Jan 10, 2018
Thousands of educators sell their lesson plans and other material online, often weighing the need to survive against potential ethical and legal issues.
The education sector is notorious for chronically underpaying teachers who have to pay out-of-pocket for classroom supplies.
No wonder, then, thousands of teachers rely on supplementing their incomes by selling lesson plans and other educational material through online marketplaces.
In fact, two-thirds of U.S. teachers actively use Teachers Pay Teachers. The popular marketplace website paid its users more than $100 million last year alone, with an average lesson plan going for $5. (Some teachers have even made millions!) One teacher, Jennifer White, was able to use her earnings from lesson plans nationwide to finally supply her classroom with the learning materials and toys her students needed.
While the practice of teachers selling their wares for cash may raise legal and ethical quandaries - Should the material be free to share? How is quality maintained? Do teachers or their school districts the educational material? - many educators see it simply as matter of surviving in the modern economy.
banner image from http://www.businessinsider.com/teachers-making-millions-online-lesson-plans-2017-4
Why teachers selling lesson plans have sparked debate https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-teachers-selling-lesson-plans-have-sparked-debate
