Admiral Rockwell Tory
Diamond Member
I'm not sure. I think that without Teacher's unions a lot of qualified folks would leave the field and leave us all the poorer for it. I've got friends in Wisconsin and right after Walker instituted his changes school boards in a lot of districts went pretty draconian on their teachers. In response, many left the profession. A good teacher can make more money doing other things and if pushed, they will. A bad teacher is more likely to stick around because they CAN'T do something else. And good luck firing them when your school is already 5-10 teachers short meeting the need for teachers in their school.That's simply not true. There are plenty of good parents in the zip codes with struggling schools. The problems are many and not easily boiled down to bumper stickers. Schools are underfunded, racially segregated (Which still happens, see Lincoln parish in Louisiana that was forced to desegregate in 2015), or the cost of living is high enough that both parents work multiple jobs.That's a generalization. There are some good public schools.
Actually it's not the schools that are better, it's the parents that are better. In upscale neighborhoods the parents are educated professionals who are motivated for their children to learn. Most of what children learn is taught by their parents. Schools simply put a rubber stamp on it.
I think though we can both agree that having a failing public school is simply unacceptable. I think a lot of the rancor stems from the idea of how you fix it.
The sad fact is public schools will continue to struggle as long as teachers' unions continue to have a stranglehold on the purse strings, regardless of whether the federal government is involved or not.
If we wan to abolish things like tenure or the teachers unions, we will have to be willing to pay more just to draw in folks to teach.
You say that, but it's not true. The only ones who would leave the profession are the ones we would want to leave. We have entirely too many teachers who are teachers simply b/c it is a comparatively easy degree to obtain and is a pretty sweet gig with decent pay and sweet hours. Shouldn't we strive for more? Shouldn't we strive to hire the teachers who WANT to teach? And the pay is more than adequate in most areas. In fact for 2012=13 the average starting pay in the US was $36K a year, which no you aren't going to get rich earning that, but it isn't chump change either, especially considering the hours etc etc.
2012-2013 Average Starting Teacher Salaries by State
What is the average starting salary in the US for someone with a Master's degree?