"Wayne Knight" wrote in message
oups.com...

//snip//
Working 10 months out of the year, 29K would equate to 35K for the rest
of us. Not a bad start, when you consider how relatively easy it is to
obtain an education degree and the lack of real knowledge on a subject
needed to *teach* it in some states, it is not unrealistic to expect
lowered salaries. (Please note i did not say teachers did not *know*
their subjects in all cases)


Wayne, I used to think pretty much the same thing as you. Not any more. My
wife teaches four levels of Japanese at one of the local high schools here
in St Louis County. She spends more time working outside of class than
inside, and subject matter knowledge is the least of the issues. There's a
good summer break, but she works evenings and weekends grading papers,
preparing lesson plans, talking to parents, preparing special lesson plans
for students who are suspended (one of the more asinine punishments),
preparing other special plans for students with disabilities, working with
other students who need extra help, assisting others who want to do
independent study, and on and on. And what's the reward for long hours and
extra dedication? Nothing but the psychic reward of occasionally making a
difference in somebody's life.

In my world, and probably in yours, people get ahead by working harder:
bigger bonuses, promotions, more perqs, etc. But not teachers. A talented
teacher who works harder gets tougher students.

Elementary and Secondary education is not the noble profession many
folks make it out to be. Can some teachers make a difference in some
kid's life, of course. it still does not the whole profession noble.

Is ANY profession noble? My wife doesn't make much money. But when her
former students who are now FBI agents, lawyers, and teachers come back
years later to see her and tell her what a difference she made, it's a
pretty valuable reward. And when one of her best students - an honor roll
student and athlete - elected to join the Marines to get money for college
and law school, and then went to Afghanistan on October 2001, I think her
concern about him was second only to that of his parents.

I suspect that few people other than teachers and police officers get such a
picture of the social issues that this country faces. There are people in
this community who don't eat every day because they can't afford it. There
are kids in my wife's classes whose mothers work full time for the minimum
wage and can't make ends meet for their families. There are kids who go to
bed at night having had nothing to eat all day except the free lunch at
school, and are about the be evicted from their homes. That is absolutely
true. And we penalize the kids for that!

You want to raise teacher salaries? Raise the bar to get in.

Yeah. Get a bunch of technicians who're good test takers but haven't the
foggiest notion about the real world. Doesn't do any good to raise the bar
if not enough people want to get in.

Imagine a kid from the inner city of St Louis who is bused to an affluent
school in St Louis county. His mother can hardly afford to buy him a pencil
and paper, but now he is immersed in a school with kids who drive BMWs. How
does he feel? What kind of character does it take to deal with that, and how
do teachers deal with the issues? Probably not by learning something from a
textbook and passing a test about it.

Wayne
I might have left this alone if I wasn't writing checks to the IRS and
state today after receiving my property tax bill yesterday.

I know. I paid mine today too. I figure a good bit of it went to pay for
propaganda development to convince people that the Administration wants to
improve the country.