Giving Compass' Take:

• A recent survey found that public school teachers across the United States are spending a significant amount of their own money on resources for their students without reimbursement. 

• What will be the breaking point for teachers who are already underpaid, overworked and are now spending their own money to cover expenses that schools should provide? How can schools at the very least start building teacher support systems?

• Read about the downward trend in teachers salaries for the past 17 years. 

If one thing has been made clear in 2018, it’s that teachers — underpaid and overworked — are taking matters into their own hands.

Teachers have launched protests, mobilizations, and social media campaigns to bring attention to the lack of resources for public education. But that’s not the only way they’re investing in their students’ education. They’re also taking money from their own pockets to pay for student projects and supplies on a regular basis.

That’s according to a new survey from the US Department of Education, which found that 94% of public school teachers across the country spent money on classroom supplies without receiving any reimbursement during the 2014–2015 school year.

The survey, released found that teachers spent $479 on average in personal expenses to fund student projects and general classroom expenses.

The survey also show that more than 90% of teachers from every type of school (traditional public, public charter, elementary, secondary), part of the country (city, suburb, town, and rural area), and income level (low, middle, high) spent their own money on classroom supplies.

“It’s not just about teacher pay and benefits,” one teacher posted on Twitter. “It’s about overcrowded classrooms. It’s about broken furniture. It’s about broken HVAC. It’s about leaking plumbing. It’s about a lack of basic supplies.”

Read the full article about teachers spending their own money on students by Phineas Rueckert at Global Citizen