Teacher's make too little money
Yes this is just another bleeding heart liberal rant from yours truly. And my solution will piss off you Karl Rove zombies even more.
I just thought of this on the way to work so I have not had a chance to think about how it would actually work. But, what if a percentage of your pay, for life, went back to the school/group of teachers you were taught by. I think I would be willing to contribute 1% of my lifetime earnings. I know it would be a lot easier for me than someone who makes a ton of money. This money could be split up between increasing teachers salaries, creating a board that monitors that teachers are doing their job. I know that this is basically how public education is funded now via our taxes and education spending, but we need to figure out a way to bypass the politics. Straight to the teachers!
I just thought of this on the way to work so I have not had a chance to think about how it would actually work. But, what if a percentage of your pay, for life, went back to the school/group of teachers you were taught by. I think I would be willing to contribute 1% of my lifetime earnings. I know it would be a lot easier for me than someone who makes a ton of money. This money could be split up between increasing teachers salaries, creating a board that monitors that teachers are doing their job. I know that this is basically how public education is funded now via our taxes and education spending, but we need to figure out a way to bypass the politics. Straight to the teachers!
posted by Bleach at 8:03 AM
18 Comments:
as a former teacher I approve this message and owe you a gental and loving slap on the ass.
I think this is a real problem, considering the real smart people people go where the cash is. I think if you started giving competitive saleries, you would see a real change in education.
OTH i have always believed the majority of learning goes on outside of the classroom and is really more of a function of the importantce that the parents and kids put on education, so maybe "good teachers" are not that important. I think this trend shifts as kids get older. "good teachers" are very importnat in the very young grades. K~6
Anyway, If you live in the same distict as the schools you went to school in, you own property, and your property taxes are proportinal to your income, this already happens. at least in indiana.
Love, foo
"a board that monitors that teachers are doing their job"
this is similar to PL221 and is a crock of shit. it basically starndarizes material, makes teachers prove that they teach it, and if they don't AND test scores go down, the school loses accredation and the teacher (most likely) gets fired. That sounds good on paper, but it shifts the focus from students accountable for their own learning to the teachers being accoutable. The mantra in public education these days is "it is the teachers fault!". this gives more "power" to the students, which is a trend that has been getting out of control lately anyhow. the result now is that students have all the rights, teachers have none, and if the school loses accrediation it is the teacher's fault. not students or even variance in test scores. of course, alot of schools have to cheat to get their test scores high enough to where they won't lose accrediation and funding. and teachers no longer focus on anything but "teaching to the test". creativity, special interests, teachign latitude, and flexiblity has gone the way of the dodo. it is basically a bad dream.
Alex is going to a private school.
sorry to be on a soapbox dude. it all came back to me just now and i got passionate for a second. i guess i should go back to my job now.
fuck!
Maybe the problem isn't the board themselves, but what the board are currently using as criteria to determine if a teacher is doing a good job.
agreed.
I don't want to give any of my money to either of the crappy schools I attended in Texas. I'd like to give all of my 1% to Mrs. Lane, my 3rd grade teacher at Mt Tabor, only she was about 80 at the time, so she may not be teaching anymore.
Hi Brad. I liked Jeff's corny dog award you made. And I also really like davotchka...they are all over the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack. You are cool.
I agree with most of what fooie has said on the subject. My dad was a high school physics teacher in NY for 37 years (recently inducted into the Teacher's Hall of Fame) and was grossly underpaid for most of his career. He used to joke that the garbage collectors in NYC made more than he did.
One option is merit-based pay. Seems like a good idea to reward teachers on performance, like elsewhere in industry. At least it is more cost-effective than giving statewide salary hikes. But there are valid arguments against this as well. Many teacher's unions are dead set against merit pay.
This latest trend of tying test scores to funding and "teaching to the test" makes me especially sad. I'm all for accountability and using standardized testing as a general indicator of performance, but it has gotten out of hand.
-K.
I don't know what the korny dog award is.
it could work bleach, but i have always been curious as to why the schools that score the lowest on the test scores get their funding taken away, while the school that score high get more money. isn't this backwards?
Great blog, speaking as a rove zombie I say it has to start at home if parents are raising a dummy then it dont matter how much you give teachers there are some kids that basically refuse to learn. Merit-based pay dont sound bad if you get good kids, I have no idea to answer the question but pay as you go but then the poor get fucked, so I'll let someone else figure it out.
Sorry...the corny dog award turns out to be from the brad at jeff's work.
Since my wife and step-daughter are teachers I hear LOTS of things on this subject, and so, I have MANY opinions. So many, in fact, that I am going to limit myself to one comment only ... This is it. Little Miss Sunshine may be the best movie ever made. Don't miss it. It is the story that is worth telling ... because it is about a family. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, so I won't say anymore ... except that I am DEFINATELY the dad, but for many years I was well on my way to becoming the grandpa. I'm not completely sure I made the right choices along the way - having ended up this way as opposed to that.
I do think that teachers are not as respected by parents and students today as they were compared to 15-20 years ago. Underpaid...I can't agree with you on this. The average teacher salary in New Albany in 48198 per http://mustang.doe.state.in.us/TRENDS/corp.cfm?corp=2400&var=sal
A school year is i believe 180 days.
52 weeks a year - weekends = 261 days
261 - 13 holidays = 248. So teachers are working 68 days per years less than me and are paid a decent salary.
Don't come back with they work late hours and weekends because there are a lot of people who do the same and get paid less.
Ok, how about this. According to
http://www.salary.com/learning/layoutscripts/leal_display.asp?tab=lea&cat=nocat&ser=Ser285&part=Par409
The average pay for a Master's degree is 53,000 a year. I realize that teachers have a while to get there Masters but it is funny that the average teacher's salary is not close to this number.
Also, according to this site: http://www.winthrop.edu/careers/average_yearly_salaries.html
Every single entry level bachelors degree job pays more than an Elementary Education job. Starting pay is genrally top on the list when deciding a career.
They also work a lot of late hour and weekends!!
But seriously, If you have ever known a starting teacher, you would be amazed at the out of classroom time that is devoted to grading, lesson plans, etc...
so
I can attest to this statement:
"But seriously, If you have ever known a starting teacher, you would be amazed at the out of classroom time that is devoted to grading, lesson plans, etc..."
to give a different presepective, I make almost double now as what I did when i was a teacher, and work about 1/10 as hard. I am not bullshitting.
plus, the most I ever heard a teacher making was $60,000. that was after more than 30 years of teaching!
I am talking high school here. elemetry teachers really get the shaft.
and your point is
Just a few points:
1) no one would want to teach elementary since it would take too long to see any revenue.
2) most people would be upset that one of the dumb teachers they had was getting any of their money.
3) an education degree is one of the easiest you can get. It shouldn't pay what an engineer or a nurse makes.
4) the government would reduce their salary saying that they are getting extra revenue.
5) I take calls all night to support the system I am hired to support. I don't get any extra pay for that.
Just like the rest of us, teacher's pay should be mostly based on the age old democratic principles of supply and demand. Pay for performance would be good to incorporate. And it does not have to be entirely tied to having good kids. You should be able to come up with a mathematical way to make it fair. Clearly, you test in a manner that you can measure each kids progress while a specific person was the teacher. Also, if you get a kid that historically learns as a slow rate, if you increase their rate of learning, then that is good. If it stay steady, that is (maybe) OK. If it slows, that is bad. It's certainly not eitirely up to the teacher, but you can at least factor out some of the "bad kids" problems with a program like that.
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