The NY Times looks at a new trend ... A shortage of teachers

I can't quite read your tone, but it sounds like you're suggesting they should have happily absorbed a pay cut when they presumably had better options "because they're there for the kids." I assume if you got sent to a spinoff newspaper that was going to pay you less, you'd be cool with it because you're "there for the readers?"

 

I wasn't suggesting that, it was the school board president who told the teachers they should suck it up and not worry about their bills "for the kids."

But teachers and writers are very similar in that they don't put much financial value into what they do because it is "their calling" and "the work is its on reward."

 

Ah - got it.

 

Teachers are also like writers who have kids and mortgages and car payments. You have to pay the bills. I don't blame them one bit.

 

If pay were the same, I would rather teach lower kids than parents whose parents are wealthy. I've taught both, and the poor kids and parents respect you and what you do so much more.

 

Indeed.

 

It's funny to read this turn the conversation has taken, because I've encountered it many times in my academic career.

Its not a secret that, in general, in higher ed certain disciplines -- medicine, engineering, business -- pay a helluva lot more than others. Many's the time I've heard some humanities professor say that those higher-paying disciplines should accept less pay because, if they're not willing to, they're really not in academia for the right reasons.

Of course these discussions center on why humanities professors should be paid more. Which begs the question ...

 

"Lower"?

 

Yes. Believe it or not but economically disadvantaged students as a whole perform at a lower level when they enter the educational system at age five.

 

Next time there's a PTA meeting at your school, refer to them thusly -- "lower" -- and report back to us how that works out for you.

 

Yeah, never happens....

wtvr.com/2013/09/17/vdoe-identifies-low-performing-schools/

 

Sorry. I was told there'd be no math in this discussion.

Seriously, though. People make teaching sound like it's the new version of law school. In your thirties, tired of your job? Take a few courses and presto! You're a teacher. With a great salary and a fantastic pension. Whereas, in reality, it's anything but easy (...from what I've researched.)