[zozbot234]

> No one has mentioned defunding public education yet.

Public education has vast amounts of funding in the U.S. compared to other developed countries. If it does badly despite that, it's very likely that "more funding" is not the answer.

[mlyle]

It's worth pointing out that wages in the US are vast compared to other developed countries, though, too. We outspend OECD by 35-40%, but our average national wage is also higher than OECD by 35-40%.

[zozbot234]

Labor compensation in the U.S. is also extremely unequal, which pulls the average up in a way that isn't very informative as to this particular issue. The average starving PhD would be a much better and more knowledgeable teacher to high school students in the subject she took her PhD in, than the typical high school teacher with nothing more than an Education credential. Are you sure that you need to pay such high wages to existing teachers?

[john_strinlai]

>The average starving PhD would be a much better and more knowledgeable teacher to high school students in the subject she took her PhD in

i dont think this is true.

there is an art to educating (especially the ~10-15 year old range) that does not just manifest itself because you are smart: how to engage students, how to keep them engaged, how to adjust the message to the audience's level and communicate it effectively (which changes kid to kid), how to earn a kids respect without becoming over-bearing (or too friendly), and dozens of other things that your PhD in compsci or whatever does not teach you.

some of the smartest PhD holders i know would be very shitty elementary/high school teachers.

(context: i teach at the college level. its a lot easier than teaching at the high school level.)

[mold_aid]

Yeah there's some truth to this - I find that my Ed students don't always have sophisticated understandings of their content area (though honestly I find that ENGR and BIOL students don't, either). But they do get more content area teaching than in ED.

ED as a field is 100% all-in on AI, too, so there's a lot of discussion amongst them about what skills in the field need to be automated and what has to stay artisanal. But I'm sympathetic to zozbot's claims too - I do think the reading scores would be higher if there were more comp/rhet specialists in sec. ed.

[zozbot234]

~10-13 mostly comprises the junior high range. By the time the kids are 14, they're plenty old enough to benefit from a "college-prep" educational approach. Sure, some PhDs will be better, others will be worse. But you solve that by throwing out terrible teachers and rewarding the best ones. There's no guarantee that an Education-credentialed teacher with negligible education in the actual subject they're supposed to teach would be any better.

[mlyle]

I'm retired from engineering. I did startups / exited / joined difficult technical domains for the funsies / etc.

I have taught 5 years at a private school. I do not have a teaching credential.

Knowing the stuff you're teaching is the easiest part. And I say that despite teaching in an environment with far better behavior, student buy-in, family support, and academic accomplishment than most places.

I thought that when I launched a student team doing spacecraft design (selected for orbital flight on the basis of the quality of their mission, btw, not their age) that the hard part would be teaching kids about power budgets, radiation aging, and the thermal environment.

Turns out the hard part is helping them figure out how to navigate the social dynamics of talking to each other, organizing their work, realizing what other people know, and coping emotionally with setbacks. Kids will teach themselves the stuff if you have buy-in and the culture in the room is right.

[RyanOD]

Yes to this! What makes a great teacher is the willingness to hold kids accountable for their behavior and their work. Sure, it helps to be a subject expert, but that won't matter if you can't manage your classroom.

And parents play an equally important role. One of the best things you can do for your child's education/life is support the teacher when they call you up and say, "Your child is making poor decisions..."

[Amezarak]

> Sure, it helps to be a subject expert, but that won't matter if you can't manage your classroom.

I've known plenty of highly credentialed teachers that were very poor communicators and/or could not manage their classroom. I think the idea that this can be, or is, effectively taught as part of the "education major" is very suspect.

Indeed, the worst-performing school districts are precisely those where "classroom management" is a serious problem, versus better districts where the children come to school ready to be managed. It seems older styles of classroom management now out of vogue and untaught by universities were more effective.

[RyanOD]

My first year of teaching high school mathematics was nearly a disaster. Managing my classroom was a nightmare. Fortunately, we had winter break which gave me an opportunity to step back and reflect honestly on why and I realized I was making a number of mistakes so I made some necessary adjustments and things went much better thereafter. I firmly believe the first year of teaching is when many teachers either rise up or give up.

Regarding managing kids...every school I've worked at (or my wife has worked at) has a mix of kids who are ready to learn and who need to be taught to learn. That includes districts in more wealthy areas and less wealthy areas.

In fact, my wife would tell you the students who cause the most problems in her classroom are from more affluent families. Why? Because they have entitled parents who don't hold their kids accountable and don't support the teacher.

[troosevelt]

Here in my state teachers in good districts start at $60,000 per year and see minimal increases due to length of service; after 20 years they might be making $75,000 per year. You ever done the math on living on $60k per year? Hard to do a lot besides support youself on that income. I note that surrounding states (even higher cost states) have lower salaries.

Teachers get paid peanuts.

[lamasery]

It depends a lot on the state. Some actually do pay alright. Some pay terribly (and may have serious issues finding enough staff, as a result).

Unions are similar. People cry about them being a huge problem, but they have effectively no power (as in: don't even collectively bargain for contracts) in lots of states, including many of the ones with poor school performance. In other states, they really do have quite a bit of power.

[virissimo]

US teacher pay is near the top for OECD countries: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/teachers-salaries.ht...

[mlyle]

US overall pay and cost of living is even closer to the top for OECD countries, as shown upthread :P

[zozbot234]

That's not so low when you account for the fact that school is not in session during summer, and teachers get these months off.

[lamasery]

In states with lower teacher pay, most teachers without a much-higher-paid spouse take summer jobs or teach summer school. Also, none of them get as much time off in the summer as the kids do. Plus, you can't pay your mortgage with vacation days.

[troosevelt]

Teachers often end up working weeks that are more than 40 hours, though with grading, lesson planning, tutoring, etc.

[larkost]

Given the (often ongoing) educational requirements, if you pro-rate it you still come out much below most positions with similar requirements. We absolutely under-pay teachers in virtually every public school.

My mother retired after working her entire career as a teacher, and I earned close to double her final salary my first year working in tech. She has her masters degree and I did not graduate college. And if you count the stocks I got at the end of that first year, it was over triple.

She was a special ed. teacher teaching emotionally disabled grade schoolers (including a first grader that tried to kill his grandmother with a tv power cord). There is no way that I worked harder than she did.

[mold_aid]

You sure they're not on 20 pay contracts? Everybody tells me "it must be so nice, getting summers off" and I'm like "actually I look for summer courses because I don't get paid."

[phil21]

Here average teacher salary is over $100k. Projected to be $120k by 2027 due to their new union contract.

Newbie teachers start around $70k last I checked, and hit six figures in 5-6 years.

This is roughly double median salaries.

That said, I think they earn every bit of it even with "summers off" and their relatively lucrative benefit packages. The work environment is utter shit. Basically zero ability to manage a classroom and get rid of any shitheads - with very little supportive parenting or administration having your back. Even if salaries were $500k/yr I wouldn't remotely consider taking such a job.

Pay itself though? Not an issue for one of the worst performing major urban school districts in the nation.

[troosevelt]

I'm planning on transitioning into teaching due to not being employable (apparently) in tech anymore. It's about the only career I can transition into. I wish I could make six-figures!

[phil21]

Move to Chicago and get a job in CPS - you'll be at ~$100k in 5-6 years!

The idea of it actually sounds initially fun to me, until I talk to friends who actually work those jobs. For my temperament I know better. At best I'd rage quit, at worst I'd end up in prison.

[hackable_sand]

Teachers should be paid more, but this is a very paltry argument.

You can do a lot with $60k.

[nradov]

PhD holders are, on average, not starving. Some of them could make good primary/secondary school teachers, but knowing how to teach children effectively is a skill by itself. It's quite different from working as a college instructor. That's why earning an teaching credential is important (although the quality of some teacher training programs is terrible).