[pellicle]

If you want better teachers, you don't necessarily need to pay much more. What you need to do is make the job better, and you do that by working to remove the things that make teacher's lives miserable.

Teachers already love kids and teaching. What drives them away is a long list of negatives: little support from administration (especially when parents are involved), overbearing and/or micromanaging administration, way too much paperwork, too many meetings, and too much weight put on standardized testing. Large class sizes doesn't help either.

(And please don't tell me that teachers have summers off (technically, contracts end at the end of the year and start up again when the school year begins, so they are not employed during the summer). Teachers spend their summers doing professional development, getting prepared for next year (revising curriculum, tweaking tests/quizzes/homeworks), dealing with paperwork, recovering from the school year, and often doing something teaching-related for pay (running summer programs or summer school). )

[yummyfajitas]

Are you seriously comparing an easy 6 week continuing education course to full time employment?

I'm really not sure why you think the job needs to be made better. Teachers already work less during the year than other professionals [1], get 2-3 months in which they need to work only a few hours (if at all), get incredibly good job security and defined benefit pensions. That's an incredible comp package which most people in the private sector would love to have.

[1] http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf

[pellicle]

> Teachers already work less during the year than other professionals

Do you have any idea how much time teachers spend grading and preparing lessons after the school day ends? If you teach 5 classes, with 20 kids per class (that's being optimistic), then every time you collect an assignment, that's 100 assignments to grade (same goes for homeworks, quizzes, tests, and labs -- holy freaking cow it's a lot of grading). And not only that, but high-schoolers will nickel-and-dime you for every point (and compare grades with friends), so you have to be painstakingly consistent. This is excruciatingly boring work, and it sucks hours of the teacher's time after the school day has ended (and most evenings).

Not to mention contacting parents after school (who believe every word their child says about how mean and awful you are (translation: you expect them to actually do work in your class and behave)), after-school meetings, hunting around for lab materials, and coordinating with the other teachers so you're all on close to the same page.

> Are you seriously comparing an easy 6 week continuing education course to full time employment?

When the school year ends, besides all the wrap-up paperwork teachers have to do, they have to deal with angry parents of kids who failed (and about whom they've been sending letters home from day 1). Anyway, after all that's done, teachers are standing in a large pile of material they've burned through throughout the year. All this needs to be organized, revisited, and made ready for next year. The school year is about Sept to June. That's, what, about 34 weeks net? Figure 2-3 homeworks per week, 1 quiz per week, 1 test every 3-4 weeks ... that's a boatload of material to edit/revise over the summer.

And don't discount recovery time. Teaching is mentally very difficult. Students are constantly testing your limits all year. Parents are forever questioning your teaching and complaining why their kid has to stay for detention or whatever. Sometimes you even have to attend meetings and explain in great detail to parents and administrators how you warned the student n times, how they knew the consequences, and how they decided to behave badly anyway. And this doesn't even account for the actual teaching -- which means being on performing in front of an audience every time (think how difficult it is to write a program with collegues or your manager looking over your shoulder). And they do it every day -- to the ring of a school bell even. And when that bell rings, you'd better be at that door, taking attendance, dealing with late passes and excuses, collecting homework, and getting the group into learning mode because you've only got N minutes until the bell rings again, they shuffle out, and the next group comes in.

[yummyfajitas]

Do you have any idea how much time teachers spend grading and preparing lessons after the school day ends?

No, the data I gave only lists time spent working (at home and at school), and does not break work down into specific tasks. So overall, I know teachers work 2.5 hours/week less than other professionals, but I don't know what they are doing while working. Why does this matters?

...that's a boatload of material to edit/revise over the summer.

For new teachers, sure. For experienced teachers, not so much. My first time teaching calculus was a lot of work, my second time it was pretty easy.

As for the customer-facing nature of teaching, I agree that it's not for everyone. I certainly didn't like it, but some people love being the center of attention. If you don't like customer facing work, find a different career. Don't expect brownie points for sticking it out in a career you are poorly suited for.

[loumf]

The job needs to be made better in non-comp ways. I don't think the comp is enough, but the other frustrations are far worse. Many people in the private sector (who would be good teachers) could live with the less pay (in exchange for other benefits), but not the bull.

[Retric]

And yet the turnover is incredibly high for such a "cushy" job. If you look at the numbers it’s less expensive to retain more high quality teachers than it is to attract and train new ones.