I've been in school for fucking ever and I finally found a job I liked doing, working in MS education as an instructional aide. I'm still in school to be a teacher myself because teaching with a degree, you know, the job that is famously underpaid for the amount of work you do, is at least something you can live off of. New teachers are always needed in my area and can make upwards of $70k a year at starting wage with health insurance, guaranteed pay progression, union membership, and breaks when students get breaks. Honestly though I'd be happy to keep doing the aide thing for a while if the pay wasn't absolutely horrendous.
You know how teachers aren't paid enough for their full-time work? Teachers are right under secretary and administration positions in payment in US public education. Kitchen staff (whose jobs involve daily catering for large events with diverse dietary restrictions and specific nutrition requirements, something that is considered difficult when the government isn't paying for it), custodians, instructional aides (who are the people expected to carry out disabled student's IEPs, and usually have to educate in both academics and social issues), anyone who does interventions at any level, bus drivers… they all make way, way less than teachers do. I make $18,000 a year and I'm not even paying into an insurance plan right now.
I think a lot of people forget about the non-teachers working in our current education system. I personally teach students how to be students while they're also navigating difficult social, educational, and personal lives; I talk to students about their home lives and their traumas and shit all day while also keeping tabs on their assignments, academic performance, weak points, strong points, and providing individual tutoring in whatever classes they might be working on at any given moment, which is a service apparently worth $100 a day in total. I'd make more just tutoring kids at home, but then the kids who need it most (those from rough families with a lot of obstacles to overcome) wouldn't even receive what attention I can give them at school. And of course, nobody wants to join in the field, because the pay is shit and you're overworked, because there aren't enough people employed in schools. Then I'm supposed to be happy that my state deigned to give us a little more than the bare minimum required to keep up current standards in school districts– are you kidding me?
There are no substitutes. Nobody is applying for these jobs. Nobody should be applying for these jobs. And then teachers that see 400 students a day and aides with 20 students on their workload are blamed for providing inadequate education for students and education funding is threatened again. Every fucking time I see an article about how schools are “failing students” that includes an interview with a concerned parent that pulled little Timmy out to go to a private school I feel like tearing off the wallpaper and climbing inside! Why aren't you talking to the people on the ground! The people working in these places! Any fucking IA or paraprofessional can tell you precisely why public schools aren't working right now, and it's the stupidest possible reason: people can't live by teaching.