I/O: Our educational system is broken. One BIG reason is the lack of funding. Who do you expect to recruit as teachers when the pay starts in the mid 30's? Come on. Do you know what kind of talent you get in the corporate world for 35k? I won't go into details, but it's not people in demand.
So, you start breaking the system by not encouraging talented people to become educators. Next, you cut funding to individual institutions. The funding cuts lead to cuts in extra-curricular (sp?) activities (music, art) and that inhibits creative growth. The funding cuts also lead to job cuts and then classroom overcrowding. Overcrowding means less individual attention. It just spirals from there.
While our educational system is broken, so is our means to pay for higher education. The fact that you have to pay over six figures for a college education is a travesty. That fact alone eliminates a lot of opportunity for truly "higher education" (sorry Walsh College, University of Phoenix, and ITT Tech grads, but that isn't higher ed.).
On a personal level, I can tell you that I wasn't exposed to the concept of compound interest until I was in my second year of grad school. That's ridiculous. I didn't learn about basic financial concepts until I was 20 years into my educational career. There's something really wrong with that.
I guess the summation of the above is that you get what you pay for when it comes to who's running the system.
-Gary
(FWIW) I grew up with a guy that is a high school teacher. We were pretty close, knew his parents, brother and now his wife. Haven't talked to him of late because our lives have gone different ways. He teaches at Main East here which would not be considered an area income wise or a district money wise as Chicago's. Ten years ago, he told me you could put your time in, get tenure or whatever that bs is, retire at 100,000 to 110,000, and get a large chunk of that for the rest of your life.
HIS opinions of most of the teachers at this very large school was that they hated their job and especially the kids. Of course, teaching 6 year olds for little money may be considered commendable by some, but this is an example of when they don't want to do the dirty work. Teachers I had in high school right down the street (different district though) were much the same lame disfunctional idiots. None if any real life experience to give them the ability to comment about anything out of the teaching program that was assigned to them. As a matter of fact, most of he one's I had never made it past year one or two before being dumped to use their "over educated worthlessness" to steal money elsewhere. It's only a matter of time before the political strength of the union in these parts has degraded enough to where they will have to be accountable for the bottom line. Just because someone REALLY REALLY wants to put out a building fire, doesn't mean they have any real shot at doing it. Just because someone REALLY REALLY wants to teach, and THINKS they would be good at it, means nothing when the whole time they ARE FAILING.
Nothing towards you G
but teachers in general are unable to function outside of the little bubble their union has created for them. If ever they depending on whatever abilities they have for a living outside of teaching, they starve to death. Yes, even the many fat ones.
They carry some kind of arrogant attitude like they should be held in some kind of high regard. Don't ever make them accountable though.
I'd have absolutely no problem putting more money into the system, as long as asses got canned for lack of performance. I believe they are now closing down schools that don't perform here.
If you decide to make a career out of any field, the hazards go with it as well as the benifits. Teachers come into the field knowing the limitations, then cry away well after the fact. They can't do anything else so they should shut up (or go ahead and leave to another field). Yes, even the fat ones.
