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from the those-who-can,-do,-those-who-can't,-teach dept.
In the US: this article presents an analysis how a person's chosen college major corresponds to their IQ. The interesting thing is that the relationship has remained essentially stable over the past 70 years. At the top of the list are math, science and engineering. At the absolute bottom of the list: education.
These data show that US students who choose to major in education, essentially the bulk of people who become teachers, have for at least the last seven decades been selected from students at the lower end of the academic aptitude pool. A 2010 McKinsey report (pdf) by Byron Auguste, Paul Kihn, and Matt Miller noted that top performing school systems, such as those in Singapore, Finland, and South Korea, "recruit 100% of their teacher corps from the top third of the academic cohort."
The article points out that it isn't quite this simple: Top schools place high requirements on all of their students; poor schools generally attract lower quality students in all of their programs. Still, the national averages are clear: overall, the least intelligent students go on to teach. This is an odd priority.
Educational organizations, of course, have a different view. This article claims that teacher quality declined from the 1960s through the 1990s, but has since recovered, with teachers being barely below average (48th percentile) among college graduates.
On a related note, there is a strong international correlation between teacher pay and student outcomes. The (rather obvious) theory is that higher pay attracts better candidates to the teaching profession.
No conclusions - just thought this might spark an interesting discussion...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 01 2016, @02:00PM
It has always cracked me up when teachers tell us how hard they work, and what they "deserve". They work nine months out of the year (give or take a little - generally 180 working days, and a handful of "inservice" days) in an air conditioned building, with all the possible services available (cafeteria, coffee, pizza delivery, whatever). It's not like they ever break a sweat.
If they want to make more money, maybe they should have studied harder, instead of partying their way through college?
Then again - it does make some sense that higher wages might attract better qualified teachers.
Wait - who am I kidding? The Ruling Class isn't going to offer any meaningful increase in wages. Significant money has to be accumulated in the Ruling Class' hands.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Friday July 01 2016, @02:09PM
What bothers me is that it is a very attractive vocation with lots of job protection and fantastic pay and working conditions, but they keep striking (here in Ontario). They want higher pay, etc, but there is a huge supply of unemployed teachers. I'd like to see some market factors come into play here. Lower the pay and hire more teachers, giving more attention to each student, smaller classes, etc. Added bonus is higher employment as well.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:53PM
Lower the pay
Your idea sounds awesome! Drive them all into poverty, that will teach them! (pun intended)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:55PM
Nope, he wants to give money to the unemployed teachers. Without expanding education funding this naturally means decreasing wages for the employed teachers so that new positions can be opened.
You're a horrible person for not caring about these people and wanting to just let the currently hired ones monopolize it all. Horrible!! Poverty lover!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 01 2016, @03:45PM
All this teacher-hate is a relatively recent thing, coinciding with parents no longer accepting accountability for their shit kids' rotten behavior as well as spineless administrators who started insisting that teachers allow students to do whatever the fuck they want and not be punished for it. Teaching as we know it is what we called "babysitting" 20 years ago.
On the other hand, all the time I was in school, I never saw these so-called "horror-teachers" the anti-unionists are discussing. I went to school in many different schools in 2 different states and in poor counties -- and not only were the teachers passionate about what they did, but the ones who did fuck up had fires lit under their asses by administration.
Even as recently as 20-30 years ago teaching was a noble and rewarding profession, but now you have crap like no child left behind and teaching to standardized tests. Back in the days when I was in school, the dumb kids and the fuckups were marginalized. Now, thanks to political correctness (and conveniently the Republican love of cheap labor and the Democrat love of votes from useful idiot leeches), the fuckup kids get to drag down the education of the whole class. Now many of them have to teach Common-core, which is obviously designed to break students' wills and indoctrinate them into obedience of the state.
And for all the bitching about teachers' unions, where is all the bitching about government employees' unions, or prison guards' unions? Why the fuck do they need unions anyway, not that they have a goddamn thing to worry about. I've seen waaaaaay more incompetent government unionists than teachers' unionists. Where is all the crying about them?!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Friday July 01 2016, @06:26PM
I don't "hate" teachers, although where I am, I think they're overpaid based on the number of people that are wiling to teach. I also think standardized testing is a great idea at a bare *minimum* to make sure that education is actually working, and how well. I agree with about the lack of responsibility for children, although I blame that on parents, not on teachers, and yes, it's dragging down everyone else. Teachers here generally have several "assistants" to help manage the kid that should not be in that class. That's a separate problem of course. The curriculum in general has been screwed up in many ways as well. What they've done to mathematics and arithmetic in elementary school is absolutely ridiculous and is quite detrimental.
Personally, I think teachers should also work year-round, with the summer being used for improving course curriculum and materials. I keep hearing "Oh, I spend 2 hours a night preparing course material". We've been teaching these same courses for a very long time. The material and planning should be laid out down to the day (with some slack of course, and options), but for every teacher to be doing it manually each year is silly. If teachers want to do something different, that's fine, but there is a certain level that must be attained.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @11:25AM
Teaching isn't like writing a song, and then singing that same song for the next 50 years until you retire.
"They" have done something to mathematics. Oops, there goes all your hard work planning your course just right. Now you have to make a new one that fits 'common core' or whatever this years flavour is called. You have to "manage kids", of course they are all the same, and what works with one is interchangeable with another. You want teachers to get better and better, but spend no time on improving their plans and course material. It's not like "facts" ever change is it. Until "they" all decide slavery isn't important anymore and everyone should learn programming now instead. Lucky no one ever discovers anything new, or invents anything. Nothing ever changes to a new version and things don't go in and out of fashion.
Ahh the republican dream time, it's the 1950's and nothing will ever change.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday July 01 2016, @06:38PM
Also, I agree about the public employee unions, and I'm even currently in one (not by choice). Pay for public jobs should be fixed, with the pay tied to the cost of living. I' have heard lots of complaining about government unions though, and much of it is deserved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @08:36AM
My first grade teacher was married to the local union boss. She got away with everything. Mostly, she went to Hawaii and left us with substitutes.
My high school physics teacher was head of the department. He taught about 30 days of honors physics. The rest of the time was spent running a blood drive, going outside to smoke, and maybe doing some yearbook stuff.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:22PM
At my school I had a lot of very highly qualified teachers.
My physics teacher was also a project manager at Raytheon. English is his second language and he almost has no accent.
One of my chemistry teachers was a rocket scientist for NASA before retiring to become a teacher. He worked on the first man on the moon project. Even at his old age he was very intelligent.
Another one of my chemistry teachers did research for a number of years before becoming a teacher.
One of my calculus teachers worked in industry as a mathematician and software developer for a number of years as well before becoming a teacher. He was very skilled and taught many computer programming languages from C/C++, to assembly among many others. Proficient in all of them. Even for his old age he was very skilled.
OK, my microbiology teacher was a medical doctor for many years before she retired to become a teacher. She knew everything there was to know about medicine, was generally very intelligent, but being new as a teacher at the time her microbiology was lacking and I almost wish I had a microbiologist teacher. I don't know why my school would hire a medical doctor to become a microbiology teacher but, then again, it was an intro to microbiology class but still. She also taught anatomy and physiology.
My aunt is qualified to teach calculus, Arabic, and computer science. She worked for a large company as a database programmer for a number of years before she left the company to raise her children after having children. Now that her children are old enough to stay home by themselves she is now a teacher. She graduated (undergrad) a good college with good scores (~3.8 GPA) in computer science while working and never retook a class. Her English is stronger than that of most educated natives.
Maybe I'm just bias because of the schools I went to but I've had a lot of very brilliant teachers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:33PM
(Well, my physics teacher does both if that wasn't clear. He is a project manager/engineer at Raytheon and he teaches physics, at two colleges. Plus he and his wife raises their children in addition to his wife being an engineer)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Friday July 01 2016, @02:59PM
At my school I had a lot of very highly qualified teachers.
At mine, I can only think of one: the teacher for the computer-related classes was a mathematician that worked for the government in some capacity, with a heavy computer background. He was retired and teaching because of a passion for computers and desire to teach others about them. His class was under-funded and still using 286's (while the school eventually got a brand new 'computer lab' of Pentium Pentium IIs only used by special ed), and the principal seemed to have a vendetta against him, but he kept teaching anyway.
I probably learned more from him than any math teacher I had, just as a side effect of how he taught his class.
He quit a year or two after I took his classes because the school decided computers were a waste of time and forced him to teach algebra instead. I remember him talking about how the pay wasn't worth it for anyone qualified to properly teach the subjects, and he lived primarily off saved funds or something. Once they took away the class, he had no reason to stay. Such a waste of a good teacher.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday July 01 2016, @03:03PM
(while the school eventually got a brand new 'computer lab' of Pentium Pentium IIs only used by special ed)
That should have been "Pentiums or Pentium IIs"; I don't recall the release date of the P2 so it could have been either. The systems were blazing fast at the time and wasted on dumb typing games and shit while they decommissioned the actual computer classes. :/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Friday July 01 2016, @02:31PM
Have you actually been in a school classroom recently? Yes, they may have air conditioning, but it's also likely that the A/C is broken and hasn't been repaired for months.
Yes, teachers work only 9 months of the year, but the good teachers work long hours during those 9 months, including weekends.
And that's the fundamental problem: what does society do to make teaching a profession that will attract good teachers? It is badly paid, and the working conditions don't compare well to most office jobs.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 01 2016, @03:42PM
Bad pay? Lemme consider that. The average couple both have to work in the US. That is almost a given. Two teacher's paychecks, one household, at least in this area, makes for some pretty damned good money - COMPARED TO THE LOCAL DEMOGRAPHICS!
New York City? Yeah, cost of living is high there - but teachers are paid about five times as much as teachers here. Los Angeles? I figure the same thing.
The same thing was true when I was in high school. The football coach was married to the girl's health/home-ec teacher. Together, they made enough money that they paid off a very nice home while still in their mid-30's. I remember the little mortgage burning party they held.
Sorry, I find it difficult to sympathize with teachers "poor pay".
A teacher who has to support a family as the sole bread winner may have a pretty tough go of it - but it still doesn't look as tough as many parents. How 'bout all those waitresses out there, trying to live on tips?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday July 01 2016, @04:30PM
While you're busy ragging on teacher's supposedly great pay, and comparing that to waitresses' pay (waitresses, seriously?) you totally overlook admin. Like upper management at large corporations, school administrators are seriously overpaid. You mentioned the football coach, but you don't seem to understand that's the one job that often pays as well or better than administration. It's disgusting that at some schools, the football coach is the employee who is paid the highest. Shows that the parents care more about sports than education. Administrators at public schools aren't overpaid a lot, it's the ones at these private charter schools and colleges that really rake in the money. You wonder why there's been a big push for charter schools? A great deal of the motivation behind it is the chance for the organizers to make a killing off the public. Charter schools have less accountability, and abuse that to transfer wealth from the public to the operators and their cronies.
Until golden parachutes and extreme executive compensation are ended, I have zero sympathy for complaints that anyone at the bottom of the rung, including teachers, is overpaid. You may think that executive pay does not amount to much because executives are relatively few. You would be wrong. Their pay is so outrageous, the whole group of upper management could be cut upwards of 80% and they'd each still make more than anyone else in the company. The money from that pay cut is enough to hire hundreds of people, and not at minimum wage, but at market rates for engineers. At one company I once worked at, the CEO's golden parachute was 52 million, 16% of the company's net worth!
CEO = Thief Executive Officer.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 01 2016, @04:47PM
I have no argument with your rant on executives and adminstrators. They are very often grossly overpaid. But, I was compareing teachers to other working class people, not to executives and golden parachutes.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @04:59PM
I was a teacher, the job is hard and stressful, requires way more time outside of the classroom, and the pay only becomes reasonable after 10-20 years. Before that it is a low paying job with a ton of requirements to jump through. Don't talk about things you obviously don't know anything about besides the bullshit you and your friends sling around the grill.
Also, just because other people are screwed over with their payrate doesn't make it ok. I switched careers because I wasn't paid enough for the stress.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday July 02 2016, @12:12AM
New York isn't typical for teachers' pay in the USA. Most teachers are paid much less than they are in New York.
And, as others have pointed out, comparing their pay to that of a waitress? Really? I can tell you that where I live, teacher pay is not sufficient for a single teacher near the beginning of his/her career to rent their own apartment. That's after a degree plus about half the amount of study required for a Master's degree. In what other profession is that true?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday July 02 2016, @01:38AM
Why? Teachers should not be considered "working class". If class is defined by job, it's very clearly a middle class job. You know that there are lots of people who are middle class but are not "executives and golden parachutes", don't you?
Your problem is that you think teachers are overpaid and you won't accept any evidence to the contrary.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 02 2016, @02:01AM
Uhhhhhmmmmm - I thought "middle class" WAS the working class. Upper class does no work - or very little, anyway. The welfare class does no work. The impoverished who aren't on welfare work their asses off, and the middle class most often work just as hard. The difference between the impoverished and the middle class is shrinking every year - it's kinda like government has declared war on the middle class.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday July 02 2016, @06:07AM
Yes and no. In the US, "Middle class" is generally defined by income level (while elsewhere it is generally defined by the type of job or source of income).
The unfortunate fact is that teachers should be middle class, but in many states, young teachers don't earn enough to be included in the middle class. They don't earn enough to have an income that is much greater than the waitress you are worried about. This despite having a bachelor's degree plus about half way to a master's. This despite taking on a lot of debt in the form of student loans.
Yet, people think that teachers should be better, despite the fact that they are not paid sufficiently well.
Now there are many examples of bad teachers who are overpaid. But school districts can't hire better teachers simply because few people who would be good teachers are prepared to dedicate their lives to a profession that suffers from chronically low pay.
Many teachers last no more than 5 years in the profession: not enough time to get to a tolerable salary level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:44PM
Government schools have less accountability, and abuse that to transfer wealth from the public to the operators and their cronies.
FTFY.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:32PM
The ruling class prefer to pay additional private tutors for their children.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:51PM
I have no problems with that. If their children are willing to go through the effort to learn stuff and earn their status through their intelligent capabilities that's good. Then they can use that knowledge to push the technological envelope, find cures to diseases, and advance our tech to make everyone better off. That's earning a living and is far different than lazy people that rule due to how they manipulate politics and how politicians acquire their wealth due to getting kickbacks.
I know a lot of people that make millions of dollars because they own legitimate businesses but they worked their butts off, are very intelligent, and some are proficient in several languages even. They earned it and if their children aren't slack offs and wish to study to earn their living too I see no problem with that. If their children end up being lazy and all they want to do is party and drink and do drugs and don't want to put the effort to learn then they deserve to lose those fortunes. Education is a good thing and it's something we should invest in including private tutoring. and now with youtube and whatnot more people have the opportunity to acquire knowledge probably thanks to those smart people (the ruling class with their private tutors) you hate so much that made all this technology possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:56PM
If it's so easy, then go teach some fucking inner city school children, Great Master
(Score: 5, Informative) by Francis on Friday July 01 2016, @03:01PM
That's because you're generally ignorant of such things. People make these sorts of ridiculous claims because they haven't ever taught and haven't spent any time with teachers, they work far more hours than you'd assume based upon the 180 days of 6 hour work days. If a teacher is anywhere near that, they're probably on the verge of being run out of the profession for laziness. All those tests and homework assignments don't write and grade themselves.
It's not 180 days a year, that's 180 days of classes, which is not the same thing as 180 days of work. Perhaps a teacher who has all their materials done from previous years might be able to work something roughly equivalent to 200 days a year, but the suggestion that teachers only work when the schools are in session is ludicrous.
As far as the money goes, that's a complete load of crap. Whether you work hard or not, the pay for that major and in teaching is below what you'd see in specialties that have equivalent degree requirements. On top of the low pay, the teachers are also responsible for maintaining their certifications out of their own pocket. Mostly that involves giving up summers in order to pay for classes.
BTW, those inservice days don't count towards the 180 the students have to get 180 days of class time, so the inservice days shouldn't be counted in the figure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:18PM
They're lucky they have jobs. The districts haven't been hiring much; every time the unions get their higher pay, they do it at the cost of hiring. So new teachers aren't getting into the systems, at least in my region. Senior teachers keep their jobs without consideration for actual effectiveness. They use state tests to judge effectiveness, actually, but those have shown to be useless; all the teachers have to do is basically get their students to show up, which is easy to do via bribes.
Plus, locally, teachers are recruiting students to aid them in their battles against the school administrators...
They've been using every trick in the book to keep the teachers beat down, which makes them unionize, which makes the administration use every trick in the book to beat them down, which ...
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Friday July 01 2016, @03:33PM
It's been ten months for decades, and longer if you including the 45+ hours a week they work on average. The lower grades may get away with less, but also get paid less.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday July 01 2016, @08:22PM
It is telling that Ethanol Fueled made better points than you and nerdfest.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Informative) by art guerrilla on Saturday July 02 2016, @04:42AM
what always cracks me up, are the superficial 'analysis' of teaching/teachers by people who haven't set foot in an average school in the last 20-30-40 years...
beyond that, i am certain if i gave a recitation of the working conditions of contract programmers, that might seem pretty cush compared to a teacher's -or anyone's- lot...
but -being a second-hand 'expert' based on the fact my better half is a teacher in a poor section of town- let us re-visit your insightful remarks to discover just where it is you went wrong
"It has always cracked me up when teachers tell us how hard they work, ..."
A. you have a funny (not funny-ha-ha) sense of humor,
B. hear a lot of teachers talk, they don't tell me about how hard they work,
C. what i SEE, is my wife -a more dedicated and teacher-of-the-year type you could not find, AND -paradoxically- SHE IS TYPICAL- works for an hour or so in the morning on lesson plans, grading, bullshit administrative bullshit, BEFORE going to school at 6:30 and then doing grading, etc there before kids arrive; then being a combination parent/confidante/cheerleader/disciplinarian/test proctor/administrative proxy and occasional teacher to 5-6-7 groups of screaming yard apes whose hormones are raging, amped up on sugar water, and sporting a not inconsiderable percentage having strong (if not arguably deserved) case of i-don't-give-a-fuck, and doing that for the next 7-8 hours bombarded by the emotional soap operas, schoolyard politics and dysfunctional family spillover, and then stay after school for another hour or two doing -you guessed it- grading (who the fuck do you think grades ALL the preparatory tests for all The Tests 'everyone' insists is the key to education ?), and VOLUNTARY tutoring for the few motivated kids, AND THEN do another 1-2-3 hours of grading, bullshit administrative bullshit, etc AFTER she gets home...
yeah, i bet you can do it with one hand tied behind your back...
EVERY.
damn.
day.
NEVER takes a sick day off, even when sick...
(and she gets sick hanging around hundreds of germ-buckets every day)
NEVER takes a personal day off for mental health, etc...
AND -because 'her kids' on the various sporting/etc teams ask her- she goes to just about all the home games of all the sports/plays/dances/etc 'her kids' are participating in...
of course -just like you would- she gets paid overtime for that in her cush, unionized bon-bon eating job, right ? ? ?
yeah, in your dreams...
and you would do the same, volunteering your unpaid time, right ? ? ?
(don't lie to us)
"They work nine months out of the year (give or take a little - generally 180 working days, and a handful of "inservice" days)..."
actually, closer to 9 1/2 months, BUT the point is their schedule is a more civilized schedule ALL of us should enjoy, but don't...
the 'crime' is not that the uber-cushy teacher jobs get a sane work schedule (over the course of a year, as far as within the time they work, see above), the crime is that korporations/etc get away with providing shit benefits in general, and time off in particular...
(AND, the kicker is, i am convinced it is entirely to their DETRIMENT; i think a better rested, more relaxed and focused employee is a much better employee over the one flogged for the sake of flogging...)
and they ALSO have various continuous education classes, re-certification classes for updated skills assessment, etc that they take over the summer... my wife used to volunteer for some of the other committees and such where she would go to other seminars, but had to give that up because it was eating up her whole summer...
not to mention, a number of teachers also teach during summer school sessions of various duration...
(having said that, yes, i DO give her a hard time because she DOES enjoy a sane, civilized vacation period... however, the downside in this case is it is a certain time of year all the time; she really can't choose WHEN to have a 'vacation', it is during summer, period...)
"... in an air conditioned building, with all the possible services available (cafeteria, coffee, pizza delivery, whatever). It's not like they ever break a sweat."
you presume ALL teachers work in some ultra-modern, recent-vintage, totally functional, totally equipped, leisure-time, green-leafed campus where everyone lolls around and contemplates life and shit, eating sushi and doing jello shots from hooters delivery grrls, or something ? ? ?
WTF schools do YOU go to ? ? ?
mine works in a typical school which is about 50-60-70 years old, has a 7-8' chainlink/barbwire-topped fence around it (A SCHOOL), has asbestos abatement issues ALL OVER the place (which will NOT be removed, but 'remediated' by being covered up, etc, because it 'costs too much'), the AC -in FLORIDA- works sometimes (with INOPERABLE windows), has ceiling tiles falling down, mold issues, no supplies (oh, UNLESS you are in the separate-but-unequal 'academy', where they get all the shit they want/need), and crappy computers you spend half your time fighting and cobbling together workable solutions to get kids rotated around to working computers, etc, etc, etc...
THAT is the far more prevalent reality of schools, not some made-up, plush, silicon-valley-like-employee-pandering nesting place...
"If they want to make more money, maybe they should have studied harder, instead of partying their way through college?"
you know, this kind of 'thinking' pisses me off, and not just in relation to teachers, but in relation to just about ANY and ALL professions...
so, we are simply re-programmable meatbags to be discarded at the whim of a dysfunctional economic system whenever we can't keep up with whatever arbitrary requirements a korporate borg decides upon *this* day ? ? ?
OR, is that tail-wagging-the-dog 'thinking' which puts the primacy of KORPORATIONS above the wants/needs of PEOPLE ? ? ?
(which seems dissonant with the further writing which appears to proffer proper disrespect for the fictitious legal entities...)
"Then again - it does make some sense that higher wages might attract better qualified teachers."
this would seem an obvious truism for most regular jobs as well as teaching...
"Wait - who am I kidding? The Ruling Class isn't going to offer any meaningful increase in wages. Significant money has to be accumulated in the Ruling Class' hands."
see, this is where i am confused: KORPORATIONS are the major tool of the ruling klass, yet you appear to be giving them deference they do not deserve, as if they are some innocent, neutral party, sadly and horribly mis-used by ruling klass slime... like the gummint, korporations have become distorted, perverted, distant shadows of the useful tools TO SERVE PEOPLE/SOCIETY that they once (mostly) were, but have devolved to economic bludgeons of the ruling klass...
as is also the case with the public school systems:
the reasons public schools have been PURPOSEFULLY fucked over, raped and pillaged, are the ruling klass BOTH oppressing the education of the hoi polloi (the smarter you get, the less you want to fight and die for Empire, *ahem*), AND looting them with bullshit test requirements, whose only beneficiary are the test companies and charter schools owned by the ruling klass, duh...
in short, you could not be more wrong about teachers in general (of course i will not defend the percentage of lame teachers there are, just as surely you don't defend the X% of lame programmers/etc there are); BUT they ARE handcuffed and whipped by a cruel and insane education system designed to not educate, but program for obedience...
they are at the spearpoint of the kafkaesque gummint/society we have had sneak up on us with little cat feet...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 02 2016, @08:29AM
You need about 1 teacher per 30 students, but this fails to account for special education and prep time and administration, etc.
Let's call it 1 to 10, so each student must supply 10% of a teacher's pay. Remember that teachers have expensive benefits like healthcare and pensions.
So then, considering taxes, let's assume that every family makes as much as a teacher (they sure don't) and has only 1 kid. Also, ignore the need to heat the building and repair things.
That's 10%. Every family pays 10% of their pre-tax-benefits-included income, so about 20% when you account for benefits.
Just a second here... we ignored many expenses, and teachers actually are getting paid more than many families get. Adjusting for that, the people in a poor area could be facing taxes equivalent to over 50% of their income. WTF.
In other words, the finances don't work out. Sorry. The money is not there. The fundamental problem is that we aren't just hiring a few teachers. We're hiring millions of them.