Why Are Our Teachers Paying to Teach Our Children?

I am 70 years old, and for most of my life, I have had an enormous respect for teachers.

It didn't necessarily start that way. Like a lot of kids, I didn't always appreciate my teachers when I was sitting in their classrooms. I didn't always understand what they were trying to teach me, and I certainly didn't understand how much of themselves they were giving us.

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Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. I can look back now at elementary school, high school, college at NYU and all the years since, and recognize that some of the people who had the greatest influence on my life were teachers. I've spent roughly 50 years working as a television and screenwriter, and somewhere along the way I came to understand just how much I learned from people I probably didn't thank nearly enough at the time.

But recently, I've learned something else about teachers.

They're paying to teach our children.

I don't mean metaphorically. I mean they're literally taking money out of their own pockets and spending it on the children in their classrooms.

Recently, I had the opportunity to help a sixth-grade special-education teacher with some of her classroom expenses. She teaches language arts in a resource room in Trenton, just across the Delaware River from us here in Bucks County. Many of the children she works with come from families struggling with poverty. Some depend upon their schools for things most of us take for granted -- including meals.

I initially thought I was helping with an unusual situation. Then I started talking to other teachers. I have a friend who taught kindergarten for many years. I have another who teaches art to sixth graders in California. Different teachers. Different subjects. Different schools. Same story. They spend their own money on their students. And I'm not talking about $20 here and there.

Teachers I've spoken with tell me they can spend anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 of their own money during a school year. They buy books. They buy pencils and paper. They buy art supplies and classroom materials. They buy things that make their classrooms welcoming and give children a reason to become interested in learning. And sometimes they buy snacks for children who are hungry.

Think about that last one for a moment.

A teacher walks into a classroom to educate a child and discovers that before she can worry about whether that child understands the day's lesson, she has to worry about whether the child has eaten. So she reaches into her own pocket. Again.

And this isn't simply something happening to the handful of teachers I happen to know. According to a 2025 survey reported by the National Education Association, 95 percent of PK–12 teachers and specialized instructional support personnel said they had spent their own money on student needs. Recent surveys cited by the NEA have put typical out-of-pocket spending by educators in the hundreds of dollars each year.

And averages don't tell the whole story. A teacher working in a well-funded district and a teacher working with children living in poverty can face very different circumstances. The greater the needs of the students, the more difficult it can be for a caring teacher to simply say, "That's not my responsibility." So they don't. They reach into their pockets. Over a 30-year career, a teacher spending even $1,000 a year has contributed $30,000 of personal income to the job.

We have somehow allowed this to become normal. That's the part I can't get past. Imagine going to work in almost any other profession and being told that some of the supplies necessary to do your job weren't in the budget.

Imagine telling an office worker to bring paper for the copier. Imagine telling a nurse, "We're a little short on supplies this month. Could you pick some up on your way in?" We would think that was absurd. But when teachers do it, we've almost come to expect it.

In fact, the federal government recognizes that educators spend their own money on their classrooms by providing a tax deduction for certain unreimbursed educator expenses. I'm glad the deduction exists. But perhaps we should be asking a different question.

Why should teachers have hundreds -- or thousands -- of dollars of unreimbursed classroom expenses in the first place?

Teachers aren't buying these things because someone ordered them to. They're buying them because there's a child sitting in front of them who needs something. That's what makes this issue both inspiring and troubling. It says something wonderful about our teachers. And something considerably less wonderful about the rest of us.

We praise teachers constantly. We put signs in front of schools during Teacher Appreciation Week. We give them coffee mugs that say things like "World's Best Teacher." Maybe it's time we gave them pencils. And books. And art supplies. And tissues. And whatever else they reasonably need to do the job we've asked them to do.

There is a larger conversation to be had about teacher compensation as well. The National Education Association has reported that, when adjusted for inflation, average teacher pay has lost ground over the past decade. So we have people whose salaries have lost purchasing power while simultaneously expecting many of them to subsidize their own workplaces. Something is wrong with that equation.

I don't pretend to know precisely where every additional education dollar should come from or how every school district should allocate its budget. Those are legitimate discussions for school boards, administrators, taxpayers and elected officials. But I do know where the money shouldn't routinely come from...the teacher's wallet.

Here in Newtown and throughout Bucks County, we are fortunate to have excellent schools and communities that care deeply about education. But this isn't simply a question of whether our own school district is better funded than another one. The children sitting in classrooms across the river in Trenton are our neighbors, too. So are the teachers in Philadelphia, Levittown, Yardley and communities throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey who quietly spend their own money because a child in front of them needs something.

We can start locally. Ask a teacher what their classroom actually needs. Support school supply drives. Help with a classroom wish list if you're able. Ask your school board how much teachers receive for classroom supplies and whether that amount reflects what teachers actually spend.

And perhaps most importantly, contact the people who represent us in Harrisburg and Washington and ask a very simple question:

Why are public-school employees using their personal income to purchase things necessary to educate the children we've entrusted to them?

I'd like to hear the answer.

The next time you meet a teacher, thank them. Not automatically. Not because it's Teacher Appreciation Week. And not because you're supposed to. Thank them because there's a very good chance that at some point that teacher has looked at a child who needed something, realized nobody else was going to provide it, and quietly reached into his or her own pocket.

I didn't understand everything my teachers gave me when I was sitting in their classrooms. At 70, I think I understand a little better. And I'm grateful. But gratitude shouldn't be how we fund our classrooms.