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

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

They may have more security, but it still doesn't amount to bunk when their starting salaries are less than half engineering ones (tenure doesn't apply in the first three years).

My dad retired because he didn't want to deal with guns being brought into schools.

My mother is still working, but she's a college professor. Yes, she's getting paid a tidy sum now, after 40 years in her profession. That tidy sum is about the same as what my husband is making now, with 15 years in the profession. She's actually gone past the salary cap (college compensation and primary education have two different caps, college is a higher cap, but they start out lower for adjunct professors) because of a deal she had with her college when she came in (she started their ESL program on her own with no assistance. They brought her in and told her in compensation she'd never have a salary cap).

A friend of mine at one point railed about how my mother's salary was WAY too high for a teacher. Mind you, she's a college professor, where the student tuitions are paying for her salary, so it's not coming from the public tax pool the same way. I was quite frankly insulted that she thought my mother was getting paid too much, considering my mother has 40 years of experience under her belt and is pretty much running her department (the official department head is twenty years younger than she is, and constantly looks to her for guidance. She isn't the head of the department only because she doesn't want the subsequent headaches that go with the paperwork).

Yeah, she's getting paid a tidy sum NOW. But most people assume that just because a teacher only works X number of hours in a classroom, that's all they do. They don't take into account the number of hours spent creating lesson plans, grading homework, grading exams, office hours, tutoring, and in some cases extra-curricular activites (my mother used to throw an international dinner with her students twice a year, since she teaches so many foreign students. I don't know if she does that anymore). I can recall years worth of my mother grading her student's papers on the kitchen table after dinner. She had classes starting at 8am, but she wouldn't usually get home until 5ish, I turned into a latch-key kid for the afternoons until she got home.

Yes, it's 8 weeks off in midsummer (unless, like her, you teach over the summers as well). But during that 8 weeks, most places expect you to be increasing your knowledge and ability to teach. I know that's usually when my mother was earning her master's degrees (she has two), 'cause I used to get dragged to class with her when I wasn't in summer camp.

My dad, after 35 years, had his salary cap out at somewhere around what I was earning four or five years ago. So my 5 years worth of engineering and programming was worth just as much as his 35 years of teaching was? Even if you add another two months into that, it still isn't comparable to what I'm earning today.

Yes, there are a few college professors who are earning more. The primary/grade school teachers cap out on the low end, though, and their pensions are dwindling away, they're no longer being invested in the way they used to be. And the college professors who earn the highest salaries are few and far between. Most of them still earn less than I do, for two to three times as much experience.

[tchwrtr.livejournal.com]

Yes, teachers don't get paid enough. I worked a private school, where they get paid less, and where on top of lesson planning and classtime and going to sports things you were also expected to lead some sort of after-school activity--I replaced the cheering squad teacher, and the school leads were disappointed when I turned out not to be an exact copy of the teacher that left.

I left the profession for a few reasons--I had had enough of the politics in schools, and I did not have the support of the administration. When your manager doesn't back you up, and supports the "other side", well. You go.

If I had been employed by another school I had done a lot of long-term sub work at, first off I probably wouldn't have met a lot of you, and I might even have still been teaching now. The principal had been the vice principal at my high school when I was there. I cried in that man's office one day as a teacher, and he understood. And supported his team.

Higher pay would help go a long way to showing that the general public, or even the private school system, cares about the education of their children. Teachers should hold respect, and be revered in their community. They give us the future leaders, help teach our children to think for themselves (so they'll move out eventually, and be able to thrive on their own), and so much more.

They teach the people who will decide where most of us live when we can no longer decide for ourselves. I'd think that we want that education to be the best money can buy. Which means paying TEACHERS, not ball players.

Sorry. Long-standing rant. This is a short version.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

I left the profession for a few reasons--I had had enough of the politics in schools, and I did not have the support of the administration. When your manager doesn't back you up, and supports the "other side", well. You go.

Precisely the final straw and why my mom simply retired from teaching rather than searching for a new job this last summer.

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

The Japanese culture reveres their teachers. My mother taught a bunch of Matsushita employees English one summer. When their class time was done, they not only had a banquet in her honor and put her at the high table, but they gave her a small TV (13 inch) as a token of appreciation for what she had done for them.

I'm not asking that all students bring a small household appliance in as a gesture of thanks to their teachers... But she earned more money and respect in that little two-month class than she ever did during any two-month period at any other time.

I'm not even in the teaching profession, but I come from a family of them. I know what they go through, and what kind of shit they earn, and how they get treated. And the whole thing is *BULLSHIT*. Invest in the education of your people and you get lower crime, you get more marketable people, your economy goes up... Our futures depend upon what we are teaching the children of today. And yet nobody wants to pay shit to the people who are responsible for the vast majority of the educations of their children.

It's odd, because they're willing to pay through the nose for their children to get Ivy League educations, but they're not willing to pay for their children to get the basics. And unless you teach those children well from the time they're young, all the Ivy League in the world isn't going to help.

I'm on your side of the rant, hon.

[cozit.livejournal.com]

Sure they are willing to pay for their little darlings to get the education... they're just not willing to pay for *other* kids to get the basics and to support the schools in other ways. So many of those who pay through the nose *don't* go to public schools... and then turn around and say they shouldn't be paying taxes for others to do so. Then there are those who *had* the public education, but have no kids, so claim they shouldn't have to pay. (just think what PG, Anne Arundel, DC and Baltimore schools *could* be if everyone went *and* parents actually volunteered and showed interest... yes... some parents do, but...)

Um, yeah... can you imagine what their lives would end up if there *wasn't* public education? But of course, their private education never taught them enough logic or big picture thinking to actually figure that one out... Guess they think it is (or should be) serfs and lord of the manors still.. too bad we've gone rather more tech than that stage.
:-S

[thatwasjen]

Sure they are willing to pay for their little darlings to get the education... they're just not willing to pay for *other* kids

I just cannot figure this out. I mean, I don't have children, but I damn well want other people's children to have the best possible education. I know that it well help me and everyone else in the long run.

I also have concerns with the fact that parental volunteers are necessary to the effective functioning of a school. Parents should take responsbility for supporting their children in their education, by helping with homework and such, but I don't think it makes sense that schools need parental help to function.

Teaching is a profession. Like medicine and law, it requires specialized postgraduate education, and like doctors and lawyers, teachers are essential to the public welfare. Like most of the rest of you, I find it baffling that most people can't seem to realize this or, if they do, aren't willing to put their money where their mouths are.

(That reminds me that the crappy state of medicine, which is partly due to the education-as-indentured-servitude bargain, is a whole other problem.)

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

What really gets me is that nowadays it requires not only a bachelor's education but a Master's one to become a teacher, but they still aren't willing to pay them worth shite...

I don't have kids yet, but I want all of them to get an education, if nothing else, from the standpoint of crime. The less educated an area, the higher the crime tends to be. But if we have a lot of well-educated kids, we might actually get cashiers who don't look at you stupidly when you tell them they scanned the wrong item in...

And yes, I'm in your corner on the idea that people don't realize that teachers are essential to the public welfare.

I just don't get people. They're willing to leave their kids' education in the hands of almost anyone, and pay them shite to do it, yet they get upset and angry that their children aren't receiving a good enough education. Feh.

[jump-street1980.livejournal.com]

AMEN!!
You have no idea how difficult it has been just trying to get into PG Co. schools!!
This is one of the LOWEST RANKING DISTRICTS IN THE COUNTRY!! You remember that saying, "Beggars cannot be choosers."
These people are a joke. Im almost to the point of certification (having finished all my PRAXIS exams for now, and they still have not placed me. Meanwhile, there are people in the schools teaching who aren't certified, but have been either A)teaching longer or B)went through the "Resident Teacher Program...that's crap right there.
Personally, I'm now willing to take the pay cut and go to private schools (that's a 5-15k cut from 40k to anywhere from 26-30) just so I don't have to deal with the county anymore!
They are driving away people who are willing to teach in this county. And now I see why. I have become so insanely irritated...no joke.

[tchwrtr.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, not everyone is looking out for the "greater good", or realizes that doing so will keep their own house and family safer and healthier. They are willing to lay out the cash to take care of their own, forgetting that their own have to interact with all those others out there.

Many, many good points throughout this post and comments.