The New York Times misses the point. The *biggest* point.

[acroyear]

In Search of Good Teachers - New York Times:

With 50 million children set to return to school, districts all over the country are still scrambling to fill teaching positions and are having an especially difficult time finding qualified applicants to fill shortages in vital areas like math and science. These shortages will persist and the education reform effort will continue to lag until states, localities and the federal government start paying much more attention to how teachers are trained, hired and assigned.

Guess which word is missing there.

It's a big one.

A HUGE one.

"PAID"

Until this nation and these states and localities get off their collective anti-tax, anti-"socialist" arse and actually start PAYING people to be good teachers in those subjects, they will NEVER EVER EVER increase the candidate pool.  When the difference between a math major doing engineering work 3 years out of college and a math major being a public school teacher 3 years out of college is a factor of FOUR, then there is simply no contest.  To live well enough to match your own education and status, you need to be paid what your brain is worth or you will never find job satisfaction.

Giving a person a choice between a $26,000 teaching job and a $100,000 engineering or programming job?

Well, you could do the math if you ever had qualified teachers to teach you...

Teachers are not and have never been paid what they're worth.  Change that, and you change everything.

Comments

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

had the support of school administrators rather than being told by them to "cut kid X some slack, his parents are financial backers", things would be different.

Which is what I was saying. Many aren't leaving simply for the $ but for other reasons. $ won't make up for garbage beyond a certain point. Also, if you LOVE your job, enough is as good as the proverbial feast. However, the current education set ups (No Child Left Behind, Zero Tolerance, Mainstreaming Everyone, etc.) is a problem. A friend of mine quick being a substitute years ago because some little snot-nosed brat threatened to sue him ... this was a 6th grader who was convinced that he didn't have to listen to the rules and obey them (unreasonable stuff like Sit Down). THAT mentality is killing things.

I am NOT saying that teachers shouldn't be well paid, I am saying that $ isn't the only problem and that in some areas, teachers do make very good salaries for their work-year.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Beyond a certain point - my point is that it will move that point *considerably*, AND it would have, by increasing longer-term stability, helped teachers unite and fight these trends so they wouldn't have gotten to the point they are today.

At a certain point, you run. At a different point, you fight it. If they were paid to make it worth the fight, they would have fought it and not left.