commentaries

From the article: "Most Americans with children in public schools expect miracles from the very teachers they demonize so vehemently." I'd advise caution in using the word "most" when attributing negative attitudes to parents, Bill Maxwell. In my experience, most parents are concerned about their child's learning and supportive of their child's teachers and school. (71% according to yesterday's edition of "Education Nation" National Summit and Teacher Town Hall on NBC.)

In my opinion, however, it's very difficult to attract and retain the best and brightest when the culture denigrates learning and devalues the efforts of educators. Your earlier caution--"Don't become a teacher to earn a high salary, because you never will"--exacerbates the impact of a vocal minority who demonize public education and public sector workers, in general.

As the daughter of a public high school teacher and the mother of a soon-to-be PhD whose only passion is to teach, I hold out hope that we may once again realize the importance of education and try again to create an environment from which the best and the brightest will want to teach. Without it we may as well throw in the towel on society.

The thing thatalways got me about teachers, they are one of the most highly educated of any profession, and yet they are forced to be unionized. Why? Can't you negotiate your own salary? Talk about job mobility, if you don't lik eteaching in Chicago, try anywhere in rural america......9 months of work, 3 months off.....what does MN require 170 or so days of school so add on inservice andnon-student time what are you looking at 180-185 days.....that's like what 15 days a month. not to bad....

SRLARSON only underscores the ignorance in the life of a teacher. He apparently missed the part about not being able to take that 3 months off, because you need to work your other day job. My Sister-in-law is an elementary school teacher, my mother was a high school teacher and my brother middle school. The system chewed up my mother and spit her out, my brother got out in time. My SIL is a saint that is still trying to make a difference. I was an El-Ed major, but realized early that I would not be able to endure the environment and keep my sanity.

I am good friends with a teacher. In his 25 years of teaching, he has never worked during the summer. He rarely, if ever, attends any workshops and is pretty much done by 2:30 every day. I'm not saying this is the case with all teachers, but saying that they all have to moonlight, work 50+ hours a week..etc is being dishonest because it is simply not true. That being said, I don't demonize the teaching profession at all. I think they deserve kudos and fair pay for putting up with the stuff they do.

sorry, but 50 hour work week is pretty much the norm these days in any profession. If you annualize the pay for teachers to reflect that they only work 9 months out of the year, you will find that their compensation compares quite well to other fields with similar education levels.

I spent my first 5 years out of college as a highly-energized and enthusiastic public high school teacher. When my spouse's career move forced a "temporary" change in my profession to a private sector job, I realized how incredibly hard I had been working for incredibly low pay. Embarrassingly, I have been in the private sector ever since. Honestly, save for the sheer, wide-eyed "save-the-world" naivete described by the author of this article, I have no idea how I found the time and energy I invested into teaching, and frankly, that's why I've never gone back. I just don't think that, knowing how hard it is and how little I would get paid, I could ever do it again. Sad, but true.

My husband and I are both teachers. Our oldest daughter wants to become a teacher but I haven't exactly been encouraging her. I told her to be an orthodontist- about the same education in years, great pay, pick your own GREAT hours and no one tells you what to do. I don't encourage anyone to go into a profession where people who have never ever taught are telling you how to do your job.

I love the "9 months of work, 3 months off" comment. I would almost guarantee that, per year, a teacher puts in more hours of work than the person making that comment. Let's use an example in this thread for the math: Working year round (without holiday/vacation), an average person works 260 days. 8 hours times 260 is 2080 hours per year. I am willing to bet that most teachers average (at least) 12 hours a day during the school year. 180 times 12 is 2160 hours per year. From my personal experiences, I'm willing to bet that the good teachers work more than this. So the narrow-minded opinion on time "worked" is an argument for teachers, not against. Teachers do not teach for the money, or the summers "off".

No worries. Uneducated children will be the next generation of republicans as their base continues to shrivel.