We must understand that it is absurd that there are school
districts throughout this country where there are major shortages of teachers.
And if we understand the enormously important work that teachers do,
that means in my view among many other things that
we should be paying public school teachers,
a minimum of at least $60,000 a year.
>> You're probably not surprised that Bernie Sanders three weeks ago is
advocating for people like public school teachers.
Here's the amazing thing in American politics,
he said we should do a thing, and now he's doing that thing.
He has introduced a bill, the pay Teachers Act, that would establish
a $60,000 minimum salary for public school teachers across the country, and
here he is making the case for why we need to pass this.
>> In America today, the starting pay for
teachers in almost 40% of our school
districts is less than $40,000 a year.
Further, 43% of all teachers in America make less than 60,000 a year.
This situation has become so absurd, and
it really tells us about our priorities that the top
15 hedge fund managers on Wall Street make more
money in a single year than every kindergarten
teacher in America, over a 120,000 teachers.
>> That's a sort of message that should probably work well in a conservative
population that says they hate elites and the deep state and all that.
I'm glad he's doing this, though, have some amazing stats for you.
He gave you some amazing stats, here are some others.
He said that the average weekly wage of a public school teacher has gone
up in the past 30 years.
Once you adjust for inflation, just $29.
Three whole decades, multiple generations of students going
through the collective future of our country and for
all of their labor, they're $29 a week better off on average.
Some are actually doing worse than they would have 30 years ago.
More than half of the nation's schools are actually understaffed right now.
When you poll teachers, roughly half of them are saying that they
are already considering leaving the profession because like,
I want you to just remember just briefly, like, go back like six years ago.
I think we could all agree that being a public school teacher was a thankless job,
was incredibly important, but few people focused on it.
They didn't make much money off of it.
They had to work long hours, including in the summers.
They had to provide supplies for their students and as bad as it was for teachers
then that was before the Republicans decided to train their followers that
every public school teachers are also probably a sexual predator.
Like they could not have imagined at that point that it was going to get worse for
them, but
it has, and it's time for someone to balance the scales with a bit of support.
So kudos to Bernie Sanders for pushing for that.
>> Okay, two more amazing stats, wages for
public school teachers also comes from Bernie Sanders.
Wages for public school teachers are so low that in 36 out of the 50 states,
the average public school teacher with a family of four qualifies for
food stamps, public housing, and other government assisted programs.
Our teachers have to go on food stamps in about
two-thirds of our state's food stamps.
Teachers are nearly 24% less than similarly educated professionals.
And Bernie Sanders called is simply unacceptable,
that's the only part that's the bad news.
It's apparently eminently acceptable because that's the situation we find
ourselves in now, the country has accepted it.
And so first of all, great job by Bernie Sanders.
Look by the way now, the Democrats have lost the House,
Biden has proposed a fantasy budget and I don't mind it is to find the first step.
You will do nothing to fight for it.
You'll see every progressive proposal and
there will be killed instantly without one inch of a fight, okay?
And they'll accept all the conservative ones, like the defense spending.
The only people fighting back are the two people who showed you on the show today,
consistently AOC and Bernie Sanders.
So, here's Bernie Sanders saying how about the teachers, by the way, democrats,
you know, they did.
Republicans won in 2021 like the Virginia governor's race and
a couple other races because they said there was a war on parents, right?
Because, my God, they're teaching about racism.
What you should have done at that moment is immediately say that the Republicans
are doing a war on teachers, which is absolutely true.
They've attacked teachers in a 1000 different ways and that,
don't say gay bill in Florida says that teachers can personally be sued out
of existence in total and utter bankruptcy.
If they make the mistake of ever mentioning the word that,
the fact that gay people exist, okay?
I mean, if Jesus, it is clearly obviously warned teachers and then this would fit
perfectly into that frame, and then you put the question to the American people.
Do you wanna attack teachers, or do you wanna pay them a living wage, so
they don't have to go on food stamps?
I guarantee you that three quarters of Americans, even tons of Republicans,
will say no, no, we're for the teachers.
Can I ask you to do the simplest framing?
All right, so I didn't say that to everybody but Bernie.
And by the way, you've seen this show,
we've criticized Bernie plenty lately, okay?
But here he's doing God's work.
Thank you for actually taking initiative, and he actually proposed a bill, okay?
Last thing for me on this, to be fair, how are we gonna pay for that?
And this thing does cost about $45 billion a year.
Well, that sounds a lot to pay teachers all across the country.
All the teachers get them up to 60,000, huge percentages that you just heard.
Don't make anywhere near 60,000.
Get them all up in West Virginia and Kentucky.
All the teachers can't be 60,000, by the way, 60,000,
a lot of parts of this country is a hell of a salary that incentivize a lot of
people who believe what they're doing, smart people and go become teachers.
Wouldn't that be amazing?
Okay, well, it's 45 billion lot.
It's 5% of the defense budget.
The defense budget, which is so overloaded with pork, it's just pigs at the trough.
Defense contractors take half of that budget.
So if all you did was take 10% of the money being completely and utterly wasted,
flushed down the toilet to defense contractors, you can give every teacher in
America $60,000 salary that would pull it like 90% in the country.
Democrats, do you have any fight in you?
So progressives, I love you.
This is step one and step two from Bernie.
Step three is the minute Biden says no, I'm gonna need all of
your votes on my bloated piece of crap, defense budget.
You go, no, hell no, not even close.
You give us the money for teachers, take it out of the defense budget.
It's only 5% and you just added 10%.
Well, you'll see the numbers later in the show, you just added a giant amount.
So give it to the teachers, otherwise we all vote no.
I don't know that you win, but at least you make a stand.
So thank you, Bernie.
>> Teaching is, I think we can all agree, and the viewers will agree,
one of the most noble lines of work in this country.
And people do it out of a love for educating young people and
trying to make their communities a better place.
You would think for with the Republican Party so concerned about
America falling behind, not remaining the world's superpower.
You would think they would recognize the role education plays in long term,
sustained success.
The reason that we're lagging behind in so
many areas compared to the rest of the developed world,
from infrastructure to innovation to technological advancements.
You can point specifically to education and
a disinvestment in attacks on public education.
You have to acknowledge the racism in our history, in our country's history and
how that affects this issue too because redlining still has an impact
on school funding because they've tied school funding to property taxes.
And when you had decades of redlining and Jim Crow and all of these policies,
these racist policies pushing black and poor people into the same communities and
then tying the school funding to the property taxes.
This is the result, you have wealthier white schools doing well and
getting a ton of funding, and you have poor black schools lagging behind.
We need a more equitable approach to how we see education in this country, and
that is something you could really sell on a bipartisan basis.
If you frame it around innovation and advancement and competition on
a global level, it starts in the schools and it has a multigenerational effect.
This is a no brainer.
>> Yeah, that's why I think they put so much effort into trying to
demonize teachers to get people, to think of them as predators.
They're coming for your kids rather than someone who is ideally going to be helping
set up your kid for a life of success of getting a satisfying and
productive career of living a good life.
Ask these parents, do you want your kid's teacher to be focused on your kid,
or do you want them to be working a second and a third job?
Do you want your kid to be one of the priorities for
this teacher because they're struggling to make ends meet?
I wonder how many in Florida, for instance, would respond to that right now.