Money will not overcome the "those who can't, teach" sentiment that runs quite strongly in the US. There is a very strong anti-intelligence (not merely anti-intellectual) sentiment in this country.
It will help, and we should certainly pay teachers more, but it isn't the whole solution.
"Those who can't do, teach" is almost exclusively about money, the idea being that in almost every industry you would be paid more to do than to teach. Thus, if you are teaching it's likely because you failed to be a doer. This isn't anti-intelligence, it's actually a fairly logical stance.
It does miss that a person's desire to educate can far exceed their desire to ply the trade and they are willing to sacrifice their pay at that particular altar. But given most teachers do not seem irrationally excited about teaching or being teachers that line of thought is quite diminished.
Being a teacher (as opposed to a trainer, like me) is really difficult, and a great many people who are excellent engineers and scientists, are horrendously bad teachers.
The best teachers that I ever had, were ones that were trained as teachers, and were not necessarily content matter experts.
The worst teachers that I ever had, were content matter experts. Almost universally, they had no patience for folks that had a hard time coming up to speed, or that weren't already at a level beyond the class they were teaching.
They would ridicule you for asking "stupid" questions (that's me -I ask questions that have the whole class in stitches, but by the end of the semester, I'm coaching my classmates). They would start from a baseline that actually assumed the student had already completed and passed the class they were taking.
I would sign up for a class, because of the bona fides of the teacher, but would end up regretting my decision.
More money will encourage more of “those who can” to switch to teaching, which will help to undermine the stereotype.
There are already many “who can” who already teach, but they’re almost exclusively the ones who also intrinsically value teaching highly. A higher pay will help bring the ones who would be good teachers but are in a situation where they need to prioritize money.
> More money will encourage more of “those who can” to switch to teaching,
No, it won't, because in the private sector you can have a growing career. If you are teaching it's very likely to be the very same job until you retire.
I know some people “who can” who cared a lot about teaching and decided to be a teacher. I also know some people in industry who were on the edge of being a teacher but decided it didn’t pay enough. More pay absolutely would draw in the people on the edge.
“Those who can’t teach” is a direct result of the low pay. A software developer might semi retire and start teaching, but it’s a hobby at that point not a viable alternative.
It’s more complicated than paying more money automatically means better workers, but higher pay does let an industry be more selective.
"Those who can't, teach" is the result of systematically underpaid teachers. There are two groups who go into teaching: those who like it so much they're willing to take less pay, and those who are drawn to the profession because the pay is competitive with the other jobs they're capable of.
Money is not sufficient to overcome the problem on its own, but it is necessary, and not having enough of it caused the problem.
If there was salary parity between teachers and workers, I think that sentiment would vanish. With the current disparity, the implication is teaching is a "final resort" for people who "couldn't cut it" in their industry.
Yes it will. Because if you pay teachers more, in fact, pay them well, then more people will want to move into the field.
If teaching was like a FANNG tech job, with limited availability due to demand and salary, then it would be "discovered" to be prestigious and valuable and important.
And moreover, everyone would be free to come up with their own performance management BS because you'd actually have the glut of incoming talent that supports failures removing people from the industry (or screw it up so bad that despite the money no one bothers - also a FANNG phenomenan).
Money does not come from the skies, it's about what the market agrees the value actually is (when it comes to private education) or what the government decides (for public education). Public education is a problem because in many western countries it's already the largest budget and it's still a shitshow so you are going to have a hard time to convince everyone that injecting more money is going to make it better.
Public schools are not a market economy. Even in the most capitalist country in the world, there will be obligatory free public schools, and they will be government-financed.
The level of demand, however, can vary. Do Americans even want good public education? Or it is an afterthought?
Market forces for schools are reflected in real estate prices. Houses in good school districts can go for 4x the cost of similar housing a few miles away if the schools are bad.
That’s right, but the schools themselves are not participating in the market feedback forces, their quality distribution is random (or worse).
This very observation is telling us that the entire system is outside the market (why, for example, people from other locations cannot choose this particular school if it is better than others?)
