Teacherken wrote earlier todaythat Tom Friedman's proposal of raising teachers' salaries is a mistake. In the link above, Teacherken posits the truism that raising teacher pay makes the dubious assumption that teachers are only in the business for money. That is both wrong and insulting, and Teacherken is right to point that out. However, he misses a real issue facing teachers, especially younger teachers, today...
Like Teacherken, I am a social studies teacher. However, I have only been teaching for four years. I spent 6 years in the Army, including 12 months in Iraq. After which, I used the G.I. Bill to get my teacher's license and have been teaching ever since. I took a major pay cut to leave the Army and be a public school teacher. Like most other dedicated teachers, I do what I do because I believe in the higher cause - not the money. In fact, that's why I joined the Army in the first place.
I accepted the substandard pay, because I love my new profession. However, I believe that I deserve more. So to me, raising teacher salaries isn't about trying to bribe unwilling individuals into teaching by exorbitant pay rates (akin to the outrageous incomes offered by Blackroot to go to Iraq for example.) It's about paying people what they are worth. I don't find a pay raise insulting; I feel it rewarding.
But there is a bigger issue that recruiting teachers - we have to keep them. As I have mentioned, I have only been teaching for four years. Yet, of the class that was licensed with me, many have already left teaching. They didn't leave because they didn't enjoy teaching. They didn't leave because of budget cuts or layoffs. They left because they simply couldn't afford to keep teaching.
And it's worse for those of us still hanging on. One of my colleagues, an English teacher, has had to take in a roommate, and works part time in a tanning salon. Another Civics teacher has to work at a backpack store. And another teacher bartends on weekend nights just to make ends meet.
For me, thankfully I saved a lot from being deployed. Plus my wife brings in additional income. However, she has no medical insurance. I can't afford to add her to my plan. Our desire to start a family is in serious question. I also work Saturday school and after-school remediation. I cannot even afford the dues to the NC Educator's Association (In NC there is no teachers' union), which provides legal assistance to teachers. Earlier this year, a teacher was wrongly accused of misconduct by a vindictive student. He also did not have NCEA support, and his career is over. That could be me.
Tom Friedman, as usual, is a buffoon. Teacherken rightly points out the problems of Friedman's proposals to double math and science teacher pay - as if those are the only subjects that matter, and the impropriety of giving green cards to any foreign national who wants to teach after graduating - as if we cannot find enough homegrown teachers. And Teacherken has good proposals about subsidizing housing and the problems of NCLB. However, as he himself notes:
I am not seeking to raise my own pay - I already make more than 90% of the teachers in my building and probably more than 95% of the teachers in the nation.
Maybe after 30 years when seniority and tenure have cushioned the blow of pitiful pay, I will be as willing to callously dismiss a pay raise because of its gimmick value. But when teacher attrition rates are high and even costly, surely we should be doing everything to keep good ones in.
Now THAT's a good idea.