Can you blame the dumbing down of America due to paying teachers crap but paying models and athletes millions?

Question

Is it any wonder our society is materialistic and shallow?

Answer 1

News for you Chimpy, teacher salaries are better than most folks with equivalent education and experience.

For the school year 2004-2005, the average teacher salary was $47,602. Not bad for approximately 9 months work.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average public elementary school teacher in the United States earns about $30.75 an hour. Compare this with the average hourly pay of other public-service employees - such as firefighters ($17.91) or police officers ($22.64).

Teachers' hourly rate compares quite well with other professions. The average biologist makes $28.07 an hour. The average mechanical engineer makes $29.76, the average chemist, $30.68, Computer scientists ($32.86), dentists ($35.51), nuclear engineers ($36.16).

You can look it up, and you can do the math.

As for your athlete or model analogy, well, what do you propose...government regulation to drive down what people are willing to pay to see the greatest among us?

Materialistic, shallow? perhaps...but your alternative is communism...from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs...and even though you are unwilling to admit it, communism drains the human spirit and depresses the productivity of the nation.

Answer 2

Teachers make a heck of a lot more than I do. Also, did you see the report by John Stossel that highlighted the teacher's unions in New York? One teacher had stalked a young girl on the Internet, yet because of the teacher's union rules (a mile long) it took the school system years to fire him. Also, the superintendent noted that he had several teachers who could not be trusted around kids, but he could not fire them - he had to keep them in a separate room away from the kids. They were paid for doing nothing all day. Also, one teacher expressed to his students that he did the job only for the money and benefits. What awful role models!!! Common sense has been suspended again!! They should be fired on the spot if anything as ridiculous as this is encountered. That said, I know that there is a great disparity between the pay of models and athletes and teachers. For the good teachers this is bull crap.

Answer 3

My wife is an elementary teacher and I can say without a doubt, there are three things that are wrong with our school systems:

- NO parental involvement. Teachers are expect to be social workers, nurses, psychologists, parents, and disciplinarians for their students, since the parents are too busy caring for themselves. Kids show up everyday without a lunch because their parents are too proud to sign up for the free lunch program. Meanwhile, the parents go out to eat at a restaurant. Student performance declines and the parents blame the schools, even though the parent spent ZERO time making sure the student completed homework.
- School sports take priority. The schools don't have money to provide pencils, paper, books, or more classrooms but the football team gets a college-grade football stadium. They sacrifice education to fund sports. Classrooms are overpacked, teachers have to pay for materials out of their own pockets - all to fund sports. Sports should be pay-to-play.
- Unions. The schools could attract and retain the best teachers if they were allowed to treat teachers like normal employees. The unions handcuff the schools (and businesses) when trying to get the right talents. And good teachers are not well paid. My wife has a Masters degree and 15 years experience and makes much less than new college grads in other fields.

By far, the lack of parental involvement is the cause of our school failures and most (if not all) of our society's decline over the past 50-100 years...

Answer 4

Personally I think that teachers are paid adequately. There are tons of other jobs in the U.S. that pay comparable to teachers salaries or less and those jobs actually require the employed to work year round. What other job gives you summers off? I am 31 years old and the argument about teacher's salaries has been an ongoing topic since I was in 6th grade. It just seems to me that it has become the "in" thing to gripe about. There are a lot of issues related to the dumbing down of America and I don't relate it to teacher salary. The state has a responsibility to set in motion an adequate education plan that the school districts, i.e. school boards, Principals, and teachers are to see carried out. Many states have loosened those requirements in order to assure receipt of federal funding. In addition, teachers receive performance evaluations and are rated on how well their students do on exams. The Principal and the school board are left with the responsibility of ensuring that teachers perform. Universities in this country are inundated with students that want to be education majors and teach for a living. There is definitely NOT a lack of teachers out there. It is the school system itself and the lazy attitudes of the persons in charge that are mainly responsible. The other issue is funding. It has been found constitutionally illegal in several states to fund schools off of property taxes yet nothing has changed. Poor areas do not have the $$ to put into the education system and wealthy areas have too much. There are some very good teachers in urban areas that have a very difficult time teaching adequately because of a lack of support from the district, the state, and due to other economic issues with the children. More than half of the city of Cleveland lives below the national poverty line. This means that the children in these areas do not receive adequate nutrition. They have more health concerns and neglect and abuse are prevalent. In these areas, there is more going on than just what happens in the classroom. There needs to be a unified plan to educate America's children. Teacher salary is NOT the problem.

Answer 5

No. The dumbing down of America can't be blamed on capitalism (and capitalism is how athletes and actors get paid millions versus public school teachers being paid paltry salaries.)

We need to take responsibility for our own educations. A lot of what we learn in life does not come from a classroom. And teachers are an average crosscut of society as much as any other segment, from great to mediocre. We can't expect the full burden of cultivating our intellect to come from our school system, but from our daily interactions with others, from the movies we choose to watch, the music we choose to listen to, and the friends we choose to have.

And again we need to recognize there is value in putting aside our self for the objective collective good every now and then.

Answer 6

I blame the dumbing down of America, and believe me it's happening, on the very tool we are using right now, the internet. The greatest source of information if used correctly can also spread so much disinformation if used incorrectly. How many times has someone posted a source only to have someone claim, oh that's a liberal site or that's a neo-con site. When you take information as fact from a biased site, or just one site, you tend to be pushed in a direction that may not be truthful.

Answer 7

No, in America you are paid in direct relevance to what you are worth. People pay millions a year to watch athletes. Teachers get paid above the national average and get pensions and health care. They do not have to compete for jobs. There is minimal accountability. They have it easy.

What you overlook is free markets.

Answer 8

It's a capitalistic society. If someone is willing to pay athletes or entertainers excessive amounts of money Why not. I stopped watching baseball when Pete Rose left the Reds to go to the Phillies for a hundred thousand a year

Answer 9

Chimpy. The taxpayers don't pay models and athletes....and don't suppose we'd otherwise send our game ticket costs off the the education department.
I'd say it's our inability to release inadequate teachers who are tenured, and our inability to reward exemplary teachers. It is the kowtowing to the teachers union that is the biggest dilemma.
It's the typical government-run quagmire. Throwing money does not solve the problem. Charter Schools that are required to meet certain measurable levels of education have shown how education can be run responsibly and effectively.
You should try "shallow materialism" Chimpy. I think if you spent the next year just trying to do better for yourself...you'd find you couldn't help but drag others up with you.

Answer 10

I can blame the dumbing down of America on several things, one of the certainly on placing a higher value on athleticism than academic. (I am willing to bet you would have an easier time having somebody rattle of the starting line of their local sports team than naming one Nobel laureates from the past decade)

I can also blame the dumbing down of America on consumerism. America, as a collective society doesn't think we buy. The average home is stocked with the latest convenience gadget, entertainment equipment, trendy clothes. I have figured this is for the reason that as the dishes wash themselves, dinner heats in the microwave, and the vacuum runs thought the house without human intervention, we can catch American idol in HD. Of course we are adorned in the latest trendy t shirt, and possibly sipping on a star bucks coffee, since as it seems even mustering up a cup of coffee for yourself is too much work. We would rather pay somebody $4 to do it for us.

That brings is to the final point that many have become complacent in their laziness. This is the point that even a mental work out proves to be too taxing, thus our bodies and our minds atrophy into goo.