RE: Teaching
In American society, the question "What do you do?" translates to "How much money do you make."
Speak for yourself. I don't find that to be true in the America I inhabit. Every once in a while I run across people who think like that, but they are almost always liberals and/or Democrats so I usually disregard anything they say on that score.
Teaching, of course, is an art.
Of course, nothing. Teaching is a profession. Granted, it is a skilled profession, but not nearly so much so as an that of engineer, doctor, or CEO. As with any other profession, there are people who are good at it and there are people who aren't. The issue is that government-run schools demand no accountability, so the people who aren't good at it don't fall out of the system. They just stay where they are and screw things up for everyone else, including their fellow teachers. What is illustrated by the Sowell quote is the fact that if government-run schools required accountability, the bad teachers would rightfully get canned creating a higher demand for good teachers. The result would be that the price of teachers would go up.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I wanted to stop you before you tried to offer teachers up for automatic beatification.
What type of person do we expect to attract to the profession when the pay is so poor and there is such a lack of respect?
There's that causality thing again. The pay is so poor because the lack of accountability creates a lack of respect. The profession has a low worth problem because there are so many shoddy teachers who are allowed to take up space in the system. People obviously don't mind paying for education, but they have a problem paying for ten bad teachers just to get one good one.
Speak for yourself. I don't find that to be true in the America I inhabit. Every once in a while I run across people who think like that, but they are almost always liberals and/or Democrats so I usually disregard anything they say on that score.
Teaching, of course, is an art.
Of course, nothing. Teaching is a profession. Granted, it is a skilled profession, but not nearly so much so as an that of engineer, doctor, or CEO. As with any other profession, there are people who are good at it and there are people who aren't. The issue is that government-run schools demand no accountability, so the people who aren't good at it don't fall out of the system. They just stay where they are and screw things up for everyone else, including their fellow teachers. What is illustrated by the Sowell quote is the fact that if government-run schools required accountability, the bad teachers would rightfully get canned creating a higher demand for good teachers. The result would be that the price of teachers would go up.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I wanted to stop you before you tried to offer teachers up for automatic beatification.
What type of person do we expect to attract to the profession when the pay is so poor and there is such a lack of respect?
There's that causality thing again. The pay is so poor because the lack of accountability creates a lack of respect. The profession has a low worth problem because there are so many shoddy teachers who are allowed to take up space in the system. People obviously don't mind paying for education, but they have a problem paying for ten bad teachers just to get one good one.
posted by Anonymous | 1:20 PM
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