You forgot your hat.
Posted on 08/08/2006 9:47:05 AM PDT by GoldwaterFellow
A growing body of research shows teacher quality is the most important factor in academic progress
Teacher quality matters, enormously. Dr. William Sanders, the leading researcher in the field of value-added assessment, explains, "Race, socioeconomic level, class size, and classroom heterogeneity are poor predictors of student academic growth. Rather, the effectiveness of the teacher is the major determinant of student academic progress."
In other words, some teachers really do make all the difference. Dr. Sanders finds evidence that racial achievement gaps are strongly influenced by the distribution of effective teachers, writing, "African American students and white students with the same level of prior achievement make comparable academic progress when they are assigned to teachers of comparable effectiveness. However, at least in the system studied, black students were disproportionately assigned to the least effective teachers."
Believe it or not, these findings are actually cause for optimism. If they stand the test of time, it will provide further proof that there is nothing inevitable about achievement gaps, just something terribly wrong with the distribution of effective teachers.
One way to address this issue is to increase the number of effective teachers in the system. And one key way to attract more effective teachers is to pay them according to their productivity. If highly effective teachers had the opportunity to make six figures, you can bet more top students would enter the field.
Matthew Ladner, PhD, is the Goldwater Institute vice president for research.
You forgot your hat.
Same crap as always. Give us more money and this time we'll be better ...
This is an extremely simplistic view of achievement. How about good curriculum and motivated students ?
No, in the eyes of people like this, it's always about the money.
Don't expect a reply, this clown has posted 25 articles from this site and nary a single reply to any thread.
Classic blog pimp.
And he's still posting ? Waste of thread space :)
Even compared to the Natalee Holloway threads. :)
No, it's about the incentive. It's about what it takes to make education effective. This study, as opposed to your flippant assertions, makes a solid, reasoned case that quality teachers make "good curriculum[sic] and motivated students".
The author never called for "more money" for all teachers, but for those who earn it. How is that bad?
I absolutely agree that higher pay for good, effective teachers would fix a lot of public education's problems. Whenever you can affix incentives to actual success, that's what you'll get. Unfortunately, the status quo is to affix incentives to mediocrity and failure.
As it is, teachers are rewarded not for being successful teachers, but for survival time within their particular system.
"Same crap as always. Give us more money and this time we'll be better ... "
I don't care who wrote the article. But your statement is a little off base. Why would any sane person want to step into a classroom with all the crap they have to put up with and work for peanuts? Not all teachers are good and not all teachers are bad but reasonable pay for the work they do is not a bad thing and it does increase motivation on the part of the teacher.
Notice - the AVERAGE is 46K, not including benefits and a nice long summer vacation. If the teacher has a master's degree, the pay is much higher than the average. The average teacher salary in my school district in the northeast is 72K not including benefits.
Want to guess what the average non-teacher professional makes ?
Try this one as a comparison: http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/books_teacher_pay
Don't repeat propaganda and don't be a tool of the unions.
Do you teach? Are you married to a teacher? Do you teach in a rural district? Have you ever dealt with a room full of teenagers? If so fine. If not, you don't know what you're talking about and don't ever mention the NEA to me. They are filth and stupidity incarnate.
Find the breakdown of that "average" salary and get back to me. And three months off in the summer? You're joking right? Between the end of school, summer school and the beginning of school, there might be a month, might be a month.
That is, if public education is actually about education and not the simply the largest and most useless "jobs for votes" program ever invented. ;)
I can read and I can think for myself - and I can interpret statistics. I talk to a lot of people, quite a few of whom are teachers. One of my clients is a school district with 22 high schools and numerous K-8 schools and I am in schools almost every day. I work closely with a number of technology and other teachers from the K thru 12 levels, as well as the administrators at those schools.
Now, why do you throw up a smokescreen instead of answering the facts ? Do you think 30K as a starting salary is bad ? Ask a bank teller or a delivery driver what they think about their starting salary and benefits. Look at this page: http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/articles/majors/majorsSalaries.asp
Whether it's bad depends on where you live. In NYC it would be pathetic. In rural Pennsylvania it would easily support a family.
I didn't mention 3 months off - you did. My teacher friends finish their school year by June 17, and only start gearing up for the next year in the middle of August. Sounds like 2 months to me. Add in a week at Easter, two weeks in December, 4 days in February, and various other days, and you have almost another month. By contrast, every other profession only gets a week or two their second year - many don't get any vacation their first year. If you divide 30K by 10 months it's 3k per month worked. If a teacher needs more income they can teach summer school or take other summer jobs. Alternatively, divide 30k by the 11.5 months worked in every other profession and you get 2.6k per month worked. You want to dispute that ?
Then there's the question of hours. Teachers always claim they work longer hours because of grading at home and the like. All the schools I know of only ask teachers to teach 5 periods out of a 7 period day - the other 2 periods are prep or free. If a teacher plans it right, they can get all their grading done during the day.
Believe me, teachers have no lock on unpaid overtime. Ask a tax accountant what their hours are like from December thru April and again when corporate returns are due. Ask computer programmers about their hours when projects start to slip behind. Ask marketing people how long they work during a new product rollout.
As for a room full of teenagers - hey, it's your choice. Try accounting or mortician as an alternative if you don't like kids and all their attitudes. I can give you plenty of stories about clients from hell and unreasonable managers making life miserable. Every job has its problems. We'd all like to think that our job is worth more than what we get paid. If you really think that's so, get one in which you feel you are fairly compensated.
Yep. It's why we homeschool.
That's not what the article said. The article was talking about attracting "top students" into education by offering more money for performance.
That's not the same thing as paying current teachers more money so that they'll do better.
This line from the article didn't exclude paying current, highly-effective teachers more money.
And for what it's worth, 5% of teachers in my school district ARE already making 6 figures of salary - not including benefits. Teachers making 6 figures already exist, at least in many NorthEast US districts.
Well, you have a point there.
Case in point - reading. Phonics vs whole word. Phonics has been proven by study after study for years to be worlds more effective than whole language. What do most public schools teach ? Whole word. What do education schools teach reading teachers - whole word. Why ? Because good curriculum is not the agenda of public schools. Raising good socialists incapable of independent thought is the object. Add in the decline of classics, discovery math(or new new math), bilingual education, multicultural perspectives, junk environmental science instead of hard science, activism instead of civics education and you have the current disaster we've been building since at least the 40s, and many would argue, the 1890s.
While good teachers may make more kids more interested, good teaching will always fail when discipline in the classroom and discipline at home cannot be achieved. I don't care how good the teacher is, if they have just a few bad apples in the bunch and no discipline backup from the administation or parents, they cannot be effective. Just what discipline options are available to most public school teachers - precious few, and those are usually reserved for the very worst cases.
In short, the best teacher cannot prevail in such a system. That's why the good students go ihnto other fields and many leave within the first 5 years of teaching. No amount of money can fix this broken system.
Still waiting for the average salary breakdown.
Most teachers I know take their salary over 12 months and most don't have time for a second job to supplement their income.
Do those teachers you talk to talk about the continuing education they have to complete to keep their teaching certification and who pays for that? Did they talk about the bad decisons made by school boards and administrators they have to deal with?
And I'm not sure where your "starting salary" number came from unless it's one of those "average" statistics again. Stats don't tell you what it's like in the classroom.
You want quality people doing a quality job in ANY business, it comes down to intelligence, dedication and money. Why the double standard for teachers?
Whether you take a salary over 12 months or 10 - what does that have to do with the time you spend at work ? You don't have time in 2 months to teach summer school - gee, wonder where those teachers come from who do ?
Many professions require constant upgrading. You think teaching is unique in that ? Programming languages change and new ones spring up. Don't you suppose those in the field spend time learning on their own so they can keep their jobs from being outsourced overseas ? How about tax accountants or corporate accountants - tax laws don't change every year ? CPAs must take CE credits every year to keep their certificate. Or lawyers - new laws aren't made or adjudicated every day ? Look around you - graduate schools and community colleges are filled with working adults upgrading their skills in all kinds of fields.
Altho you obviously haven't looked at any link I've thrown at you, I'll try one more time. Look at this one: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04242/369554.stm
I'll add in one more - you can't fire teachers once they have tenure, except for gross misconduct. In what other job are you guaranteed employment for life ? What do you suppose that's worth ? Ask anyone whose job is eliminated or outsourced and you'll know. <> In short, teachers complain way too much about money and job conditions that just don't match reality in any job market.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.