"They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care"-Anonymous
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries
I'm very thankful I live in Canada, especially for (but also many more reasons beyond) my education. Once I'm done university I'll ideally be teaching internationally and then probably return Canada thereafter.
Teaching in the US appears to be a struggle; it seems as though teachers don't get the resources or salaries they need to live off of, let alone successfully teach.
This editorial in the NY Times describes the very differing opinions of how we view failure in the military and what we do - give more money and resources, compared with failure in education - giving teachers less and expecting them to perform just as well.
Here's a short excerpt and a link to the full article:
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
Full NY Times Article
Teaching in the US appears to be a struggle; it seems as though teachers don't get the resources or salaries they need to live off of, let alone successfully teach.
This editorial in the NY Times describes the very differing opinions of how we view failure in the military and what we do - give more money and resources, compared with failure in education - giving teachers less and expecting them to perform just as well.
Here's a short excerpt and a link to the full article:
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
Full NY Times Article
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