5 ms·
I had one amazing high school math teacher who graduated from MIT at 18, and was teaching all the way up to diff eq in public schools. He’d made his money and t
by ericd 5y ago
I had one amazing high school math teacher who graduated from MIT at 18, and was teaching all the way up to diff eq in public schools. He’d made his money and then decided to teach because he was annoyed that his sons’ math teachers sucked. There’s absolutely no way teacher salary+pension was competitive with what he was making in industry. And we should want a lot more people who are like him teaching, without the needing them to be lucky enough to not need to care about money.
- giantg2 5y agoNot necessarily. People who are really smart and great in industry are not necessarily great teachers. Frankly, if you are talking about making the salary competitive with one that allows FIRE will have the opposite effect that you want (ideology vs money).
- thundergolfer 5y agoAre you saying that FIRE type people are ill suited for teaching because their interest is in minimising retirement age and not being good teachers? The ideology of “earning to retire” vs. “living to teach”?
- giantg2 5y agoI'm saying that if you pay teachers a salary consistent with an MIT grad that was able to FIRE, that you will attract people solely for the money. If we are compensating teachers at 4-5x the median salary, then I would gladly quit my job and become a teacher even though I have no real interest in it. I believe that the best teachers enjoy their jobs and are not just looking for the money. Now we could use a performance based pay system that could pay teachers more. Some of those systems fail to capture the right metrics. All of them are opposed by the teachers union. I think a slightly below average salary (factoring in benefits which are not typically seen in industry) with the potential to make more than average based on performance would be a good system.
- cycomanic 5y agoSo why should people not go into teaching for the money. Are you saying you are not good at your job because you are motivated by money? That's a weird take, or does that only apply to teachers not other jobs? If so why?
- burntoutfire 5y agoTeaching is both hard AND hard to evaluate, at the same time. This means that money-motivated people will likely do a bad job there AND will be able to hide their poor performance for years, for the sake of accumulating money.
- giantg2 5y agoThe main difference here is that the teachers are unionized. Their contracts generally make it extremely difficult to remove underperforming teachers or pay for results. Higher pay under a pay for performance structure and the ability to remove ineffective teachers would be good. This would bring it more in line with industry. It can be tricky to get the right metrics. The bigger issue is that the teachers union opposes any of them.
- ericd 5y agoWhy is that the opposite? At the high school level, I’m not looking for martyrs, I’m looking for subject matter experts to teach my kids. At the lower levels, maybe empathy is more important, but by the time they get to microbiology or stats, you literally cannot be a good teacher without having a deep understanding.
- idiotsecant 5y agoSoft skills ate essential, more so even than a deep understanding of the material.A basic competence is important but anyone who has ever had a genius level professor that angrily mumbles while scribbling incomprehensibly on the board for an hour and then you leave will understand this.
- ericd 5y agoSure, they can't be completely uninterested in teaching, since they're high school teachers - they're not being hired primarily for their research ability. Part of offering better salaries is also being able to be more selective with who you keep.
- giantg2 5y ago"Part of offering better salaries is also being able to be more selective with who you keep." If you are a private school, sure. This is not the case for unionized public schools. Did you hear of that famous case where a superintendent fired multiple teachers for abysmal performance and even abusive behavior and was forced by the courts/union to reinstate them with back pay? It's very eye opening.
- ericd 5y agoYeah, salaries competitive enough to draw talent away from other high paying opportunities is just one of many things that need to be fixed to get the public education system doing what it should.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago> People who are really smart and great in industry are not necessarily great teachers. Is there data on the average effectiveness there?