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I disagree that the pay is garbage - especially when you take benefits, like summer vacation, into account. In the US, the average teacher (does vary by state) makes ~60k[1]. And, again, lots of days off. I think another obvious thing to do is make it easier for people to become full or part time teachers by removing requirements around licensing and education. If you can prove subject matter expertise - something that, frankly, current teachers should be required to do, and demonstrate an ability to teach then you shouldn't need the licensing and degree requirements that many public schools have. In my mind this would more like person X is curious about teaching. Maybe they are retired or underemployed or considering a career change. X is reasonably smart, knows math/science/writing/whatever to a high standard, and likes teaching. In our current reality X must either commit serious time and effort to getting the credentials required to start teaching, or just not do it. In my imagination X could easily pick up a role helping an existing teacher (after passing some subject matter tests). Maybe X is grading homework, helping prepare lesson plans, whatever the teacher needs. As X demonstrates their ability the teacher lets X take on more and responsibilities until X is either a full teacher, decides they don't like teaching, or is bounced for some reason. If it turns out we don't have enough people who want to be teachers then we can consider raising salaries - but, again, they are already higher than average and our current hiring practices are so bad we should try improving those first. One final thought regarding salaries - I think it really throws things off that teacher pay increases with their tenure. This results in a system where new teachers really are severely underpaid and old teachers are well paid. This can result in attrition among new teachers. Likewise, when teachers are laid off it is by reverse seniority. Again, this is due to the teacher's unions. In my opinion - if a teacher quickly ramps up to leading high performance classes then they should quickly ramp up to the top of the teacher pay scales as well - with performance bonuses thrown in. 1 - https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_211.60.a... |