Check out the new report published by the group Edin08 – whose goal is made education the center of political debate for the ‘08 election cycle. http://www.edin08.com/anationatrisk/
Disappointing reading but places the blame squarely where the biggest problem in education reform is located – Political will. And I don’t mean just by candidates but also by the public. I greatly admire the people who go into teaching – especially considering that the best of them can get much better paid and socially respected jobs elsewhere (society in effect takes advantage of their good will if you look at it from a market standpoint). Imagine the quality of teachers we would have in our schools if we as a society felt that education was as important as the other professions. Consider engineering. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm. The lowest median salaries as of 2006 was in agricultural engineers at $66K. The median salary for secondary teachers http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252031.htm is $47,740. But they get the summer off you say – well that is true of some but many have professional development that they do during the summer. Others work on curriculum for the upcoming school year, some just recover from the prior school year. Yeah – teaching can be a little wearing on you. Still the point to be made is that teacher salaries are not competitive. And one of the reforms suggested by “A Nation At Risk” was to extend the number school days and school hours.
Which would necessarily demand an increase in teacher pay. Well, I am ranting. The point is that if teacher salaries were competitive to other professional salaries, the quality of the teachers would necessarily rise. More importantly, the stature of teachers in the public eyes would rise. Positioning teachers to be able to better demand increase quality professional development. Also, the signal to young people would be that education matters. Why else would our society pay competitive salaries unless education doesn’t matter. Which raises the true of where we are. Students are very bright and catch onto the meaning behind things. Right now, our society clearly doesn’t think that education is as important as making money so why should students? Money alone won’t cure our ails in education but it should would improve the quality of people we can draw upon to improve the system.
Posted by druegawel 