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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: 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.