Actually, I believe that your point #4 is wrong. Teachers are underpaid, and the fact that most kids don't really learn anything is the inevitable result. Allow me to explain.
For all the rhetoric about the need for teacher accountability, school principals and district superintendents already have the power to fire teachers. Yes, it's true: Primary and secondary school-teachers do have a form a tenure, but it's not the same kind of tenure that university professors have. In primary and secondary education, tenure simply means that there is a more formalized process for firing a teacher. More hoops to jump through, if you will. But, principals can jump through them if they really want to.
The logical question to ask is, so why don't they? They don't fire the bad ones because, simply put, they need butts in seats. Or, rather, feet in shoes in front of the blackboard. If you have 4 teachers for 100 students in 3rd grade, firing one and increasing the average class size to 33 students isn't a tenable option. As a result, the principal must hire a new teacher to replace the one he just fired, and therein lies the rub.
There simply aren't good teachers on the market at the prices that school districts are willing to pay. That qualifier at the end of the sentence is important, so read it again. Many of my cohort from grad school were fantastic teaching assistants in the classroom (many were bad, too, but we'll save that discussion for another time). That's not to say that they would automatically make good primary school teachers, but if I had kids, I would wish that those excellent TAs were in the classroom. I'll bet that many people on HN know similarly talented people from their time in university, who were natural leaders and mentors.
Unfortunately, very few (read: none) of those people who are good at teaching are employed as teachers. Why not? It has nothing to do with teacher's unions or certification requirements or institutional bureaucracy or barriers to innovation, and everything to do with the labor market. Namely, a good engineer or scientist with a masters or doctorate can out-earn a teacher by a factor of at least two. Then there's the fact that an engineer employed as an engineer isn't required to restrict his use of paid vacation days to just a few weeks each year (a couple high-school teachers with whom I'm still in contact tell me that they've never been able to take their kids on vacation for spring break because their spring break didn't line up with their kid's spring break).
So, I think the solution is easy: Pay teachers a salary that is competitive with other high-skilled professions, and you'll get good teachers.
But let me offer a personal anecdote that suggests pay isn't the only problem. If pay were to remain exactly as it were today, but the bureaucratic bullshit went away, I would very seriously consider looking for a teaching position in a high school after I graduate. (I am currently a 4th year Ph.D. student.)
But all of the bureaucracy that goes on just makes it an absolute non-starter. It almost completely destroys the perks of teaching for me, namely, the freedom and flexibility to mold a curriculum. (The perk of having summers off just doesn't make up for it for me.)
Even if you doubled the pay, I'm still not sure I would go for it. But that's me.
Every time I reach a crossroads in my career, I find myself considering going into teaching. Then I recall the cost of becoming credentialed (somewhere in the $20k-$90k range) and the fact that I would make less than half of what I make now, and I can't bring myself to take the option seriously.
It makes me angry that, if you finish your PhD (and maybe even if you don't), you would be perfectly qualified to teach college students, but teaching seniors in high school is out of the question without you going through still more schooling and hoop-jumping. Myself, I have bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics and applied mathematics, but it doesn't matter. The public schools don't want me. Maybe I wouldn't be a good teacher, but maybe I would be. We'll probably never find out.
Some teachers (talented young ones) are severely underpaid. Some teachers (older, lazy ones) are severely overpaid.
The problem with simply raising teacher salaries is that, due to the tenure system in public schools, most of the increase will accrue to the oldest teachers regardless of skill.
>So, I think the solution is easy: Pay teachers a salary that is competitive with other high-skilled professions, and you'll get good teachers.
The problem with that argument is that the supply vastly, VASTLY outstrips demand. How can you possibly argue that we should pay these candidates more when you have 100 applicants per position in most school districts?
Doesn't this suggest a real problem with the upstream pipeline?
Except even if you whittle it down to "qualified" based on nebulous standards, you still get everyone applying with bachelor and/or master's degrees in Education - people who have ostensibly gone through training programs to become the best educators they can be.
I don't like the salary argument because it has worked poorly in practice. For example raising tuition per student did not increase the performance of Chicago public schools, nor did my highschool teachers - who were making about 70K teach any better then our fresh out of college teachers who were making 34K.
In addition to down-voting, it would be helpful if you could explain why you think I'm wrong (because, hey, there's a first time for everything ;) Thanks.
For all the rhetoric about the need for teacher accountability, school principals and district superintendents already have the power to fire teachers. Yes, it's true: Primary and secondary school-teachers do have a form a tenure, but it's not the same kind of tenure that university professors have. In primary and secondary education, tenure simply means that there is a more formalized process for firing a teacher. More hoops to jump through, if you will. But, principals can jump through them if they really want to.
The logical question to ask is, so why don't they? They don't fire the bad ones because, simply put, they need butts in seats. Or, rather, feet in shoes in front of the blackboard. If you have 4 teachers for 100 students in 3rd grade, firing one and increasing the average class size to 33 students isn't a tenable option. As a result, the principal must hire a new teacher to replace the one he just fired, and therein lies the rub.
There simply aren't good teachers on the market at the prices that school districts are willing to pay. That qualifier at the end of the sentence is important, so read it again. Many of my cohort from grad school were fantastic teaching assistants in the classroom (many were bad, too, but we'll save that discussion for another time). That's not to say that they would automatically make good primary school teachers, but if I had kids, I would wish that those excellent TAs were in the classroom. I'll bet that many people on HN know similarly talented people from their time in university, who were natural leaders and mentors.
Unfortunately, very few (read: none) of those people who are good at teaching are employed as teachers. Why not? It has nothing to do with teacher's unions or certification requirements or institutional bureaucracy or barriers to innovation, and everything to do with the labor market. Namely, a good engineer or scientist with a masters or doctorate can out-earn a teacher by a factor of at least two. Then there's the fact that an engineer employed as an engineer isn't required to restrict his use of paid vacation days to just a few weeks each year (a couple high-school teachers with whom I'm still in contact tell me that they've never been able to take their kids on vacation for spring break because their spring break didn't line up with their kid's spring break).
So, I think the solution is easy: Pay teachers a salary that is competitive with other high-skilled professions, and you'll get good teachers.