09/02/2026
People who are not teachers have a strange way of talking about teaching as a profession.
When something goes wrong, we expect teachers to be professionals. We expect judgment, expertise, preparation, accountability and the ability to make hundreds of decisions about children every day.
But when the conversation turns to what that expertise is worth, suddenly we start talking about teaching like it's just a job anybody could do.
A teacher with 20 years of experience isn't simply someone who has managed to remain employed for 20 years.
They've spent 20 years learning how to recognize when a child doesn't understand something even though they're nodding along. They've learned which battles matter and which ones don't.
They've taught the same concept enough times to know five different ways to explain it. They've sat through parent conferences, IEP meetings, curriculum changes, new standards, new technology and probably a dozen initiatives that were going to revolutionize education.
That experience has value.
The same thing bothers me when people dismiss teachers buying classroom supplies by saying, “Lots of people buy things for their jobs.”
Of course they do.
A mechanic might buy tools. A contractor might buy equipment. Plenty of professionals spend their own money on things that make them better at their jobs. But those things generally belong to them.
The mechanic doesn't buy 25 socket sets because his customers showed up without one. There's a difference between buying something that helps you do your job and routinely buying the materials other people need in order for you to do your job. Other professions also get to take it off their taxes. Teachers are capped at $250.
None of this means teachers are uniquely mistreated or that nobody else has difficult working conditions. Plenty of professions have legitimate complaints.
But we don't have to prove that teachers have it worse than everybody else before we're allowed to say something doesn't make sense.
If we're going to ask teachers to exercise the judgment, responsibility and expertise of professionals, we should probably be willing to treat their experience like professional experience—and provide them with the basic resources necessary to practice their profession.
