Os professores não precisam de técnicas aprimoradas de autocuidado. Eles precisam de um aumento.

Em comparação com colegas com formação semelhante na força de trabalho, os professores ganham 76 centavos por dólar. Banhos de espuma e aplicativos de atenção plena não podem compensar a negação sistemática de salários que sustentam a vida.

Nora De La Cour

Jacobin

Um professor ensina a terceira série em Stanton, Califórnia. (Paul Bersebach / MediaNews Group / Orange County Register via Getty Images)

Em setembro, a Semana da Educação pediu aos professores nas mídias sociais que nomeassem as palavras-chave que eles mais estão cansados de ouvir. Ficou em quarto lugar foi um termo que é particularmente irritante quando proferido por chefes: autocuidado.

“É uma piada”, disse claramente um educador. Outro observou que a ênfase no autocuidado “exige [que] os professores mantenham um equilíbrio saudável em suas vidas sem abordar [o] pagamento, responsabilidades adicionais e más condições” que inevitavelmente perturbam esse equilíbrio. A advertência para “praticar o autocuidado” efetivamente culpa os professores pelo estresse e esgotamento que sentem. Você está triste com o fato de ter perdido seu período de preparação por dois meses e seu salário mal cobre o aluguel? Você realmente precisa tentar a respiração guiada.

A pandemia chamou a atenção geral para a escassez generalizada de professores, rotatividade e desgaste, mas essa crise vem se formando há décadas. Ex-professores citam todos os tipos de razões para deixar a profissão, incluindo cargas de trabalho impossíveis e estruturas de gestão que estão totalmente fora de sintonia com as necessidades reais dos alunos. Mas talvez a razão mais gritante para as pessoas deixarem os empregos de professor (ou decidirem não entrar neles) seja o alto custo de oportunidade: trabalhadores com escolaridade comparável podem ganhar substancialmente mais dinheiro em outras áreas.

O déficit salarial semanal que os professores experimentam em relação a outros profissionais, conhecido como multa salarial do professor, tem se expandido constantemente ao longo do tempo. E um relatório do Instituto de Política Econômica (EPI) mostra que essa punição financeira por se tornar professor atingiu novos patamares em 2021.

Por quase vinte anos, pesquisadores do EPI estudaram de perto as tendências na remuneração dos professores, capturando um quadro cada vez mais alarmante. No último relatório, a economista do trabalho Sylvia Allegretto mostra que, enquanto os graduados não professores viram seus salários semanais aumentarem em US$ 445 (em dólares de 2021) entre 1996 e 2021, os salários ajustados à inflação dos professores de escolas públicas aumentaram apenas US$ 29 durante esse período.

In 1996, US teachers paid a modest but meaningful price for their altruism, earning about 94 cents on the dollar compared to their peers. In 2021, that number was down to just 76.5 cents. Teacher wage rates vary from region to region, but in twenty-eight states, the pay gap between teachers and similar college graduates exceeds 20 percent, which translates to average earnings of 80 cents on the dollar. In some places the problem is much worse. Colorado teachers, for instance, make about 64 cents on average for each dollar paid to workers with comparable education. It’s no wonder the Rocky Mountain state has been struggling to staff its schools.

Allegretto notes that the gender breakdown in relative pay is particularly revealing. In 1960, teaching jobs made up a high percentage of all professional jobs available to women, and teaching women earned nearly 15 percent more than their peers in other fields. That wage premium dropped to 6.9 percent by 1979, eventually being replaced by a growing wage penalty in the 2000s.

Today, college-educated women can choose from a wide variety of professional careers. Those who nevertheless decide to teach face the reality that they’ll earn over 17 percent less than other women with college degrees. In other words, as Allegretto explains, “Over six decades there has been a 31.8 percentage-point swing for the worse in the relative wage gap for women teachers.” The field is still female-dominated, but the unsustainable student debt-to-earnings ratio restricts which kinds of women can teach, meaning that students are deprived of the significant benefits of learning from a diverse array of educators.

The situation for male teachers is even more extreme. Men, who earn more than women in the general labor market, already faced a high penalty of nearly 18 percent for teaching back in 1979. In 2021, the average pay penalty for male teachers exceeded an eye-popping 35 percent (or 65 cents on the dollar). As Allegretto points out, this goes a long way toward explaining why the profession’s lopsided gender makeup has not improved over time.

The problem cuts all different ways. First, it’s unfair to men who feel called to teach but are repelled by punishing wages. It’s also unfair to students, who, again, benefit from being taught by a heterogeneous mix of people and who lose out on potentially great male teachers. Finally, the cycle of feminization and devaluation afflicting the profession adds more problems for women who teach. Among other things, it’s demoralizing to be part of an almost entirely female rank-and-file workforce, taking orders from bosses who are much more likely than teachers to be men.

Wage penalties discourage college students from entering teacher training programs and make it harder for schools to keep qualified educators in classrooms. The frequent vacancies that result seriously disrupt both student learning and students’ sense of safety and stability, harming poor and minority kids the most. These vacancies are incredibly expensive for school districts and cause negative ripple effects throughout school communities, as workloads and stressors are intensified for remaining staff.

Fixing this problem by offering more attractive teacher salaries would seem to be a no-brainer. But of course, this would require refunding schools at a time when state legislatures have been moving remarkably fast to defund and dismantle public education.

In light of all this, teachers’ frustration at being told by principals, superintendents, and highly paid education consultants to “practice self-care” makes perfect sense. Many teachers don’t have any time to relax, because inadequate compensation forces them to take on other jobs. But even when there’s time, bubble baths and mindfulness apps can’t make up for the systematic denial of life-sustaining wages. For too many educators, real self-care has meant finding a different line of work.

Colaboradora

Nora De La Cour é assistente social do ensino médio, ex-professora e membro da Massachusetts Teachers Association.