Something for Every Serious Thinker About Education to Think About

I don't really include myself in this category because I don't know enough to be a serious thinker about education despite being highly educated and caring about education.  Of course, that would put me in the same camp as most other school budget voters and people who hold strong opinions on education.

I quote a better writer (a Jesse Rothstein) than myself who highlights an economic reality when it comes to contemplating the quality of teaching in this country.  He is making the case for job security through tenure as a positive.  I don't agree with that nor do I think tenure is necessary to insure job security.  After all, no one in any other profession has job security and that is the only alternative available to these prospective teachers.  Of course, that means teacher salaries and other work rules have to be competitive.  I for one, having been a little league coach and dealing with strongly held parental opinions, cannot imagine myself being a teacher dealing with parental opinions month after month month, year after year after year.

"The reason has to do with the many ways that the role of teachers in the labor market has changed in recent decades. When few professions were open to highly skilled women, schools could hire them for low salaries. Now, teaching must compete with other professions. That has made it hard to recruit the best candidates. One study found that the share of the highest-achieving women who were teachers fell by half between 1964 and 2000; another found an 80 percent drop."

"Thomas J. Kane, a professor of education at Harvard and an expert witness for the Vergara plaintiffs, co-wrote a paper in 2006 on the “coming teacher shortage” and a looming need to “dig further down in the pool of those willing to consider” teaching. Significant layoffs during the last recession, which refilled the pool of job seekers, temporarily alleviated the problem. But those will be absorbed quickly as education budgets recover."

Link to whole column. It is balanced and worth reading.


Link to a similar column. It is complicated with no easy solution.