Quote:
Originally Posted by *winter*
Agreed with points mentioned above.
One of the issues in education is that our country is lagging behind in math and science education. A teacher's salary is not much compared to what an engineer or scientist can make in the private sector. It's hard to attract qualified candidates for those fields.
If we keep butchering what we pay teachers, or cut into the benefits they get, how will we ever be able to attract and keep qualified math and science teachers? Same for engineers and scientists who work for the government in other programs...but that is another topic.
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Well, in a perverse way, the overall economy stinking may make teaching look relatively more desirable.
And while there are some people who have engineering degrees and undergraduate degrees in math and science who then get certified to teach, there are also people who went a math or science ed route who may have credentials that aren't truly comparable to those working in STEM outside ed.
And isn't it be a little goofy to say that because a relatively small number of secondary jobs are hard to fill with qualified folks that all folks in the same general occupation should be paid more? Wouldn't it make more sense to offer higher pay simply for the harder to fill positions? One of the really amazing things that teaching unions and professional associations have pulled off is that all teachers k-12 should be basically be paid the same, regardless of the supply of people available to fill a particular job. As a humanities person, it's paying off for me, but it's a pretty irrational compensation system.
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