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You're taking it as a given that people perceive education to not be a demanding career, and I find that incredibly absurd. I've known since I was a young child

You're taking it as a given that people perceive education to not be a demanding career, and I find that incredibly absurd. I've known since I was a young child that teachers didn't get paid much, and since I was a teen that the job required a lot of extra work for grading and buying your own supplies. As an adult I've known teachers, and those things are very clearly true. I don't know what world you're from, but I want to live where everyone "knows" that teaching is easy and lucrative.

StanislavPetrov 3y ago
>You're taking it as a given that people perceive education to not be a demanding career, and I find that incredibly absurd. No, I went a state school here in New York for a graduate degree in a program that included many teachers that were seeking to get their Master's degree (which is required to teach here in New York within 5 years of becoming a teacher). All of the teachers in the program were actively employed as teachers at the time of their enrollment. Most of them were barely literate. At least two I would classify as not literate. Not a single one could be characterized as "well educated". None were especially intelligent. They were all nice, well-meaning people - but they were certainly not the best and brightest. >I don't know what world you're from, but I want to live where everyone "knows" that teaching is easy and lucrative. I certainly didn't say it was lucrative to be a teacher (though it can be after many years in the system). Most of them were paid very poorly. But it is a stable career. And it is easy to keep your job - which doesn't mean it is an easy job to perform (it isn't).
bamfly 3y ago
> You're taking it as a given that people perceive education to not be a demanding career, and I find that incredibly absurd. It's comically wrong. People choosing education for that reason are in for a rude awakening. Many of that sort figure that out during their student-teaching phase, I suppose. Lots of teachers also leave within the first few years, and it's pretty much never because they found it too easy. It's a hard job, with an abusive strain of "you should make this sacrifice—for the children, you know, and of course we won't compensate you in any way, because we're not going to sacrifice for the kids, don't be silly" running through it, and bad pay, especially if you've got the kind of mind, interpersonal skills, and work-ethic we'd hope the median teacher would have. Reports I've heard of truly bad teachers in-the-wild are mostly ones who are power-tripping jerks who like being "liked" by (some of) the kids (and who are typically fairly dumb, besides), not ones who are hanging around for an easy job where they can sponge off the taxpayer, because that's not really what it's like. The bad ones who stick around, it's not mainly because admin can't get rid of them, but for the same "admin has no idea WTF is going on with them" visibility-problems that are also common in private industry, plus they aren't necessarily totally bad at the job, in the ways that are being measured. Teacher efficacy measurements keep being attempted, and keep turning out to be so noisy they're nearly useless—even ones you'd expect to work, turn out not to, when you look at the statistics. That part's an unsolved problem that, believe me, plenty of teachers wouldn't mind seeing solved (they don't like their bad co-workers, either) though none of them like it when crappy solutions are pushed, since, you know, they don't actually work and are highly likely to punish/reward practically randomly.
randomdata 3y ago
> I've known since I was a young child that teachers didn't get paid much They don't? The government publishes the names of all government workers with incomes >$100,000. All of the teachers I personally know are found on it, and they aren't special outliers. The same teachers also collectively own one of the world's largest hedge funds. For perspective, median employment income is $38,000. $100,000 puts one in the top 9%. Is this some kind of twist on the no true Scotsman, where no matter how much a teacher is paid it isn't enough?
- delecti 3y ago
  I think it's two things. I grew up in fairly well-off areas (despite being rather poor ourselves), so teachers in comparison made quite little. And your examples are outliers, most teachers make quite a bit less than $100,000 [1]. Those salaries are above the median, but not as much as I think they deserve. With how important it is, I think teaching should be a competitive and well-compensated field. [1]https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_211.60.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_211.60.a...
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > And your examples are outliers With respect to the world? Yes. No doubt teachers in Niger are making pennies a day and most teachers somewhere in between. But with respect to here? No. That is very much typical. > With how important it is How important is it? This is the most educated place on earth, according to the OECD. What do we have to show for it? Presumably you live in another part of the world. When you think: Educated utopia, no doubt this is where you think of (I am curious if you guess right). What stands out about it? > I think teaching should be a competitive and well-compensated field. This is contradictory. Competition drives down wages. Monopoly is the way to fortune! Teaching here is supply managed. The government controls how many accredited teachers are produced each year, and has reduced the number of would-be teachers allowed to be accredited in the past when there was too much competitive pressure. This creates an Old Boys Club that keeps the hobos who would drive down wages out. As such, they can demand just about anything they want, hence being amongst the top earners. About the only job that might pay more is software developer (if just barely), and only because software developers have figured out how to scale their work. Teachers are reluctant to scale. > Those salaries are above the median, but not as much as I think they deserve. If all the income in this jurisdiction was evenly divided amongst the working population, each person would make approximately $60,000 each year. While an economy need not be zero sum, it will be zero sum if there is no change in behaviour. As a thought experiment, if we assume that teachers want to keep on teaching the way they always have, who do you want to take from in order to pay them more?

StanislavPetrov 3y ago

>You're taking it as a given that people perceive education to not be a demanding career, and I find that incredibly absurd. No, I went a state school here in New York for a graduate degree in a program that included many teachers that were seeking to get their Master's degree (which is required to teach here in New York within 5 years of becoming a teacher). All of the teachers in the program were actively employed as teachers at the time of their enrollment. Most of them were barely literate. At least two I would classify as not literate. Not a single one could be characterized as "well educated". None were especially intelligent. They were all nice, well-meaning people - but they were certainly not the best and brightest. >I don't know what world you're from, but I want to live where everyone "knows" that teaching is easy and lucrative. I certainly didn't say it was lucrative to be a teacher (though it can be after many years in the system). Most of them were paid very poorly. But it is a stable career. And it is easy to keep your job - which doesn't mean it is an easy job to perform (it isn't).

bamfly 3y ago

> You're taking it as a given that people perceive education to not be a demanding career, and I find that incredibly absurd. It's comically wrong. People choosing education for that reason are in for a rude awakening. Many of that sort figure that out during their student-teaching phase, I suppose. Lots of teachers also leave within the first few years, and it's pretty much never because they found it too easy. It's a hard job, with an abusive strain of "you should make this sacrifice—for the children, you know, and of course we won't compensate you in any way, because we're not going to sacrifice for the kids, don't be silly" running through it, and bad pay, especially if you've got the kind of mind, interpersonal skills, and work-ethic we'd hope the median teacher would have. Reports I've heard of truly bad teachers in-the-wild are mostly ones who are power-tripping jerks who like being "liked" by (some of) the kids (and who are typically fairly dumb, besides), not ones who are hanging around for an easy job where they can sponge off the taxpayer, because that's not really what it's like. The bad ones who stick around, it's not mainly because admin can't get rid of them, but for the same "admin has no idea WTF is going on with them" visibility-problems that are also common in private industry, plus they aren't necessarily totally bad at the job, in the ways that are being measured. Teacher efficacy measurements keep being attempted, and keep turning out to be so noisy they're nearly useless—even ones you'd expect to work, turn out not to, when you look at the statistics. That part's an unsolved problem that, believe me, plenty of teachers wouldn't mind seeing solved (they don't like their bad co-workers, either) though none of them like it when crappy solutions are pushed, since, you know, they don't actually work and are highly likely to punish/reward practically randomly.

randomdata 3y ago

> I've known since I was a young child that teachers didn't get paid much They don't? The government publishes the names of all government workers with incomes >$100,000. All of the teachers I personally know are found on it, and they aren't special outliers. The same teachers also collectively own one of the world's largest hedge funds. For perspective, median employment income is $38,000. $100,000 puts one in the top 9%. Is this some kind of twist on the no true Scotsman, where no matter how much a teacher is paid it isn't enough?

delecti 3y ago
I think it's two things. I grew up in fairly well-off areas (despite being rather poor ourselves), so teachers in comparison made quite little. And your examples are outliers, most teachers make quite a bit less than $100,000 [1]. Those salaries are above the median, but not as much as I think they deserve. With how important it is, I think teaching should be a competitive and well-compensated field. [1]https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_211.60.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_211.60.a...
- randomdata 3y ago
  > And your examples are outliers With respect to the world? Yes. No doubt teachers in Niger are making pennies a day and most teachers somewhere in between. But with respect to here? No. That is very much typical. > With how important it is How important is it? This is the most educated place on earth, according to the OECD. What do we have to show for it? Presumably you live in another part of the world. When you think: Educated utopia, no doubt this is where you think of (I am curious if you guess right). What stands out about it? > I think teaching should be a competitive and well-compensated field. This is contradictory. Competition drives down wages. Monopoly is the way to fortune! Teaching here is supply managed. The government controls how many accredited teachers are produced each year, and has reduced the number of would-be teachers allowed to be accredited in the past when there was too much competitive pressure. This creates an Old Boys Club that keeps the hobos who would drive down wages out. As such, they can demand just about anything they want, hence being amongst the top earners. About the only job that might pay more is software developer (if just barely), and only because software developers have figured out how to scale their work. Teachers are reluctant to scale. > Those salaries are above the median, but not as much as I think they deserve. If all the income in this jurisdiction was evenly divided amongst the working population, each person would make approximately $60,000 each year. While an economy need not be zero sum, it will be zero sum if there is no change in behaviour. As a thought experiment, if we assume that teachers want to keep on teaching the way they always have, who do you want to take from in order to pay them more?