But I bet our teens are first in Call of Duty: Black Ops

I don't understand how this is becoming a union-bashing thread.

The problem isn't the union.

The problem is at the front end - the entry bar to teaching is too low. Elementary education majors are a joke. Joke students want easy majors. Then, you have low salaries in teaching. Top students don't want to make low salaries.

Top students want to be challenged. Top students want to make money.

Why in god's name would any of them, then, be attracted to teaching?

 

Ah, the undefinable "best and brightest" raises its head again, with the jaundiced view of human nature thrown in

 

You're telling me, ON A JOURNALISM BOARD, that $35K isn't an adequate starting salary?

 

Not if we want our best students to be able to compete with other nations.

 

What does China pay their teachers?

What does Japan? Germany?

 

And I also don't think that it is a high enough salary to attract the best people to journalism, either, by the way. But that's a private industry, so too bad, so sad.

 

How many people on this board made $35K straight out of college?

 

Completely and utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

You're choosing a low baseline for comparison. Go to Corporate Lawyers.com or Cardiosurgeons.com, and they would laugh at a $35K starting salary.

 

Dick -- it isn't a union-bashing thread, it's a thread about making schools better, and not everyone falls into the "hand over a bigger pile of money" camp. We all see from our different angles that solution is often the embodiment of throwing good money after bad.

Do you have school-age kids? I am guessing no, and I am guessing you're going to have different opinions on this topic in 10 years or so. That's because 10 years ago I said exactly what you said, but now I've seen the school system operate for many years.

 

It's not the teachers. It's what and how we teach.

These statistics can be backed up by the fact we're having a debate about intelligent design being inserted into textbooks.

 

Even if you did, mizzou, you were a sap, apparently

 

65k a year in your 25th year at a place is good money? It's all right, but certainly not anything worth shouting from the rooftops about.

Although, I feel like she probably made more than that. My mom has been a special ed teacher in PA for the past 30+ years and while I don't know her exact salary, I know it's definitely more than that.