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Paying for Better Math and Science Teachers
Coryoth writes "While California is suffering from critical shortage of mathematics and science teachers, Kentucky is considering two bills that would give explicit financial incentives to math and science students and teachers. The first bill would provide cash incentives to schools to run AP math and science classes, and cash scholarships to students who did well on AP math and science exams. The second bill provides salary bumps for any teachers with degrees in math or science, or who score well in teacher-certification tests in math, chemistry and physics. Is such differentiated pay the right way to attract science graduates who can make much more in industry, or is it simply going to breed discontent among teachers?"
Depending on how this is funded, it may backfire. If the state is paying the salary difference directly, that may work, but otherwise school districts will avoid hiring teachers who qualify for the extra pay to keep within budget. The system already makes it quite difficult for experienced teachers to get jobs; my wife was once told by a principal that he would love to hire her, but the superintendent said he would only approve up to three years of experience.
Pay is a serious issue with teaching (I won't even get started on the rest of the issues).
"Is such differentiated pay the right way to attract science graduates who can make much more in industry, or is it simply going to breed discontent among teachers?"
Science and Math are good starting points. But don't stop there!
The entire United States Educational System needs a complete overhaul.
Teachers should teach because they enjoy it. Being "attracted" into it isn't going to make them be good teachers. In fact, it may turn out like college where you get the really bright mathematicians and scientists teaching, but they can't relate worth a darn to the students.
Money is also a good start. Really talented people end up leaving the profession because they simply can't pay the bills. Making the pay more competitive will keep more of the good teachers. Fixing some of the other problems will also retain teachers, but getting the teachers in, paying them better and teaching (or allowing) them to be good teachers is what needs to happen, nation-wide, not just Kentucky or California.
The overhaul must start somewhere, and if they look at pay first, that's great. You can eventually weed out the poor teachers, keep the good teachers and our children will finally have an education they deserve!! (Without having to move overseas to truly educate them well.)
So, it's a start. But it can't stop there. Yes, there will be discontent among teachers but once the ball starts rolling and things improve for one and all, then everyone wins.
My thoughts as an ex-teacher,
Kris
Remember when Windows were washed, mice were trapped and UNIX guarded the harem?
You know... Teaching used to be a very well paying and highly respected profession. Then they nationalised it.
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"He pointed out that an English teacher doesn't have to be a great writer to teach reading and writing, but that the same is not true of high-end math and science courses." I think this is an important point. It can be overstated, but real fluency in mathematics can make a great deal of difference to how well it is taught. Most students can appreciate the value of learning to read or write, but will more often tend to question the value of mathematics. It takes a teacher with good mathematical knowledge (often well beyond the level they are teaching) to provide the extra depth to mathematics that can help engage students. Finland noted this around 2000 and set up a series of reforms that saw strong encouragement for elementary school teachers to take advanced math classes. The result is that Finland is now ranked among the very top countries in the world with respect to the achievements of their students in mathematics.
Of course, at the higher levels of English, having a teacher well versed in literature can make all the difference with regard to engaing students in studying Shakespeare and the classics. I don't think you should sell short the value of a well educated English teacher - it is just that that value tends be increase later in schooling rather than earlier.
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My mother is a teacher, a lot of my friends are teachers, and I worked IT at a high school. I've never seen another profession that whines and complains as much as teachers. It's engrained in their culture. It's how they socialize. They will complain about anything and everything.
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My favorite anecdote was my Junior High science teacher who, trying to emphasize how complex the brain is, told us 'There are more brain cells in the brain than atoms in the universe.'
I raised my hand and said 'If brain cells are made out of atoms that is clearly impossible.' She disagreed. We argued and I got detention for undermining her in front of the class.
I think the point she was trying to make was that there are more possible interconnections between brains cells in the brain than atoms in the universe, which is still wrong.
Sigh. I wonder how many kids thought I was being a wiseass vs how many realized how stupid the teacher's statement was.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I'm a teacher, and I love money, but here's the problem:
No one gets into this for the money, and no one stays for the money -- not math teachers, anyway. I did something before this that paid twice as much, as many of us do, but then I got bored and decided to try this.
So the issue is, if people aren't in teaching for the money, why do we suspect that we'll be able to attract more people to teaching with more money?
Now, there's the reasonable argument that there's some segment of the population that would like to teach, but can't because the pay is so low, but there's two things wrong with this argument:
1. teachers are never going to make as much as, say, modelers or programmers, and
2. i have some reason to believe that the sort of people who are just waiting for teaching kids to be really, really profitable might not be the crowd that we want to attract, anyway.
People get into teaching because they like teaching. People leave teaching because it's annoying a lot of the time. Here's how you attract people, in my personal fake expert opinion:
1. make it interesting. don't assign people to courses just because they're what's open, and don't make them wait for someone to die to get to try teaching calculus.
2. give them support, and help them develop. put time into schedules for conferences and bring in real lecturers, provide journals and during the day time to discuss, and fund coursework into anything.
3. throw out the textbooks. they're all shit (with the exception of harold jacobs).
4. demand real expertise and professionalism. make math teacher a job that it's hard to get. if i quit tomorrow, i could work anywhere in Maine by next week. this isn't good, rather it tells me that i don't need to be very good -- and if that's true, how good am i, really?
It's a great job, and you can't fix the shortage with money because things are so bad in terms of available teachers that you're just going to drag the good ones to rich districts and force poor schools to take whoever's left -- and you would be pretty surprised if i were to tell you exactly how bad things are in terms of expertise. The right answer is to make it a job that is attractive in all its aspects, and one that's admirable and challenging. That's all we geeks want, anyway, isn't it? A challenge, and some acknowledgement that we've got giant freaking brains?
god is just pretend.
My father has been a teacher for almost 20 years, and describes the life cycle of a teacher like this: 1. Someone becomes a teacher, not for the pay, but in order to better the world.
2. They are very enthusiastic, and spin their wheels with enthusiasm.
3. About 5-10 years into it, they get cynical. But with that many years behind them, they are not going to switch careers. He also discussed the government programs issue: 1. A program is created and deployed with high hopes (except for the cynical teachers who have been through the last 3 programs.)
2. It generates a lot of (fake) steam, then is loopholed and "special-ed"ed out of commission, at which point everybody forgets the name.
3. The program is about to expire, and everything will go back to traditional mode. This creates a lawsuit hazard, as tens of thousands of students suddenly must pass a test or miss their diploma.
4. A new program is hastily implemented to keep the scores inflated and keep to the students rolling through (read: no lawsuits). Another problem is "special ed". Here is the story behind 85% of the students in special ed: 1. A student is ultra-lazy and isn't passing.
2. Parents roar at the teacher, and send their kid to the school shrink. At this point the student pays attention and dons his worst intellect, in order to pass the evaluation.
3. He is assigned a monitor who is specially responsible to keep an eye on his school (read: make sure he passes).
4. The student has a lot less work to do (the basic package is 1/2 the homework, and it gets worse as you go along), and the teacher is given a dossier (they have some politically correct name for it) on the kid's "condition", and he is required to tailor his lessons for that child's benefit. (There is naturally no way a teacher can tailor the class for a dozen individual kids.)
5. The student passes with good grades, and gets his diploma. He got by with minimal work, the parents are happy, and nobody got sued.
5. Since you can't discriminate against the handicapped or retarded, the diploma has no mention of the fact that the student didn't actually do the work, or that he has any condition. Now, the program does do much good for the truly handicapped people, but there are very few people who have anything wrong with them, except for their work ethic.
As for classroom discipline: 1. You cannot touch or search a kid without getting sued by the parents or the ACLU.
2. You cannot dock their grade without the parents getting zealous.
3. You may only send them to the office, where the overworked principle (who spends "half his time making sure we comply with regulations") tells the student to behave or face staying home from school (sounds silly, but it really irks the parents, who suddenly have a kid to babysit).
4. If the teacher saw the kid's drugs, the principle calls the students mom to come (no way will he tell the kid to drop his pants for a search without a parent present). The kid is then sent to the school police officer, and I don't know what he does with him.
5. There isn't much else to do. It is a general case of lazy kids, a lawyer-happy ACLU, terrible parenting, and staggering bureaucratic overhead.
The government can't save you.
In my small town (as I'm sure it is in many others) the public elects the Board of Education to oversee the system. The Board hires and fires. And this Board is answerable to the voters - who have a right to say "you will do thus-and-so" OR ELSE (you're out).
The majority have the right to petition and, said petition getting the appropriate quantity of signatures, put pretty much whatever topic they want to a referendum vote - a vote that can even do such things as modify (within the state guidelines) the curriculum OR direct the Board to refuse to renew the teacher's union contract and hire teachers independently (as many private schools do) and determine their salaries by an entirely different set of guidelines than the union's "pay us, or else"-type of negotiation.
I'd heard (no, I don't have a source yet but will look for it) that some years ago some small mid-American town DID that and offered to rehire all the teachers at their current level and go by merit afterward.
The union sued, the State said that it's not illegal not to renew a contract (and the Town was willing to hire the teachers independently). The voters made it plain that they would ONLY entertain one-year contracts (apparently it was THAT small a town that they had the luxury) and renegotiate every year "so, you're not gonna get anywhere 'cause we have plenty of teachers willing to work off-contract just to be ABLE to teach".
They weren't trying to bust the union by forcing unionees out of their jobs by hiring replacements, they just didn't want to renew the teachers' "service contract" (i.e. "we will perform [services] for [price]") about the same way you might not want to renew the service contract on your furnace and choose to hire your own qualified individual to maintain it (since fire marshalls and insurance companies are picky about competent labor on such devices).
Apparently a separate committee, unknown to the union, had interviewed and culled individuals with good teaching credentials (either unemployed or employed out-of-field) for potential part-time-leading-to-full-time employment and had non-disclosures to prevent the union from finding out. Can you say "ace-in-the-hole"?
Apparently the union desisted, same teachers, same jobs, many left & were replaced (all were invited to reapply before the independents were allowed to try), on merit pay, the student's scores went up appropriately, the pay went up appropriately, and everyone eventually won except the union-mongers.
I like a happy ending - whether it may be a true story or not.
I can attest to the fact that the rigmarole educators are put through today is a major turnoff.
I graduated from Texas A&M. Because I was in the electrical engineering program before changing to computer science and there was one non-overlap math class, I actually have more math than needed to be an electrical engineer (and that, I believe, ties for the most math needed for any degree, after math majors of course). So, when I was looking at possibly teaching, I found out that I would have to go back and take some remedial math classes. Sure, a couple semesters of differential equations won't help me with algebra, but to go back for remedial math after having taken years of calculus and applied math just turned me off. I can pass any test they can give me about the subject matter. But unless I go back for the remedial math classes, I can't teach it. What is needed is an easy path for professionals to enter education after years of gathering experience in the real world. Until that path is easy, I'm not going to go back to school for 2 years just to be able to apply for the jobs. They should be seeking me out, not putting up hurdles.
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