teacher issues
Knowing what I know now about the profession of teaching (through experience) and our nation's educational model (from grad school) this NYC middle school seems like a brilliant idea. Paying teachers what they are worth, rather than what we can scrape together to get the job done. And principals who are paid less than teachers - to encourage good teachers to stay in the classroom!
It's not surprising that its founder is a young, alternative-route (i.e. Teach for America) innovator. Money is misused like crazy in school systems here. I don't care how many SmartBoards you put into a classroom, they are not worth a damn if the teacher using them is incompetent. (Speaking of incompetency and Smartboards, my classroom is having one installed. Apparently our school is going on another technology spending spree - I just want to tell them, give me the $2,500, get out of my classroom, and just let me teach!)
Teachers are not paid enough. Really. Not just in Mississippi (where in fact, the standard of living for a teacher isn't too bad) but everywhere, across the country As a result, we have a teacher shortage, and many, many barely-qualified candidates in the classroom. Everyone talks about how important education is, but our nation's schools are staffed by the bottom of the barrel. The average ACT scores and GPA of secondary teachers are well beneath the national average for college graduates....why would we want those below average to turn around and work with the next generation?
Our program director has lots of good posts on this problem (here is a recent one). If teachers made $125,000 a year, there's a chance I would stay in teaching for life. As it is, I'm not sure I will. Every time I have to work through exhaustion, every time I have a bad day and have to come home to still more lesson-planning, every time a principal tells me in a condescending tone that I haven't done such-and-such-time-consuming-task, I think to myself: I am a responsible, intelligent, motivated young worker. I could find a job in an instant where I am paid just as much for half the work. In fact, many of my friends are paid just as much as I am, and I know they are doing half the work. The only friends of mine who work as much as I do are either teaching here, or making a well-deserved six figure salary in New York City.
What would it take to get our nation to change its priorities?
Another great NYTimes article -- a discussion between a number of interesting voices -- looks at the intricacies of educational philanthropy, one sign that things are (perhaps) changing...
