Solving the teacher pay issue could help students Kalamazoo News - - MLive.com:
"Consider, for instance, that teacher pay now is typically based on seniority and whether the teacher has a master’s degree. Yet a teacher with five years of experience and a bachelor’s degree may well be superior to the 20-year veteran with a master’s.
Likewise, teacher contracts tend to treat employees the same regardless of what they teach or how they teach. That makes it hard to recruit teachers in math and science — fields with many other, more lucrative career options. It also is arguably unfair to English teachers who have a tremendous homework load if they are serious about writing instruction — you try grading 120 research papers. And what’s the incentive to assign those papers if the English teacher next door is showing movies — and making the same salary as his hard-working colleague?"
"Consider, for instance, that teacher pay now is typically based on seniority and whether the teacher has a master’s degree. Yet a teacher with five years of experience and a bachelor’s degree may well be superior to the 20-year veteran with a master’s.
Likewise, teacher contracts tend to treat employees the same regardless of what they teach or how they teach. That makes it hard to recruit teachers in math and science — fields with many other, more lucrative career options. It also is arguably unfair to English teachers who have a tremendous homework load if they are serious about writing instruction — you try grading 120 research papers. And what’s the incentive to assign those papers if the English teacher next door is showing movies — and making the same salary as his hard-working colleague?"
