepare them to be contributing members of society. On the other hand, professional athletes are not usually good examples to children and don’t teach them good principles. If teachers are contributing to the betterment of society while athletes are merely entertaining us, shouldn’t we pay teachers more than professional athletes?

As shown above, teachers should be paid more money, and professional athletes should be paid less. More good teachers would go into the field, teachers make a time and money investment by going to college, and teachers contribute more to children’s lives than professional athletes. Teachers play a big role in our lives as students, and I hope that more of our world can understand this so that by the time I go to college; I can choose to be a teacher like I would love to be someday.

"Salary for All K-12 Teachers." Payscale. Payscale Report. 2010-2011. Web. 1 Jan. 2010-2011. <http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary>.