Higher Pay for Math and Science Teachers 471
Coryoth writes "Following up a previous story, it seems that the Kentucky effort to provide increased pay to teachers with qualifications in mathematics, physics, and chemistry has been gutted. Teachers objected to differential pay, and that portion of the bill was removed. At the same time California has just put forward a similar measure, with differential pay for teachers qualified in mathematics and science. Shockingly 40% of mathematics teachers in California are not fully qualified in the subject — a higher percentage of unqualified teachers than any other subject. Is the Californian effort any more likely to succeed, or is it destined to be similarly gutted? Is there a solution to the woeful lack of qualified mathematics teachers that the Teachers' Union will find acceptable?"
Re:Solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, maybe it SHOULD be gutted. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's just asking for personnel issues, and it's creating a teacher economic hierarchy where none currently exists, and none needs to exist.
The task of teaching (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a job to be done, a job some would consider a somewhat sacred task: Ensuring that an entire generation can learn and grow in the best way we know how to do it. That is not an easy task.
We currently have a very limited number of people put into that formal role, and they collectively are not doing what we would consider an acceptable job at it. What should our response be? If our response is to punish and cut resources from that role in general one way or another, then we will be left with even fewer people to fill that role, and those that are left will have an even harder job to do. More than that, the level of respect for these teachers will continue to fall. This isn't such a bad thing, if collapse of such a system is an acceptable result, except that there will be much of an entire generation of children in the lurch.
The recent response to this issue is to push for very strict testing as a way to punish the teachers with the weakest 'performance'. That does improve the measured response, but it has also changed the way we measure the result. I would assert that by doing this, we have left behind the idea that we are trying to truly teach a generation the best way we can, but instead have minimized what we teach in order to assure high scores on a system we invent for ourselves, all in an effort to find someone to punish.
So, is this the best way to get the job done? Is this the way we respect our children's need for education, and the people who are put into the role of opening doors for the children?
Ryan Fenton
Why math and science? (Score:2, Interesting)
They think they're all worth the same??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, let me get this straight. The preschool teacher is worth the same amount as the person who busts her ass to study and then teach Physics? Even if the AP Physics teacher has an advanced degree?
WTF?
Gah. Certain people need to be whacked with a cluebat. No, miss preschool teacher, you are NOT worth the same as an AP science teacher (Physics? Are they kidding???). If you want the same salary, then GO AND GET THE SAME QUALIFICATIONS and TEACH THE SAME MATERIAL. If you can't do it then you aren't worth it. People need to be paid on their merits -- otherwise there is little incentive for people to do the work to gain that expertise in the first place (and Physics IS an ass-breaker -- otherwise everyone would be doing it).
Hmmm...capitalism not all the rage in academia? (Score:3, Interesting)
Some are trying:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinio
Perhaps my favorite line from that article is:
Catherine Boudreau, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, predictably criticized Romney's proposals as ''inequitable, divisive, and ineffective." The MTA denounced the proposal as ''uniquely designed to destroy collegiality in a school," ignoring the fact that performance pay is routine in such other professions as medicine, law, and engineering, not to mention in the Commonwealth's first-rate universities, including those that are unionized by the MTA.
*sigh* Some folks need to leave the castle every now and again and see what life is like on the outside.
On that note, I have a couple of friends who are teachers. Yes they work hard and shape young minds. Granted. Good folks. That said, their stress level is about 1% of mine (working in a s/w dev field). Are they paid less? Yes, but their pay is not abysmal. Both make mid 50s...for a job with three months off in the summer, a holiday and spring break, a half dozen snow days, etc. Sure...they bring work home...and so do I. In general, they seem happier and more satisfied with their career choices than my friends in IT. So they make less. It's a choice.
We pay folks what we need to in this society. It's a fairly complex equation, but factors include skill sets, time to acquire those skills, desirability of the work, career potential, quality of life, and...yes...supply and demand. If we need better math and science teachers, we should pay for them. These are critical skills...and we should not let the grumbling art teacher get in the way of giving our children what they need (and deserve). Perhaps the economics and civics teachers should hold a brown bag on one of the snow days. They could discuss how autoworkers unions contributed to the quality of the American automobile industry...and how competition from the Japanese did nothing to help motivate the Americans to improve quality...and then discuss sarcasm.
BTW, I loved my art teacher.
Re:paying based on seniority encourages laziness (Score:5, Interesting)
I've worked in both and I'm currently working in the public sector. It DOES NOT work the same way in the private sector as it does in the public. People here do absolutely nothing but wander around complaining how busy they are. As I've said twice in recent memory including on the last thread about this topic [slashdot.org], the only thing that the vast majority of public sector workers are good at is pretending they're busy.
These people would not survive for 10 minutes where I've worked in the private sector. They would fucking die if they had a 30 minute lunch break and two 15s that were mandated by schedule. They would seriously break down in tears if they were evaluated on hard data instead of gut feeling about their success rates. "Oh wow, I only converted 8%? It really felt like 80%. Something must be wrong there with that data."
Re:Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
That's exactly what 11,000 air traffic controllers were thinking back in 1981.
At least California has a governor that's packing enough brass to make this practicable, assuming he wants to gamble essentially all of his political capital on this move.
Re:It's a question of priorities (Score:2, Interesting)
and this is probably at the root of the problem. Since physed teachers make exactly the same salary as math teachers and physed courses basically just require that you show up while mathematics actually requires some work to master, more people try to be physed teachers than math teachers.
The truth of the matter is, we have far too many physed teachers and not nearly enough math teachers. Frankly, we could do without any physed teachers at all. Math teachers are worth more than physed teachers and should be paid accordingly.
Re:The reason they're protesting (Score:2, Interesting)
Excellent points, all. Let me add one thing. In Wichita, KS, a graduate with a BS in Engineering will get about $50K out of the gate. A graduate with a BA in Education will make $34,654, and his/her salary tops out at $41,479 after nine years' experience. Those numbers can go up with extra job duties (coaching, head of the department, etc.), but that's it, unless said teacher goes back to school for more credit hours. But this increase isn't as dramatic as one might expect. For a teacher to earn what an engineer makes on his/her first year on the job, the fastest way would be to get a Ph.D. and then teach for ten years. And by then, the engineer is making $70K.
And if we compare these salaries to lawyers or finance wizards, then it's clear that teachers are people who either love the job despite the salary or can't get a higher paying job elsewhere. So, even if the union wasn't playing politics (which it is), it would still be a good idea for teachers to be paid better. How else do you guarantee that your children aren't being taught by someone who just couldn't cut it anywhere else but in education?
Now, how to get a union to accept certain economic realities such as supply & demand -- no clue there.
Re:paying based on seniority encourages laziness (Score:3, Interesting)
I have worked in the private sector, government, and academia. In all cases, the make or break criteria is customer service. The american auto companies illustrates this very well. They were profitable, they were dominant, but when we tried to buy a car in the 70's, they were arrogant and unresponsive. Anytime I have dealt with an American car company, the experience has been the same. One can complain about high costs of healthcare, but when compensation for individuals is 8 and 9 figures, how can you claim that the company is not making enough profit? Can these people not be paid 7 figures instead?
Accountability is about the same everywhere. I worked in one office where the guys went and did drugs on thier lunch breaks. Teachers can't do that. I worked in private offices where office staff were using the company card for personal auto fuel. That is much more difficult to get away with in schools. Everyone steals from the office supply cabinet, but not in schools. Every situation has a unique set of rules, and it merely the lack of empathy that makes a person a jealous that others do not have follow the exact same rules.
While unions are imperfect, they do some good. For instance, a firm could create a situation in which a worker is simple used until they are so sick they cannot work. Then lay the worker off in such a way that the government has to foot the bill for social security and medicare. Or force a worker to work 12 hour days with 8 hours of pay. Or create some much paperwork that no teaching gets down. While some points are valid, in the real world employers will try to maximize short term gain and minimize short term pay, while workers are trying to maximize long term gain while minimizing work. Clearly these goals are incompatible, and unions can help find a compromise.
On the last point, any certification requires the attendance of boring courses. For instance, no matter how good of a programmer you are, it is difficult to get a job without a certification. The certification is largely meaningless, I have seen people get these sheets of paper just by taking the test a number of times. The certifications are put up merely as a barrier to maximize the already excessive pay of coders and serve no real purpose to one that really knows the trade of computer work. If it weren't for certification course in computers, we would have real people coding, and not just those that want the money so bad that they take the exam.
As far as the doctorate in a subject, how many times on /. have we heard people complain about their professors. Do you really think a PhD mathematician has the skill to teach a middle school math course? One goo thing about the NCLB, is that teachers are now test for subject area content and how to deal with the kids. There are some minor skills necessary. It kind of reminds me of a person I once knew that hated to pay the plumber, but had no idea of take apart pipe. It is easy to think that things one are completely ignorant of are simple. After all, how hard could it be to cut silicon. One just needs a saw a a polisher. Anyone could do it. yeah.
Re:paying based on seniority encourages laziness (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife has two degrees - a BA in Geography and a B.Ed. Only a B.Ed. is required to work as a teacher here in Canada. My opinion's a bit biased. She's gone to considerable expense to get her degrees. She gets constantly kicked around by school boards here because of her lack of experience - they pass her applications on by for on-call positions - 20k/yr jobs that have no guarantees or benefits.
They make her fight her ass off for a job that starts her off at $15 an hour. Note that here, much like the US the state has a virtual monopoly on teaching and employs more than 98% of the teachers. Now granted they can top off at 60k/yr after they get a Master's degree. However if my wife were to have a master's degree now she can kiss her teaching career goodbye. A typical teacher without grad school will max out I believe here at 48k.
On top of that, my wife was unable to find work in the public system. The Catholic schools require her get a letter from a priest, so that's out. She's had to take a job in a private school for muslim kids teaching in an environment she hates, for pay less than a greeter at Wal-Mart. She earns $125 a day, and works 10 hours.
So you write:
I don't see why paying people based on merit (versus seniority) is unacceptable. That's how most of the real world works.
Which real world? In any trade that belongs to a union, people are paid on seniority. In the IT industry, someone with 10 or 20 years of experience [should] be getting paid better than a brand new MCSE.
Do we pay teachers on how well the kids review them, how well parents review them, or how good the grades are of the kids? Do you pay teachers based on a state decided examination, where perhaps the state sets the exam so hard that no teacher gets paid well? All of those will result in shitty results, and I don't blame teachers for getting pissy.
Teachers have the hardest jobs. They have to answer to parents, students and school boards alike for fucked up kids. No one likes to blame anyone but the teacher - not the parents or the students themselves. So next time your teacher's union goes on strike, do them a favour and get out and support them. They have a hell of a tough job that's thankless with shitty pay.
I hear people lay claims that teachers ask for too much, and that they should do the job for a simple love for teaching.
Re:paying based on seniority encourages laziness (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, even being in grad school gets you a decent stipend and a fee waiver - and a post-doc usually pays enough (in fact, when I was at a certain national labs, physics post-docs were earning 75-100k).
And if you are a research scientist, you earn more. If you become an assistant professor? Even more, not to mention other perks. Associate professor? Tenured? It goes up, up and up - and you get to do other things than just teach (e.g. partnerships with the industry) etc.
So, why bother teaching school kids when you have that path open in front of you?
And btw, there is no one "Riemann-theorem" -- there are several Riemann theorems. Perhaps you mean the Riemann zeta hypothesis [claymath.org] that talks about the distribution of zeroes of the Riemann zeta-function?
I'll bite (Score:3, Interesting)
But, you know what? Even a HS teacher with a BA in History is a rare thing. Hell, I went to a public HS (in the same county where public schools sought subsidies because the majority of their students spoke "Ebonics"), Math and Sciences were taught by Ph.D.s. History? That was taught by a guy known as "coach." English? We found ourselves being taught by a series of spent pieces of used jet trash who got pinned sophomore year at the sorority, engaged junior year, married at graduation, and divorced two years later. They hated students and they hated the education degree that made them deal with them.
Come to think of it, Coach deemed me unsuitable for AP History, and the sorority hags didn't want me anywhere near their honors courses. The only straight As I got were in Math and the Sciences, particularly the computer courses. So now I publish more in a year than my English teachers actually read, and I get paid to be a historian, whereas Coach didn't think I could hack Advanced Placement, and the only part of my HS education I use on a daily basis consists in foreign language education.
Now, ask yourself: how much math beyond algebra do most HS students need? Likewise for physics. Critical thinking skills are taught in history classes; effective communication in English. Foreign language courses are in themselves valuable.
You can put a dollar value on all these things, and if you did, you'd probably find out that, per student hour in the classroom, "soft skills" make more of a difference than the hard sciences.
So why should we favor math and the hard sciences? By all means, I'm for strengthening our HS system, but to pretend that we need to spend more money to attract only scientists is ridiculous. High School needs specialists in all fields, not Education Majors who can pretend to teach any course. (And on this, my hard science brethren will back me up: we've all seen what education majors can do at universities, and it sure as hell ain't learn a subject well enough to teach it.)
And, to respond to your statement, I, as a guy with a ton of history degrees, find the High School education system stacked against me. I am less qualified than someone with an education degree who got a C- in my course at the university. Heck, I am less qualified than an Athletics major who can be the Assistant Coach of the football team. Yet, because I have a demonstrated set of critical skills, I am more capable of finding a decent-paying job outside of education than Coach or an education major.
Re:I almost became a high school science teacher (Score:1, Interesting)
The starting pay for a teacher is not bad. The only way you lost earning is due to potential raises. If the top pay for a teacher were around 80K, the profession would be perfect. Especially when one considers the benefit of a pension, teaching is a good way to work towards requirement.
Two degrees: MA in Education, BS in Engineering (Score:2, Interesting)
The irony of Bill Gates' comments about education in this country is that I'd much rather (and currently do) work for him than in a k12 environment babysitting kids who can't be kicked out for being idiots and intentionally wasting everyone else's time. I still value teachers highly, but would rather pay off my debt incurred while gaining those degrees than spend 90% of my time as a teacher doing anything but teaching.
In an effort to give kids a consequence-free environment for their precious tender little psyches, we've put the consequences on the people who deserve it least and I'm not a martyr for that cause.
Think about it this way. The number of new teachers who quit after one year is 50% of the total of all new teachers. By two years, 75% of all new teachers have quit. Anyone who doesn't see that as the #1 problem to examine is clearly ignorant of it or a legislator.
Re:wow (Score:2, Interesting)
As far as reading writing and arithmetics, just enough to get by at the factory.
Re:How Bout Higher Pay for Teacher's Not in Unions (Score:2, Interesting)
Tell you what, I'll consider your cost increase when teachers must:
- Completely give up unions
- Pay for benefits themselves
- Be paid according to the subject competence of their exiting students
- Compete for top students so they can get those most likely to be competent in the subject
- Hold an advanced degree in the subject they are teaching
- Be licensed by passing a state bar (something more impressive than say CBEST, which is a freakin' joke)
- Be subject to review by an ethics board with the power to pull their license
- Teach all year, most weekends and most holidays
- Work 80 hours per week upon starting falling to 60 hours after 5 years
- Carry malpractice insurance and be subject to lawsuits every time a student passes their class but doesn't learn anything
- Have the ethics board review them if they sued too often for malpractice
Let me know when you've got all that. I'm not even going to consider that kind of pay without something close to this kind of risk.To cut costs, why not eliminate busing in urban areas where city bus routes already exist?
Because then you would attract predators to ride the city bus. Busses rarely run on time. City bus drivers are not held to the same background check as School bus drivers.
To cut costs, why not build schools with lots and lots of triple-pane windows so that you can exclusively use natural lighting except on cloudy days?
Because it is really expensive to replace those when they get broken, and natural lighting tends to be very harsh and difficult to control.
To cut costs, why not build schools with INTERIOR HALLS so that you don't lose so much heat/air conditioning when the kids open the doors?
Some schools have that. It doesn't help very much. Door openings do not have a flat distribution.
Instead of photocopying handouts for the students, assign them all tablet computers, which are infinitely reusable.
They aren't infinitely reusable, they're easy to steal, they wear out after 3-4 years, their battery would be good at most for 1 year, and the cost of just one is probably less than the cost of every photocopy that kid is likely to receive during his entire career. Printed paper is also easier to read.
Cut administrative costs by grouping multiple districts under a single regional school board with a single administrative staff responsible for paying salaries, budget management, etc.
Large school districts typically waste more money than smaller ones. I was a product of the LAUSD, second largest district in the country (at the time). I can't think of a single thing that monster district had going for it that a smaller district didn't, except maybe for their couple of magnet schools (which didn't save any money, just gave them something to brag about).
Re:They think they're all worth the same??? (Score:2, Interesting)