Not that the "reformers" care. Money is a bigger factor with these cretins.
link
Given that I believe that teaching may well be the profession with the greatest responsibility and require the truly best and brightest, wisest and most motivated, most creative and compassionate people, the argument that teachers are overpaid because they make more than the “average worker” is not only absurb, it is also dangerous. We rightly decry bad teachers in our schools, and I am the first to agree that bad teachers are overpaid. I think they’re overpaid if they they make $30K/year. They should be fired, period, just as incompetent doctors are stripped of their licenses. But we are now doing the opposite of promoting master teaching and reducing poor teaching. Instead of seeding our schools with great teachers, many of the most creative and brilliant educators are leaving a field laden with bureaucracy, rote memorization for standardized bubble tests, increased classroom size, and now the insulting commentary from a public that wants to reduce their already inadequate wages and which seems to have forgotten who it is who has the grave responsibility of educating our children. The best teachers are fed up, and many are deciding to take their talents and skills elsewhere, where they’ll not only get paid more but where their intelligence and creativity will also be respected and rewarded. This is the great irony and tragedy of the “discussion” we’re having through the media, launched by the protests in Wisconsin against a governor trying to bust the unions. We say we want to fix the educational system, which indeed needs an overhaul not just repair, but by denigrating the profession and claiming that $51K/year plus good benefits is excessive, we are doing the opposite of creating better schools for our kids.
That's 51k--BEFORE taxes eat it up.
No comments:
Post a Comment