Paying for Better Math and Science Teachers 660
Coryoth writes "While California is suffering from critical shortage of mathematics and science teachers, Kentucky is considering two bills that would give explicit financial incentives to math and science students and teachers. The first bill would provide cash incentives to schools to run AP math and science classes, and cash scholarships to students who did well on AP math and science exams. The second bill provides salary bumps for any teachers with degrees in math or science, or who score well in teacher-certification tests in math, chemistry and physics. Is such differentiated pay the right way to attract science graduates who can make much more in industry, or is it simply going to breed discontent among teachers?"
We have a winner! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!
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Teachers work their asses off and mould students to be the leaders of tomorrow. Isn't that worth more than a pittance?
As someone who is self-taught in computers (now a *nix Systems Admin), I loathed Math in HS because I saw little point to it. I was never explained 'why' math can be interesting, and it hurt me when i wanted to take CS a few years aft
Re:We have a winner! (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think you mean XOR.
Re:We have a winner! (Score:5, Interesting)
My father has been a teacher for almost 20 years, and describes the life cycle of a teacher like this:
2. They are very enthusiastic, and spin their wheels with enthusiasm.
3. About 5-10 years into it, they get cynical. But with that many years behind them, they are not going to switch careers.
2. It generates a lot of (fake) steam, then is loopholed and "special-ed"ed out of commission, at which point everybody forgets the name.
3. The program is about to expire, and everything will go back to traditional mode. This creates a lawsuit hazard, as tens of thousands of students suddenly must pass a test or miss their diploma.
4. A new program is hastily implemented to keep the scores inflated and keep to the students rolling through (read: no lawsuits).
2. Parents roar at the teacher, and send their kid to the school shrink. At this point the student pays attention and dons his worst intellect, in order to pass the evaluation.
3. He is assigned a monitor who is specially responsible to keep an eye on his school (read: make sure he passes).
4. The student has a lot less work to do (the basic package is 1/2 the homework, and it gets worse as you go along), and the teacher is given a dossier (they have some politically correct name for it) on the kid's "condition", and he is required to tailor his lessons for that child's benefit. (There is naturally no way a teacher can tailor the class for a dozen individual kids.)
5. The student passes with good grades, and gets his diploma. He got by with minimal work, the parents are happy, and nobody got sued.
5. Since you can't discriminate against the handicapped or retarded, the diploma has no mention of the fact that the student didn't actually do the work, or that he has any condition.
As for classroom discipline:
2. You cannot dock their grade without the parents getting zealous.
3. You may only send them to the office, where the overworked principle (who spends "half his time making sure we comply with regulations") tells the student to behave or face staying home from school (sounds silly, but it really irks the parents, who suddenly have a kid to babysit).
4. If the teacher saw the kid's drugs, the principle calls the students mom to come (no way will he tell the kid to drop his pants for a search without a parent present). The kid is then sent to the school police officer, and I don't know what he does with him.
5. There isn't much else to do.
Re:We have a winner! (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't that worth more than a pittance?
According to salary.com, the median income for a "high school teacher" in the United States is currently either $49839 or $69120 if you include benefits. The Census Bureau reports that in 2005, the median household income (which includes more or less the same set of benefits quoted by salary.com) was $46,326. Do we pay teachers enough? I don't know the answer to that question ... but the median teacher is clearly not earning a "pittance" for their time. Perhaps it is a pittance compared to what they might be earning in the private sector, but I don't have enough information to make a decision either way....
Teachers actually make more per hour than most (Score:3, Insightful)
An easy way to answer that question... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just look at the supply of teachers - are there enough qualified applicants for an open position at the salary you are offering? If I were an administrator, I would want at least twenty serious applications for a position, of which I could interview five or six and then pick the one who fit best. Are schools getting this many serious applicants?
In most cases, yes. In some cases, they are getting far more applicants than is necessary, indicating that the salary offered is too high. A suburban school posting a job for an elementary position in any decent district will be flooded with applications, normally hundreds and sometimes exceeding a thousand. On the other hand, there are not enough qualified math, science, and special education teachers, as well as teachers willing to teach in troubled rural or urban schools. It is clear from this that any employer besides a public school would cut the pay of elementary teachers and boost the pay of math teachers until qualified people for both positions could be found.
The reason I am not a secondary science teacher today is the poor pay. I make twice as much working as a researcher at a major corporation, and have a job that shuts off at 5pm each day without all the headaches. On the other hand, few elementary or English teachers could make double their teachers' pay. Indeed, few of them could even match it in the private sector.
Colleges and universities do not pay all professors the same. They know how to do it, and prove it can be done. Public schools need to move beyond the silly "all teachers are equal" mindset they have been stuck in for decades. It is killing education.
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Re:We have a winner! (Score:4, Interesting)
It exceeds by 36% the average hourly pay for everyone (including those without a degree).
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Not really. One Masters degree is not equal to a another. There are far too many incompetents walking around with advanced degrees from education programs to compare them with real degrees. It has always been a truism that "Those who can't do, Teach." but it has never been more true than in today's government schools, only the incompetents who can't hack it anywhere else enter the system or stay in the profession fo
Re:We have a winner! (Score:5, Insightful)
or is it simply going to breed discontent among under-qualified teachers?
Fixed it.
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Re:We have a winner! (Score:5, Insightful)
Professors have to be paid based on the opportunity cost decisions they must make and as such people like phyiscs professors, economics professors, law professors, etc make a lot more money than english, classics, history type professors. This may not seem fair since they both do the same sort of work, teaching classes possibly consisting of the exact same students but you have to think about their other options. A physics professor could make good money in industry instead of teaching and similarily the opportunity cost of a law professor teaching is being a lawyer and the cost to an econ professor of teaching is the possibility of making a ton of money in business/consulting. If you are going get qualified professors in these fields, you are going to have to pay them a wage closer to what they could earn outside of acadamia.
The only reason I see this not being a valid case for high school teachers is that there is a bigger qualification gap. I feel fairly confident that given a curriculum (and I guess the education credits needed to qualify me to do so) I could teach science or algebra to a bunch of 16 year olds or show them how to construct a thesis but I am in no way qualified to be a college professor which would require me to possess a PhD in my field (which usually assumes a masters) and extensive time investment before being granted a real professorship. As a matter of fact, I remember being taught courses in high school by instructers who clearly had not studied the subject they were teaching...
Thus I see why the pay-gap is a legitimate idea but it probobly doesnt apply well enough to high school teachers (who dont necessarily have the qualifications to make the opportunity cost argument valid)
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Teaching is not the main purpose of the professors. And it's nothing new - I learned about it 35 years ago.
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So, wait...teachers of non-science subjects are inherently underqualified? I'm a scientist and I still find that conclusion a tad objectionable. Or were you limiting the conclusion to science teachers alone?
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Competition is a bitch! (Score:3, Insightful)
An arts degree does not set you up for any useful function beyond teaching. They can pay art teachers squat and the only competition comes from McDonalds burger-flipping jobs.
A degreed scientist/math person has far better prospects and the schools will have to compete to attract them.
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Art is important, but there is generally very little money in it. The money argument is about payment, not value. There is a big distinction. You probably don't pay much for air, and would not pay someone 5 cents for a bucket of air, but if someone held your head underwater you'd soon see that it has a lot of value!
Unless you can find some practical outlet for your art degree (eg. painting, sculpture,...) then you're screwed from a financ
Could it be much worse? (Score:2)
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In my undergraduate university, education majors were required to declare a secondary major. While it was true in general that the math/ed majors were less adept with mathematics than the pure math majors, they certainly had the passion, conviction, and skill required to teach mathematics in secondary education. I believe that they were required to take the same mathematics curriculum and they had to pass the Math Praxis before they could teach. These people were not "one lesson ahead" of grade school, but
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It is enough to discourage people who have degrees in their fields from entering teaching. Why would I want to sacrifice at least a few years of very good pay just to qualify to become eligible to teach in the field I already have a degree in?
(In MA, at least, you need a teaching certification which requires extra schooling in education to get. Don't know what the rule is in other states.)
EVERYTHING breeds discontent in teachers (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:We have a winner! (Score:5, Insightful)
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In the end, I chose to pursue advanced degrees and deal with the bullshit academia has to offer rather than teach at a high school with bored students, apathetic parents, and hostile or incompetent administrators* from the principal all the way to the state's e
Re:We have a winner! (Score:5, Interesting)
I graduated from Texas A&M. Because I was in the electrical engineering program before changing to computer science and there was one non-overlap math class, I actually have more math than needed to be an electrical engineer (and that, I believe, ties for the most math needed for any degree, after math majors of course). So, when I was looking at possibly teaching, I found out that I would have to go back and take some remedial math classes. Sure, a couple semesters of differential equations won't help me with algebra, but to go back for remedial math after having taken years of calculus and applied math just turned me off. I can pass any test they can give me about the subject matter. But unless I go back for the remedial math classes, I can't teach it. What is needed is an easy path for professionals to enter education after years of gathering experience in the real world. Until that path is easy, I'm not going to go back to school for 2 years just to be able to apply for the jobs. They should be seeking me out, not putting up hurdles.
Not so fast... (Score:5, Insightful)
Being knowledgeable and being a good teacher are 2 completely different things. How do I know?
Glad you asked,
I'm a PhD student in Mech. Engineering at a top 10 school working through the NSF GK-12 Fellowship program and putting in 30hrs/week at a local school. Believe me when I tell you that being smart and being a good teacher at that level are 2 completely different things and I've been decorated and distinguished as a TA from our undergrads and the department. Middle/High School is a different ball game ENTIRELY.
I've learned to keep my mouth shut when it comes to criticizing our educational system - my advise, donate your time to a local school and you'll quickly learn why you love your job so much. It's dang hard work with very little reward other than the smiles on their faces.
This was after a 3 week (50hr/week) summer intensive course on education - there are education theories out there that make a lot of sense and work. You wouldn't know this because the vast majority of my teachers haven't followed them. There is more to being a good educator then being smart in your field - it requires being knowledgeable in the theories of education also.
That said, I find that the teachers at my school to be extremely petty (maybe it's a catfighting thing) but the politics are horrible and the acknowledgements are nonexistent.
What have I learned? I love my field
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A physics degree will require as much math as a math degree.
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Incorrect. 5 math classes are required for a physics degree and 14 for a math degree. I have more than necessary for a physics degree.
Re:We have a winner! (Score:4, Interesting)
The majority have the right to petition and, said petition getting the appropriate quantity of signatures, put pretty much whatever topic they want to a referendum vote - a vote that can even do such things as modify (within the state guidelines) the curriculum OR direct the Board to refuse to renew the teacher's union contract and hire teachers independently (as many private schools do) and determine their salaries by an entirely different set of guidelines than the union's "pay us, or else"-type of negotiation.
I'd heard (no, I don't have a source yet but will look for it) that some years ago some small mid-American town DID that and offered to rehire all the teachers at their current level and go by merit afterward.
The union sued, the State said that it's not illegal not to renew a contract (and the Town was willing to hire the teachers independently). The voters made it plain that they would ONLY entertain one-year contracts (apparently it was THAT small a town that they had the luxury) and renegotiate every year "so, you're not gonna get anywhere 'cause we have plenty of teachers willing to work off-contract just to be ABLE to teach".
They weren't trying to bust the union by forcing unionees out of their jobs by hiring replacements, they just didn't want to renew the teachers' "service contract" (i.e. "we will perform [services] for [price]") about the same way you might not want to renew the service contract on your furnace and choose to hire your own qualified individual to maintain it (since fire marshalls and insurance companies are picky about competent labor on such devices).
Apparently a separate committee, unknown to the union, had interviewed and culled individuals with good teaching credentials (either unemployed or employed out-of-field) for potential part-time-leading-to-full-time employment and had non-disclosures to prevent the union from finding out. Can you say "ace-in-the-hole"?
Apparently the union desisted, same teachers, same jobs, many left & were replaced (all were invited to reapply before the independents were allowed to try), on merit pay, the student's scores went up appropriately, the pay went up appropriately, and everyone eventually won except the union-mongers.
I like a happy ending - whether it may be a true story or not.
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1. You can be a high school teacher anywhere. I'm finding that almost all pharmaceutical research labs are in the Northeast US. When I graduate, I'll look for research jobs, but I wouldn't take 99% of them because I'd rather be dead than live there.
2. You get three months a year off. I've never really gotten over losing my summers to
Fat, Dumb and Religious is no way to go... (Score:3, Insightful)
*shrug*
They can always join the military! With Lil'Bush making noise about Iran, we'll have a deep need for people to die in the desert for Haliburton and Exxon!
(only partially serious)
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Number and severity of issues? Number is relative to the complexity of the program (and sometimes wether something is an issue is a matter of opinion). Severity is completely an opinion- some people treat crashes as minor if its random and loses no dat
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Teacher shortage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Either that, or enslave post-grads for a few years and FORCE them to work at public school wages. That'll work... Yeah.I hate "IS/OR" questions like this. The answer to both is YES. Pay which is competative with industry will attract science grads to teach. It will also cause "discontent among teachers" who somehow feel that all teachers should earn the same -- regardless of education/demand for certain skillsets.
Queue the teachers union to strike/protest.
Fixing the system (Score:2)
Why not do it for math/science? "No money for college? Just teach some kids for a few years after you're done and we'll foot the bill". Seems like a nice win/win situation.
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Re:Teacher shortage? (Score:5, Interesting)
"He pointed out that an English teacher doesn't have to be a great writer to teach reading and writing, but that the same is not true of high-end math and science courses."
Of course, at the higher levels of English, having a teacher well versed in literature can make all the difference with regard to engaing students in studying Shakespeare and the classics. I don't think you should sell short the value of a well educated English teacher - it is just that that value tends be increase later in schooling rather than earlier.
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Sure, it would be nice if the teachers were interested in their field and had some talent/experience. However, when you pay near the bottom of the scale for educated/certified people, you get
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Wow, spoken exactly like someone who's never set foot in a classroom. It would be hard for you to be any more wrong than you are here, buddy. The problem with the teaching profession today is p
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Okay, so here you are in front of a bunch of students and walking them through the beginnings of algebra and you ask them to solve:
3x + 5 = 23
You go through the motions and the solution x = 6 comes out. Some student in back raises his/her hand and asks:
"Is it possible that x could be something else?"
Is that a good question? Is it a dumb question? Is it obvious? W
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If you're talking about teaching simple math, you're probably correct. Most people intuitively understand things like addition and subtraction. The point at where this is no longer valid is when you're talking about teaching advanced math concepts in high school, which is where the real shortage occurs.
Actually I would like to point out that, in fact, simple math can actually be one of the areas where real depth of knowledge can actually make a difference. While most people have some intuitive grasp of simple mathematics, they often don't really understand it - if you pick apart the fundamentals [stuff.gen.nz] you can often find things are not as well understood as you might expect. Even just numbers and simple arithmetic [stuff.gen.nz] have more going on than you might think. A teacher who understands the deeper issues is going to b
Re:Teacher shortage? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Teacher shortage? (Score:5, Interesting)
I raised my hand and said 'If brain cells are made out of atoms that is clearly impossible.' She disagreed. We argued and I got detention for undermining her in front of the class.
I think the point she was trying to make was that there are more possible interconnections between brains cells in the brain than atoms in the universe, which is still wrong.
Sigh. I wonder how many kids thought I was being a wiseass vs how many realized how stupid the teacher's statement was.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Teacher shortage? (Score:5, Insightful)
You need to keep in mind that teachers do not work 40+ hours/week and they get the summers off. Pay rate would be better expressed in dollars per hour. My wife is an English teacher (a damn good one too!) and I'm a sofware engineer. My yearly salary is more than twice hers, but if you count the hours (counting 50hrs/week for me) she gets better pay per hour.
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You do make a good point about the time off. I've got a friend who's the IT guy at a private high school and he basically works 9-4 with an hour (free) lunch and gets 8 weeks of vacation through the year. His pay is a little sub-par for what he does and has to deal with, but it's an alright gig. With that much available time off, it's easy to work a second job or even go for more schooling/training.
It's really nic
Re:Teacher shortage? (Score:5, Informative)
You need to keep in mind that teachers do not work 40+ hours/week and they get the summers off. Pay rate would be better expressed in dollars per hour. My wife is an English teacher (a damn good one too!) and I'm a sofware engineer. My yearly salary is more than twice hers, but if you count the hours (counting 50hrs/week for me) she gets better pay per hour.
As for summers off, keep in mind that most (good) teachers use that time to further their own education, whether its working towards the Master's degree that you are required to obtain within 5 years, or taking addition subject courses to enhance the students' experiences and expand the number of courses the teacher can teach.
What people not in the education field also do not take into account is the sheer exhaustion that comes from teaching. Imagine having to give a 45 minutes presentation to 25 co-workers every day. Now imagine doing it 4-5 times per day. And keep in mind, it has to be a DIFFERENT presentation every day. And it damn well better be entertaining...and interactive...and inquiry-based.
In conclusion, this comment is not the ranting of a disgruntled teacher who feels the world owes him a big "thank you". I love teaching and, at least right now, can't think of anything else I'd rather do for a career. I just want to try to set the record straight on how much work goes into "getting summers off".
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I know plenty of teachers who do just the status quo and no more. They get to school at 7:45, and leave at 3:15. They probably do about a half hour per day of work at home. They get an hour lunch break and therefore only work about 35 hours a week. Their first year or two are tough, but after that they have worked out their lesson plans and have little left to do outside of
Re:Teacher shortage? (Score:5, Informative)
False. My wife (8th grade teacher) gets to work at 7:25 and leaves usually at 4:00. She usually spends an average of 1 hour every night doing extra work. Her lunch hour is about 40 minutes. That adds up to 50 hours a week when you include the extra weekend work.
True. Almost three months is a LOT of vacation. I'd say she gets 14 weeks off over the course of a year. That translates to 560 hours of a 40 hour week.
Now, consider that 50 hours a week times the 38 weeks of working = 1900 hours. That brings up a net difference of 100 hours of extra work I do over the course of a year (assuming standard 2000 hour year). The ratio of her total hours to my total hours (0.95) compared to the ratio of her salary to my salary (software developer) (0.65) is not encouraging.
if it breeds discontent, so be it. (Score:5, Insightful)
This proposed system to get better math and science educators and educations sounds like a meritocracy approach, which may be a foreign concept to some in the heavily union-controlled teacher community. It would seem that something as important as the education of our children the most important goal would be to fund and organize the most effective educational system possible.
While I don't know the intricacies of the teachers' unions, I've had enough discussions with my sister, a teacher, to suspect the best interests of the children are rarely in play in decsions around who should teach and how much those who teach should be paid. If this is really true, it is probably the wrong approach.
A central tenet of the school pay system appears to be their main stumbling block: FTA:
There's a certain insanity to the notion that different demand-disciplines (in the market workplace) should not help guide salary distribution in the teaching systems. High-demand, high-pay disciplines should drive high-pay teaching positions. If an English teacher's 50% cut to a Physics teacher's pay bothers the English teacher, he (she) need only get the necessary background to qualify to teach physics. It seems like a simple equation... it's kind of (not exactly) how it works in the job market.
I'm all for a meritocracy for teachers, and not just in the math and sciences. Unfortunately, from past observations, as long as government runs educational systems, and unions govern teacher selection, the "finest education" for the children is likely the last result we'll see.
Want to place odds on whether Kentucky pulls off getting these bills passed? And, if passed, want to double down on the teachers' unions' resistance? That said, good luck to Kentucky... I hope they pull it off.
Re:if it breeds discontent, so be it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:if it breeds discontent, so be it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Teachers get rated based on how their students do on standardized tests, so they teach students to be good at the test, regardless of how relevant that information is outside of the test. People complain about teaching to the test, but insist on metrics that require some manner of measurement. It's a catch 22.
This is even worse since the teachers get no choice in their students. How would you feel if your performance was based on your ability to get a bunch of goldfish to do math?
I'm all for rating people based on their performance, but in practice it always comes down to something documented clearly in such a brain dead manner that people aren't afraid of being sued. Once that happens, it becomes very difficult to see the difference between someone who is really good at their job and someone who is good at gaming the system.
Re:if it breeds discontent, so be it. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a stumbling block of *all* unionized workplaces. Instead of paying people based on their performance they pay everyone based on their years in.
This type of reward system creates an environment that's filled with indifference. "Why should I work hard and come up with new and exciting lesson plans when I'm going to be paid exactly the same as Bob Smith who sits on his tenured ass and doesn't engage the students at all?"
It's a real problem where I used to work and it was compounded with supervisors that have limited budgets and individuals used to receiving their yearly raises and not looking for upward advancement. So you have people that do nothing more than the bare minimum, don't have any goals, and are just happy to be great at making themselves look busier than they really are while complaining that Joe is working hard and making them look bad.
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...until you consider the fact that they want to base their salaries on the performance of their class.
There are several problems with this idea. The first, and most serious in my mind (but I am Not a Teacher, I have only discussed this with some of them) is that this will be based on standardized testing. As we all (should) know, testing is actually a poor indicator of future performance. Some p
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Being a good teacher... (Score:2)
> he (she) need only get the necessary background to qualify to teach physics.
The requirements go down when there's a shortage, of course, so this isn't as hard as it sounds. Of course, to be honest, with the exception of a few particular courses--some AP stuff, advanced language stuff, and I suppose music--an intelligent person should be able to teach any high school course. (Based on the difficulty of high school courses at my school in the late 90s, and given a
Kentucky... (Score:3, Interesting)
(it's on the welcome signs as you enter the state)
May backfire (Score:5, Interesting)
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This may be seen as a union problem, but I see it more as a school budget problem. Schools don't have enough money, and they don't allocate enough of the money they do have to teacher salaries.
Good teachers are in high demand and short supply, which in a normal business would result in higher pay. However, with teaching there's some sort of nonsense myth that t
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It's both. Schools don't have enough money, and the unions force them to spend their money in inappropriate, unfair ways. Mr. Bob who has taught half-assedly for ten years makes vastly more than Mr. Jim who has taught with all his effort for five years, and is actually helping children. It's not a meritocracy, it's P
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Here is a thought (Score:5, Insightful)
There is an unhealthy stigma that goes along with people not going to college, and I disagree with it. College, while wonderful for some, is not good for others. 2 year trade schools, or apprenticeships should be encouraged far more than they are. And this is relevant to the topic because the students are told by their teachers that if they don't go to college, they will be useless to society. (or at least thats how I was taught)
There is a problem with the teaching system in the United States, and it starts with the students being far too empowered. If little Johnny does something wrong, teacher (rightly!) punishes Johnny, he cries to Mommy, and Mommy sides with Johnny. Teacher's hands are tied and so they stop caring. I have plenty of friends that are teachers, and this is a common story. There are more problems, but I firmly believe that the problem originates at discipline.
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WHAT?
You have no idea what you are talking about at al
Re:Here is a thought (Score:5, Funny)
ah, irony...
Stupid end-of-summary questions (Score:2, Insightful)
Why can't it be both?
Simple logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Pay Difference Justified? Certainly! (Score:2)
I most certainly believe so. In the general workforce, this is generally the case. Those with degrees in English, who sit typing manuals all day generally don't get paid as well as engineers do. So, the schools would have to compete with the differing pay scales accordingly.
In general, I do believe teachers are vastly underpaid. However, a Mat
Let's get this out of the way (Score:2, Redundant)
I mean, having a degree certainly doesn't mean you can teach anything.
Now that I've done the heavy lifting someone reply with the performance metrics.
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"All the rights, none of the responsibility"
Re:Let's get this out of the way (Score:4, Insightful)
And who judges performance?
If it's the school administration, then you risk the principal's favorites getting paid just because they're the favorites.
If it's based on standardized tests, then you just get teachers teaching kids how to take standardized tests, which is ultimately results in a lousier education.
Only in America (Score:4, Insightful)
We already spend a shit load of money on education and the results are poor at best. So what do we do? Spend more money of course! I think the US needs to look at other cultures to see how its done. We're obviously missing something and it definitely isn't money.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Only in America (Score:4, Interesting)
The highest educated populations in the western world are the Scandinavian countries. There, motherhood, childcare, and educational professions are looked upon as great callings that have a huge influence on the future prosperity of the country. Therefore, it's easy to justify paying them well.
In the US, it seems that most valuable female is the one who looks like a dirty catholic schoolgirl and the most valuable male is the one who can best jump on top of other males in the mud while wearing tights. Teachers and child care workers are looked down upon as lazy.
So it's not as easy as method. We need to change the culture.
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The highest educated populations in the western world are the Scandinavian countries. There, motherhood, childcare, and educational professions are looked upon as great callings that have a huge influence on the future prosperity of the country. Therefore, it's easy to justify paying them well.
Eh. I live here. In Denmark. Teacher's base pay is a little above unskilled worker's, though it raises slightly more quickly. Childcare, less so. Motherhood? These are the countries of equal opportunity. At best, motherhood is regarded as a nice hobby if you don't overindulge. (Fatherhood, I'm pleased to say, is getting increased respect these days --- at this rate, it might approach the mother ditto in 30 or 40 years).
However, there is no shortage of teachers or childcarers in most regions, the exceptio
Maybe all teachers deserve higher pay... (Score:2, Insightful)
More competitive pay may attract science grads who could make more elsewhere, but I'd argue that it's worthwhile to avoid breeding discontent by giving all teachers that same raise. They certainly deserve it for all the extra hours a teacher puts in grading, preparing lessons, and other "homework." Counting all that, my teacher friends put i
Why I'm Not a Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to be a teacher. Some of the greatest influences on my life have been teachers. I like teaching kids science and computers, and I've got a talent for it.
But I'll never be a teacher under current systems.
I'm not patient with kids who don't get it and insist on me walking them through everything. None of my favorite teachers were either. I'm not respectful of authority either, unless it's earned that respect. None of my favorite teachers were either. And if parents insist that little Taylor or Brittany didn't earn the C they got on the test, I'll tell them where they can shove their complaints. And I'm not about to waste my time teaching kids for a test. Some of the best lessons in life can't be tested. I'd reward kids for creativity, an inquisitive nature, the questioning of current thinking, and for making me look dumb. All the kinds of things my favorite teachers rewarded me for.
I feel that, in this current climate, I wouldn't last a year as that kind of teacher. In fact, two of my favorite teachers got fired after I had them because of complaints and friction with the administration. And they were replaced with robots designed to make more robots. Indeed, most of the teachers I remember fondly only lasted as long as they did because they produced results despite friction with the administration and parents.
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Re:Why I'm Not a Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Good thing you are not a teacher. What you are saying that you could do that job only when it's easy. Anyone can.
Being able to control, teach and inspire kids that are not at all interested in the subject is something that a great teacher can do. That's where the art of teaching comes in.
I taught computer programming adults who were quite motivated to learn. This was a piece of case. My wife teaches engilish to 7th graders in an urban school. After few months all her students love her and many learn to love literature. Teaching in that environment is a completely different skill.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I can relate to the GP. Why is it my problem that the student can't study? If I give an algorithm to solve some problem (be it math, science, English, foreign language, etc.), at the high school level, I should presume that the student has the ability to record and apply the algorithm. If they don't understand the why, I can help. If I show them once, and they can't do it themselves in a me
This is exactly why I no longer teach. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Is such differentiated pay the right way to attract science graduates who can make much more in industry, or is it simply going to breed discontent among teachers?"
Science and Math are good starting points. But don't stop there!
The entire United States Educational System needs a complete overhaul.
Teachers should teach because they enjoy it. Being "attracted" into it isn't going to make them be good teachers. In fact, it may turn out like college where you get the really bright mathematicians and scientists teaching, but they can't relate worth a darn to the students.
Money is also a good start. Really talented people end up leaving the profession because they simply can't pay the bills. Making the pay more competitive will keep more of the good teachers. Fixing some of the other problems will also retain teachers, but getting the teachers in, paying them better and teaching (or allowing) them to be good teachers is what needs to happen, nation-wide, not just Kentucky or California.
The overhaul must start somewhere, and if they look at pay first, that's great. You can eventually weed out the poor teachers, keep the good teachers and our children will finally have an education they deserve!! (Without having to move overseas to truly educate them well.)
So, it's a start. But it can't stop there. Yes, there will be discontent among teachers but once the ball starts rolling and things improve for one and all, then everyone wins.
My thoughts as an ex-teacher,
Kris
Disturbing (Score:2)
This is not, of course, to say that the majority of teachers aren't apt. They probably are. But give them 16-18 s
I see it more as an attraction.. (Score:2)
I do know of some math teachers who used to work for Lockheed Martin and they were really focused on making sure every teen in their classroom.
AP students (Score:3, Insightful)
The first thing that needs to happen is that AP classes need to not be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator because of political reasons, and everyone shouldn't get a pony- we have to get back to having kids *lose* if they don't make the cut.
If this attracts the teachers (Score:2)
It's not the teachers (Score:2, Interesting)
If you make schools immune to civil lawsuits, put teachers ahead of parents and stop appointing the retarded friends and family of politicians as school administrators, you will have a functioning school system again. Parents that don't like that situation can take their kids to private school or home school them.
Stupid kids need
My wife is a Science Teacher in Kentucky (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and she probably won't get the bonus.
Why are we debating a 5-year-plan? (Score:4, Insightful)
That Kentucky (or any state in the U.S.) applies the same logic to education is no surprise, but why do Slashdotters acquiesce to determining teachers' salary by central planning and government mandate? The free market should determine teachers' salaries. The prerequisite, of course, would be to eliminate government-run schools and let private schools compete for tuition money from parents.
Yes, I am one of the tens of thousands of signatories to the Proclamation for the Separation of School and State [schoolandstate.org]
I work for Public Education (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen good and bad teachers in the schools I work in, and quite frankly, there aren't enough good teachers. Period. Like the teacher who was teaching life lessons from the master "Rikki Lake" (No kidding). Or the Social Science Teacher teaching made up crap and opinions as "fact". Or the Math teacher who didn't know the formula for the area of a circle (No kidding), Or the teacher that has four computers on his desk and that is all he does all day, instead of teaching the special education kids in his charge, or
It is pretty scary stuff, if you ask me. The scariest part is that NONE of the teachers I mentioned could be fired, because the Union says so. It is clear that the Union doesn't really care about their profession, or it would be EMBARRASSED of many of its members.
I feel really sorry about those teachers that are actually good. However, they cannot overcome the crap coming from the worst of them. Sad, but true.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Never. But you are the one calling for *more* government oversight. So you agree it is bad, then ask for more of it. With logic like that, I can see how you are so easily confused.
Sorry, I don't babysit (Score:5, Insightful)
At least in her classes, the students were apathetic and disrespectful. In her assessment, basically zero learning occurred.
Contrast that to what I get when I teach my kids at home. We snuggle up and read a homeschooling book about astronomy, and they actually learn. We pop in a "Magic Schoolbus" DVD rental, and even I learn stuff about human physiology, etc. My 6 year old knows multiplication table up through 7's, and reads at a 3rd-grade level.
Seeing the heartbreaking gap between what most kids can learn, and what most kids do learn in public school, keeps me from ever wanting to perpetuate that environment. I'm considering working with small groups of kids and possibly even doing some math teaching to home-schooled kids. But public schools - no way. It's mostly a waste.
I Heart Money (Score:5, Interesting)
No one gets into this for the money, and no one stays for the money -- not math teachers, anyway. I did something before this that paid twice as much, as many of us do, but then I got bored and decided to try this.
So the issue is, if people aren't in teaching for the money, why do we suspect that we'll be able to attract more people to teaching with more money?
Now, there's the reasonable argument that there's some segment of the population that would like to teach, but can't because the pay is so low, but there's two things wrong with this argument:
1. teachers are never going to make as much as, say, modelers or programmers, and
2. i have some reason to believe that the sort of people who are just waiting for teaching kids to be really, really profitable might not be the crowd that we want to attract, anyway.
People get into teaching because they like teaching. People leave teaching because it's annoying a lot of the time. Here's how you attract people, in my personal fake expert opinion:
1. make it interesting. don't assign people to courses just because they're what's open, and don't make them wait for someone to die to get to try teaching calculus.
2. give them support, and help them develop. put time into schedules for conferences and bring in real lecturers, provide journals and during the day time to discuss, and fund coursework into anything.
3. throw out the textbooks. they're all shit (with the exception of harold jacobs).
4. demand real expertise and professionalism. make math teacher a job that it's hard to get. if i quit tomorrow, i could work anywhere in Maine by next week. this isn't good, rather it tells me that i don't need to be very good -- and if that's true, how good am i, really?
It's a great job, and you can't fix the shortage with money because things are so bad in terms of available teachers that you're just going to drag the good ones to rich districts and force poor schools to take whoever's left -- and you would be pretty surprised if i were to tell you exactly how bad things are in terms of expertise. The right answer is to make it a job that is attractive in all its aspects, and one that's admirable and challenging. That's all we geeks want, anyway, isn't it? A challenge, and some acknowledgement that we've got giant freaking brains?
Absolutely (Score:3, Insightful)
But really, the problem with education isn't pay-grade differences. It's actually a situation where liberals and conservatives have both come together to fuck things up. The conservatives offer Christian fundamentalist parents to put pressure on school boards to teach creationism or similar frauds, uneducated morons sitting on education boards to decide what is and isn't science and a ridiculous philosophy that free-market capitalism actually applies to education in the form of "No Child Left Behind". Oh yeah, and they have a worrisome trust for standardized test scores as a benchmark for performance.
The liberals, on the other hand, offer hideously overpowered teacher's unions that keep shitty teachers employed, an inane attitude that no kid should ever fail and an unreasonable expectation that every kid should go to college. Really, when did becoming a plumber or electrician become something so terrible? You can make a good, honest living doing plenty of trade jobs. But not every kid belongs in college, and filling colleges with kids who don't belong there sucks resources from actual higher education and diverts it to joke majors like "park and recreation management". And since every kid has to go to college now, they have to have enough majors for everyone!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Economics comes a 2nd. How else do we explain trillion-dollar deficits, $200 hammers and toilet covers, and Hedge fund losses like LTCM [wikipedia.org] and the rest?
If our students have a good grasp of maths and economics, they can get this economy under control in no time.
History should be 3rd to make sure they don't do a Bernie Ebbers or Jack Grubman.
Re:Across the pond. (Score:5, Interesting)
You know... Teaching used to be a very well paying and highly respected profession. Then they nationalised it.
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