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education is highly funded. teachers are not paid well because there is a perception that "anyone can be a teacher" (which is true in the sense that there is n

education is highly funded. teachers are not paid well because there is a perception that "anyone can be a teacher" (which is true in the sense that there is no particular enumerable qualification or credential that makes you a good teacher) so the market is full of people who decide that they should be a teacher (many should not, but there is no a priori way of knowing). supply high. a lot of education funding goes to things that are not teacher pay.

Danox 5mo ago
Education United States is not necessarily highly funded nor are all teachers necessarily good. Can you identify a good teacher? Yes you can. Will you get rid of the ones that are bad well not really. I still remember all of the teachers that were really good and I remember some of the ones that were bad, the ones that were good. I wish that many of them could have lived long enough for me to say thank you.
- LtWorf 5mo ago
  > Can you identify a good teacher? Yes you can. Can you? How? Do you have a questionnaire or something?
- dnautics 5mo ago
  across all spending education in the us is higher than most oecd countries.
WalterBright 5mo ago
[flagged]
- thot_experiment 5mo ago
  lmao, you're completely out to lunch, my friend is a teacher in one of the most well funded districts in the entire country and it's a decent job but it's an incredible amount of work and he's not making an amazing wage considering how much he needs to work outside of school hours i can only imagine the horrors faced by teachers even on the other side of the bay, much less in a red state that isn't the fourth largest economy in the world tenure protections can be problematic, but so are activist parents, the system isn't great but it is necessary to some extent, your exposure to bad actors as a teacher is massive and requires commensurate protection, just stochastically you'll get parents trying to get you fired every once in a while
  - vasco 5mo ago
    You can say all you want but the fact is there's no lack of people wanting to be teachers.
  - WalterBright 5mo ago
    Do you have a more specific reply to factual points 1 .. 4? There are about 3.5 million public school teachers in the US. The idea that they are incredible is not credible. As an Air Force brat, I attended many diverse public schools. Some teachers were good, some were not, most were ordinary folks. I don't recall any being incredible, though this teacher was definitely incredible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante Any thoughts on this documentary: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566648/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566648/ ? The Department of Education has spent somewhere between $5 and $6 trillion since its inception, with no measurable improvement in results.
  - WalterBright 5mo ago
    In one of my classes in high school, the teacher always tested us with multiple choice tests (I presume because it makes the tests quick and easy to grade). After a few tests, I noticed a pattern. Whenever one of the four answers was "all of the above" or "none of the above", that was the correct answer. So I went to the teacher and asked him about that. He leaned over conspiratorially and said "you're right. They're like that because the kids need a break." Then he laughed. I liked him, he was a good egg. When I was little, my dad taught Air Force ROTC at the local university. He'd sprinkle the test with questions like "what is the insignia on a Soviet fighter jet?" On the classroom wall was a picture of a Soviet fighter jet. The students would still get it wrong. (The answer is "red star".) It was a favorite story of his.
  - WalterBright 5mo ago
    > he's not making an amazing wage The point of what I posted is the premium value of the benefits package.
- kelnos 5mo ago
  For #1, some do, but many don't. What's offered differs a lot depend on the school district you work for. For #2, the amount of uncompensated work and just general bullshit they have to put up with is in no way made up for by "having summers off". (Which they don't, really, as they'll often be doing professional development during the summer, and will be preparing for the start of the next school year well before it actually starts.) (Source: my brother-in-law is an elementary school teacher in the US.) For #4, is that universal? I feel like that's something that would depend on state or even on school district.
  - WalterBright 5mo ago
    1. The ones I've seen were gold-plated. Nevertheless, omitting it when talking compensation is significantly misleading. Public school teacher unions are famous for getting very generous retirement and health care plans. 2. Professional development - teachers do opt to get "certs", which result in automatic pay raises. Unfortunately, those certs have no correspondence with better outcomes for the kids. Preparing - yes, this is the lesson plan thing. A teacher told me she worked her fingers to the bone all summer preparing lesson plans. I asked her why she didn't just use the ones from last year. She replied that they had to be individualized for each student. I asked how did she know which students she'd have, as they wouldn't be assigned until the fall? Oops! 4: I googled average number of years until full retirement benefits kick in.

Danox 5mo ago

Education United States is not necessarily highly funded nor are all teachers necessarily good. Can you identify a good teacher? Yes you can. Will you get rid of the ones that are bad well not really. I still remember all of the teachers that were really good and I remember some of the ones that were bad, the ones that were good. I wish that many of them could have lived long enough for me to say thank you.

LtWorf 5mo ago
> Can you identify a good teacher? Yes you can. Can you? How? Do you have a questionnaire or something?
dnautics 5mo ago
across all spending education in the us is higher than most oecd countries.

WalterBright 5mo ago

[flagged]

thot_experiment 5mo ago
lmao, you're completely out to lunch, my friend is a teacher in one of the most well funded districts in the entire country and it's a decent job but it's an incredible amount of work and he's not making an amazing wage considering how much he needs to work outside of school hours i can only imagine the horrors faced by teachers even on the other side of the bay, much less in a red state that isn't the fourth largest economy in the world tenure protections can be problematic, but so are activist parents, the system isn't great but it is necessary to some extent, your exposure to bad actors as a teacher is massive and requires commensurate protection, just stochastically you'll get parents trying to get you fired every once in a while
- vasco 5mo ago
  You can say all you want but the fact is there's no lack of people wanting to be teachers.
- WalterBright 5mo ago
  Do you have a more specific reply to factual points 1 .. 4? There are about 3.5 million public school teachers in the US. The idea that they are incredible is not credible. As an Air Force brat, I attended many diverse public schools. Some teachers were good, some were not, most were ordinary folks. I don't recall any being incredible, though this teacher was definitely incredible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante Any thoughts on this documentary: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566648/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566648/ ? The Department of Education has spent somewhere between $5 and $6 trillion since its inception, with no measurable improvement in results.
- WalterBright 5mo ago
  In one of my classes in high school, the teacher always tested us with multiple choice tests (I presume because it makes the tests quick and easy to grade). After a few tests, I noticed a pattern. Whenever one of the four answers was "all of the above" or "none of the above", that was the correct answer. So I went to the teacher and asked him about that. He leaned over conspiratorially and said "you're right. They're like that because the kids need a break." Then he laughed. I liked him, he was a good egg. When I was little, my dad taught Air Force ROTC at the local university. He'd sprinkle the test with questions like "what is the insignia on a Soviet fighter jet?" On the classroom wall was a picture of a Soviet fighter jet. The students would still get it wrong. (The answer is "red star".) It was a favorite story of his.
- WalterBright 5mo ago
  > he's not making an amazing wage The point of what I posted is the premium value of the benefits package.
kelnos 5mo ago
For #1, some do, but many don't. What's offered differs a lot depend on the school district you work for. For #2, the amount of uncompensated work and just general bullshit they have to put up with is in no way made up for by "having summers off". (Which they don't, really, as they'll often be doing professional development during the summer, and will be preparing for the start of the next school year well before it actually starts.) (Source: my brother-in-law is an elementary school teacher in the US.) For #4, is that universal? I feel like that's something that would depend on state or even on school district.
- WalterBright 5mo ago
  1. The ones I've seen were gold-plated. Nevertheless, omitting it when talking compensation is significantly misleading. Public school teacher unions are famous for getting very generous retirement and health care plans. 2. Professional development - teachers do opt to get "certs", which result in automatic pay raises. Unfortunately, those certs have no correspondence with better outcomes for the kids. Preparing - yes, this is the lesson plan thing. A teacher told me she worked her fingers to the bone all summer preparing lesson plans. I asked her why she didn't just use the ones from last year. She replied that they had to be individualized for each student. I asked how did she know which students she'd have, as they wouldn't be assigned until the fall? Oops! 4: I googled average number of years until full retirement benefits kick in.