Teacher Compensation

On Friday, Steinn was playing dictator of the universe, and presented a modest proposal to reform US public education. It’s a mix of pretty good idea and cosmetic changes to make things more like Europe, and I agree with a good deal of it. I do want to highlight one thing, though:

Teachers could probably do with being paid better, and they could also probably do with being quality controlled a little better. Teachers in middle and high schools ought to have BA/BSc degrees in their fields, with MEds or equivalent for pedagogy.

This is particularly interesting, in light of Sunday’s New York Times, which included a long article about whiny lawyers and doctors:

At the Chicago office of Perkins Coie, partners recently unveiled a “happiness committee,” offering candy apples and milkshakes to brighten the long and wearying days of its lawyers. Perhaps this will serve as an example to other firms, which studies show lose, on average, nearly a fifth of their associates in any given year, in an industry in which about 20 percent of lawyers over all will suffer depression at some point in their careers.

Last year, Cravath, Swaine & Moore tried a more direct approach, offering associates an added bonus of as much as $50,000, on top of regular annual bonuses that range from $35,000 to $60,000.

The article goes on to include a bunch of complaints about how the law has lost its “allure” and “status” as a profession, and “it isn’t [just] about money.”

Yeah, cry me a freakin’ river. Those extra holiday bonuses needed to keep young lawyers from leaving? That’s more than a new teacher makes in a year.

And it should be noted that teachers do not have a great deal less education than lawyers. A law degree takes three years, a master’s in education is generally two, though some programs pack it into one. Then there’s the requirement of student teaching, probationary periods, and the like. Law school is more work, but not by all that much.

And “status” and “allure?” Forget it. I doubt there’s a less glamorous profession with similar educational requirements than teaching.

Teachers “could probably do with being paid better?” Yeah, probably.

Of course, it’s not just a matter of money– starting salaries for high-school science teachers are not all that different from assistant professor salaries at small colleges, but I never once considered teaching high school. The reason? Because my father was a public-school teacher, and I know what they have to put up with.

It’s not as bad for high-school teachers, as the better students are at least recognizably human by that point, but middle school teachers have to put up with a whole raft of shit that you couldn’t pay me enough to do. Hall duty, lunchroom duty, study halls– all the features that come with the fact that we use schools as baby-sitting services. There’s a daily grind of disrespect that I know I couldn’t take. And that’s even before the parents come in and upbraid teachers for having the temerity to flunk their little special flower, or discipline him for acting up.

If you want to get better people into teaching, there are two things that need to happen: one is simply to pay them more, but the other is to treat them with the respect due to educated professionals. Both socially and institutionally– it’s not just a matter of being polite during parent-teacher conferences and the like, it’s a matter of institutional support. My father took early retirement the minute he became eligble, because he’d spent the last ten years or more not getting the support he needed from the school administration.

Good kids who break minor rules get slammed, while incorrigible discipline cases continue to clog up the school system because their parents make a stink whenever they get in trouble. Litigation-shy school administrators cave in to any parent willing to make noise, and kids who have no business being in the classroom are allowed to bully and intimidate students who have an interest in education. It’s a mess.

If you want to get better people into teaching, this needs to change. And, really, lots of schools would become a whole lot better overnight if you just started expelling troublemakers, and stuck to it. This is sort of the extreme version of Steinn’s “streaming” suggestion– take the troublemaker stream, and put them in a different building altogether.

The attraction of college teaching isn’t that the money is all that much better, but that the kids I deal with actually want to be here, or at least do a good job of faking it. And in college, I’m insulated from the discipline side– I have more idea of what goes on in the Student Life sector than some, because of some of the commitees I’ve been on, but I’m not expected to rein in unruly frat boys, or sit in judgement of them when they throw illicit keg parties. And, frankly, you couldn’t pay me enough to do that.