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Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

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Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#301
post #128

This is loosely related, but every time I think of public school teacher salaries my mind goes to the public school teachers I know. As a group they are… exceptionally ungifted. As just one example, I lived with two middle school teachers in Texas for a few years. They probably couldn’t pass the grade they were teaching. I have never met two professionals with so many credentials (MS in Education) and so little sense…

Here's a good way to think about it - there is no world where education improves if teachers are not a well-paid profession. It's a race to the bottom, as we're seeing today. So if you want to get better, you have to create incentives for otherwise smart/talented teachers to enter the profession, rather than other professions. The only way to do that is to provide some base level of pay that would be enticing. Once y…

You have to weigh actual policy proposals, though. Throwing money around doesn't always help.

This particular proposal doesn't seem likely to help. It's a nationwide hack. An obvious likely consequence is larger class sizes. Is that good or bad? Hard to say in general, it depends on local factors.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#302
post #128

This is loosely related, but every time I think of public school teacher salaries my mind goes to the public school teachers I know. As a group they are… exceptionally ungifted. As just one example, I lived with two middle school teachers in Texas for a few years. They probably couldn’t pass the grade they were teaching. I have never met two professionals with so many credentials (MS in Education) and so little sense…

It's a bit of both, right? Look at doctors, a highly-paid and highly-qualified position. Even with all the training that they go through, you can still have a doctor who seems incompetent or, more commonly, who doesn't know how to work well with patients. But the high pay and social status is a big carrot that pulls in a lot of smart people who are willing to put in the effort.

You want the job to appeal to smart people who have a lot of options. You can never fully get rid of the bad left side of the bell curve, but I think higher pay is a good way to shift and extend the right side.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#303

Sanders calls for a lot and never delivers. I wouldn’t hold your breath teachers.

He's one senator. There's not that much you can do as a single senator. The people of Vermont love him though.

Nobody in the Senate has figured out how to be something other than one Senator, but some of them can count to 50.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come 78% of low income fourth graders in NJ can't read?[0] [0] https://acnj.org/newsroom/news-releases/nj-4th-graders-score...

You're misinterpreting the data and over-extending the definition of " scoring below proficient on national literacy tests". The data from here: https://www.aecf.org/resources/2022-kids-count-data-book/aux... Table 1.6. Confidence Intervals for States and Nation, 2009 and 2019 New Jersey 2019: 58.1% Percent of fourth graders not proficient in reading

Do we really think this is much better?

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#305

I'm in NJ where we value public education, for the most part. According to National Center for Education Statistics our average teacher pay was $77,489 in 2022. This is excluding benefits/pension. Well worth it.

How come 78% of low income fourth graders in NJ can't read?[0] [0] https://acnj.org/newsroom/news-releases/nj-4th-graders-score...

[dead]

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of targeted propaganda and attacks by an organized political group that holds, as an ideology, that public institutions should not exist and everything should be done by the private sector.

If this were true, wouldn't private school teachers be paid considerably more? In my area, they are paid considerably less.

That could only happen if private schools hired from a closed environment. In reality, there's a large pool of underpaid public school teachers that private schools can hire from while giving a 5-10% raise, which leaves private school teachers with 1.1x of a low salary.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#307
post #144
post #78

I know this is crazy but: Recently I was thinking about opening a foundation that will create a universal multimedia "product" (combination of software, movies, games, maybe vr) that will teach kids around the world in schools subjects that all nations agree upon like mathematics, physics, chemistry, informatics etc. This is extremely challenging to convince governments to impose this in the schools but the gains are…

So, replace teachers with Linux servers and javascript?

In short "yes". Millions of teachers around the world every day do exactly the same work as other teachers - this is a huge waste of talented resources. If they don't need to do repetitive job, that can focus on individual learning for those who really need it or help society in other way.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#308
post #128

This is loosely related, but every time I think of public school teacher salaries my mind goes to the public school teachers I know. As a group they are… exceptionally ungifted. As just one example, I lived with two middle school teachers in Texas for a few years. They probably couldn’t pass the grade they were teaching. I have never met two professionals with so many credentials (MS in Education) and so little sense…

I know a few people who are teachers, or related fields like librarians, and I would say they all are smart, hard working and care quite a bit about their students. They are all underpaid and reaching the point of burnout of the entire system and they are only in their 30's. I'm honestly concerned that we'll see education in the US quite literally falling apart as people willing to work in education effectively evapo…

(Totally unrelated to topic at hand) Do you consider librarians in the same category as teachers? They seem like completely different things to me. Like, I don’t really care if my local librarian thinks the world is flat and wants to tell everyone about it. Just keep the library well run and organized. I do care very much if the 3rd grade science teacher is a hardcore flat-earther.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#309
post #90
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teachers should make six figures, the best ones should make seven like couches do now. And it should be very easy to fire bad ones. Basically should be at will employment with school district.

> at will employment with school district This is thorny, because it gets into the problems tenure was created to combat: school administration's goals aren't always student success. Especially now, they can be myopically assessment-focused or political. Subordinating teachers to the whim of administration wouldn't help this. Jury-of-their-peers is slightly better, but has its own issues.

school boards are (and should be) elected positions. So theoretically they are accountable to parents.

Re: Sanders calls for minimum salary of $60000 for public school teachers

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said schools have to be for profit? In my state we have vouchers, and most voucher money goes to schools operated by not-for-profits. We also have charter schools, and most of those are operated by for-profit companies. Either way, they offer a way to get kids into a better environment/institution than trying to fix a failing public school system.

How long have you had vouchers, and what is the long term trend.

12-13 years. They work.
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