[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 @ 16:34 +0000, wa2egp at att.net said:

> > There is some truth to the idea that you get what you paid for.  However,
> > teachers are usually paid significantly above average wages in most places
> > where I've looked it up, so I'm not sure that's really the problem.
> 
> That's total BS.  

I looked at average salaries and in most cases the teachers were above
average.

It's certainly like that where I live.

If you want to think that's BS, go ahead, you are free to do so... :)

> For the same education?  I don't think so.

I've never thought the teacher curriculum was very hard. It's pretty
lightweight.

One of the big stinks locally not too long ago was the reduction in
requirements for teachers, including the elimination of coursework in
hard sciences. School board figures they don't need it.

Also, there is more to education than college. I know welders who've
had several times as much classroom work as any teacher. Society just
doesn't view things like that, even if it is courses in advanced
physics, as "education". Likewise any cop whose been around for awhile
has had literally years of classroom education, and I don't just mean
"crime" classes.

So I suppose the real answer depends on what qualifies as "education"
to you. 

> And don't look at the top scale.  Too easy to use that.

I'm talking about average salaries. Teachers are above average where
I've seen information about it.

But since you mentioned the top scale: if you look at the top pay in
each job category, again, teachers do better than average, some some
earning six figures.

> > Just a note: my 6th grade teacher retired at $49K/year in the late 80s or
> > early 90s. This was when a major or chief on the police force would only get
> > about $35K/year, and the local average retirement pay was under $22K/year.
> 
> Factor in how much they get paid, how long they have to work to reach
> pension age and how the pay scale goes.  (Teaching is not linear in many
> cases.)

Locally teachers hit their top retirement rate faster than almost any
other civil servant in the same pay range.

> > Quantitative analysis is popular, but useless in most cases.
> 
> And the balance between quantitative and qualitative is hard to find,
> especially agreement about the balance between different parties.
> A good vocabulary is not a good indicator of the thinking behind
> the words. :)

For example, listen to a politician.  He might be well spoken and win
arguments, but how many times have you heard one actually say anything?

Then you have people like Jesse Jackson, who is so smart, he is
frequently able to make up totally new words while giving a speech.

-- 
shannon / Well, I have entered the metallic years. Silver in my hair, gold in
-------'  my teeth, lead in my ass...  -- Sheldon Hall