Have you noticed all the adds on TV promoting Math And Science Education here in the USA? We need some kind of promotion, but it is not what the adds on TV are saying. Most of us know that the USA ranks about 23rd out of 30 or so countries in Math and Science scores by our school kids. It might come as a surprise to most people that your "worth" is a function of your Math and Science scores and you know where ours are. Get used to it. The "worth" of the next generation has already been determined by the current Math and Science scores. If we were to start now to raise our scores, the pay off would not come for about 40 or 50 years. That means that we will be stuck in the hole that we have dug for the next 40 or so years. Now back to the TV add.
What the adds are saying is that we need to spend more money on our teachers. That means we need to "pay" them more. We already spend more than any other country in the world per school kid and you know the results that we have gotten for our money. If you look at what our teachers are saying a little closer, you will find the problem. If we "pay" the teachers more, they will do a better job of teaching. Does that sound good? Not to me. What it tells me is that most of teachers are "not" doing the best job of teaching that they can because they are pissed off about their pay. In most professions, good managers make sure that their workers do the best job that they can, but not teachers. Based on all of my business experience, I do not know of a case where "paying" more gets a worker to do a better job. What business does is to "pay' more "after" the worker does a better job. Based on the job that our teachers are doing, they want the money before they do the job that they claim that they are capable of doing. Why don't we ask them to "first" do a better job and then we might consider an increase in pay.
Given that many teachers claim that they went into teaching because the wanted to "help" kid learn and give back to society. How many times have you heard claims like that? Now when you compare that to the fact that they are "not" now doing as good a job of teaching that they claim they are capable of, do you really think that they went into teaching due to some "calling"? I don't. Most are dishonest to the core and all they want to do is to "game" us taxpayers and get the money without earning it. Why would anyone hold back on teaching your kid because they felt that they were not being paid enough.
I recommend that they either teach as well as they can or quit teaching and go get a better paying job. The fact is that 99% could not get a better paying job. Does that tell you some thing? Based on the free market place, it is clear that they are "not" worth what they are being paid. Don't fall for the claim that they are all college graduates. We know that teachers colleges only offer watered down classes and pass out high grades so that they feel they are really smart. The teachers then do the same thing with your kids. Do you really believe that over half of the kids in our schools deserve to be on the honor roll. With the test scores that our kids are getting, I would require that they have higher scores than the "average" scores of the top 2 or 3 countries in the world. In those countries with the highest scores, 50% of those kids have higher scores than their countries average.
I don't know the solution, but it is not higher pay for our teachers or increasing the amount we spend per student. Why don't we ever see teachers or kids from the top countries in the world interviewed on TV? I thing Canada is number 3, yet we never hear anything from Canada. Why is that? All we hear is that we need to pay our teachers more, but not me.
PS-------
Try this. Next time you hear a school teacher complain about their low pay, ask them what higher paying job they gave up to become a school teacher?
Or this. Ask them what was the most difficult class they had to take in college? It will be very interesting.
Or this. Ask them what is "Ozone".
Or this. Ask them what is the square root of 2 times the square root of 8?
Or this. Ask them why they think they should be paid the same or more for teaching "fewer" kids?
