A follow up to teachers salaries, and the dumbing down of America.?

Question

A respected member of the Answers community asked if the "dumbing down of America" is due to our not paying teachers more.

It made me wonder.

Are teachers intentionally teaching inadequately in protest of their wages...are they on strike?

Will they mend their ways when we increase their pay
... or do we increase teachers salaries to attract more competent teachers and then can the ones we have now?

Answer 1

I think we're "dumbing down" because we are lowering our standards for those who come into the country (most come illegally) and do not have the basics of education that most children attain.

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

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 4

Education is a monetary paradox. Money will not solve the education problem, and at the same time it will.

On the one hand, more money will not increase the number of people born with a gift for teaching. Some people can teach and some people can't. More money will also not make children work hard, appreciate knowledge, and have a vision for their future.

Where money can solve the problem is by opening up education to the free market. We need school vouchers. School vouchers would expose the education system to the forces of capitalism. The best schools will receive the most funding and the poor schools will close down. Schools will experiment with different teaching and managing techniques, that those with the best educational paradigm will prevail.

This will also eliminate debates like evolution/creation. Some schools will teach creation and others will teach evolution. If teaching evolution really does harm education like creationists say, then this will be reflected in the students they turn out. It will end the debate for all time, and turn our education system around for the better.

Some people might object to the idea of experimenting with education on our children, but it certainly can't yield worse results than our current system is.

Answer 5

Some teachers are good, others are bad but throwing more money into the broken public school system is not the magic answer. Teachers need more money and a merit-salary system is not a bad idea. I would be a teacher if they offered competitive wages for the stress of dealing with kids.
Any change made to the teacher's salaries would not matter if parents do not get or stay involved in their kids lifes.
The dumbing down of America started when TV became the go-to babysitter of America's youth.

Answer 6

The 'dumbing down' is created by many things.

Family unity is first and foremost and severely lacking. People are becoming more and more dependent upon schools, TV sets and computers to do their babysitting for them.

Since the early 70's, we've lowered the learning standards for kids, and we keep lowering them. In my day, it was an embarrassment to flunk a grade and you were frowned upon. In this day and age, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who flunks. They're just passed through the ranks and wonder why they can't find 'good paying jobs'. I've met many a high school grad. who can't read and write at an 8th grade level and if they had to count back change from a dollar bill, wouldn't know how to do it without a cash register that does it for them.

Tenor is another problem. Tenor is nothing more than a union that protects those who are incompetent.

Government run ANYTHING, is doomed. Our school system would be far better off if it were privatized using tax payer money and given to bidders who have to meet incentive programs.


Okay.. I'm ready for my thumbs down.. :)

Answer 7

You are placing the blame in the wrong place. It is not the teachers. Their hands are tied by crappy policy and lousy administrations. There is no support. Because of policy they are not allowed to actually teach. Then we have the fact that parents are not teaching their children personal responsibility. They don't want to face the fact their child is abusing, ignoring one of the best things to be offered. An education.
Most of you think teaching is finished when the final bell rings. You have no idea how many of their own hours a teacher puts in after that final bell. Let alone the fact they spend their own money to buy supplies. I find disgusting that pro athletes make mega millions but educating our young people is put on the back burner. Take the blame where it belongs. It is not our dedicated teachers that should bare the brunt of this.

Answer 8

The taxpayer is being robbed by the educational system.
We throw money at the problem without defining the problem or demanding results.
No student should be able to quit school before age 21.
Schools need to be disiciplined,the actups disrupt classes and pose a safty hazard. A little "bootcamp"is needed in the schools.
Classes must be demanding and those who fail must repeat the year.
We've tryed the liberal way,it failed,time to go back to the 50's and 60's and make school demanding again.
Teachers who can't teach should find jobs picking veggies along with the illegal immigrants.

Answer 9

Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education $48,700
Middle School Teachers $49,470
History Teachers, Postsecondary
$63,200

I have never ever seen a job whether it be teaching,pushing a broom, or managing a department that ever worked better with more money. We have a shortage of teachers, so we still would not get quality teachers. Look at the salaries listed. Not a bad salary for working about 6 months of the year taking summer vacation, holidays, government holidays into account.

Answer 10

I believe it is simply unfair to solely evaluate any teacher based on his or her performance (bottomline: how students score on testing) because not all students are "angels" and academically focus. Just imagine if you received a box of chocolate, you can't simply distinguish what's good or bad until you try it.

In order to improve public education's performance, schools and teachers ought to have more autonomy when it comes to disciplinary actions. More importantly, public schools should require more parental involvement and make parents accountable for the child's disorderly behaviors and academic performance.

The only way the public can ensure the success of students and schools is simply by increasing involvement, awareness, and accountability. Therefore, i would propose a more progressive plan of penalizing families of failing students. Since the public schools are funded by taxpayers, the taxpayers should be entitled to a refund from continuous failing students and their parents. Public schools must also to be held responsible for their inadequate support of students and their families. If a school fails to create a comprehensive strategy raising academic achievement, it must also face severe fines as well.

This will certainly raise the awareness and standard of education especially when one knows monetary penalties are a consequence.

Answer 11

I'm so tired of people saying we are underfunding education. We spend a ton of money on education its just not getting down to the classroom level. If the teachers want more money they need to get their union to do something about this problem. I would like to know where all this money is going. Here is something to ponder, when my mother went to high school, now this was back in the late 40s and early 50s, the board of education in her town took up one floor of the building they were housed in. Forty years later, the high school population hasn't grown but the Board of Education now takes the whole building. Why is that? I think we would probably all agree that her education was better than the ones being given to the kids in that town now and yet they did it with less overhead. The school systems need to be rebuilt from the top down, cutting out the waste.