This post was co-authored by Deborah Heiser.
The two of us have spent much of our lives being "educated" by teachers from elementary school through our PhDs. We've experienced parochial schools, public schools, schools in the Midwest, in Boston, in suburban NY, and in NYC. Now we're parents with two young children in the school system.
Here is what we parents are faced with: Teachers are being let go, enrichment programs are being eliminated, and class sizes are increasing to absurd levels. As this is going on, media commentators report and many of our citizens believe that our kids aren't being well educated because lazy, overpaid teachers are not doing their jobs. The best education in the world is in Finland. Finland! We are #30 or so. Something is seriously wrong. And it's not getting better. What to do? I know, let's blame someone. That always helps.
Most parents can barely survive holding a two hour birthday party for 27 5-year-olds (we know, we've been there and done that), let alone "teach" them something every day. Our children spend the vast majority of their day with teachers tasked to do exactly that, and these teachers are the ones who inspire or fail to inspire our children to become great. They shouldn't be expected to do this in a silo, alone, without resources, without support, and with constant criticism. But it seems they are.
So why would anyone want to spend money on college, then on a master's degree, and end up with the pay a teacher gets when she or he could, in many places, make that same money without an advanced degree (or without a degree at all). And on top of it all, be told that they are lazy, overpaid, and incompetent. Such people are either very dedicated or are out of their minds. Much better to go into banking with only slightly longer hours, much easier work, and much more pay.
Some of this has got to be that teacher pay comes directly from taxpayers' pockets whereas bankers get our money less directly. Scratch the complaints about teacher quality and what you soon hear are complaints about the high taxes they pay for education. Kids also get homework and parents have a responsibility to see that it gets done and done correctly. So now what is the complaint? Many parents expect their children to be fully educated in school and feel that they shouldn't have to put time in helping their children learn their lessons, or master it before the next day. Isn't that the teacher's job? What are they paying taxes for?
I won't say I enjoy paying taxes. And doing homework at night with kids is not usually a wonderful bonding experience. It's hell in our house on most nights. But imagine the teachers who spend six hours a day with 27 kids, with whom they have to do what we spend an hour or two doing at home. Why not think of it as a collaboration and an investment our children's' future? The more you do at home, the more the teachers can advance with children in the classroom at school.
What goes on in that classroom? We tend to think about teachers in an abstract sense -- faceless women (generally) in charge of a room full of kids who are on the same level, eager to learn, and completely focused. Please. Classrooms are diverse in level of ability. When one kid is picking up a concept right away, another is just grasping it and another needs it repeated. All the while, the kid who grasped it first is fidgeting and bored, and the kid who needs extra time is frustrated. Add to this kids with learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, kids who ate a load of sugar right before school and are bouncing off the walls and this abstract teacher is now earning every penny and deserves more.
We all want our children and all of the children in this country to be well educated. So how do we get there? We need to value our teachers, pay them well, and give them the resources and class sizes they need to do their job. We aren't going to attract competent young people to this profession if they are paid poorly, can expect to have their pensions revoked, or have to worry about being fired when they reach a certain age. And we certainly aren't going to attract new teachers if the profession is described with disdain. Who wants to owe a bunch of money on student loans for college and graduate school to join a contemptible profession? If anyone should be paid a middle class wage or higher -- it should be them.
We are heading for an uneducated population if we don't make education a value and value the teachers who provide it. We always hear that educating our children is an investment in our future. It's not just a platitude; it's true. It is literally an investment in your future and ours. It will affect us directly.
Our society is aging, and our children are literally our future. They are the ones who will take care of us. Without them succeeding, we have a good chance of growing old without quality care from doctors (because our children won't be well educated and won't go on to medical school or nursing school or anything in the sciences), and without having the standard of living that we've all become accustomed to because our children won't create the next "big thing" or a new way of doing things better and more efficiently. Maybe we'll have to go to Finland for our retirements.