Duncan, where on earth do you live? I live in San Francisco, which has the highest housing costs of anywhere in the continental United States, and the beginning teachers' salaries are about $30,000 per year, and that requires five years of college. The average, nothing special one bedroom apartment here is now $1400 per month, incidentally, and any secretary or administrative assistant makes about the same or more as teacher. Of course, plumbers and almost everyone else makes considerably more. In order to progress you have to continually take more credit courses, and gradually, over twenty years maybe, you might end up making $50,000 per year.
I would agree that tenure has been abused, and that teachers need to be made more accountable for their performance.
Regarding the way math is taught, incidentally, my daughter has been taught the new math and while it may seem to slow children down at first, they end up learning to solve problems several ways, and to actually THINK about how to solve problems, which is what will get them through their lives. Very few children every use much more than practical math when they are adults, even though they have taken several years of college-prep math. One thing I like is that my daughter was solving algebra and geometry problems years ago, and did not have to wait until high school to be exposed to these concepts. Everything is integrated.
I read a discussion yesterday about the math scores which just came out, and while they may seem lower, a math professor was arguing that at the college level, these children will actually do better than ones taught traditionally, because they understand more conceptually about math. I would tend to agree. I don't think children should be allowed to use calculators until they have mastered addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in their heads, however. |
