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Pay Teachers More

nytimes.com

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Re: Pay Teachers More

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the requirements should be lowered for K-12 teachers. The reason things got so bad is that there are a lot of education majors that go into K-12 education because it's easy. These are people that couldn't pass introductory science courses, let alone teach them to undergraduates. And there are lots of them, so they try to differentiate between themselves by getting masters degrees in easy (as opposed to c…

I think one thing that would help is that teachers should actually have a real degree with a minor in education, instead of the other way around, and that the pay would incentivize away from teachers just picking communications and getting away with that. Imagine if your history teachers had a history degree, your english teachers had an english degree, your kindergarden teachers had a sociology degree or (a more rig…

I agree with the end you have in mind, but I don't think that legal requirements should (or could) be used to make it happen. What we're talking about is inevitable if we separate the government from education completely.

In a free education market, parents would be free to ask a private school's administration, "What does your math teacher know about math, and what credentials does he have to prove it?"

Re: Pay Teachers More

#92
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...work under 40 hours a week on average.... No teacher I've met works under 40 hours a week. My parents are both teachers, as well as at least one friend. They may be "on the clock" for less than 40 hours a week, but consistently have to work up to 60 hours a week to satisfy all of their responsibilities (including meeting with students and parents, grading assignments, attending meetings, etc).

Exceptional teachers work more, and provide much more for their students. However the vast majority of teachers are not exceptional. As a thought exam think about what are they doing off the clock? Most likely grading or setting exams. The best and youngest work over their pre-packaged lesson plans and augment them to the best of their ability. However these are the best, the top few percent. The scan-tron crew do no…

Accepting that as the case, let's not create policies designed to deal with the lazy <40hr/wk teachers that negatively affect the exceptional ones.
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