In this recent article in Education Week, September 29, 2010 they discus a recent study of 300 teachers in Nashville Tenn. where merit-pay showed to have no significant effect on student performance. I know they have to perform these studies to make points, but I could have told you that. At the beginning of this school year my class mates and I where all asked why we wanted to become teachers. Answers like for the love of children, the need to make a difference, for the enjoyment of seeing a student succeed, for the stability, or even to have summers off where are answers given. Not once was "for the money" given as a motivation to spend $23,000 dollars and two years of our life working towards a job that may or may not be there when we graduate. The reason? Everyone knows teachers don't make sh*t.
The average middle school math teacher in America makes roughly $50,000 a year (source Careeronestop.com). I know they get summers of so the really only end up working 9 months out of the year but if you have ever lived with a teacher you know that they rarely work only the 8 hours they are required to be in class. There is also the hours of grading and lesson plans and all the time spent in before and after school activities. So if I do some rough math and say that they only work and extra 3 hours on top of their in class work than I estimate this to be almost 2,000 hours a year which if you calculate that at the average annual rate for a middle school math teacher it works out to be $25 an hour. Do you think this is enough?
Ok so they might get summers off but they don't have any money to spend without some really good planning or really frugal camping. As far as stability goes, doesn't someone who dedicates their life to our children deserve something.
Back to the study... They gave up to $15,000 in bonuses to teachers who could meet their benchmarks and in the end spent well over 1.2 million dollars. That could have payed four teachers, salaries for a year. I think we need to spend a little research on the effect of giving a teacher 200 students to teach in one year and how that effects education. Might be interesting, or you could just ask me; it is not good.
I know this is a huge debate right now in America and we need to see evidence. So lets throw more money at doing research so we can prove what teachers already know.
I would love to participate in your research idea. Excellent thinking.
ReplyDeleteIf schools are concerned with inculcating a love of learning for a life time, and if the effects of one's education might not show up until later in life, what outcomes should we be collecting data on?