Teachers, follow A-Rod's example in contract talks

Baltimore Sun ^ | 23 July 02 | Thomas J. Cottle

[SBeck]

BOSTON -- For decades, critics of American culture have written about the sheer insanity of paying a teacher for one year's work what an athlete earns in a day. What utter madness underwrites a culture, these critics aver, that prizes entertainment over education, a society that literally values taking our minds off of important matters rather than learning these important matters in the first place.

[SBeck]

His proposal is ludicrous, but the point he makes about entertainers and athletes having more value than teachers is not.

Fire away.

[untenured]

To those who find this proposal ludicrous, if not outright insane, I would wonder how they feel about that Rodriguez contract or, more generally, how they feel about a culture that first values entertainers far more than educators and then turns around and claims that people in the world hate us because they envy our values.

This is an economic fallacy, in that the author confuses marginal value with total value.

[lizma]

In my county, (Montgomery MD), teachers starting pay is the equivelent of $50 bucks an hour. By retirement age, it is close to $100!! Underpaid teachers, my butt!

Anyway, if market forces choose to value their entertainment over their necesseties, look it as a sign of a very prosperous, capitalist society.

[T. Jefferson]

Before the liberal teacher's union took over the US ranked
near the top in the world on test scores, now we can barely
hang with near third world countries. I think we're owed
a refund and they should be fired. Not to mention they've got
about 50% of the kids now doped up on ritalin.

[SBeck]

In my county, (Montgomery MD)

My wife is a by-product of the Montgomery County system (Walt Whitman), she has succeeded massively in everything she has done as a result of the dedicated faculty of that school. Sorry, but your opinion doesn't hold any water with me.

[lizma]

Don't you get me goin on that ritalin scam!

Extra federal bucks for each kid a principal can check off with ADD.

Several years ago, a women who worked for me came to work in tears. She was told by her son's principal that he had ADD. His crime; caught day dreaming in class one day.
We convinced her to tell the principal to go to hillary and that was the end of it.

What a racket.

[Mr. Mulliner]

A-Rod has proved himself in a free market system that allows and promotes competition. And he didn't overstep his bounds by asking for a percentage of concession revenues.

Today public school teachers benefit from a lack of competition. In fact, they spend more time trying to eliminate competition than promoting that basic tenet of American life.

Are American teachers proving themselves? Entrance scores for those entering graduate school as education majors are far, far below those of every other major. It seems to me that more than ever we've proven the old adage that "those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

[Mr. Mulliner]

ping and barf alert

[lizma]

My post held NO critism for the teachers in the school system I SEND MY OWN CHILDREN TO!!!! (Churchill. Top SAT scores in the US this year)

My post was critism of the liberal union whining about poor teacher's salaries. According to their contract, teachers are required to work 1100 hrs. per year. (And yes, I know the good ones work more than that.) That's about a 3 day work week.

Personally, I think people working 3 days a week should make less per year than if they were working 5. The NEA draws attention to the low salaries but doesn't ever mention the work hours involved. That was my gripe.

[kwyjibo]

Wow! $55K/year is excellent starting pay for teachers. I sure hope those teachers aren't complaining about THAT!

[kwyjibo]

Your ability to make sense of the words in this essay, as well as the mathematical references contained in it, is neither a natural evolutionary step nor a fortuitous accident. Someone taught you to read and someone taught you the fundamentals of arithmetic.

Typical educator's arrogance. "You got to where you are today because of a TEACHER!"

B.S. - Barbra Streisand!!!

Not to knock teachers, but many of us were born with certain natural abilities that would have manifested themselves regardless of where we attended school. I certainly don't smell what this guy's cookin'!

[SBeck]

A-Rod hits a ball with a stick and plays catch. Let's see what his fair market value would be if he took those skills outside of his very insular environment. I'm testy because no athlete or entertainer deserves the kind of money they are paid and I am inflexible on this point (and no, I'm not envious).

[SBeck]

Required yes, but we both know that the work load outside of the required hours far exceeds that.

[freebilly]

Hey, residual income. I believe in it, all franchise business owners believe in it. He makes more sense than most people care to admit.

[SBeck]

"You got to where you are today because of a TEACHER!"

I've had some very memorable teachers, the ones that left their imprint on me I'm grateful to because they opened the door and I chose to follow a path.

many of us were born with certain natural abilities

Everyone is born with ability, but, to be specific, I don't think anyone is born with an innate ability to string a series of sentences together to form a coherent paragraph or derive a series of functions.

[bleudevil]

Sure they deserve it, if they can get people to give them money to watch them hit balls with sticks. Lots of people like to watch sports. Lots of people also like to watch certain people say words on camera - that's why movie stars make big money.

The only legit gripe I can see about money and pro sports is when team owners wheedle tax money out of city governments to build them new stadia.

[Mr. Mulliner]

A-Rod hits a ball with a stick and plays catch.

Teachers sit behind a desk all day.

If you're going to reduce A-Rod's skills, skills he has worked extremely hard at improving, to such a ridiculous amount, then it's only fair to make a similarly ridiculous reduction of what teachers do.

[SBeck]

OK, this reduces itself down to a cultural arguement. Let me give you an example: tonight my wife called me in to witness an abomination of a TV show called "Dog Eat Dog". One of the "challenges" given to a well-endowed contestant - you know the type - was to answer a question on geography. The question was, "What is the country with the largest land mass in the Western hemisphere". The answer, of course, was Canada, the contestant answered "Asia".

With that in mind, and you're going to have to connect the dots here, I think there's a problem with elevating a stick and ball hitter to prominence, while an obvious idiot just embarrassed the nation with her ignorance on national TV. Education is the cornerstone of national strength; teachers, good teachers, are the key holders to that strength; and, paraphrasing Churchill, there is no better investment that a nation could make than to pour wisdom and knowledge into babies.

[eartotheground]

It should be obvious that baseball players are not a scarce commodity. Why not do the reagan/air traffic controller scenario? Of course, this is not a great analogy, since air traffic controllers are more scarce than baseball players. It took a while to repopulate the air traffic control world. Since there are 10-100 players ready to replace each one in the majors now, it shouldn't be any problem for the owners to declare the death penalty to the union, and start over. By the way, Cal Ripken's "record" should get a giant asterisk. Lou Gehrig never went out on strike.

[Mr. Mulliner]

Lest you think that I'm arguing that baseball is somehow more important to our society than education, I will assure you that I have the highest regard for education. I've been to school for probably more years than most here at FR, I've taught for a few years myself, my wife is a teacher, and my mother was a teacher.

My main point on this thread was that it's simply wrong to disparage A-Rod for what he's doing and to have school teachers do the same. The teachers union thrives from lack of competition. They have fought against school vouchers and seem prepared to fight to the death. Less than twenty years ago they fought hard to keep out merit pay. What was the result? There was a huge brain drain in education and many of our most gifted teachers left the profession they loved and public education was suddenly dumbed down.

I have just spent 3 years in a place that you might consider a Utopia. Singapore exalts education far above sports. Men in Singapore do not stand around the water cooler and discuss sports, they discuss how their kids did on their A-levels and what schools they can get into. Education in Singapore is truly a value from the grass roots. It works there because it's what the people want. Teachers are treated with respect because society values education. But you know what? Teacher salaries are not that high. The job of being a teacher is important, but it's not something that is especially difficult.

Let me tell you one reason why I'm a littled miffed at the way the education establishment works here. My wife has a Masters degree in teaching English as a second language. She has worked for several years in that field, mostly in Asia. She was my co-editor of a professional journal in that field and she has helped train many others to teach English as a second language. She's an excellent teacher and I admire her greatly. When we just recently came back to America, she applied for and got a job teaching at a local school, even though she's never been state certified as a public school teacher. She was given starting pay as if she were a new teacher and only provisionally licensed. She was told that she is just about the most qualified ESL teacher in the whole state, but she still has to start as a newbie and take some education courses in the next few years before she can be fully certified. Now think about that. If this job wasn't so ideal for her in many ways, she could simply take her skills and experience elsewhere, outside of the publich school sector, and probably expect something better. The education establishment, incredibly, puts up barriers which keeps out many of the most-qualified teachers, rather than recognizing obvious ability and experience. "If you're not part of our union, then your teaching skills count for nothing."

Sorry for the rant, but you simply didn't seem to see what points I was making before. There's a whole host of reasons why the author of this article just doesn't get it, but maybe he's blinded by his own bitterness.