I was only impressed with one coach in my entire public school career. As to salary, the quality of teachers is directly related to the salary that we pay them. All the good teachers I had in public schools entered the profession at a time when women were discriminated against and had few job options. The U.S. hires a huge share of it's teachers from the bottom third of their college class. In contrast, most industrialized democracies hire teachers from the top third of their college classes.
As long as we get a disproportionate number of our teachers from the lower third of their graduating class, we're not going to have quality education. Stupid people just can't teach. It's as simple as that. And smart people aren't going to work for peanuts. McKinsey Institute recently did a study on this very issue and found that the key to increasing the number of teacher that come from the top third of their class -- where they come from in foreign countries -- would require substantial increases in teacher salary. Starting salaries would have to be $68k and top salaries would be $150k just to up the percentage of top third of their class teachers to 68%.
Imagine the kind of difference that would make in the quality of teachers in a State like Texas where the minimum salary is $27k and the max is $44k.
So until we raise the academic quality of teachers, I don't think that they should be in the group that we hold up as role models. (And I have nothing against teachers. Both my parents were teachers back in the era when teachers were more adequately paid and didn't overwhelmingly come from the bottom third of their college class.)
Originally Posted by TexTushHog
I used to think teaching was a gift. Something that couldn't be defined by issuing a mere teacher's license.
But a study by Teach for America has changed my mind. A story about it appeared in
The Atlantic in August. You can find it here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-teacher/7841/ it's a good read, but written a little highbrow. However, I'm confident the intelligentsia of this board can wade through it. The important part is: you can make a good teacher...and we need to do so.