The Price For Screwing Over Teachers
Via Diane Ravitch, Jeff Mirel makes a point that the reformy types never, ever want to deal with:
The second case, tenure helping good teachers stay in field—you're right on this in your review of Wendy Kopp's book. If the goal of getting excellent teachers to stick around for 20 or 30 years, then they need tenure protection in no small part because they are NEVER going to get paid what they are worth financially. Without tenure, teaching school cannot compete in the economic marketplace (e.g., I know people in the business world who have only a B.A. in business and, after 10 years in the field, are making 2.5-3 times what public school teachers are making. Without good job protection we will never have long term, high quality teachers in our classrooms. [emphasis mine]Everybody on the reformy side loves to say that "good" teachers should be paid more. Chris Christie says it.
