Pay 'em

I read an article today about raising the salaries of teachers. As someone who is married to a teacher, I could not agree more...to a point.

My wife has yet to get a job as a full time teacher because of all the financial cuts to the education programs in the state. We have less and less people wanting to go to be teachers due to the fact their are much more lucrative careers out there that pay more and don't involve being surrounded by kids 7-8 hours a day.

Tell me this, would you be willing to spend a year as teacher making between $35,000 to $50,000?

I really don't think people realize what goes into being a teacher. I have seen my wife work all day student teaching, and then come home and work for hours on lesson plans for the next day.

Take this into consideration. Not every kid is the same. So not only do you have to create something for all the kids, but you need to make it challenging for the few smarter kids, and at the same time, figure out something to do with the kids who don't really grasp things as fast as the other.

You also have the kids who are trouble makers. The ones who have to be the center of attention/class clown. The kids who are shy or shut themselves down from other kids. The kids who want the undivided attention of the teacher. The sensitive kids who whine about everything. I hope you get the point....

Their is so much that goes into the profession that anyone who is not a teacher has no idea of.

I think we need to start paying teachers more to get more people into the field. You do need to have a passion for teaching, which is very important. I see the teachers that are in the union that know they can't be fired and just really suck at being a teacher. But there are more people who really do care and want to be great teachers. We need to reward them for that.

I do feel however that the union has a bit to much reach into the schools. It makes it so hard to fire a teacher because of the union, even if the teacher is horrible. We do need some sort of performance'd based structure.

These are the same teachers that are teaching our future doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc.
Why are they paid so much less than these people?