I opened an e-mail today from the “We Are Teachers” organization talking about a social media campaign called #10FeaturedTeachers. In theory it sounds like a great idea. Teachers share their students needs and if they are lucky a donor might send them a $50 Amazon gift card. The We Are Teachers sight has funding to reward 100 teachers by Christmas. A few celebrities are joining in on the campaign started by Ed Roste. It is great to see teachers get recognized and feel supported by the community at large.
Do we have a #10featureddoctors, #10featuredlawyers, #10featured- any profession campaign?
Let’s look a little closer. First the average teachers spends $500 on classroom supplies, so these 100 get a 10% back as a reward for taking part in this campaign. In Michigan alone there are over 100,000 teachers that could partake. So, if every teacher in the state participated only 0.1% of the teachers got this bonus back for helping out their students in their classroom. This doesn’t even include all the employees that help around our classrooms like para-professions, custodians, bus drivers, secretaries and administrators who also spend out of pocket funds to make sure our students have what they need. Like this story of a custodian helping out students with clothing. Every school has staff who spend out of their pockets to help out students.
This speaks to a larger issue. Schools need funding to provide our students the experiences they need. Social media campaigns, prizes and grants help continue to foster the inequities in our educational system by creating ” haves” and “have nots”. It is time schools have the funding to give staff budgets to help fulfill our students needs.
This all makes me think about the story I hear on the radio this morning about Chase Daniel who has only thrown 78 passes in NFL games but has made over 34 million dollars during his career. Makes one think all about our priorities!
Please Fund schools so our students can EXPERIENCE the WORLD at its BEST!
Sweat to Inspire 
I couldn’t agree more. Schools need to be properly funded to ease the burden of what we all spend out of our own pockets. The analogy about athletes is so true and a clear indicator of where our society would prefer to see their money invested. This is one reason that I hardly ever attend games or concerts. I would much rather see the money I earn invested in what matters rather than some athlete or musicians pocket. Thanks for sharing.