Issues surrounding underpaid and overworked teachers and support staff underscore newly released polling data from the sixth annual State of Education Report released Tuesday by the Illinois Education Association.
“We can look at the results of this poll over the last several years and clearly see a trend – people have a growing appreciation for their teachers, education support staff and our higher education faculty and staff,” said IEA President Al Llorens. “But they also know teachers and support staff jobs have gotten much more difficult, and that they’re still underpaid and undervalued.”
According to data collected between Jan. 22 and Jan. 25 by pollsters Jill Normington of Normington-Petts, a Democrat, and former Illinois GOP chairman Pat Brady of Next Generation Strategies, 58% of people polled believe teachers are underpaid. The percentage of people who believe teachers are underpaid increased by 9% since last year.
Of the 1,000 surveyed, 71% say education support staff are also underpaid. 76% think teaching has become harder over the last few years, and 79% say they are “very worried” about the teacher shortage.
“What all this should tell us is that public education is a very important issue to the people of this great state, and they don’t want the status quo; they want better for our students, teachers, faculty, and staff,” Llorens said. “Strong schools are an investment in the future of our students and also the future of our state. However, we are never going to have strong, equitable schools for all students until our schools are fully funded until our education support staff are paid a living wage, and until our teachers’ and faculty’s pay and benefits are on par with the work they do.”
In January, the Tribune reported on a shortage of paraprofessionals at Crystal Lake District 47. According to the D47 Board of Education, the starting pay for newly hired support staff is $16.14 an hour.
Stephanie Lieurance, president of Crystal Lake Association of Support Staff and learning resource paraprofessional at South Elementary in District 47, said it’s increasingly difficult to live on a paraprofessional salary.
“I make about $20,000 a year. That doesn’t even cover the cost of insurance that the district offers us,” Lierance told the Tribune in January. “I’m fortunate in the fact that my husband makes a decent living, but I know a lot of parents that have had to leave and go find other full time jobs because they can’t afford to feed their families.”
Lierance said many paraprofessionals at District 47 and across the state support students with disabilities and students who have autism and are nonverbal. Often, the paraprofessionals get scratched and spit on, and deal with students who get physical.
One of the questions on the poll asked Illinois adults if they’ve heard anything about teachers and paraprofessionals being physically assaulted at school.
While 10% said they didn’t know, 48% answered yes. A follow up question asked participants if a paraprofessional was assaulted in their school community, with 49% answering no and 22% saying yes.
However, poll takers overwhelmingly favored new legislation to stop and prevent violence against teachers and support staff at schools.
“The data clearly show us Illinoisans have a growing support for public education, the education support staff and teachers who do that work,” Normington said. “We’ve been doing this poll for six years now, and because of that, we have some great comparables and the ability to see trends. This year we saw increased support in nearly every area of our poll from teacher pensions to funding for public schools.”
Normington said polls are usually done on either registered voters or likely voters, but this data set reflects what Illinois really looks like from a demographic and regional perspective.
“We usually do this survey around this time and we wait for about half of the school year to be gone before we talk to people all over Illinois,” she said.
One of the questions asked pollsters to write one word or phrase that comes to mind when thinking about Illinois public school teachers.
The word used most was “underpaid,” followed by overworked and hard-working.
Other words used among the 1,000 entries were unions, hard-working, caring, overwhelmed and several more like liberal and “woke.”