Why Paying Teachers More Would Help to fix our Educational System

Bottom line at the top:

Money won't cure all of the ills in education, but it will bring back a lot of the lost talent, and that will go a long way towards fixing things.

Now, the details:

A recent post on Reddit's r/Teachers subgroup postulated that the reason for the decay in education is "slack parenting and scared administrations." (Please note: this is copy-and-pasted. Errors are the original poster's errors, not mine.)

My take: Society doesn't realize that in just a very few years there will be almost no teachers who will put up with the abusive students, the parents who refuse to parent and the slack administrations who cow to obnoxious parents, for fear of a lawsuit.

They have no idea the crap that is going to hit, and the dramatic affect its going to have on society. Or maybe they do but don't have the bleep's to state it and act on it.

All administration's everywhere will continue to blame Covid and income disparity and socio- emotional in learning lacks, because no one would dare speak what needs spoken. It's so much more PC to blame nebulous, ambiguous, non-actionable entities than it is to hold the only parties that CAN make a difference accountable. 

The poster hit the nail square on the proverbial head. Bulls-eyed it. Aced it. Got it in one. But there's more.

Here's my response:

That's a big part of it. I think that we need to keep the focus on teacher pay, as well.

As long as would-be teachers can make more money for less work (and stress) (and no bullshit from the aforementioned admins and parents) elsewhere, those would-be teachers will continue to take jobs elsewhere. And current teachers will quit and leave the profession and go elsewhere, for the same reasons.

We have lost a lot of really good teaching talent to corporate America, because we're not willing to fight for them, to compete for them -- to attract them back to teaching. Teaching right now is a singularly unattractive profession. If you listen, you can hear the departing teachers muttering, "They don't pay me enough to put up with this shit," as they walk out the door.

Simply giving more money to the school districts is not the way to fix this. Most of the "more money" that we give to the districts gets siphoned off for capital improvements, mandates, pet projects, and back-office salaries. Very little of it ends up in the teachers' pockets. We have to find a way to get the money directly to the teachers.

Money won't cure all of the ills in education, but it will bring back a lot of the lost talent, and that will go a long way towards fixing things.

p.s. I'm convinced that those teachers who are still teaching have angel wings hidden under their jackets. Y'all are awesome. These comments are not intended to diminish you in any way.

On Teachers' Pay and Why It Matters

 I'm reading the book Think Again, by psychologist Adam Grant, and I noticed a footnote talking about the importance of paying your workers enough. Mr. Grant was speaking in general terms, but I think that this footnote on page 114 has special application to the teaching profession:

Pay isn't a carrot we need to dangle to motivate people -- it's a symbol of how much we value them. Managers [administrators, for schoolteachers] can motivate people by designing meaningful jobs in which people have freedom, mastery, belonging, and impact. They can show appreciation by paying people well.

It really is that simple. 

How to Fix the Teacher Shortage

America has a teacher shortage, and it's rapidly getting worse. Here's what we can do about it.

In these post-pandemic days, teachers are no longer hailed as the heroes that, in March 2020, overnight and on their own, transformed their classrooms into online classrooms and saved the American educational system.

(No, that's not an exaggeration. They really did that. It certainly wasn't the politicians or the buttheaded administrators that saved public education during the pandemic.)

Today, teachers are disrespected by their students and the students' parents, mistreated and abused by their school and district administrators, and exploited as pawns by politicians, ideologues, local activists, and greedy pirates masquerading as "private school corporations" and "charter school corporations."

After going to college or university for four years to earn a degree and a professional certification, they are paid less than babysitters and waiters, and held accountable for things beyond their control.

It's no wonder that teachers are quitting.

They're quitting in growing numbers, and they're not even waiting for the end of the school year. The Reddit group r/Teachers is full of stories of teachers quitting, and telling why they're quitting. It's heartbreaking.

And the rate at which teachers are permanently leaving the teaching profession is accelerating. Leaders are finally recognizing it, and they are starting to panic. The teacher shortage will soon become a genuine crisis, and it will affect every one of you, young and old, in profound ways.

What's to be done about it? I have some suggestions for the leaders who can do something about it.

Treat teachers like the professionals they are. 

Let the teachers design and execute the curriculum -- or give them the freedom to choose their curriculum from the many curricula offered by the textbook companies. Stop telling them how to do their jobs. And give them the budget and the tools they need to do their jobs.

It makes me furiously angry to see other people, non-teachers, trying to tell teachers how and what they should teach. Do you treat lawyers and doctors like this? How about computer engineers? Teachers are trained professionals. Leave them alone and let them do what they are trained to do.

Treat them with respect, and enforce that respectful treatment.

I could write an entire essay about this. 

Many teachers are leaving now because of the disrespect, the humiliation, the danger, that manifests itself daily, in many ways. Teachers deserve to be treated with respect -- from students, from parents, and especially from administrators.

And until they get that respect, they will keep marching out the door. Nobody pays them enough to treat them like this.

Also, protect and defend them. Wait a minute, I need to say that louder.

Protect and defend them!

Teachers are constantly threatened with physical violence, and they're not allowed to fight back. 

Likewise, teachers are harassed, both online and in person, by students and their parents -- and sometimes by members of the community -- and the administrators take no action to stop it.

In addition, teachers are falsely accused of all kinds of misconduct, usually by vindictive students and parents, and their cowardly administrators do not back them up.

For God's sake, keep politicians and ideologues out of the schools.

I really mean "for God's sake."

Here's one example of what happens when you let politicians and ideologues in the door.

Have you heard of Critical Race Theory (CRT)? Do you know a single school in your area where CRT is being taught? No, seriously: can you name a school near you, where CRT is part of the curriculum? Look as hard as you want. You won't find one.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) was developed in the 1970s and 1980s, and is an eye-opening way to view western history. The theory is debated at length at the university level, and some of its underlying ideas have been present in public schools since the 1970s. But the idea that CRT is taught in K-12 classrooms is a straw man, set up by politicians and ideologues just so they could knock it down, and so they could take control of the schoolhouse. Politicians, ideologues, and activists keep trying to force themselves into the educational process. No teaching will happen while we allow this. 

After the battle over CRT goes away, there will be something else to take its place.

Learning will happen, oh yes, but it will not be the kind of learning you want or expect. The unintended consequences of letting politicians and ideologues drive the educational process will haunt you, society, for at least an entire generation. 

Knock it off, already.

Get rid of standardized testing.

I could argue with you about this for hours. It's demeaning, it's misguided, it's a colossal waste of time and money, and it will go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes of this generation.

Standardized testing is a bullshit idea, promoted and administered by bullshitters. (Please excuse the profanity.)

PAY THEM PROFESSIONAL WAGES. 

I have written about this before.

Good grief, how can we expect a college-educated professional to stay motivated, when we pay them less than we pay our waiters and babysitters?! 

Teachers shouldn't have to go out and get second jobs, just to support their teaching habit.

Don't just give "more money" to the schools, or to "education". Make sure that money goes directly into the teachers' pockets.

Remember the old adage, "You get what you pay for."

Fix the family.

Teachers and public schools are not the cause of poor academic performance. Nor are they the cause of the problems with violence, disrespect, and dysfunction among the student body. Studies have testified to this, over and over again, and yet we keep laying the blame on the teachers and trying to fix things in the classroom. It's not the teachers' fault, and the fix isn't in the classroom.

The root cause of these problems lies with the family that each student comes from. Put the blame where it belongs, and fix the problem at the root cause: the family.

Let's pay teachers babysitters' wages: part two

In my previous post, I made a lot of noise about teachers' salaries. Some of you may think that I'm just riding my hobbyhorse again, and that I'm just another unqualified loudmouth, making noise. I'll concede the "making noise" part, although I wish it was more effective, but let me assure you that I am qualified to speak on the subject. I'll give you my qualifications in a minute.

First, I will point you to a couple of people whose qualifications are without question: Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari have been working with public school teachers for 10 years, and are founders of the 826 National tutoring centers and producers of the documentary "American Teacher," according to the New York Times. In an editorial entitled "The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries," they present an indictment of the current system, and a convincing case for a radical realignment of teacher salaries.

Some of you won't like the article, because it makes way too much sense. Did you know that teacher turnover costs American schools over $7 billion dollars a year, the cost of hiring and training new teachers? Annual turnover in urban school districts in the U.S., according to Eggers and Calegari, is 20%. Compare that to national averages of 1% in South Korea, 2% in  Finland , and 3% in Singapore.

What do those countries do differently? They recruit top graduates to be teachers, they treat them better, and they pay them fairly: South Korean teachers make more than 3 times as much as their American counterparts.

By the way, students from those three countries are the top performers, worldwide, on standardized tests.

Eggers, Calegari and I keep calling for better pay for teachers. (I first spoke out about this in October 2006.) But nobody's listening. I predict that one of two things will happen: either we, and others like us, will get tired of calling, and will eventually shut up, and America will end up with the shoddy education her citizens deserve; or other people will add their voices to ours, and the noise will get loud enough for our leaders to notice and take action.

--

My qualifications to speak on the subject of teacher pay:

I worked as a teacher, and I was one of the 46 percent of teachers who quit within the first five years. I loved teaching. The low pay was one of the reasons I quit. The unemployment that I collected while I was actively looking for another job was only a little less than my teaching salary.

I was an engineer before and after my teaching stint, so I know how much professionals really make.

One of my daughters taught for two years, and although she loved her subject, her students, and the teaching profession, she quit to go back to college and get an MBA. It was a tough choice for her, but in the end she told me that she had looked far into her future and decided that she didn't want to be poor her whole life.

Another daughter enters the teaching profession this fall, and we'll see how long she lasts.

My sweet wife has been teaching for seven years. I know how much money she makes, and I know how the salary negotiations go every year. The teacher's union always gives in, and the administration always makes it look (in public) like the teacher's union has been greedy. The fact is that teacher pay in this district, already below the state average and well below the national average, has not even kept up with inflation for the past 7 years. But that's a topic for another posting.

I have known former teachers in many other professions, and all of them, every single one of them, told me that they quit teaching because of the low pay, not because they didn't want to teach. A social studies teacher, state champion diver and high school diving coach became an investment banker. A history teacher became a journeyman electroplater. A music teacher (not my daughter) became an applications engineer. And the list goes on.

Let's pay teachers babysitters' wages: Another modest proposal

Scott and Sadie, the morning deejays on Big Country 97.9 FM, said this morning that the average babysitting rate today is $12.75 per child. I don't know where that factoid came from, but let's run with it.

In April 2011, I stated that a typical teacher sees 80 to 100 students per day. That was based on survey statistics and professional experience, so I think it's still a valid number. Let's split the difference, and say it's 90.

Math time! $12.75 per student, times 90 students per day, times 182 instructional days per year, comes out to:

   

Think about it. If we paid public school teachers the going rate for basic child care, we would see the following changes in our educational system:

1. EVERYBODY would want to be a teacher.


2. That means that the best and brightest college students would aspire to become teachers rather than lawyers, accountants, salesmen, engineers, and doctors.

3. Schools could be VERY picky about whom they hired.

4. Therefore, the overall quality of teachers would increase.

5. It's a high probability that the overall quality of teaching, and hence of a public education, would increase.

Think of the difference that would make in the nation's health and well-being, 10 to 20 years down the road, when the students taught in this high-quality system take over as the movers and shakers in society.

Instead, the average K-12 teacher's annual salary, nationwide, hovers around $44,000 (see http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary). We are forcing our teachers to work for only 20%, one fifth, of what they're worth. That's slave wages.

Some of you may object that teachers aren't doing "basic child care," and that therefore we shouldn't be paying them basic child care workers' wages. AND YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. We should be paying them more — MUCH MORE. Give me a number. I dare you.

Some of you are still using the old objection that we don't need to pay teachers more because they get the summers off. Look again at that number. It's calculated on only 182 instruction days. If you want teachers to work 250 days a year, like the rest of us, then their annual salary should be:

Besides, for those of you who still think that "teachers get the summers off": some do, it's true. But I've seen many teachers in coffee shops, filling out applications for summer jobs so that they can afford to teach again in the fall. I've known teachers who moonlight at coffee shops, bars and restaurants, during the school year, to make ends meet. According to Eggers and Calegari, fully 62% of teachers work outside the classroom to make ends meet. I've seen many other teachers who spend their summers taking college courses (which they pay for themselves) to keep their certifications current. "Summers off" - pfsssh.

I'm not talking about "funding school districts." I'm talking about "paying teachers." But since the two are interrelated, I will say that we need to reform the way we fund school districts. Stop blaming the teachers' unions for the high teacher salaries - there aren't any "high teacher salaries." The highest average teacher salary, by state, is only about $59,000, and the highest starting salary is only $39,000.

The way public-school teachers are paid in the United States is a national embarrassment, and something that we as a nation should be ashamed of. Let's pay teachers what they're worth.

How much is a teacher worth?

(This is a rerun of a note I posted on Myspace in October, 2006, back when I was a schoolteacher. It's even more relevant today than it was back then. Oh, and it turns out that my $45,000 figure was almost right on, for the state of Colorado in 2006.)

Okay, let's do a math problem here.

Let's say that the average teacher makes $45,000 a year. (That's probably a little off, but let's go with it.)

Now, that teacher has to work 182 days out of the year. Maybe 7 of those days are non-student-contact days, which takes us down to 175 days spent with students. That means a teacher makes, um $257.14 per teaching day. Or, to look at it another way, the taxpayers pay a teacher $257.14 a day to teach their kids. (Did everybody follow that?)

Good! Now, a typical teacher sees 80 to 100 students a day. Mrs. D. sees 96 students in three class periods. I see 83 students in three class periods. Let's use 90 as a (very) rough average. Divide a teacher's daily pay, $257.14, by 90 students. You should get $2.86.

That's right, two dollars and eighty-six cents. That's how much the taxpayers pay teachers to teach one student for between 60 and 90 minutes.

Observations:
1. My own students make more money than that per hour, babysitting.
2. At those kinds of wages, why would anyone ever consider teaching as a profession?
3. Those of us who teach do it for more than the money. You kids are a BIG part of why we teach.
4. Now you know why some teachers are so crabby. You would be too, if that's all you got paid for dealing with the crap some kids throw at them ('scuse the expression).
5. Teacher pay is a highly visible measure of the value, or lack thereof, that the American taxpayer puts on education.
6. Any adult who votes down a local school district funding proposal is either very selfish, or has sawdust for brains. Do the math, grown-ups!

Some people say, "Well yeah, but teachers get the summer off, and two weeks at Christmas, and spring break, and so on." Most teachers work another job or take additional college courses, required to keep their teaching license, during their "summer off." And most teachers spend "spring break" at home, grading projects and getting ready for the final few weeks of school. The kids come back from vacation with stories about Cancun, Hawaii and Europe, and the teachers smile warmly and choke down their envy.

I love my students, and they love me. Many teachers aren't as fortunate as I am. For whatever reason, they don't get the affection, the gratitude and the non-monetary paybacks that I've gotten. If you want to make a teacher's day, pick one of the less popular ones and say something nice (like "thanks") to him or her. If enough of you do it, you might just make up for the lousy pay.