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]

I see programmers being fired right and left due to changes in businesses, finances, contracts, etc..

I also think that programmers are overpaid but not as overpaid as professional athletes.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Watch who your talking to. My experience, AS A PROGRAMMER, must be different from what you see out there.

As I said, its debatable. But I'm not debating it now.

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

I also think that programmers are overpaid but not as overpaid as professional athletes.

Apples ≠ oranges.

[mandrakan.livejournal.com]

ITYM:
Apples != Oranges;

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

Nope. The salary structure for professional athletes has nothing to do with teachers. Everybody in top level professional sports is overpaid, but that doesn't help the discussion in the least.

[thatwasjen]

But it's relevant, to a point -- it's about what we value, as a society. The 'best' movie stars and professional athletes earn millions of dollars for a movie or a season. The best teachers never will earn millions for teaching.

[mandrakan.livejournal.com]

It's partly that, but it's also because the country needs a million or so teachers, but only 4000 or so professional athletes (and by the time you get to 4000, you're including people who are "only" making $200,000 or so).

If a superintendent wants to hire the Babe Ruth of teaching, she's going to have to cut costs on the rest of the staff. And one Babe Ruth isn't going to make enough of a difference on the student body as a whole (most of whom won't even take a class with that teacher) to justify the cuts.

[mandrakan.livejournal.com]

Oh, agreed. That was a programming joke, not a substantive comment.