4 ms·

Reality is you'd need to at least double teacher pay to get a pool of teachers for whom the approach from one of these "amazing teacher does amazing thing" stor

Reality is you'd need to at least double teacher pay to get a pool of teachers for whom the approach from one of these "amazing teacher does amazing thing" stories might—might—generalize well enough to be useful.

pmoriarty 4y ago
It's not just about pay. It's also about workload, safety, respect, and a curriculum that doesn't try to force them to only teach to pass tests. Teachers also need collaboration from parents who all too often see school as a free babysitting service or just a road to a job.
- corrral 4y ago
  Right, absolutely. The conditions are also damn stressful, unless you're lucky enough to be at a school with amazing admin and co-workers and parents. That almost never happens. Then the ones who are good but getting stressed out eventually start looking around and realize they could match their current comp assistant-managing a gas station, and that some of the extra things they've taken on give them experience that lets them gun for non-education jobs with way higher pay... and it's only a matter of time before they leave.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > The conditions are also damn stressful, unless you're lucky enough to be at a school with amazing admin and co-workers and parents. As a teacher at a school with pretty amazing admin and co-workers and parents.. they're pretty dang stressful even with those things. And I come from a background of founding startups, so I'm not some complete lightweight. The thing is, you can endure stress and suck if it feels worthwhile. If you're missing those things, it stops feeling worthwhile.
- jacobolus 4y ago
  Teachers also benefit from mentoring, time to visit other classrooms, time to meet with other teachers and talk, paid time outside the classroom to reflect and develop lessons, sufficient provision of classroom materials (that they don’t have to buy themselves), occasional sabbaticals, ....
- aidenn0 4y ago
  Very true. I know teachers who left public school for lower paying jobs at private schools We have spent the last 40 years reducing teacher autonomy, so it shouldn't be surprising that it's harder to get teachers who care.
  - corrral 4y ago
    > We have spent the last 40 years reducing teacher autonomy, so it shouldn't be surprising that it's harder to get teachers who care. I think schools are in a death-spiral where they can't get enough decent teachers with good judgement who can work autonomously, so they keep clamping down with more control over teachers' day-to-day activities, which just drives away more of the good teachers because working like that sucks. Current high inflation (wage-inflation plus just the regular kind) is going to drive this to a crisis point before long, I think—when fast food joints have signs up begging people to apply at $17/hr with basically no education requirements, a starting salary in the low-$30k range requiring a bachelor's degree starts to look like something only a crazy person would opt to do. [EDIT] Relatedly, school admin is also totally fucked up. The people doing those jobs are generally terrible for a bunch of reasons, including that they're also under-paid for the kind of person you'd really want doing those jobs, while also being very high-paid relative to teachers. Teachers who may or may not be good at teaching, but who are not good at admin, go into it because it's the only way to make real money in education until you're nearly at retirement age and holding a PhD, on a classroom teacher pay-scale, and people who can't hack it in private sector management go into it because it pays pretty well and you can coast while getting an ego-boost from being the Big (Wo)Man In Charge and bossing people around. The entire field is a cess-pit of incompetence, neglect, and outright idiocy, and it's a huge problem that doesn't get enough attention compared with teacher quality.
mlyle 4y ago
Reality is, compensation isn't a panacea for drawing talent with enthusiasm. Indeed, it may even have adverse effects: you draw people who want the money, instead of people drawn to the profession intrinsically. We do need to build environments (schools, administrations, patterns of educating teachers, social supports for teachers and students, etc) that cultivate enthusiasm and encourage high levels of effort, rather than crushing it.
- corrral 4y ago
  > Indeed, it may even have adverse effects: you draw people who want the money, instead of people drawn to the profession intrinsically. This sentiment is a big part of suppressing teacher wages, and needs to stop. No, raising teacher pay will not result in getting worse teachers. We shouldn't be relying on charity and self-sacrifice on the part of teachers. [EDIT] The general problem here is that we default to "pay more to get better workers" unless the job produces clear social good, then it's suddenly like "well if you don't want to badly under-earn compared to what you could make doing almost anything else, then you must not have your heart in the right place so will be bad at this anyway". It's some weird kind of sour-grapes thinking that we use to avoid paying people doing actually clearly important and socially beneficial jobs what they're worth, while the real money goes to people doing jobs that... aren't so clearly beneficial.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > We shouldn't be relying on charity and self-sacrifice on the part of teachers. I agree, but we have a whole lot of data that indicates that raising comp often has perverse effects. A] There's a whole lot wrong with education resulting in bad outcomes. B] And the way we compensate teachers is terrible and unjust. I am not convinced that addressing B will have a huge effect on A.
    - corrral 4y ago
      > I agree, but we have a whole lot of data that indicates that raising comp often has perverse effects. Better tell waves hands at the entire private sector. They don't seem to have gotten that message. Seems like an opportunity to start a company paying 30% under your competition, so you can out-compete them by getting better workers.

pmoriarty 4y ago

It's not just about pay. It's also about workload, safety, respect, and a curriculum that doesn't try to force them to only teach to pass tests. Teachers also need collaboration from parents who all too often see school as a free babysitting service or just a road to a job.

corrral 4y ago
Right, absolutely. The conditions are also damn stressful, unless you're lucky enough to be at a school with amazing admin and co-workers and parents. That almost never happens. Then the ones who are good but getting stressed out eventually start looking around and realize they could match their current comp assistant-managing a gas station, and that some of the extra things they've taken on give them experience that lets them gun for non-education jobs with way higher pay... and it's only a matter of time before they leave.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > The conditions are also damn stressful, unless you're lucky enough to be at a school with amazing admin and co-workers and parents. As a teacher at a school with pretty amazing admin and co-workers and parents.. they're pretty dang stressful even with those things. And I come from a background of founding startups, so I'm not some complete lightweight. The thing is, you can endure stress and suck if it feels worthwhile. If you're missing those things, it stops feeling worthwhile.
jacobolus 4y ago
Teachers also benefit from mentoring, time to visit other classrooms, time to meet with other teachers and talk, paid time outside the classroom to reflect and develop lessons, sufficient provision of classroom materials (that they don’t have to buy themselves), occasional sabbaticals, ....
aidenn0 4y ago
Very true. I know teachers who left public school for lower paying jobs at private schools We have spent the last 40 years reducing teacher autonomy, so it shouldn't be surprising that it's harder to get teachers who care.
- corrral 4y ago
  > We have spent the last 40 years reducing teacher autonomy, so it shouldn't be surprising that it's harder to get teachers who care. I think schools are in a death-spiral where they can't get enough decent teachers with good judgement who can work autonomously, so they keep clamping down with more control over teachers' day-to-day activities, which just drives away more of the good teachers because working like that sucks. Current high inflation (wage-inflation plus just the regular kind) is going to drive this to a crisis point before long, I think—when fast food joints have signs up begging people to apply at $17/hr with basically no education requirements, a starting salary in the low-$30k range requiring a bachelor's degree starts to look like something only a crazy person would opt to do. [EDIT] Relatedly, school admin is also totally fucked up. The people doing those jobs are generally terrible for a bunch of reasons, including that they're also under-paid for the kind of person you'd really want doing those jobs, while also being very high-paid relative to teachers. Teachers who may or may not be good at teaching, but who are not good at admin, go into it because it's the only way to make real money in education until you're nearly at retirement age and holding a PhD, on a classroom teacher pay-scale, and people who can't hack it in private sector management go into it because it pays pretty well and you can coast while getting an ego-boost from being the Big (Wo)Man In Charge and bossing people around. The entire field is a cess-pit of incompetence, neglect, and outright idiocy, and it's a huge problem that doesn't get enough attention compared with teacher quality.

mlyle 4y ago

Reality is, compensation isn't a panacea for drawing talent with enthusiasm. Indeed, it may even have adverse effects: you draw people who want the money, instead of people drawn to the profession intrinsically. We do need to build environments (schools, administrations, patterns of educating teachers, social supports for teachers and students, etc) that cultivate enthusiasm and encourage high levels of effort, rather than crushing it.

corrral 4y ago
> Indeed, it may even have adverse effects: you draw people who want the money, instead of people drawn to the profession intrinsically. This sentiment is a big part of suppressing teacher wages, and needs to stop. No, raising teacher pay will not result in getting worse teachers. We shouldn't be relying on charity and self-sacrifice on the part of teachers. [EDIT] The general problem here is that we default to "pay more to get better workers" unless the job produces clear social good, then it's suddenly like "well if you don't want to badly under-earn compared to what you could make doing almost anything else, then you must not have your heart in the right place so will be bad at this anyway". It's some weird kind of sour-grapes thinking that we use to avoid paying people doing actually clearly important and socially beneficial jobs what they're worth, while the real money goes to people doing jobs that... aren't so clearly beneficial.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > We shouldn't be relying on charity and self-sacrifice on the part of teachers. I agree, but we have a whole lot of data that indicates that raising comp often has perverse effects. A] There's a whole lot wrong with education resulting in bad outcomes. B] And the way we compensate teachers is terrible and unjust. I am not convinced that addressing B will have a huge effect on A.
  - corrral 4y ago
    > I agree, but we have a whole lot of data that indicates that raising comp often has perverse effects. Better tell waves hands at the entire private sector. They don't seem to have gotten that message. Seems like an opportunity to start a company paying 30% under your competition, so you can out-compete them by getting better workers.