Kids To Get the Best CS Teachers $15/Hr Can Buy

theodp (442580) writes "Billionaire-backed Code.org, enthusiastically tweets U.S. Dept. of Education Chief Arne Duncan, is 'providing tremendous leadership in bringing coding & computer science to our nation's schools.' Including bringing kids in Broward County Public Schools the best computer science teachers $15.00-an-hour can buy, according to a document on the school district's website. One wonders how the Broward teachers feel about Code.org apparently coughing up $38.33-an-hour for Chicago teachers who attend the required Code.org professional development, which ironically covers equity issues. Duncan's shout-out comes days after Code.org claimed in its Senate testimony that 'our students have voted with their actions [participating in an hour-long, Angry Birds-themed Blockly tutorial starring Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates]: that learning computer science is this generation's Sputnik moment, that it's part of the new American Dream, and that it should be available to every student, in every school, as part of the standard curriculum.'"

Comments

sputnik moment?

[0xdeaddead]

lol are they smoking this isn't 1974 with the release of Intel's 8080. Who are they kidding, this is just more people looking for .gov handouts dressed up in "professional development", and all the other jazz that comes with US government contracts. Good grief.

Re:sputnik moment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, that's cynical and wrong. It's people looking to lower wages of software developers as well as justify immediate requests for more H1Bs, all while taking away the focus on improving our nation's weak skills in the basics of reading, math, and science.
 
(Note that cynicism is orthogonal of correctness.)

Re:sputnik moment?

[ganjadude]

well with seatle setting min wage at 15 an hour, If these people are in seatle, they are saying that coders are worth the same amount as a mcdonalds cashier...

Re:sputnik moment?

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize the space race was pretty much all about government handouts right?

Re:sputnik moment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, for a definition of "handout" that includes "get value for your money."

Re:sputnik moment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is Seattle saying McDonald's cashiers are worth the same as coders?

Re:sputnik moment?

[drkstr1]

Or is Seattle saying McDonald's cashiers are worth the same as coders?

Hello from Seattle AC! I couldn't have said it better myself.

Re:sputnik moment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Raising minimum wage is part of a shell game, to divert attention away from inflation and the ever-increasing percentage of shitty jobs in our economy. People are generally short-sighted and stupid, and fail to realize that such increases simply drive up inflation resulting in the same situation within a few years or less. They think only in terms of what $15/hour would buy them today, and don't realize that in a year their $15 will only buy them what $10 does right now.

Re:sputnik moment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Minimum wage doesn't drive up inflation much in reality. Why? Because 1) Minimum wage is the new middle class, 2) Minimum wage increases just drive up the already rampant illegal labor and outsourcing.

Why would anyone today go into coding? Nearly everyone intelligent enough to graduate with a CS degree could get an MBA then do half the work for twice the pay.

Re:sputnik moment?

[stonewolf]

Back when I got my BSCS in the '70s CS and all other engineering students were allowed to take any upper division business classes they wanted to no matter if they had the prerequisites or the 3.5/4.0 GPA required for business majors to take the same classes. In other words, the business department comsidered a sophomore in engineering to be superior to a senior in their own department.

At that time a BSCS required work equivalent to a doctorate in buisness. Even with the dramatic reduction in the requirements for CS degrees since then a BSCS is still the equivalent of at least an MBA. Not to mention that most people consider a 50 year old MBA to be highly experience while a 40 year old code monkey is considerred to be over the hill and good only for checking reciepts at the door at Sam's Club.

So, yes, why would anyone bother to train to be a code monkey these days? I made sure my kids did not make the same mistake I made...

Stonewolf

P.S.

I would gladly take $15/hour to teach CS. I've even taken the courses and passed all the tests to be able to do just that. Guess what? Public schools do not want MEN to teach classes. They especially do not want MEN who expect to be treated like humans. But, if they would allow me to teach I would happily do it for $15/hour because that is better than the $0/hour I can make as a 61 year old software engineer.

A sputnik moment??

[Anonymous Coward]

"An hour-long, Angry Birds-themed Blockly tutorial " is your Sputnik moment? Really???

Re:A sputnik moment??

[Concerned Onlooker]

We are in times where someone who makes a billion developing a social app or game is considered to have done something important.

Re:A sputnik moment??

[Anonymous Coward]

I do hope that people read this and see how desperately we need numerous reforms. Ask a kid today "How much money is too much money?" and the overwhelming majority will claim there is no such thing. Even when disproportionate earnings becomes detrimental to society, because "me" is all that matters according to what we teach in classrooms and media. Plenty of parents try to teach higher morality, but success is surely limited by pressure from government and media.

Socrates had it right in the Allegory of the Artisan, and I doubt many so called intellectuals know what that is.

Re:A sputnik moment??

[The New Guy 2.0]

I'm not sure that works anymore. 1999? Yes, broadcast.com was sold for a billion.

Now, Million Dollar Home Page was worth uhm, what was that number again?

Re:A sputnik moment??

[Anonymous Coward]

So how much is too much, Socrates? You should share this number so we can make sure that people don't earn more than that. If someone is universally acknowledged to be adding to society, when said person reaches your threshold, do we prevent them from working or merely seize all incremental earnings and repurpose them for something that you deem to be a better use.

Re:A sputnik moment??

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't call myself an intellectual, but I am a curious sort, so I googled "Socrates Allegory of the Artisan". Oddly, the only explicit result was a slashdot post by s.petry dated about Aug 2013 which I quote:

Start quote:

"Consider Socrates and the Allegory of the Artisan. The duty of the Republic is to ensure that a good artisan remains a good artisan. Pay him too much, and he will no longer produce works. He will not only stop producing, but spend his time and money meddling in other peoples affairs. The Republic has given him an opportunity to harm others as well as no longer be productive for society. If the Republic does not pay the Artisan enough, he will no longer produce. The artisan will be worried about the welfare of his children and home, and seek opportunities other than being an artisan to ensure survival.

The duty of the Republic is to ensure that people are rewarded for producing in society, but never so much that they become unproductive. This does not just go for the artisan, but also the farmer and cobbler and baker and every other job we have deemed critical to societies purpose and function."

END quote.

ol' 'Crates seems to be saying that those who actually produce something more or less tangible and reasonably necessary for the health and survival of their society (teachers, engineers, street sweepers) should be assured of an adequate living but should not be allowed to make enough that they start to get 'above themselves'

Apparently overcompensation (of many sorts including financial) and a proper sense of entitlement is to be reserved for those who produce Nothing tangible or necessary ( rock stars, PHB's , derivatives-traders, televangelists).

Weirdness: my CAPTCHA for this AC post is 'idlers'
       

Re:A sputnik moment??

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not correct.

Yahoo bought them for $5.7 billion.

I mean, that's only slightly more than Instagram. (And it was $10,000 per user. Only a few folds higher.)

Re:A sputnik moment??

[stonewolf]

"Sputnik moment" I do not think it means what they think it means. I turned 5 years old just a few days before Sputnik was launched. My father, who was in the invasion fleet on the way to Japan when the only nuclear bombs used in war were dropped, was working at the Hanford plant in southeast Washinton making plutonium for more nuclear bombs. For a family outing we went out and watched a simulated nuclear explosion.... That is what my life was like when Sputnik showed up in the sky.

Sputnik meant that suddenly every point in the US was subject to nuclear destruction with no warning. The level of fear was so high you could walk on it. For the rest of his life my father kept a survival kit in the trunks of his cars because he knew that the only hope you had for surviving a nuclear war was to be far enough away from where the bombs come down Burrowing under ground was just a way to bury yourself.

A "Sputnik moment" is a moment when every little bit of security you thought you had disapears. I suspect the people of Boston had a minor "Sputnik moment" when the bombs went off. The fear and anger I saw after 911 as not 1% of what the US experienced when sputnik appeared in the sky. The fear and anger were backed by huge frustration because unlike 911 we could not invade the USSR because we did not want to try to survive a nuclear war. Instead of spending time and money destroying them we spent the time and money making sure that if they tried to destroy us, we WOULD destroy them.

Stonewolf

summary is of course very misleading.

[raymorris]

For those who don't feel like clicking on the linked documents, they aren't talking about teacher salaries, what they earn teaching. The pay also isn't set by code.org.

When a Chicago teacher spends a couple of hours doing professional development (taking a class or seminar), Chicago pays their teachers $38/hour for the time they spend at the seminar or wwhatever professional development they choose to do. Boward pays their teachers $15/hour for professional development. Those rates are for time doing prof dev, NOT teaching students, and it doesn't have squat to do with code.org - the districts pay for prof dev is the same for any class the teacher wants to take. (Of course it needs to be approved as professional development, a skydiving class probably wouldn't be approved for payment.)

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[The New Guy 2.0]

This is essentially a report that says local cost of labor are off by more than 100% in those two areas for the same job. Seems like too many teachers in one place, not enough in another.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[aix tom]

Might also reflect the cost of living.

I earn a lot less than others in my field in the bigger cities, but then I also was able to buy a home for 1/3 of the monthly cost of renting one in the bigger cities. And that's in "somewhat small-ish Germany" even.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[Anonymous Coward]

What that number tells me (regardless of whether it's teaching or professional development) is that Broward County doesn't value it's teachers enough, period.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[The New Guy 2.0]

That's the domino effect... if pay is low, and costs are low, people are happy, but that's still an error to anybody who wants the economy to be leveled out.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[uncomformistsheep]

The pay for the teachers is voted by the local bureacrats. There are some market pressures of course, but also political ones. It may have more to do with politics than economics.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[wisnoskij]

Well considering that this is just a minor benefit in any teachers salary I would disagree. This is just an indication that the teachers union Chicago cared more about this minor benefit than the teachers union in Boward.

At the end of the year the Chicago teacher, who attended the exact same seminars as the Boward teacher just took home a hundred or two more.
And the Boward teacher might make thousands more as a base salary (we do not know), or maybe they have better health insurance.

Or maybe they do make 50% all round, but maybe the cost or living is equally lower.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[The New Guy 2.0]

Yes, but you can't force a teacher to sign a contract... there's a line between persuade and force. So, if the pay is too low, no teacher will sign.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you can't force a teacher to sign a contract... there's a line between persuade and force. So, if the pay is too low, no teacher will sign.

Logic would dictate so, wouldn't it? I would like to point out to you that you will find teachers at any price. It probably will be harder for lower prices, and there likely will be quality issues, but you will find them.

So I hope you take a minute to think through your approach to thinking about the way the world works. Hint: it is not simple, and empirical data is needed. Your error is typical in people of the libertarian persuation.

P.S: Google for "adjunct working poor".

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[nbauman]

Well considering that this is just a minor benefit in any teachers salary I would disagree. This is just an indication that the teachers union Chicago cared more about this minor benefit than the teachers union in Boward.

If you're a science teacher, professional development is not a "minor benefit". Do you want a teacher coming in to class and teaching your kids the same thing he learned in college 20 years ago? I know a lot of science teachers who put a lot of effort into keeping up with their field. They read journals, go to lectures, and attend conferences. It really makes a difference when you're teaching kids in the upper grades who are planning to go to college.

We've learned a lot in biology since they sequenced the human genome. It's challenging to keep up with it.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[wisnoskij]

Well regardless of how much time any teacher spends keeping up with their field, most of that is not going to translate into new curriculum.

Not too many ground breaking developments in grade 10 chemistry in that last few decades.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[Billly Gates]

Nope but new football stadiums take higher priority and of course job creators.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[Belial6]

in the upper grades

This is a key line that needs to be in any discussion on teachers salaries/qualifications. A 1st grade teacher simply does not need the same qualifications as an AP science teacher.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[nbauman]

Well regardless of how much time any teacher spends keeping up with their field, most of that is not going to translate into new curriculum.

Not too many ground breaking developments in grade 10 chemistry in that last few decades.

You're not a chemist. Right?

Human DNA was sequenced in 2003. Since that time, our understanding of the human genome has been turned upside down every year. Do you know what a histone is? Patients get DNA tests to find out which drugs their cancer will respond to and which drugs will just make them worse. Chemists are figuring out the shapes of proteins and designing drugs to fit. http://cen.acs.org/articles/92... Old theories of human evolution turned out to be right or wrong.

This is what chemists who are now in the 10th grade will be doing for the rest of their lives. And that's just biomedicine.

A science teacher has to understand all this new information -- too new for the textbooks -- and figure out what's important, what to teach, and how to teach it. First they need to understand it as a scientist would understand it, and then they have to figure out how to explain it to kids on their grade level. Not easy. That's a lot of hours, and it takes a good education. What you see in class is the tip of a very big pyramid.

I wouldn't want my kids to have a science teacher who didn't know what happened in chemistry in the last 10 years.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[wisnoskij]

And it must of been a very long time since you have had any schooling in high school or university.

The curriculum is tight, and specific. Not only is that new discovery not at all going to help you pass a chem exam, but there is no time to teach it.

Even in university chemistry/physics, they only teach the basics, the stuff that was all carved in stone centuries ago by long dead guys. And they do not even have half a day free time to get into current science news.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[uncomformistsheep]

It sounds like monopsony better explains the differential, but like I say, there are always some market pressures of course.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[nbauman]

A 1st grade teacher doesn't need the same qualifications but they do need qualifications in teaching science.

Science magazine has had lots of articles about the new ways to teach 1st graders about science.

For example, teachers gave out stones and seeds. They asked the kids what the difference was between the stones and seeds. Then they planted them and waited for the seeds to sprout while the stones did nothing.

The point was that 1st graders don't distinguish clearly between animate and inanimate objects. This is a surprisingly important concept. This lesson taught them the difference between animate and inanimate objects.

Science teaching looks easy but it's actually quite difficult to do well.

A lot of this these comments sound like the joke about the efficiency engineer who went to a performance of a symphony orchestra. http://www.mpoweruk.com/harmon...

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[nbauman]

And it must of been a very long time since you have had any schooling in high school or university.

The curriculum is tight, and specific. Not only is that new discovery not at all going to help you pass a chem exam, but there is no time to teach it.

Even in university chemistry/physics, they only teach the basics, the stuff that was all carved in stone centuries ago by long dead guys. And they do not even have half a day free time to get into current science news.

It depends on the school (and the teacher). If your goal is to pass the test, you have a problem.

If the students will go on to science and medicine, they already know enough to pass the exam. It's the current stuff that helps them understand what they will need to know in life.

For example, in New York City, Rockefeller University has a Christmas break lecture series in which Nobel laureates give high school students briefings on the current research in their field.

You talk about how easy it is to be a high school science teacher? The best high school science teacher is a Nobel laureate.

I admit that if you have schools whose goal is to get students to pass standardized tests, rather than to understand science, then you don't need a science teacher who is current in the field, or even a science teacher. All you need is a proctor who can teach students to memorize textbooks and short answers, from workbooks published by Pearson or McGraw-Hill, based on 10-year-old material.

Of course, if you do that, you'll have another Sputnik moment, when the U.S. is overtaken by the Europeans and Asians, who (in their best schools) do have a good science education. We've had a few Sputnik moments already. Look at the Nobel prize winners.

Take a look at the table of contents of Science magazine and count the Chinese names. Even the ads for reagents have pictures of Chinese girls.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[i.r.id10t]

It isn't often just classes on the field the teacher works in, it is often classes on pedagogy, using new technology to enhance their teaching, learning new software like a course management system, etc.

And yes, teachers should be paid while they are attending these courses, as well as for any course they are required to maintain whatever professional licensing they have.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[Belial6]

No, it is not difficult to do well.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be nice. In Tennessee, you get $0 for every hour of professional development done outside the regular school day (and beyond the 12hrs required).

Re: summary is of course very misleading.

[O('_')O_Bush]

Teacher's unions actually determine pay in most states/counties, including Broward. The county governments mostly just negotiate and approve.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[winwar]

And do you understand the difference between chemistry and biology?

DNA, the human genome, evolution, etc. are taught in Biology.

Chemistry, not so much.

If you don't want your kid's science teacher to lack knowledge then I would suggest reducing their work load in other areas. Implementing cutting edge discoveries into the curriculum isn't exactly a priority to administrators or a requirement of the standards.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[winwar]

"I admit that if you have schools whose goal is to get students to pass standardized tests, rather than to understand science, then you don't need a science teacher who is current in the field, or even a science teacher. All you need is a proctor who can teach students to memorize textbooks and short answers, from workbooks published by Pearson or McGraw-Hill, based on 10-year-old material."

I suggest you try that. Get back to us when it fails miserably. And 10 year old curriculum is common. You don't need current curriculum to understand science. Facts change.

"The best high school science teacher is a Nobel laureate"

What data do you have to back that up? And since we are using anecdotes, my worst science teacher told me tales of working with really good scientists. Also, I don't think Linus Pauling would have been a great science teacher...

"Of course, if you do that, you'll have another Sputnik moment, when the U.S. is overtaken by the Europeans and Asians, who (in their best schools) do have a good science education."

First, we actually want to teach ALL of our students. Second, we already produce more scientists than we employ. There is no STEM crisis (unless you mean unemployment crisis in their field of training). Third, any Sputnik moment will be caused by those opposed to science running the government (centered largely around the Republican party at the moment, but not limited to it).

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[nbauman]

And do you understand the difference between chemistry and biology?

DNA, the human genome, evolution, etc. are taught in Biology.

Chemistry, not so much.

If you don't want your kid's science teacher to lack knowledge then I would suggest reducing their work load in other areas. Implementing cutting edge discoveries into the curriculum isn't exactly a priority to administrators or a requirement of the standards.

You just don't know much about chemistry.

When I go to the American Chemical Society meetings, one of the largest sections is the Division of Biological Chemistry.

http://abstracts.acs.org/chem/...

What do you think chemists do all day? Add hydrochloric acid to zinc?

(Actually, if you wanted to find out what chemists do all day, you can read an issue of Chemical & Engineering News.)

There are high schools in places like Cold Spring Harbor, where the parents and the school board include many scientists, who understand science. They hire the best science teachers they can get, and they create a curriculum that will teach their kids what science is actually about.

They don't care about state and national tests because they know short-answer questions are bullshit. They want their kids to understand science, to become scientists or whatever else they want.

As I said, the Rockefeller University has a yearly seminar for high school students where they give presentations by Nobel laureates on the current developments of the field. That's what you teach high school students who are actually going to become scientists.

I suspect you're trolling me. Or else you know nothing about science. Or both.

Re:summary is of course very misleading.

[nbauman]

Incidentally about half of the recent Nobel prizes in chemistry
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobe...
are for cellular biology.

Your advice is very good for teaching students how to go through life filling out tests.

It's not very good for teaching students how to accomplish something useful in science.

CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[The New Guy 2.0]

There's a lot of media these days telling kids what to do... even if the parents don't want them to. If you don't think so, you're not watching the right feed of Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, or any other kids network. We could have a very smart generation in their teenage years right now.

So, everybody, look out for smart programmers ahead willing to change things and then uploading their programs to smart system admins who make sure it gets onto the Internet. There's a new generation ready to challenge us, and hey, if you're part of that, welcome to Slashdot!

Please, everybody who's teaching programming skills, mention that Slashdot is a point where controversial ideas need to be discussed... projects can gain power for good things, or be told what's wrong here. I haven't seen an Ask Slashdot on the homepage in a while, do we still do that here?

Re: CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Knowing how to navigate an interface someone built specifically to make things easy" translates to "smart" in your book? Why are kids smart to you? Because they can use things available to them that *you* know are complicated under the surface? Horse shit. Show me a kid who knows how to add in hardware. If they can't understand how things work, they can't make things better.

People need to move past this "Johnny can find web games in his own, he's so smart!" mentality.

Re: CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[The New Guy 2.0]

Computer science is almost a "solved" technology... how's the current compliance with Moore's Law?

And for the kids who may be reading this... Moore's Law is the statement that computer power doubles quickly... we were moving up exponentially in the 80s, 90s, and still are even now in about all of the number specs in computers like processors, disks, and RAM.

Re: CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[Concerned Onlooker]

"Show me a kid who knows how to add in hardware."

Adding in hardware IS easy. This is how I do it:

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/...

Re: CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah but everyone should learn about the seperation of hardware os and how things work even if they don't understand how the low level computational things happen in memory or the cpu, but they should have the opportunity to learn more and get exposed in a cs class

I know I learned a lot from being in and around the industry and I got exposed to a lot of it in school which did help me later on even though it was just typing class

no one needs to be a hacker, but people aught to have a general education of the internet and network infrastructures and topologies etc...

a class like this could even cover a broad general range of issues regarding the modern tech industry and intenternet helping highschoolers determine if it's something they want to become involved in or not... some people have a natural talent or desire for the industry and it's better to expose people younger

IMO though we aught to be doing more than just general IT education in grade schools anyway, almost every industry/area of work/education/life is underrepresented including home economics

Re: CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Moore's Law is the statement that computer power doubles quickly...

No it isn't.

Moore's law is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years.

Re: CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[mysidia]

THIS is how you really do addition in hardware.

Re: CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Horse shit! Because of Mobile devices we have moved a lot from scaling up processor power in favor of power consumption, we have not reached a maximum. That and we have gone from a bunch of scientists using computers to solve problems to a billion people watching porn or doing other less productive activities (epeen waving on social media).

Computer science is not solved, computers can't build themselves or manage themselves. People have to code applications and design circuits at a minimum. And no, someone being able to find the latest meme on twitter is not doing either.

Re:CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong, kids are less smart today. 20 years ago you had to know html to put up a website, now you just sign up with blogger and google does the rest. this is possibly the most stupid generation yet.

Re: CAUTION: New Talent Ahead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Moore's law is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years.

"Number of components for minimum cost." People always forget that part.

Eternally true

[paiute]

You get what you pay for.

Money talks and bullshit walks.

Re:Eternally true

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! And the more we pay teachers the worse they get! They should get 15/hour for the one day they work a year! Lol. Outlaw unions and pay teachers HALF and watch kids soar!!!!

Re:Eternally true

[sumdumass]

Ha.. i can just imagine the motivational speech at the begining of the year.

"Pay attention and do well in class or else you could end up like us teachers".

The problem with not paying enough is you will not attract tallent. Paying too much will attract lousy teachers who just want the pay so the opposite might not be ann answer either. But when your teachers compete with fast food workers on salary, you will end up with whopper floppers asking if you want fries with your math home work.

Re:Eternally true

[paiute]

Paying too much will attract lousy teachers who just want the pay

Is this why CEO salaries are at record highs?

Re:Eternally true

[sumdumass]

What does CEO salaries have to do with teacher pay?

CEO salaries are tied to performance bonuses and stock options. Their base pay is typically a fraction of what their yearly salary ends up being if their company is profitable. You cannot really pay teachers that way because schools do not issue stocks or make a profit. But a lousy CEO typically doesn't make near the salary that would be considered record high.

Re:Eternally true

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you never heard of the term golden parachute? Business history is fraught with mediocre or poor CEO's who crash the company into the ground and still make out with a grand payday. The idea that only top CEO's are paid huge books is business insider bullshit.

Re:Eternally true

[mysidia]

Paying too much will attract lousy teachers who just want the pay so the opposite might not be ann answer either.

So what if you attract them? It's your HR team's job to only hire on qualified individuals who are passionate about teaching.

"Will attract the wrong people" is a lazy excuse.

It will also attract the right people!

In fact... it will just attract people.

Re:Eternally true

[Proudrooster]

How about only take the top 10% of people who enter the college of education and pay them like similarly degreed professionals. This will get performance. The teaching field needs to attract talent not push it away, otherwise we could use a similar argument for CEO pay or whatever it is you do.

Our country seems to be at war with teachers and primary care physicians. Teachers are burning out an leaving in droves and primary care docs are committing suicide at the rate of 1 per day in the USA. Soon we will have a shortage of both. I am not convinced these folks are our enemies.

Re:Eternally true

[Billly Gates]

Pasionate about teaching? How about passionate to pay your bills and own a home?

If someone with that kind of background can get a better job to better him or herself then why bother putting up with the hell students and parents and tax payers put them through? YOu can be passionate about cooking too. Does that mean you want to work as a fry cook? Hell no. People ahve kids and responsibilities.

There are more positions opened than those who are great at it because the pay isn't enough.

I can say software engineer 35k a year! MUST BE PASSIONATE. What kind of applicants will I get? Students in college who wrote a game once for fun is about it right? They will go elsewhere where 50k min+.

That is supply and demand.

Re:Eternally true

[frank_adrian314159]

CEO salaries are tied to performance bonuses and stock options.

... said bonus targets often being ignored and options repriced so that the CEO cannot lose, as the board does not want to lose its so called "talent". Happy to finish that for you, by the way, as market apologists like you often leave out that last part.

Re:Eternally true

[sumdumass]

said bonus targets often being ignored and options repriced so that the CEO cannot lose,

You have a cite for this? Because there is a legal term for what you just described- embezzlement and it is usually illegal. Not only that, if the company's board of directors authorized it, they open themselves to share holders and could face a lawsuit over a complete misuse of their fiduciary obligations.

Executive bonuses are generally a fraction of a percent of profit. Sometimes they go a fraction higher if profit increases by a certain amount. This is what drives CEO salaries through the roof when the company is making money.

As for stock options, they are rigged from the start. All you have to do is make the stock values go up and it is instant profit when you take the options. Often the options are priced at a historical date when they were lower than current anyways.

I have no idea what you think you finished but it wasn't anything I said. And yes, I typically leave out parts that are lies, misconstrued facts or products of ignorance.

Re:Eternally true

[sumdumass]

What does this have to do with teacher pay? Oh, and in the US, the shareholders have to vote to allow any golden parachute options so it is the owners of the company authorizing it.

A CEO cannot crash a company to the ground. There has to be some element he cannot control or controlled wrongly which is to say the bottoming of the company cannot be at his direction. If he did, it would be a violation of his fiduciary duty and could make him completely liable for the losses as well as possible criminal charges with pound you in the ass prison attached.

All pretty funny..

[Anonymous Coward]

This discussion is pretty funny, when the banner ad I got when first viewing it was about getting PHP coders for $11/hour.
What student (in the US) wants to aim for that?

Re: All pretty funny..

[Anonymous Coward]

Overpriced for a php programmer. That's like paying for a hooker who has an active herpes outbreak.

Broward pays $30/hr for bachelor's degree

[raymorris]

Broward county teachers who have a bachelor's degree average $41,000 salary for the nine-month school year. Summer school and professional development like code.org are options to make extra money.

Re:Broward pays $30/hr for bachelor's degree

[damn_registrars]

Broward county teachers who have a bachelor's degree average $41,000 salary for the nine-month school year.

Are you sure they are able to teach with only a BS? I don't know about your area but where I live new teachers can only teach with a master's degree in education. Oddly enough we are even rejecting people who have a PhD in the field they would like to teach, and telling them only a master's in education will do.

Re: Broward pays $30/hr for bachelor's degree

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there somewhere besides New York with this terrible policy?

Re:Broward pays $30/hr for bachelor's degree

[Billly Gates]

Still there is not a lot of money. Especially for someone with a CS degree can walk from the teacher job and land a 55k a year job the following week.

Teacher pay needs to be adjusted. Science and math teachers should be paid as much as they would with other professions with those said degrees. Of course the tax payers including hte TEA Party would scream SOCIALISM at such an outrageous waste of tax payer money but it says a lot. Why do it when you have the student loan company and landlord hassling you for cash each month while you struggle to make it through.

Broward county is very expensive so yes when you pay $1600 a month for a 1 room apartment that $41,000 does not go far. Especially if you owe student loans in the tens of thousands like all recent grads do today.

Re:Broward pays $30/hr for bachelor's degree

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a pretty right leaning conservative ... at least half of government spending is a complete waste.

BUT Teachers need to be paid at least near to what they could make outside of education. Then maybe we could get good teachers rather than the dregs.

I WANT to teach but I cant justify getting 40K a year (on the higher end) to teach when I can get 60K+ easily.

And before anyone starts talking about the time that teachers get off, most teachers work a week or 2 after the school year ends and start back 3 weeks or more before the school year begins. Where I live the summers are only 10-11 weeks long so teachers really only get about 5-6 weeks off MAX. This is not really enough for them to get the "summer job" that many people think that teachers get to make up the difference.

Re: Broward pays $30/hr for bachelor's degree

[O('_')O_Bush]

Well, almost. Broward County's pay schedule ranges from $26.50/hour for new hires to $48/hour for the highest teaching experience, plus good benefits and a pension, but you are right that it is way more than what the title/summary suggest.

plus $300 if a newer teacher does 6 hours

[raymorris]

Ps, teachers in their first three years also get an additional $300 bonus if they complete professional development (including code.org) equivalent to six credit hours.

Re: plus $300 if a newer teacher does 6 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I sign up for this? Ã--

It's not the lack of teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

Today's kids don't like CS. Some may find programming interesting like keyboard lessons, but I doubt that will make them pursue a degree in CS.

Some will jump at that and do well

[damn_registrars]

After all, $15 / hour is better pay than grad school, or an academic postdoc position. There are certainly some people who recently finished their CSci degrees who aren't interested in jobs in industry and would jump at the opportunity to make that wage.

Now, is it what we should pay teachers? No, teachers should earn more than that. But a starting teaching position for someone with only a BS would be reasonable at that wage.

Re:Some will jump at that and do well

[Trepidity]

Grad students make less, true, but postdocs typically get a bit more than that, closer to $20-25/hr. Not exactly stellar pay considering how many years you have to put in to qualify for a $20/hr job, but it's still better than what you'd get as a K-12 teacher.

Re:Some will jump at that and do well

[Anonymous Coward]

And instead of a house, you can live in a tent. Instead of a car, you can either walk or ride a bike. Instead of clothes, you can weave cloth from available grass. Instead of going into a restaurant, you can dig through the bin in the back and eat much more inexpensively, reflecting the $15/hour wage you mention. Most of the $15 can be used to pay off that student loan, and maybe $10-20 per month can actually be used to reduce the principal (the rest of course, going to interest).

Re:Some will jump at that and do well

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, $15 / hour is better pay than grad school, or an academic postdoc position. There are certainly some people who recently finished their CSci degrees who aren't interested in jobs in industry and would jump at the opportunity to make that wage.

I'm a fresh CS PhD who moonlights as an adjunct a local private college, though that's more of a hobby than a job. The pay is negligible for me: a whole semester of teaching one course nets me less than a full-time week at my consulting rate. No one who's qualified to teach computer science will do it for just the $15 an hour. I'm doing it for the experience, mainly because I find it personally rewarding but also because it's good for my CV.

$15/hr is great money

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do the math that works out to over $30k a year. Not shabby at all, especially for a teacher.

Re:$15/hr is great money

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when I was working security 4 years ago, I was netting nearly $26k a year and there's no requirement of college education and I would have been making $27k by now with the COLAs that were in the contract. And that's without overtime.

$30k for teaching is shit money, you wind up on paper working 8 hours a day, but to actually finish all the work that you're expected to finish, it's going to involve working for free. What's more, you are typically required to have 5 years of post secondary education on top of the regular classes you need to maintain the certification. So, from a pay perspective, you're better off working security as you make barely less than you would as a teacher, but you don't require the degrees. In the long run, you wind up making more money. BTW, those figures were for entry level work, if I had sought a promotion, I would have been making a lot more.

Re:$15/hr is great money

[mysidia]

If you do the math that works out to over $30k a year. Not shabby at all, especially for a teacher.

We are talking about Broward County, FL. A place with a population exceeding 1 million, and an above average cost of living; fair market rents exceeding $13000 a year, for a 1-Bedroom apartment.

At $30k a year.. you can just about cover taxes, shelter, food and water, for one adult and some basic necessities.

I wish I made $15/hr

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a bachelors degree and I've been teaching for 3 years now. $15 an hour would be a significant raise for me.

(OT) Professional Development, Chicago-Style

[theodp]

Here is what Education Hell looks like

Coding is not computer science

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, too many people - even many in the profession - equate coding with computer science. And I am certain that someone who works for $15/hour will not know the difference.

Re:Coding is not computer science

[wisnoskij]

Well at high school, computer science/coding/typing are all pretty synonymous.

Instead of whining....

[westlake]

... why not look at what Code.org has to offer?

This is not a sampling, and it is free to all.

K-8 Intro To Computer Science Course (15-25 hours)

Re:Instead of whining....

[Anonymous Coward]

... why not look at what Code.org has to offer?

This is not a sampling, and it is free to all.

K-8 Intro To Computer Science Course (15-25 hours)

Sorry that is NOT programming. By the logic of code.org I was programming a computer while playing PacMan way back in 1982 on my Commodore VIC-20. I was programing back then but not while playing PacMan. Computer programming and the people writing the programmes used to be respected and well-paid. Today it is a race to the bottom.

Re:Instead of whining....

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer programming and the people writing the programmes used to be respected and well-paid. Today it is a race to the bottom.

Too many people can do it badly, driving value, both in salary and product quality, to the ground.

Re:Instead of whining....

[Anonymous Coward]

... why not look at what Code.org has to offer?

This is not a sampling, and it is free to all.

K-8 Intro To Computer Science Course (15-25 hours)

Lesson1:
- "Understand that a computer is a tool and not an excuse to turn off your brain"
- "But when you can do something that most other people cannot, it isn’t very responsible to take advantage of others because of it. It is far better to get in the habit of 'paying it forward'”
- ""[L]earn to look at individual pieces, instead of just the big picture. Chopping a task up into manageable pieces is a great way to make progress through a series of little successes"

I'm thinking this needs to be taught to the CxO suite, not K-8. Joking aside, I'm impressed by Lesson1. I could actually envision a third grader playing with the binary decoder exercise with a friend and finding it interesting. Well, at least for 5 minutes, but it's a start.

Re:Instead of whining....

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was a worker drone program, in order for monopolies like Facef**k, A**hole, Microsh*t ect.. to keep their billions and their monopolies. I know that's pretty obvious to most that use both sides of their brain.

To sit there and make the statements the backers are is just idiocy. Lets face it they bought of who they wanted to force this down people throats, and then are using public speaking forums like Congress to sit there and jam their propaganda down Joe/Jane public. They want to force schools to have CS as a standard subject that COULD [that remains to be sen] impact students abilities to pass thru to the next grade. There should be optional subjects that students can choose from.

A few schools around my state give teens the option to participate in vocational schools to learn whatever the wish, it isn't a requirement but they try to encourage students to think about their futures, and encourage them to pursue something their interested in. Machining, Fabrication, Arts, ect.. even CS. They do earn points or credit in school if the participate in vocational schools.

15 an hour???

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can teach coding, you can get a job making more than 15 an hour. You're only going to get awful teachers at that salary.

Broward and Miami-Dade are corrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in South Florida. Broward County is north of Miami-Dade County. Like any urban city, the politicians and school boards are full of corruption and conflicts of interest.

http://miamiherald.typepad.com...
http://stateimpact.npr.org/flo...

Seemingly everyone from the janitors to the superintendents are in on the take. They have hired felons in all levels. Some of them interact with kids:
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach....

So yeah, the fact that there's no money for teaching after the all prostitutes and the payoffs and the other criminal activity is no surprise.

I work in the school system, btw.

Don't take my word, just Google it.

where?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can a tenured teacher make $15/Hour??

Here comes a thundering herd of script kiddies

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Teach programming to teenagers around America and we'll have an enormous surge in malicious code.

This will give IT Security people nightmares for the rest of their lives. It's all part of the new American Dream.

Does anyone else think this is a bad idea?

Re:Here comes a thundering herd of script kiddies

[wisnoskij]

Well any decent IT Security does not have to worry about script kiddies.
In fact, if you are right, their work will be more sought after.

Re:Here comes a thundering herd of script kiddies

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on if they are doing such work for the good guys or if its because it maekes me l00k teh kewl.

In an ideal world, a decent IT Security setup would leave no worries. In practice, I've never seen such a setup. Even the US DOD has been hacked a number of times, Linux has been hacked a number of times before, Apple isn't immune... There are no truly secure systems. Hell, OpenBSD has had a couple vulnerabilities.

I've seen it myself. I was once an intern for Environment Canada for a few months. I had to clean and reinstall a number of machines on a regular basis. We had a decent firewall, decent antivirus (actually, more than one antivirus solution), and a good IT Security team, but no matter what the setup or the user, machines were still compromised one way or another. Trust me, there's always a way in.

To be fair, I shouldn't say that EVERYONE will be bad programmers (that statement would be patently false). Many good programmers started early and weren't fools. I started when I was 12 and I have never written malicious code. But I know there will be kids who will think that teh haxx0ring iz kewl and they will do the Wrong Thing. I think that maybe Computer Science should only be taught in Universities (maybe to an older audience?), preferably with a single required class in proper Hacker Ethics.

Re:Here comes a thundering herd of script kiddies

[Your.Master]

And if you teach chemistry, they'll learn to build bombs.

Teach physics, and they'll learn sabotage.

Teach economics, and they'll learn exploitation.

Teach music, and they'll keep the neighbours awake practicing.

Teach phys-ed, and they'll mug people.

Teach sex ed, and they'll all get pregnant / society collapses / the gays?

Teach art, and there's a rise in forgeries.

Teach math, and cryptography will no longer be secure.

Teach persuasive writing/speaking, and then there will be a surge in suicide-cult leaders.

there's an old parable...

[Anonymous Coward]

teach a teacher to code, and you just lost a teacher.

nah, how many jobs pay you to take online class?

[raymorris]

If teacher salaries were much different, that would be one thing, but that's not the case. How many employers pay ANYTHING for time employees spend taking classes? Chicago treats pays PD time at about the same rate those employees are paid for doing their job. Broward pays just as much for the teachers' normal job. They just figure PD, someone taking a class they choose to take which may benefit the employer, is paid as if it were half work-time and half personal. I figure that's about right. I'd be taking the same classes whether I had the job I have or a different job.

yes, their pay scale does pay MA/MS more, or exper

[raymorris]

Yes, their pay schedule has three columns:
BA/BS
Masters (related to field)
Masters (unrelated)

$41,000 is in the middle of their scale for a BA/BS.

I too am curious where you live because a masters in education is generally preferred for a school principal. In most states in the US, teachers need either an education related bachelor's, an unrelated bachelor's plus a six-month teaching certification program, or (rarely) another certification with no degree.

Re:yes, their pay scale does pay MA/MS more, or ex

[damn_registrars]

I can tell you that I have lived in two different states - roughly 1,000 miles apart - that have had policies similar to this. Basically neither state will grant a teaching license to anyone who does not have a master's in education. It appears that they were both trying to ensure that they were bringing in better qualified teachers, but they didn't consider that some people might be drawn to secondary teaching after finishing a PhD in their original field. Being as when I was a high school student, both states (to the best of my knowledge) were taking teachers with only bachelor's degrees, they did up the requirements.

When I contacted one of the two states, they told me that basically the education department is too understaffed to evaluate applications that don't come in from people who either have an M. Ed, or are in a licensure program that is designed to lead towards one.

A litmus test...

[matbury]

Is designing Angry-Birds derivative games a "Sputnik moment" for education? A simple litmus test for the educational validity: Would it sound as cool and be as well received if it were in another mode/medium, e.g. designing board games? The educational outcomes for getting children to design board games are arguably more desirable, cheaper, and more practical than getting children to do the same with code. (I've done it and read the background research on learning projects including designing board games, and I can't see how doing it virtually, i.e. with software algorithms, would be as educationally productive unless they created and developed the games first in the real world and then created and developed them into software versions later, thereby avoiding cognitive overload).

BTW, I'm all for children learning to write code but in pedagogically sound and productive ways, and at appropriate times in children's stages/levels of cognitive development.

the teachers make more than the $55k

[raymorris]

> Still there is not a lot of money. Especially for someone with a CS degree can walk from the teacher job and land a 55k a year job the following week.

They could, but that would be a pay cut, probably.
$41k base for 9 months
$10k for summer school
  $4k retirement matching
  $4k additional insurance benefit

$59k comparative

The insurance part represents the fact that private employers pay for about 50% of insurance premiums, while school districts typically pay 80%-100%. The value of that depends - a teacher with a large family benefits more than one who is single.

Re:the teachers make more than the $55k

[Anonymous Coward]

yea but you are throwing apples in with the oranges therefore you are not giving a fair comparison.

Re:the teachers make more than the $55k

[Anonymous Coward]

Teachers pay for most of the classroom materials out of pocket, then you have the state and national union dues, and the certificate renewal cost and testing, the various workshops you have to pay for, the insurance, chances that little betty or johnny doesn't like what you're teaching and makes up a story about you molesting them (some states will suspend your license before you can even finish reading the subpoena), learning the horror of the No Child Left Behind and all the shit that entails with your administrative staff at the school level, district, and state; and the fact that your job doesn't go from 8-3:30, but closer to 6-9 M-Sat.; all those days those kids get off you're usually working, having to settle fights between the hormonally imbalanced, having the option of getting paid over 12 months or 9 (either make that money stretch or get very little), having parents call you relentlessly, being assaulted in all manner if you're a bad teacher, settling a classroom down so you can actually get to teaching them something, putting up with a bunch of kids who don't care about being intelligent and would rather be disruptive for the handful who do, having to flex your psych and soc classes because kids are getting beaten up by other kids or at home.

Still, if you love teaching it's worth it. But the one thing it isn't is profitable.

PhD isn't a teaching qualification

[Anonymous Coward]

I know plenty of PhDs who completely suck at explaining things to normal people. Having teachers with PhDs is a good thing, but they need to be able to actually teach as well. Whether or not you need them to have their skills certified by someone is a different question, but you need them to have teaching skills.

name the states, please

[raymorris]

You've been asked twice already to say where this policy supposedly exists. What states are you talking about? I don't want to call BS on your post if some stupid state where liberals don't think about the consequences of their policies actually did something so dumb.

Re:name the states, please

[damn_registrars]

You've been asked twice already to say where this policy supposedly exists. What states are you talking about?

I'm sorry, but there are people on slashdot who are desperate to figure out who I am. If I give away what state I currently live in, and the other state I have seen this policy in, that would make it that much easier for them to figure it out. I will only say that the 1,000 mile distance is mostly in an east-west direction, with very little north-south movement.

I don't want to call BS on your post if some stupid state where liberals don't think about the consequences of their policies actually did something so dumb.

As I mentioned in another post, at least one of the states has actually faced reductions in state funding for education, which has resulted in fewer people staffing the dept of education to evaluate teachers for licensing. That doesn't sound like a particularly liberal ideal to me, being as liberals are associated with throwing money at problems with wild abandon. Regardless neither state, to the best of my knowledge, is facing any great surplus of qualified teachers where it would make sense for them to turn down people who are demonstrated to be knowledgeable in relevant subjects and interested in teaching.

Re:name the states, please

[Phronesis]

You've been asked twice already to say where this policy supposedly exists. What states are you talking about? I don't want to call BS on your post if some stupid state where liberals don't think about the consequences of their policies actually did something so dumb.

Since the commenter won't answer your question, here goes: Google points me to the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2013 State Teacher Quality Yearbook, which says that: "Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, New York and Oregon all require a master’s degree or coursework equivalent to a master’s degree" (p. 87).

Re:name the states, please

[Phronesis]

Ooops. I misread the GP post, so my answer did not address the real question of whether they would reject a Ph.D. as being equivalent. Sorry about posting an irrelevant answer.

One thing I will say is that getting a Ph.D. prepares a person for research, but most Ph.D. programs don't include anything about how to teach the material to high school students, so it's reasonable that a state would want to know not only do you know the technical material, but also do you know how to teach it, maintain classroom discipline, work with students who have learning disabilities, etc.

It's nice to be drawn to secondary teaching after getting a Ph.D., but there is an important step in actually getting training in how to teach before that Ph.D. will be useful to most high schools.

Re:name the states, please

[nbauman]

As I mentioned in another post, at least one of the states has actually faced reductions in state funding for education, which has resulted in fewer people staffing the dept of education to evaluate teachers for licensing. That doesn't sound like a particularly liberal ideal to me, being as liberals are associated with throwing money at problems with wild abandon.

When I think of government throwing money at problems with wild abandon, the first image that comes to mind is the Bush Administration sending $12 billion to Iraq in pallets of shrink-wrapped $100 bills and handing them out to contractors and others that nobody can identify. http://www.theguardian.com/wor... I've heard GWB called a lot of things but not a liberal. Maybe wars don't count, but I can think of a lot of other dubious programs that conservatives have thrown money at with wild abandon, like chastity-based sex education, Homeland Security, the war on drugs, the prison system and charter schools.

I don't consider myself exactly a liberal, but I will defend them (or anybody else) when they're unfairly attacked. I'll also criticize them when they do something stupid.

The sign that somebody is thinking critically is that he criticizes his own side.

Re:name the states, please

[Anonymous Coward]

So Mr. Hide-N-Seek moved from Billings to Baker City. Gotcha.

Re:name the states, please

[Anonymous Coward]

P. 87 states that this is the requirement to attain tenure, not to teach. I am calling BS on damn_registrars post. If states required a master's degree to enter teaching at a public school, you wouldn't have public schools. The starting pay wouldn't be enough to cover student loans.

Re:name the states, please

[Smerta]

I'm sorry, but there are people on slashdot who are desperate to figure out who I am. If I give away what state I currently live in, and the other state I have seen this policy in, that would make it that much easier for them to figure it out.

I don't know if you're serious about this or just joking, but FYI, it's pretty hard to hide on the internet: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

Re:name the states, please

[Phronesis]

I'm not going to defend damn_registrars because that post said a lot more (the masters had to be in education and a Ph.D. didn't count as "equivalent coursework), so what damn_registrars said might well be BS. But if you look at the text on p. 85 and figure 79 on p. 87, it looks to me as though the masters is required not for tenure, but to get a mandatory teaching license. Did I misunderstand that?

Re:name the states, please

[Phronesis]

I'm sorry, but there are people on slashdot who are desperate to figure out who I am. If I give away what state I currently live in, and the other state I have seen this policy in, that would make it that much easier for them to figure it out. I will only say that the 1,000 mile distance is mostly in an east-west direction, with very little north-south movement.

If you are afraid to give evidence to back up your assertions, then why are you making those assertions in the first place?

If you were serious about contributing to this discussion, you could have said that there were two states that had this policy and linked to evidence of that policy, without ever saying that you lived there. But instead, you were more interested in making it a personal thing about "I experienced that and I am so important that if I told you what state I live in I would have to shoot you."

Get over yourself. You are not so important that someone is going to track you down and hurt you on the basis of a /. comment that reveals indirectly what state you live in.

Re:name the states, please

[damn_registrars]

If you are afraid to give evidence to back up your assertions, then why are you making those assertions in the first place?

Why am I uniquely required to back up my assertions to such detail? People make assertions on slashdot with great frequency that do not require them to share data that relates to their personal lives, and are not required to share why they made them.

If you were serious about contributing to this discussion, you could have said that there were two states that had this policy and linked to evidence of that policy, without ever saying that you lived there.

Well, I happened to say that I lived in two states with such policies. Perhaps you didn't know this before, but you don't get to take back or edit comments on slashdot. We can debate whether I presented it in the best way, but the past is what it is.

But instead, you were more interested in making it a personal thing about "I experienced that and I am so important that if I told you what state I live in I would have to shoot you."

I made no statement of that sort. I only said that I don't want to share personal information here. I keep slashdot separate from my private life and I intend to keep it that way.

Furthermore my comments did not in any way prevent people from using google or any other search engine to see what policies states use for granting license to teachers.

Get over yourself. You are not so important that someone is going to track you down and hurt you on the basis of a /. comment that reveals indirectly what state you live in.

I'm sorry that you found it so gravely difficult to read my comments. I specifically said that people have been following me on slashdot. That directly states that these are people who have been reading my comments prior to that one.

Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[Immerman]

It sounds like a perfectly reasonable requirement to me. Having a Ph.D. doesn't qualify you to be a plumber or auto mechanic, so what makes you think it qualifies you to be a teacher?

Things are somewhat different at the university level because you're assuming that the students are basically adults that have already learned how to educate themselves, and the instructor is there simply as a guide. Plus there are grad students and a tutors around specifically to help them when your guidance is so piss-poor that they can't follow it. There's no shortage of absolutely brilliant researchers doing an utterly incompetent job of teaching at the university level. And that's okay - they can offer their students other things: windows into what makes the field vibrant. The prestige of having taken a class with X, etc.

When you're talking about educating children though it's a completely different ball of wax. Children aren't just miniature adults, they're inherently different creatures, important aspects of their brain have still only begun to develop, and you can't expect them to educate themselves with minimal guidance as you would an adult.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[mysidia]

It sounds like a perfectly reasonable requirement to me. Having a Ph.D. doesn't qualify you to be a plumber or auto mechanic, so what makes you think it qualifies you to be a teacher?

It's more like you're an Electrical engineering graduate, and a potential employer need some diagrams to be made of potential electrical circuits, BUT they (rejecting your qualifications), insist that only someone with an art/sketching degree is qualified to to put together electric circuit diagrams for their projects.

Because you have deep knowledge of science or engineering or mathematics or the subject matter, and teaching is a basic skill: just like speaking in public is a basic skill, and an expert in the subject is the most able to provide in depth guidance and genuine learning about the subject.

The education major who has rudimentary knowledge of math themselves --- trying to teach high school Calculus, perhaps, will not be able to answer student questions or encourage/facilitate/promote any learning that goes outside the teacher's very narrow box, of the teacher's own study of the subject matter.

If someone is going to teach Biology, I would take the guy who has a P.H.D. in biology, and the proper enthusiasm and skills, over the guy who doesn't have a clue about the subject, but just took courses to learn how to teach.

You don't need a 4 year degree in Public Speaking, to be allowed to speak at a conference.

You don't need a 4 year degree in Education, to know how to teach, and you will probably do a better job, since you actually know extremely well, the field that the subject matter you will be teaching is in.

I prefer QUALIFIED experts in the field they will teach about, FILTERED to include only people who are subjectively good at teaching.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[nbauman]

When you're talking about educating children though it's a completely different ball of wax. Children aren't just miniature adults, they're inherently different creatures, important aspects of their brain have still only begun to develop, and you can't expect them to educate themselves with minimal guidance as you would an adult.

Case in point. I looked up some research-based standards for science education. Children of different ages can only understand certain concepts at certain ages. If you try to teach them something that they're not yet capable of understanding, you'll fail, they'll fail, and at worst you'll convince them they're not good at science.

For example, it's difficult for kids even in middle school to understand molecules and atoms. It's too abstract. It makes sense when you think of it. Science is based on observation. How can you observe a molecule? Yet I've seen people try to teach even 6-year-olds about DNA. When I asked the kids what DNA was, it was clear they didn't understand it. They were learning by rote. You could just as easily teach them that dinosaurs were on Noah's ark.

If you start teaching kids science at a level they can't understand, you'll fail. Maybe you can pick up a pointer like this on the job, but you can't just walk into a classroom with a PhD and start teaching biology. There is a value to learning education.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[cheesybagel]

Good luck getting a PhD without giving classes to students.

Plus secondary school students are not little children.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[Belial6]

Except that you are completely wrong, and your myth is perpetuated by an echo chamber of 'professional' educators. They are the same ones that say 2 and 3 year olds can't read.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[sjames]

We understood molecules and atoms in elementary school. Perhaps it's because our teachers weren't 'taught' that we couldn't understand atoms and molecules in elementary school.

The ins and outs of DNA are a bit much for 6 year olds, but they mostly do understand inherited traits to a degree and might as well know it;' because of this thing called DNA that they can learn more about later.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[nbauman]

There may be some rare 2- and 3-year-olds who can read. I'd like to see a report of those kids that isn't self-reported by parents.

I'm talking about teachers who go into a classroom and teach a group of children. It's impossible to teach normal 2-year-olds to read in any meaningful way. Teachers know this.

Same with chemistry. This is what the science teachers say. You can get kids to parrot answers, but they won't understand what they're talking about.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[nbauman]

We understood molecules and atoms in elementary school. Perhaps it's because our teachers weren't 'taught' that we couldn't understand atoms and molecules in elementary school.

I don't know what you could teach elementary school students about molecules and atoms. You could tell them that there are these little particles that look like Tinker Toys (do they still have Tinker Toys?) that hook together and make up matter. You can't see them so you'll just have to take it on our authority that they exist.

That's not much of a science lesson. In fact, it's an anti-science lesson. You're teaching kids to accept things on authority. Why shouldn't they take the Bible on authority? Why shouldn't they take the story about Xenu on L. Ron Hubbard's authority?

The ins and outs of DNA are a bit much for 6 year olds, but they mostly do understand inherited traits to a degree and might as well know it;' because of this thing called DNA that they can learn more about later.

Most kids don't grow up on farms any more, so where would a 6-year-old get an understanding of inherited traits? How much do 6-year-olds understand about reproduction?

How would the fact that they can parrot the term "DNA" help them understand anything?

It's like Richard Feynman's review of science textbooks:

"Translate these numbers, which are written in base seven, to base five." Translating from one base to another is an utterly useless thing. If you can do it, maybe it's entertaining; if you can't do it, forget it. There's no point to it.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[Belial6]

I don't buy that my children and I are simply genetically superior to nearly the entire human population. You can try to convince me otherwise, but it seems more likely an industry group with an interest in making a false claim is spreading a myth than it is that my children and I are really that far about the rest of the human race on the evolutionary scale.

Re: Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[Anonymous Coward]

If the dinosaurs had made it to the ark, they might be around today!

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[nbauman]

I don't buy that my children and I are simply genetically superior to nearly the entire human population. You can try to convince me otherwise, but it seems more likely an industry group with an interest in making a false claim is spreading a myth than it is that my children and I are really that far about the rest of the human race on the evolutionary scale.

You sound awfully conspiratorial.

I guess this is an example of the articles you don't like. http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinf...

I haven't met your children and I don't know if they could read at the age of three, or merely recognize words on flash cards. It certainly would be very impressive if they could read a book at the first grade level. But I'd need more than your own self-report.

Teachers say that all childhood skills have developmental stages, and if you try to teach a kid to learn something before he's at the stage, it won't work, and if you force him, you'll just make things worse. I've seen that developmental process when I tried to teach children drawing (without forcing them).

John Stuart Mill's father brought him up speaking Hebrew and Greek. John wound up in a mental hospital. Fortunately he got out and wrote a few good books.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[Belial6]

Not believing that my children and I are genetically superior to the rest of the human race is 'awfully consipiratorial'? I suppose you could be right, but then if you are, and my children and I truly are the next level of human evolution, then you should take my word for it that kids can read at 3. After all, my genetics make me smarter than all of the people you have previously been listening to.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[sjames]

Have you personally repeated every significant experiment in physics, or are you just accepting them on authority? (noting that some of the experiments would be quite expensive and illegal today).

We were able to read about the experiments and observations that lead to the atomic theory. We could watch some of the experiments being done on educational films (the ones where you could actually hear the '50s in the announcer's voice). We could do some experiments demonstrating scientific understanding (limited more by budget than capability).

Meanwhile, are you saying 6 year olds have no idea that kids look a lot like mommy and daddy?

You seem to have this idea that any level of understanding short of an adult mastery of the subject is worthless. If so, shouldn't school wait until adulthood when adult understanding is possible? Surely that's not workable. For one thing, the adult understanding is based on the prerequisite of having a child's grasp of the subject.

Moving back to the topic at hand, some people have a talent for adjusting their presentation of a subject to the level of the student, others do not. I have observed only a very lose correlation between that and having a degree in education.

As for number bases, the mindless mechanical conversion is indeed worthless. The understanding of number bases can be a bit of a revelation for kids somewhere around the 5th-7th grade. In particular, binary is relevant and not just because of computers.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC because I'm talking about more personal information than usual -- I'm NOT the GP.

You sound awfully conspiratorial.

And you sound awfully suspicious for no apparent reason.

I guess this is an example of the articles you don't like.

This article looked at kids who were less than 18 months old. It's a HUGE difference to talk about kids reading at 12 months (basically non-existent) vs. kids reading at 3 years (many, many, many documented cases).

I haven't met your children and I don't know if they could read at the age of three, or merely recognize words on flash cards. It certainly would be very impressive if they could read a book at the first grade level. But I'd need more than your own self-report.

Yes, it's possible that GP is just making stuff up. But there are loads of documented cases of 3 and 4 years olds reading. Many parents who have these kids are also used to elementary school teachers who then tell us that what our kid does is "impossible," or once they admit the kid can actually can read, that we've somehow done them a great disservice because we've taught them something "wrong" or in a way that would cause problems because of some developmental track that we're off of.

Look -- my son was 16 months old when he learned to recognize all letter shapes. I didn't intend for this to happen. We bought some foam letter floor tiles for his play area. But he started picking them up and bringing them to me. I just told him what the name of the letter was. After a couple weeks, he knew them all. (This was not the first nor the last time he demonstrated unusual shape recognition qualities -- I simply never bothered to care about the "age appropriate" qualities of toys, as long as they couldn't choke him. So he was doing shape sorters when he was 6 months old or something... we didn't force him... we just gave him toys and let him choose what he was interested in.)

At a little less than 3 years old, he started becoming very interested in letters. I started writing down words for him. I never "drilled him" on anything -- I never forced him to learn letters or words. But before he turned 3, he could identify something like 100 words at sight... I know he wasn't actually "reading," just recognizing shape patterns of the words, not identifying letter combinations. But still -- if you knew anything about the child development timelines you're discussing, you'd know that even a 3-year-old (let alone a 2-year-old) having that kind of shape recognition on flash cards is supposedly not "developmentally normal." So, even if GP's kids were recognizing flash cards at that age with consistency, it was supposedly "anomalous."

My son also recognized all letter sounds by the time he was 3, largely because one of his favorite toys was given to him by grandparents which pronounced letter sounds and drilled them. He didn't know this. He just saw a fun toy and played with it. He learned.

At this point, around his 3rd birthday, I decided it might be time to check and see whether he wanted to learn to read. So, I started him on a reader, got him to sound out words. Got some apps that promoted skills... he was interested in some of them, but he wasn't interested in daily activities like that yet. So I stopped.

When he was about 3.75, he got really interested again, and so I brought out the reader again. Now he started putting sounds together fluently. By the time he was about 4.25, he could read at a first-grade level.

Teachers say that all childhood skills have developmental stages, and if you try to teach a kid to learn something before he's at the stage, it won't work, and if you force him, you'll just make things worse.

I've read A LOT of books and actual scientific studies about child development before I had a kid. I wanted to be prepared. I absolutely agree with you that trying to force a kid to do something

Re: Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[tmortn]

"You could tell them that there are these little particles that look like Tinker Toys (do they still have Tinker Toys?) that hook together and make up matter. You can't see them so you'll just have to take it on our authority that they exist. That's not much of a science lesson. In fact, it's an anti-science lesson. " And that is different from your average High-school Chemistry class how exactly? The thing that really bugs me about this line of thinking is the concept of bright line of stages of learning development. At precisely 5 months and 10 days little Johnny will be able to do X, at 10 years 3 months Y. This thinking gives parents fits and makes for insane educational plans based on overall trends that are not terribly meaningful at the individual level.... much less in a class of 20-30 kids that may fall along a wide dispersion of capability (on the scale of a school year) at any given time in their educational journey. Especially the early years where there is more variation from kid to kid. When you take stuff like this and try to employ it in an educational process you inevitably end up having to do something like push off a subject until all (or at least most) kids should clearly be developed enough to tackle the concepts requiring more and more abstract thinking. All this does is ENSURE that the sharpest and fastest developing kids will be bored out of their gourds waiting for the critical mass of their classmates to reach the level they are already at... FOR THE DURATION OF THEIR ENTIRE EDUCATION. A better recipe for turning kids off of learning I cannot conceive. It poisons the well of education to such an extent most adults so despise the notion of having to formally learn more stuff after escaping the system it probably should be classified as a syndrome.... but it is so common it is just 'normal'. pardon the shouting... bit of a pet peeve. I suggest we all repeat something. One size fits NONE. Doesn't work terribly well for clothes it is absolute crap for education. The human brain is a marvel of cognition and learning capacity that we systematically suffocate with most "processes of education" as they get applied in mass education environments. There is more than a little to the notion of k-12 education as child care indoctrination camps making good little factory workers. Not that I think there is some secret set of rules saying that is the goal. It is more a side effect of mass education where you just do not have the resources to cater the process at the individual level. It is not helped over much by the favoring of people versed in the 'process of education' as opposed to those best versed in the subjects to be learned. Or put another way, the value of form over function. Someone who understands how to teach but who doesn't truly understand the subject is just as useless (and perhaps more dangerous) than someone who knows everything and has not a clue how to go about developing and employing a consistent teaching methodology. The former is your 'authoritarian' teacher that can brook no questioning because they are a parrot themselves. The latter is just classically ineffective because knowing something does not make you good at imparting the knowledge to others. For some reason we prefer failing kids needs with less knowledgeable process trained teachers to failing kids needs with a subject matter expert learning the educational ropes. Probably because the lawyers say there is less culpability in a teacher that fails in the class room with an 'education degree' than with the other option.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't see them so you'll just have to take it on our authority that they exist.

That's not much of a science lesson. In fact, it's an anti-science lesson. You're teaching kids to accept things on authority

Umm, how the heck do you think almost all science education through primary and secondary school works? Exactly what experiment did you do in your school -- even high school -- to prove the structure of atoms, e.g., that most of them is "empty space," etc. Or did they just tell you what the structure was, and you believed them? And they maybe told you about some other dude who once did an experiment, and you believed that!

What you're describing is not an "anti-science lesson." It's the only way we could learn most of science. Sorry, but it's true. If we waited until all kids could deduce the structure of electron "shells" using only experiments and first logical principles, we'd never get to the point that kids could ever do anything beyond what is already known.

Why shouldn't they take the Bible on authority? Why shouldn't they take the story about Xenu on L. Ron Hubbard's authority?

That's a very good question. And it would be a great question to have a debate about when kids are old enough to understand such things. When they are old enough to do experiments and make reasonable deductions from them, do that. Before that point, they often learn things because people tell them things... why is it precisely that you don't want to tell them something that's true? Or, would you prefer that the ONLY things they learn in elementary school are biblical mythologies, so that by the time we can talk about "real science" when they can run experiments, they already believe a bunch of bullshit?!

Most kids don't grow up on farms any more, so where would a 6-year-old get an understanding of inherited traits? How much do 6-year-olds understand about reproduction?

They understand what relationships are. They understand that there are things like "mommies" and things like "daddies" and that they have kids. They also are perfectly capable of noticing things like "mommy and daddy both have brown hair, and their kids do too!" if such things are pointed out to them. There are well-known genealogical tasks often assigned to elementary school kids as projects (I did them at my school, and many people I knew also did them as young kids), which sometimes include asking for hair color or eye color or whatever.

You don't need to be on a farm to notice heritable traits, or at least the general idea of them (even if you're not ready to be Mendel and do detailed controlled experiments).

How would the fact that they can parrot the term "DNA" help them understand anything?

They have a LABEL for something. If you knew anything about linguistics, you'd know how critical having labels for things is to our development of a sense of self, relationship to our environment, and generally... how language actually SHAPES OUR PERCEPTION of the world. If we don't have words for things, we can never ask questions about them or learn more about them... because it's just some sort of "amorphous blob" of "experience" out there, which we can't differentiate, because we have no terms to describe it.

You give a kid a word like "DNA" and tell him it relates to something involving heritability ("like how when two parents have blonde hair and their kids often do too!"), and then he can begin to ask questions about it... "Is that related to DNA?" Well, no, it's not. But this other thing is, kid! And over a period of a few years asking questions like that, the kid might come to have a focused understanding of what "DNA" relates to, even if he's not ready to understand the molecular structure or it or even how genetics works in any rigorous formal way.

But if you instead say, "I'll never tell the kid the term DNA because he can't possibly understand it!" We

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[volmtech]

You don't have to teach a highly intelligent 3 year old to read. You read ABC picture books to her when she is two and when she is three she can read any new ABC book to you. By the time she starts kindergarten she can read a newspaper and before she is 30 she will have a PhD in English. Her little brother tried to keep up with her but only has a law degree. All four of her grandparents were high school drop outs. Not your typical children but I am proud of them.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[volmtech]

My daughter could read at three and she was the star of her kindergarten class. She had no trouble reading the fifth grade books and her teach loved showing her off to the other teachers. She has a PhD and teaches college English today.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[Immerman]

You obviously have no experience teaching children, and probably not even much teaching at a college level. You're not going to be able to impart Ph.D. level concepts to grade-schoolers or probably even high schoolers. A bachelors-level education in the field is more than enough. The hard part is managing the attention of a classroom full of kids many of whom have little interest in being there, so that they can learn the subject well enough to at least pass basic competency tests.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[TheSync]

"How can you observe a molecule?"

You observe chemical reactions? That makes the concept of a molecule pretty concrete. Or you could learn about crystals.

We were taught (in a public school) about the structure of DNA around age 12, along with transcription, RNA protein synthesis, etc.

I remember around age 8 knowing about the life cycle or stars, supernova, black holes, etc.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[AthanasiusKircher]

If someone is going to teach Biology, I would take the guy who has a P.H.D. in biology, and the proper enthusiasm and skills, over the guy who doesn't have a clue about the subject, but just took courses to learn how to teach.

Are these my only choices? Personally, I'd choose the guy who actually CAN teach, rather than somebody with credentials saying he took classes in something... teaching or biology or whatever.

You don't need a 4 year degree in Public Speaking, to be allowed to speak at a conference.

You don't need a 4 year degree in Education, to know how to teach,

Yes, and you don't need even a 4-year degree in biology to teach high school level biology. A Ph.D. is massively overqualified. Sure -- if that person is a good teacher and wants to teach high school, that's fantastic. But I'm more interested in having a good TEACHER who is good at TEACHING biology, than someone with credentials.

To take another example, do you seriously think most people with bachelor degrees in engineering or physics or whatever aren't CAPABLE or don't have sufficient BACKGROUND to teach algebra in high school? Do you really need someone with at least a 4-year degree in math, or even a Ph.D.?

Frankly, I'd prefer to have the engineer teach high school math over many pure math majors, since the engineer is always likely to see math through a lens of practicality. The engineer can emphasize real-world applications, because that's what he uses high-school level math for. The pure math dude? Well, he's got a lot more credit hours in advanced real analysis, number theory, linear algebra, maybe things like topology or differential geometry -- how the heck do those things prepare him better to teach basic high-school algebra?

I prefer QUALIFIED experts in the field they will teach about, FILTERED to include only people who are subjectively good at teaching.

I prefer people who have an intuitive understanding of concepts AT THE LEVEL THEY ARE TEACHING, and can successfully communicate those concepts to be an effective teacher.

Lots of us can read. Lots of us can read at an "advanced level." Does that make us all effective reading teachers?

There are lots of very smart people with Ph.D.'s who are very capable of breaking down concepts and teaching basic ideas to people with little background. There are also very smart people with Ph.D.'s who do advanced research, but simply are incapable of breaking things down that way -- those people would be terrible teachers.

Also, frankly, just because you have a Ph.D. in a field does NOT mean that you know the introductory material to that field very well AT ALL. Depth of knowledge in some particular research area does not necessarily imply depth of knowledge about the basics of a discipline... or insight into how those basics might be taught or explained in detail. Lots of people in advanced research "just know" that intro stuff, but they often have no clue about how to break it down.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[Da3vid]

I am a professor and I'm ABD in an EdD in Curriculum & Instruction. My research is on exactly what you mention and, thus far, the literature does not support your idea. At least through secondary school, having basic concepts and skill in teaching is ideal. Raising a teacher's conceptual level shows little return whereas giving ongoing education in teaching does result in achievement. This research is not that widespread and my suspicion is that it is different for different subjects. There is a lot of research in mathematics. As long as you know high school level algebra, you're just fine to teach algebra 1.

Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach

[kubajz]

Please mod parent up. I know this is Slashdot but seriously... where does the idea that teaching is "basic" come from? And how come someone who has reviewed appropriate literature and proven the GP most likely wrong is not modded higher already?

thanks. If any require a masters in education

[raymorris]

Thanks for that. When I have a strong signal on my phone, I'll download it and see if any require a masters in education, as the gentleman/lady claimed.

Just get yourself hands-on and dive in

[mrflash818]

Honestly, just get yourself hands-on, and dive in!

Download a netinst for Debian stable.

Install it.

Install gcc, g++, ddd, vi/emacs, make, git, and play.

Try things. Learn by hands-on, error messages, research, stackoverflow, and time. ...There are so many good Internet resources out there in terms of tutorials, source code of existing GPLd programs and projects, of all areas of Computer Science. So again, honestly, just get yourself hands-on, and dive in.

payback?

[stenvar]

Including bringing kids in Broward County Public Schools the best computer science teachers $15.00-an-hour can buy,

Isn't that the county of hanging chads? Sounds like payback to me.

Pay no attention, kids

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially in the age where most of human culture is online for all to see, kids should learn to teach themselves, not passively wait for some bored teacher to teach them.
It's one of life's most important lessons.

how so? compensation vs. compensation

[raymorris]

How so? I'm comparing compensation at two different jobs.

Are you complaining that I compared 48 weeks of work in the private sector vs 46 weeks working as a teacher? True, the teacher gets a little more vacation time, but at least some people claim teachers work longer hours, so that should roughly balance out.

Are you complaining that I'm comparing zero tolimited retirement matching in most private sector jobs to the more generous retirement benefits teachers get? That's an important part of the compensation package. It's one reason I work for the school system, and I know several coworkers consider it important as well. My last job had no retirement benefit. The fact that the taxpayers are funding half of my retirement is equalivent to an extra $4,000 per year for me.

What I didn't include was percentage of health insurance costs that they have in common, but that's equal for both, so add that number to both if you like. Of course those numbers are rapidly changing under Obamacare, so you can't really get current numbers right now. You can, however, recognize that the labor cost is fairly inflexible inmany industries, so increased cost of employee health insurance will be partially offset by reduced raises or reduction of other benefits. For that reason, total compensation numbers from a few years ago will still be close to the current numbers.

Looks like programmung to me.

[westlake]

Sorry that is NOT programming.

The second lesson introduces basic programming concepts to navigate a maze.

You construct your program using graphical building blocks. But you can expose the equivalent JavaScript code.

Meanwhile...

[NapalmV]

... Bill Gates is busy getting out of the software business altogether:

http://www.theguardian.com/tec...
.

Number are Nice

[PJAJr]

I would like to laud the poster for including numbers in his post, and for supporting their veracity in an extremely convincing fashion. Perhaps K-12 computer science education will help bring these CS techniques to public discourse, perhaps not. At SlashDot, though, we should all strive to emulate this example.

Help me out here

[mikein08]

The idea is to teach kids to code? In what language? And how long will that language be in vogue? Are we ever going to have a "universal" programming language? Or is the idea to teach the kids the fundamentals of computing, computers, programming, file structures, algorithms, etc? At present, we have a plethora - perhaps an excess - of programming languages, and new ones are popping up like weeds all the time. It seems to me that an ability to program - at least in some high level query-only language - is highly desirable, rather like the ability to use a calculator or smartphone. But if we try to teach everyone to program, are we not simply creating even more potential hackers than we already have, thus making everyone's everyday experiences on the internet even more insecure than they already are?

That's what average means, thanks .

[raymorris]

> > teachers who have a bachelor's degree AVERAGE ...

Thanks for adding the additional detail.

Re:nah, how many jobs pay you to take online class

[stonewolf]

Not very long ago... 20 years or so, all employers paid technical empolyees to take classes. The classes were even often taught at the companies location. Local colleges would send full professors to teach classes that started just after the close of business so that they were convenient for the workers. It was normal to give employees time off during the day to take day classes. The employees were oftern paid for time and the employer allways paid for the tuition, books, and lab fees.

Technical employess used to be considered a valuable asset. Now they are not.

Stonewolf